Persian Letters, and of the truly gallant Temple de Gnide.

He had, however, to a great degree, though not among women, one quality which is not uncommon with abstracted men, I mean absence of mind. I remember dining in company with him at our ambassador's, Lord Albemarle, where, during the time of dinner, being engaged in a warm dispute, he gave away to the servant, who stood behind him, seven clean plates, supposing that he had used them all. But this was only in the heat of controversy, and when he was actuated by that lively and impetuous earnestness to which, though it never carried him beyond the bounds of good breeding, he was as liable as any man I ever knew. At all other times he was perfectly collected, nor did he ever seem to think of any thing out of the scope of the present conversation.

In the course of our conversations, Ireland, and its interests, have often been the topic; and, upon these occasions I have always found him an advocate for an union between that country and England. Were I an Irishman,' said he, I should certainly wish for it; and, as a general lover of liberty, I sincerely desire it; and for this plain reason, that an inferior country, connected with one much her superior in force, can never be certain of the permanent enjoyment of constitutional freedom, unless she has, by her representatives, a proportional share in the legislature of the superior kingdom.'

A few days before I left Paris to return home, this great man fell sick, and, though I did not

imagine, from the nature of his complaint, that it was likely to be fatal, I quitted him, however, with the utmost regret, and with that sort of foreboding which sometimes precedes misfortunes. Scarcely was I arrived in England, when I received a letter from one whom I had desired to send me the most particular accounts of him, communicating to me the melancholy news of his death, and assuring me, what I never doubted, that he had died as he lived, like a real philosopher; and what is more, with true christian resignation. What his real sentiments, with regard to religion, were, I cannot exactly say. He certainly was not a Papist; but I have no reason to believe that he was not a Christian; in all our conversations, which were perfectly free, I never heard him utter the slightest hint, the least word, which savoured of profaneness; but, on the contrary, whenever it came in his way to mention christianity, he always spoke of its doctrine and of its precepts with the utmost respect and reverence; so that did I not know that he had too much wisdom and goodness to wish to depreciate the ruling religion, from his general manner of expressing himself I should make no scruple freely to declare him a perfect christian. At his death the priests, as usual, tormented him, and he bore their exhortations with the greatest patience, good humour, and decency; till at length fatigued by their obstinate and tiresome pertinacity, he told them that he was much oblig ed for their comfort, but that, having now a very short time to live, he wished to have those few minutes to himself, as he had lived

long

long enough to know how to die. A day or two before his death, an unlucky circumstance happened, by which the world has sustained an irreparable loss. He had written the history of Louis the Eleventh, including the transactions of Europe during the very important and interesting period of that prince's reign. The work was long and laborious, and some, who had seen parts of it, have assured me that it was superior even to his other writings. Recollecting that he had two manuscripts of it, one of them perfect and the other extremely mutilated, and fearing that this imperfect copy might fall into the hands of some ignorant and avaricious bookseller, he gave his valet de chambre the key of his escrutoir, and desired him to burn that manuscript, which he describ. ed to him. The unlucky valet burned the fair copy, and left that from which it was impossible to print.

There is nothing more uncommon than to see, in the same man, the most ardent glow of genius, the utmost liveliness of fancy, united with the highest degree of assiduity and of laboriousness. The powers of the mind seem in this to resemble those of the body. The nice and ingenious hand of the oculist wasnever made to heave the sledge, or to till the ground. In Montesquieu, however, both these talents were eminently conspicuous. No man ever possessed a more lively, a more fanciful genius. No man was ever more laborious. His Esprit des Lois is, perhaps, the result of more reading than any treatise ever yet composed. M. de Secondat, son to the

president, has now in his possession forty folio volumes in his father's hand-writing, which are nothing more than the common-place books from whence this admirable work was extracted. Montesquieu, indeed, seems to have possessed the difficult art of contracting matter into a small compass, without rendering it obscure, more perfectly than any man who ever wrote. His Grandeur et Decadence des Romains is a rare instance of this talent; a book in which there is more matter than was ever before crammed together in so small a space. One circumstance with regard to this lastmentioned treatise has often struck me, as a sort of criterion by which to judge of the materialness of a book. The index contains nearly as many pages as the work itself.

GERARD HAMILTON.*

The uncommon splendor of his eloquence, which was succeeded by such inflexible taciturnity in St. Stephen's Chapel, became the subject, as might be supposed, of much, and idle speculation. The truth is, that all his speeches, whether delivered in London or Dublin, were not only prepared, but studied with a minuteness and exactitude, of which those who are only used to the carelessness of modern debating, can scarcely form any idea. Lord Charlemont, who had been long and intimately acquainted with him, previous to his coming to Ireland, often mentioned that he was the only speaker, among the many he had heard, of whom he

could

could say, with certainty, that all his speeches, however long, were written and got by heart. A gentleman, well known to his Lord ship and Hamilton, assured him that he had heard Hamilton repeat, no less than three times, an oration, which he afterwards spoke in the House of Commons, and lasted almost three hours. As a debater, therefore he became as useless to his political patrons, as Addison was to Lord Sunderland; and, if possible, he was more scrupulous in composition than even that eminent man. Addison would stop the press to correct the most trivial error in a large publication; and Hamilton, as I can assert, on indubitable authority, would recall the footman, if, on recollection, any word, in his opinion, was misplaced or improper, in the slight est note to a familiar acquaintance. Painful pre-eminence! Yet this weigher of words, and balancer of sentences, was most easy and agreeable in conversation. He passed his time, except with unnecessary anxiety as to his literary fame, unembarrassed and cheerful, among a few select friends of either sex (to the fair sex he rendered himself peculiarly acceptable); in triguing statesmen, and grave philosophers.

tion, but his opposition was of no long continuance. As an orator, his expression was fluent, easy, and lively; his wit fertile and abundant; his invective admirable, not so much from any peculiar energy of sentiment, or diction, as from being always unclogged with any thing superfluous, or which could at all diminish the justness and brilliancy of its colouring. It ran along with the feelings of the House, and never went beyond them. He saw what the House could bear, and seemed to take the lead in directing their resentment, rather than in pointing his own. On such occasions he sunk, as it were, into a temporary oblivion of his own disposition (for he was naturally very irritable), and appeared free from all unseemly impetuosity, indulging the keenest wit, equally within the rules of the House, and the limits of decorum. The consequence of this assumed calmness was, that he never was stopped. The House was paid such deference to, that it could not, and received so much entertainment, that it would not, interfere. The members for a long time remembered his satire, and the objects of it seldom forgave it.

In his personal contests with Mr. Flood (and in the more early part of their parliamentary career they were engaged in many), he is supposed to have had the advantage. The respect which he uniformly observed towards the House, and the style of his speaking, might have contributed somewhat to this. His oratory was of that gayer kind which captivates an Irish auditory, and incorporated itself more easily with the subjects which, at that period, engaged the attention of the House of Commons. It was, therefore,

therefore, without derogating at all from his talents, the contention of Demosthenes and Hyperides, on points where we may justly conclude, from the character of those two eminent Athenians, Hyperides must have been superior. To Flood's anger Hutchinson opposed the powers of ridicule; to his strength he opposed refinement; to the weight of his oratory an easy, flexible ingenuity, nice discrimination, and graceful appeal to the passions. As the debate ran high, Flood's eloquence alternately displayed austere reasoning, and tempestuous reproof; its colours were chaste, but gloomy; Hutchinson's on the contrary, were of "those which April wears," bright, various, and transitory; but it was a vernal evening after a storm, and he was esteemed the most successful, because he was the most pleasing.

In every thing that he said in the House of Commons, he seemed to have a great sense of public propriety; he was not tedious, but he sometimes enlarged on subjects more than was necessary, a defect which his enemies criticised with peculiar severity. But Mr. Gerrard Hamilton (than whom a better judge of public speaking has seldom been seen) observed, that he was that speaker, who, in his support of government, had always something to say which gratified the House. He can go out in all weathers,' continued Mr. Hamilton, and as a debater is therefore inestimable.'

He had attended much to the stage, and acquired a clearness and propriety of intonation, that gave what he said great impression. In his younger days he lived in great

habits of intimacy with Quin, who admired his talents and improved his elocution.

From some of his coadjutors he differed in one respect particularly; he never recommended a bad measure that he might display an obtrusive and vulgar zeal for government, nor appeared a champion for British interest in preference to that of his own country. He always spoke of it with respect and affection; and as in the course of time questions came forward, which, when he first engaged in business, Parliament would have shrunk from, he was not awed into silence, but support, ed them all. The octennial bill, the free trade, the Catholic bill, in which he was followed with hereditary talents and spirit, and latterly the parliamentary reform. On the last-mentioned subject he spoke with no diminished powers; time had, indeed, changed his manner, but it was the placid manner of dignified age, and the House seemed to listen to him with peculiar and grateful satisfaction. His acceptance of the provostship of Trinity College was an unwise step; injurious to his peace, and almost clouding every prospect in his profession, the highest honours of which he would, in all probability, have otherwise attained. After a long enjoyment of parliamentary fame, it was then said, that he was no speaker; and after the most lucrative practice at the bar, that he was no lawyer. But the public ultimately decides with propriety and candour. All the force of wit and talents arrayed against him in his academical quarrels, could not authenticate these supposed discoveries of his want

of

He was an excellent politician, equally able to draw government into difficulties, and bring it out of them again, though it must be allowed, that he never abused the confidence of government. Far from it. But when ministers here found themselves embarrassed by neglecting to consult him, which was sometimes the case, he enjoy ed their distress with peculiar complacency: and with a face of Erebus, no lover was at that moment more pleased, nor stoic more immoveable. He seemed to have acquired an entire power over his senses, and when his mind was most impregnated, and his passions most engaged, he looked, if in his opinion the measure required it, as if he had almost ceased to see, to hear, or to speak.

He was an able speaker, as well at the bar as in the House of Commons, though his diction was very indifferent. He did not speak so much at length as many of his parliamentary coadjutors, though he knew the whole of the subject much better than they did. He was not only a good speaker in parliament, but an excellent manager of the House of Commons. He never said too much. He had great merit in what he did say, for government was never committed by him. He plunged into no difficulty, nor did he ever suffer his antagonist to escape from one.

To liberty, or the people, he was no enemy. He was too well acquainted with the laws not to respect the constitution. He knew his own abilities too well not to be convinced that, in a free country, government could not go on without him; and that, whilst he was consulted by administration,

it never would overset the liberties of the people. To form a just estimate of his principles, it is necessary to know what government did not do. This was the case with Mr. Malone, and one or two eminent men. They differed from the patriot not in principle, but as to the place where such principle might, at that time be most efficaciously displayed. They struggled for the country in the Cabinet, as the orator often did, or said he did, in the House of Commons. This mode of conduct may appear strange, but it arose from the situation of Ireland, which those most able men did not wish to see engaged in quarrels with England. Their desire, therefore, was to do things calmly and quietly. They moderated parties, checked the too forward zeal of courtiers, and tempered the ardour of patriots. They postponed, but never thought of attempting to extinguish, any question relating to public liberty.

66

You may observe," said Mr. Tisdall to one of his friends, who was with him at his villa of Stillorgan, within a few miles of Dublin, which commanded a view of the sea," that the taking the embargo off corn has improved my prospect. You now see some ships. I signed the proclamation for taking off that embargo; but the proclamation for laying it on, I took care not to sign that." was the first person who omitted, in the revenue bill, the clause providing that the act should continue till the end of the next session. It was on his part, a patriotie and provident measure. The English council restored theclause, which was afterwards a subject of debate in the House of Commons,

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