not strictly accord with the directions of the will, could not have been re. fused without great unkindness. The corpse was at length deposited in the family vault at Felbrigg church, the funeral service being performed by the Reverend George Way. The park was thronged with spectators, anxious to pay the last tribute of respect to the memory of one who, though distinguished in the great world by his talents and accomplishments, was better known to his neighbours in the endearing character of a kind landlord and a good man.

"Of the character of Mr. Windham some few memorials will perhaps be looked for, in addition to those which may have been incidentally preserved in the preceding narrative. To describe him truly as he was, is a task however which it is more pleasing to undertake, than easy to achieve."

In his person he was tall and well proportioned. Having in his youth been eminently skilful in manly exercises, he had thence acquired in his deportment a happy union of strength and ease, of agility and gracefulness, which never forsook him. The form of his features were singularly interesting; and the penetrating vivacity of his eye gave a faithful indication of the corresponding qualities of his mind.

"His address and conversation were fascinating to all classes of persons; as well to the grave as to the gay-to the uninformed as to the learned-to the softer as to the sterner sex. His manners delighted all circles, from the royal drawingroom to the village-green; though in all circles they were still the same. As the polish of his address was not artificial, it was alike pleasing to all. No man had ever

less pride, in its offensive sense. He would repel flippancy and arrogance, and would very keenly point his reprobation of what seemed mean or dishonourable; but he never measured his courtesy by the various degrees of rank, of talents, or of wealth, possessed by those to whom he addressed himself.

Of his acquirements it is needless to speak much at length. That he was a scholar, and a ripe and good one,' there are abundant testincnies to prove; nor did his classical attainments, great as they were universally allowed to be, exceed his skill in the various branches of mathematical science. That skill the public, it is hoped, will be enabled to appreciate at some future time, by the publication of the manuscript treatises which are in the hands of his executors. His reading latterly was miscellaneous and desultory; but what he hastily acquired, be accurately retained, and aptly applied in illustration of his opinions and arguments.

His taste, in general, in the fine arts, was eminently pure, delicate, and discriminating. For music indeed he had no relish beyond a simple ballad. I once heard him remark, that the four greatest men whom he had known, derived no pleasure from music. Mr. Burke, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Fox, and Mr. Pitt, were the persons whom he thus distinguished.

"Upon what is generally called style in writing, he set but little value. His own practice was, to take plain words, in preference to learned ones;, to disregard the construction of sentences; and to adopt popular idioms whenever they would aptly express his meaning. In his language he was as truly British as in his politics. His disgust was

strongly

strongly excited by modern innovations of French words and phrases; and he disliked them even as terins of art, where English ones could be found to supply their places. For the word sortie, for instance, he would uniformly substitute sally.' But nothing so highly offended him, as any careless or irreverent use of the name of the Creator. I remember that on reading a letter addressed to him, in which the words, My God!' had been made use of on a light occasion, he hastily snatched a pen, and before he would finish the letter, blotted out the misplaced exclamation.

"Of Mr. Windham's character as an orator, the reader of this work is furnished with such ample means of judging for himself, that it is wholly unnecessary here to enter into any investigation of it. Something, however, may be said concerning the effect of his eloquence in the house of commons, and in this respect a very high authority on such a subject has pronounced, that, "if it was not the most commanding that that house had ever heard, it was the most insinuating, His manly figure, and his fluent and graceful delivery, were important points in his favour; but on the other hand, the want of a full and sonorous voice rendered him sometimes difficult to be understood in many parts of the house, particularly in the gallery. This physical defect, added to a parenthetical mode of speaking, and the occasional subtilty of his logical distinctions, may account for the very imperfect manner in which his speeches were too commonly reported in the newspapers. The reporters often caught little more from him than those playful allusions and whimsical quotations which diverted the house, but which

he really used merely by way of illustration. These, however, were strung together in the newspapers, unaccompanied with the arguments which they were intended to illustrate; so that a speech thus reported would frequently appearmore like a leaf torn out of a jest book, than a logical and profound political discourse, as it probably was when it was delivered. Nothing was more foreign from Mr. Windham's babits, than to jest for the sake of jesting;-his wit was always subservient to his argument.

"The reason which has rendered it unnecessary to give an elaborate description of Mr. Windham's eloquence, ill equally serve to relieve me from a much weightier taskthat of examining his political opinions. 1 will venture, however, to suggest, that the ruling passionthe clue which, once found, unravels all the rest,'-will be met with in the preference which he gave to the honour and military renown of his country, above every other state of things in which a nation is said to be great and prosperous. To apply this principle to the whole course of his public opinions would involve a discussion much too ample for the limits of this work ;-but I cannot avoid remarking, that his notions respect

ing the common people directly flowed from it. No man could really love the people more than Mr. Windham loved them ;-be did not, it is true, wish hem to become statesmen or philosophers :-he desired to see them honest, active, chearful and contented-sensible of the blessings they enjoyed, and capable of defending them. Feeling that

a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroyed, can never be supplied, he deprecated all attempts which

were made to deprive them of their accustomed sports and exercises. From the practice of those exercises, resulted, in his opinion, not only much of the personal bravery of Englishmen, but also that hatred of bloodshed and assassination, and that humane forbearance in victory, by which the British character is happily distinguished from that of many other nations. Nothing roused his indignation more than the vexatious spirit of interference with the holiday-enjoyments of the poor, which he thought some of our magistrates had lately shewn a strong desire to exercise. The suppression of a village-hop, or horserace, or even a boxing-match or bull-bait, while the magistrate was quietly enjoying his own ball or hunting party, he thought an act of the most scandalous injustice and oppression. In short, he loved the British peasant, and wished to see him vigorous on the green, and independent in his cottage-respected for his loyalty, and formidable by his prowess.

"Mr. Windham's political opinions have been often charged with inconsistency. It is not surprising that such a charge should proceed from persons who only look to the distinctions of whig and tory, or to those other distinctions which, for nearly thirty years, have been sufficiently known and defined under the names of Pittite and Foxite. That he sometimes agreed with Mr. Fox, and sometimes with Mr. Pitt, is with such persons a decisive proof of inconsistency! Those who will go deeper, making measures, not men, their rule for deciding the question, will perhaps find that, during a long political life, hardly any public man has less differed from himself than Mr. Windham

has done. From the outset of his career to the close of it, he was the uniform enemy of parliamentary reform. In his zeal for the improvement of the army, his attachment to the crown and aristocracy, and his protection of the real comforts of the common people, he will be found to have been equally consistent. That in the course of twenty or thirty years, he found reason to change some few of his opinions, may be very true; but who has not done this, even on subjects of the highest importance? It must be admitted that he altered his mind on the question of the slave trade, which he at first thought should be abolished instantaneously, though he afterwards wished the abolition to be subsequent to an attempt for ameliorating the condition of slavery. But instances like this will weigh but little against a mass of facts in the opposite scale.

"In speaking of Mr. Windham's public measures, it must not be forgotten that it was on those for the improvement of the army that he relied for his reputation as a minister. He publicly declared that, like the eminent Italian musician, who had a piece of music inscribed on his tomb, or the Dutch mathematician who had a calculation for his epitaph, he should desire no other monument as a statesman than that system."

"The quality, perhaps, by which Mr. Windham was more remarkably distinguished from most other public men, was his intrepidity. His political, like his personal courage, was unbounded; and he seemed to seek, rather than to shun, opportunities of displaying it. Had he condescended to court popularity, there can be no doubt that he would have attained his object; and

it might have enabled him to become the leader of a party in the state. That was a situation, however, for which he had neither ambition, nor the necessary arts. He disliked both the management and the sacrifices which, in such an employment, are indispensably requisite.

"His habits of business were by no means regular, yet he could never justly be said to be idle. He would have been able to transact more business, had he been less scrupulous. It was his custom to begin a transaction with more care and nicety than could afterwards be found practicable in the conclusion of it.

"Notwithstanding his keenness as a debater, no man ever mixed less of private enmity with his public differences. He generally spoke of his adversaries with liberality, and often with kindness. There was no system of opinions which he so strongly condemned as he did Sir Francis Burdett's; yet I remember that he once softened the asperity of some remarks which were made by another person on that baronet's conduct; adding good humouredly, I suspect, after all, I have a sneaking kindness for Sir Francis.'

"It now remains to speak of his domestic virtues, in doing which

it will be difficult to use any other language than that of unqualified eulogium. His tenderness as a husband and relative, his kindness as a friend and patron, his condescending attention to inferiors, his warm sympathy with the unfortunate, are so many themes of praise, which it would be more agreeable than necessary to dwell upon. The sense which he entertained of the importance of religion, and which he strongly marked by one of the concluding acts of his life, will serve to complete the character of a man who had scarcely an enemy, except on political grounds, and had more personal friends warmly attached to him, than almost any man of the age.

"His talents, accomplishments, and virtues, have been happily summed up, by describing him as the true model of an English gentleman; and it has been well observed, that if the country had been required to produce, in a trial of strength with another nation, some individual who was at once eminent for learning, taste, eloquence, wit, courage, and personal accomplishments, the choice must have fallen on Mr. Windham. He was The admirable Crichton of his age and country.

"THE

HE young prince, though very amiable in his disposition and manners, appears to have been much inferior to his father in strength of mind. 1 have already

had occasion to mention him in the former section as the friend and patron of Claude of Turin. His piety and parental fondness are praised by historians, but his abili

ties were inadequate to the support of so great a weight of empire. He rendered himself odious to the clergy by attempting to reform certain abuses among them, not foreseeing that this powerful body would not pay the same deference to his authority, which had been given to the superior capacity of his father. Three years after his accession to the throne, he admitted his eldest son, Lothaire, to a participation of the French and German territories, declared his son Pepin King fo Aquitaine, and Louis King of Bavaria. This division gave offence to his nephew, Bernard, at that time King of Italy, who revolted, and levied war against his uncle, in contempt of his imperial authority, to which he was subject-a rebellious conduct, in which he was encouraged by the Archbishop of Milan and the Bishop of Cremona. Louis, on this occasion, acted with vigour. He raised a powerful army, and was preparing to cross the Alps, when Bernard was abandoned by his troops, and the unfortunate prince, being made prisoner, was condemned to lose his head. His uncle mitigated the sentence to the loss of his eyes, but the unhappy prince died three days after the punishment was inflicted; and Louis, to prevent future troubles, ordered three natural sons of Charlemagne to be shut up in a convent.

"In a little time the emperor was seized with keen remorse for his conduct. He accused himself of the murder of his nephew, and of tyrannic cruelty to his brothers. In this melancholy humour he was encouraged by the monks; and it at last grew to such a height, that he impeached himself in an assembly of the states, and requested the bishops to enjoin him public pe

nance. The clergy, now sensible of his weakness, set no bounds to their usurpations. The popes concluded that they might do any thing under so pious a prince. They did not wait for the emperor's confirmation of their election; the bishops exalted themselves above the throne, and the whole fraternity of the catholic clergy claimed an exemption from all civil jurisdiction. Even the monks, while they pretended to renounce the world, seemed to aspire to the government of it.

"In the year 822, the three son of Louis were associated together in a rebellion against their father,— an unnatural crime, in which they were encouraged by some of the reigning clergy. The emperor was abandoned by his army and made prisoner; and in all probability would have lost his crown had not the nobility pitied their humble sovereign, and by sowing dissentions among the three brothers, contrived to restore him to his dignity In 832, the three brothers formed a new league against their father, and Gregory IV. then pope, went to France in the army of Lothaire, the eldest brother, under pretence of accommodating matters, but in reality with an intention of employing against the emperor that power which he derived from him, happy in the opportunity of asserting the supremacy and independence of the Holy See. The presence of the pope, in those days of superstition, was of itself sufficient to determine the fate of Louis. After a deceitful negociation, and

an

interview with Gregory on the part of Lothaire, the unfortunate emperor found himself at the mercy of his rebellious sons. He was deposed in a tumultuous assembly, and Lothaire proclaimed in