duce him to stand in that relation, with a man who did not place entire confidence in him. The marquis, struck with his manliness of sentiment, which so exactly corresponded with the feelings of his own heart, frankly and positively assured him, that what had passed, far from having any bad impres sion on his mind, had only served to fortify his good opinion, and that, if from no other reason, he might rest assured, that from his conduct upon that occasion alone he should ever esteem, and place in him the most unreserved confidential trust a promise which he faithfully performed; neither had he at any time, nor his friends after his death, the least reason to repent of that confidence; Burke having ever acted towards himn with the most inviolate faith and affection, and towards his surviving friends, with a constant and disinterested fidelity, which was proof against his own indigent circumstances, and the magnificent offers of those in power. It must, how ever, be confessed, that his early habits and connections, though they could never make him swerve from his duty, had given his mind an almost constitutional bent towards the Popish party. Prudence is, indeed, the only virtue he does not possess; from a total want of which, and from the amiable weaknesses of an excellent heart, his estimation in England, though still great, is certainly diminished. What it was at this period, will appear from the following fact, which, however trifling, I here relate as a proof of the opinion formed of him by some of his party. Having dined at Lord Rockingham's, in company with VOL. LIII.

him and Sir Charles Sanders, Sir Charles carried me in his coach to Almack's. On the way, Burke was the subject of our conversation, when the Admiral lamenting the declining state of the empire, earnestly and solemnly declared, that if it could be saved, it must be by the virtue and abilities of that wonderful man."

Thus far Lord Charlemont. Something, though slight, may here be added. Burke's disunion, and final rupture with Mr. Fox, were attended with circumstances so distressing, so far surpassing the ordinary limits of civil rage, or personal hostility, that the mind really aches at the recollection of them. But let us view him, for an instant, in better scenes, and better hours. He was social, hospitable, of pleasing access, and most agreeably communicative. One of the most satisfactory days, perhaps, that I ever passed in my life, was going with him tête à tête, from London to Beaconsfield. He stopped at Uxbridge, whilst his horses were feeding, and happening to meet some gentlemen, of I know not what militia, who appeared to be perfect strangers to him, he entered into discourse with them, at the gate-way of the inn. His conversation, at that moment, completely exemplified what Johnson said of him: "That you could not meet Burke for half an hour, under a shed, without saying that he was an extraordinary man." He was, on that day, altogether uncommonly instructive and agreeable. Every object of the slightest notoriety, as we passed along, whe ther of natural or local history, furnished him with abundant ma2 C

terials for conversation. The house at Uxbridge, where the treaty was held, during Charles the First's time; the beautiful and undulating grounds of Bulstrode, formerly the residence of Chancellor Jefferies; and Waller's tomb, in Beaconsfield churchyard, which, before we went home, we visited, and whose character, as a gentleman, a poet, and an orator, he shortly delineated, but with exquisite felicity of genius, altogether gave an uncommon interest to his eloquence; and, although one-and-twenty years have now passed since that day, I entertain the most vivid and pleasing recollection of it. He reviewed the characters of many statesmen; Lord Bath's, whom, I think, he personally knew, and that of Sir Robert Walpole, which he pourtrayed in nearly the same words which he used with regard to that eminent man, in his appeal from the Old Whigs to the New. He talked much of the great Lord Chatham; and amidst a variety of particulars concerning him and his family, stated, that his sister, Mrs. Anne Pitt, used often, in her altercations with him, to say, "That he knew nothing whatever, except Spenser's Fairy Queen." "And" continued Mr. Burke, "no matter how that was said; but whoever relishes, and reads Spenser, as he ought to be read, will have a strong hold of the English language.' These were his exact words. Many passages and phrases, from his own works, abundantly testify,

EARL OF MOIRA.

He was one of Lord Charlemont's earliest friends, and for many years his parliamentary coadjutor in the House of Peers. He was a scholar, well versed in ancient as well as modern literature; possessed of much and truly useful information, which he com. municated with peculiar agreeableness, for his diction was remarkable for its facility and purity, and his conceptions clear and unembarrassed; he was a constant reader; in truth, few men of any rank read so constantly; in his studies leaned much to scientific subjects, and those of natural history, which he well understood, He was very conversant also in the polite arts; and his library, to which every one had access, was a noble collection of books, the most useful, as well as the most agreeable. In politics he was a Whig, of true revolution princi

ples, that is, attached to monarchy and the people. From the mo ment that he first took his seat in the House of Lords, to the close of his life (a long period), his conduct was that of a truly independent Peer. He often opposed, he never attempted to vilify or debase the Government. With many of the Lord Lieutenants he lived on terms of intimacy or civility; but, I believe, never once asked a favour from one of them. With an elocution most unembarrassed, as I have already stated, but adapted, perhaps, more to society than public life, and with general political knowledge, he very seldom spoke in Parliament; on one or two occasions he was forced, by idle asperity, to assert himself; he did so, with a just spirit and his usual good manners. In the earlier part of his life he had lived much abroad, or in England, in the best company of the older part of the court of George the Second, and to his last hour retained the agreeable and polished manners of that society; in this respect it is not easy to do him justice there was nothing artificial, nothing forced, in his good breeding; it was a courtesy always flowing, never wearying, directed to every one, but still measured; never losing sight of the humblest as well as of the highest in his company, never displaying his rank, and never departing from it. Lord Charlemont used often to say, that he was one of the best bred men of his age. He had, like other men, his foibles, but they were slight, and too often magnified by illiberality, ignorance, and adulation of ministerial power; but there was not

one gentleman (I lay claim to that word only as our ancestors understood, and limited the use of it) in either House of Parliament, or out of Parliament, who, if acquainted with him, did not regard and respect him. His house will be long, very long, remembered; it was for many years the seat of refined hospitality, of good nature, and good conversation; in doing the honours of it, Lord Moira had certainly one advantage above most men, for he had every assistance that true magnificence, the nobleness of manners peculiar to exalted birth, and talents for society the most cultivated, could give him, in his illustrious Countess.

MR. BROWNLOW.

It was impossible for any one who sat and voted with Mr. Brownlow, for several years in Parliament, to pass over his death without offering some tribute to his memory. His ancestors had, for more than a century, represented the county of Armagh, and he himself became one of its members very early in life. His election was not only severely contested, but became afterwards the source of a most notable trial of parliamentary strength between Primate Stone and Mr. Boyle. Mr. Brownlow had been espoused by the former. The only question regarded, at that time, in the Committee of Elections, was, whether the petitioner or sitting member was most favoured by those who had most parliamentary influence. Nothing else was thought on. This was indecorous in the extreme; but it was not an

*

indecorum of which our House of Commons had monopoly, as, till Mr. Grenville's bill, something of a similar profligacy prevailed in St. Stephen's Chapel. The division on the Westminster election first shook, and that on the Chippenham contest removed Sir Robert Walpole. To this field of battle then, this parliamentary Philippi, if I may be allowed the phrase, the opposing chiefs always resorted, and decided their pretensions to power. The Primate carried Mr. Brownlow's election, I think, by one vote, in a very full house; the struggle was violent. Mr. Brownlow retained his situation upwards of forty years, and was one of the most independent members that ever sat in the House of Commons of Ireland. Whenever he spoke, he was heard with peculiar attention and respect. To oratorial powers he laid no claim; but he delivered his sentiments with uncommon perspicuity, great neatness, great elegance, and, occasionally, with a tempered fire and spirit, which were felt by every one around him; he never spoke at any length. With the rules and proceedings of the House, he was well acquainted; and had so general a knowledge of parliamentary affairs, that, on the resig nation of the Speaker's chair by Mr. Ponsonby, he was proposed to succeed him, and very nearly obtained it. He had many accomplishments; music he under

LORD CHARLEMONT.

To write the life of such a man, may be, perhaps, impartially considered as a matter of some difficulty. Though engaged much, and acting the most honourable part in political life, he could not be strictly called a statesman; though a member of an ancient, deliberative assembly, he was not an orator; though possessed of the purest taste, and distinguished by many literary performances, which do honour to his memory, he cannot, without a violation of historical truth, be entitled to the name of an eminent author; and though the distinguished leader of many gallant bands, he will find no place among the conquerors, or desolators of mankind. Nil horum. But he was better than all this.

He was, in every sense of the word, an excellent man. Of morals unstained; of mind, of manners, the most elegant. He was not only such a fine gentleman as Addison has sketched with a happy pencil, but passed far beyond the limits of that character. He was, with some allowance for those slight errors which adhere to the best dispositions, a patriot of the justest views, who kept his loyalty and his zeal in the most perfect unison. His sole object seemed to have been the good and melioration of his country. To a certain degree he obtained that object. He obtained a triumph over the ancient prejudices, and ancient policy, which held the legislature of this country in thraldom. He indeed lived long, enough to see that triumph idly, and ungratefully depreciated. But his laurels are not the less glorious. They were certainly all pacific; and if many a venal statesman, or those who were interested in confusion, secretly lamented that they were so, I am fully aware, that many a reader, also, will consider the pages which record such laurels, as cold, vapid, and uninteresting.

Sed magis pugnas, et exactos tyrannos, Densum humeris, bibit aure vulgus.

But if ever the rage for war can be satiated, the period on which we have fallen, would, I think, abun dantly satisfy the most wretched avidity in that respect; and the change of dethroned, or exiled monarchs, has been so frequent, that these humble Memoirs may have a chance of being read, even from the difference of scene which they present to those who cast their wearied eyes over the desolated continent of Europe. The

scene, however, so presented, is not only not exempt from the general agency of human misery, for what place is so; but it partakes at one period of those horrors, which have given such a pre eminence in calamity to the present epocha in society. That it did not abound in more, and that at an early period in Lord Charlemort's political life, it was not hurried into a contest of a very different nature from that of 1798, may surely, without any strained eulogy, be attributed to him; and, it cannot be too often repeated, the moderation and good sense of those who acted with him. For such wise and healing conduct, slightly discoloured as it might be with occasional imperfections, his memory is entitled to just and lasting praise.-With regard to the Catholic question, on which, and, as I think, most unhappily, Parlia mént is yet so divided, Lord Charlemont, in 1793, voted against the concession of the elective frauchise to the Roman Catholics, and it is evident, from his letters in 1795, that he had not then relinquished his former sentiments. Some time after (I know not the precise period), they underwent some change, but, in truth, he never altogether abandoned them. But that he truly loved all his countrymen, that he always felt for the degraded situation of the Catholics, and early in life wished to change it, cannot be controverted.

He rose above ancient prejudice, and the history of former days, when he cultivated such feel. ings; for the murder of his ancestor, Lord Charlemont, in 1641, was often present to his mind, but it neither obscured his intellect,