say, does not belong to me; that feeling was never an inmate of my bosom; neither when the Jacobins raged around us with all their fury, nor in the present days of Radical uproar and delusion. The latter, indeed, it must be allowed, have one feature about them even more hideous and disgusting than the Jacobins themselves. They fell down and worshipped the Goddess of Reason, a most respectable and decent sort of being compared with that which the Radicals have set up as the idol of their worship.

After

"They have elevated the Goddess of Lust on the pedestal of shame-an object of all others the most congenial to their taste, the most deserving of their homage, the most worthy of their adoration. exhibiting her claims to their favour in two distinct quarters of the globe; after compassing sea and land with her guilty paramour, to gratify to the full her impure desires, and even polluting the Holy Sepulchre itself with her presence, to which she was carried in mock majesty astride upon an ass, she returned to this hallowed soil so hardened in sin, so bronzed with infamy, so callous to every feeling of decency or shame, as to go on Sunday last'-here, gentlemen, the reverend preacher alluded, not to the public procession to St Paul's, where her late Majesty returned thanks for her delivery, or to other processions which might, partly at least, be considered as political, but to her humble, unaffected, pious devotions in the church of Hammersmith, 'to go on Sunday last, clothed in the mantle of adultery, to kneel down at the altar of that God who is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," when she ought rather to have stood barefooted in the aisle, covered with a shirt as white as "unsunned snow,"

doing penance for her sins. Till this had been done, I would never have defiled my hands by placing the sacred symbols in hers; and this she would have been compelled to do in those good old days when Church discipline was in pristine vigour and activity.'

"Gentlemen, the author of this scandalous, this infamous libel, is a minister of the gospel. The libel is a sermon-the act of publication was preaching it— the place was his church-the day was the Sabbath -the audience was his flock. Far be it from me to treat lightly that office of which he wears the outward vestments, and which he by his conduct profanes. A pious, humble, inoffensive, charitable minister of the gospel of peace is truly entitled to the tribute of affection and respect which is ever cheerfully bestowed. But I know no title to our love or our veneration which is possessed by a meddling, intriguing, unquiet, turbulent priest, even when he chooses to separate his sacred office from his profane acts; far less when he mixes up both together-when he refrains not from polluting the sanctuary itself with calumny-when he not only invades the sacred circle of domestic life. with the weapons of malicious scandal, but enters the hallowed threshold of the temple with the torch of slander in his hand, and casts it flaming on the altar; poisons with rank calumnies the air which he especially is bound to preserve holy and pure-making the worship of God the means of injuring his neighbour, and defiling by his foul slanders the ears, and by his false doctrines perverting the minds, and by his wicked example tainting the lives, of the flock committed by Christ to his care!

"Of the defendant's motives I say nothing. I care

VOL. II.

2 E

not what they were, for innocent they could not be. I care not whether he was paying court to some patron, or looking up with a general aspect of sycophancy to the bounty of power, or whether it was mere mischief and wickedness, or whether the outrage proceeds from sordid and malignant feelings combined, and was the base offspring of an union not unnatural, however illegitimate, between interest and spite. But be his motives of a darker or lighter shade, innocent they could not have been; and unless the passage I have read proceeded from innocency, it would be a libel on you to doubt that you will find it a libel.

"Of the illustrious and ill-fated individual who was the object of this unprovoked attack I forbear to speak. She is now removed from such low strife, and there is an end, I cannot say of her checkered life, for her existence was one continued scene of suffering, of disquiet, of torment, from injustice, oppression, and animosity-by all who either held or looked up to emolument or aggrandisement-all who either possessed or coveted them; but the grave has closed over her unrelenting persecutions. Unrelenting I may well call them, for they have not spared her ashes. The evil passions which beset her steps in life have not ceased to pursue her memory, with a resentment more relentless, more implacable, than death. But it is yours to vindicate the broken laws of your country. If your verdict shall have no effect on the defendant-if he still go on unrepenting and unabashed-it will at least teach others, or it will warn them and deter them from violating the decency of private life, betraying sacred public duties, and insulting the majesty of the law."*

*The jury found him guilty, without a moment's hesitation.

435

CHAPTER XVIII.

POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF THE PROCEEDINGS AGAINST THE QUEEN -CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION ANOTHER CONTEST FOR WESTMORLAND-STATE OF PARTIES-MINISTERIAL DIFFICULTIESQUESTION OF THE WHIGS COMING IN-EARL GREY'S VIEWS— THE DUKE OF SUSSEX PROSPECT OF A CANNING ADMINISTRATION-HIS POSITION WITH THE PRINCE AND LORD ELDON -PERSONAL MATTERS-REASONS FOR DEMANDING A PATENT OF PRECEDENCE-STATE OF SPAIN-COMMERCIAL CRISIS OF

1825-LORD HOWICK-JOSEPH HUME - CANNING'S MINISTRY

-SPECULATIONS ON A COALITION-TENDER OF OFFICE-SYDNEY SMITH-DEATH OF CANNING AND ACCESSION OF GODERICHTHE WELLINGTON MINISTRY-OPENING OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE-IRELAND AND THE CATHOLIC QUESTION-DUEL BETWEEN SIR ALEXANDER BOSWELL AND MR STEWART.

THE unworthy conduct of the Government of George IV., in acting as the ministers of the King's vengeance against Queen Caroline, had not only tended to lower the character of public men in the eyes of the country, but had weakened the Administration, the leading members of which were looked upon as men who preferred place to character. The bitterness of political animosities was by no means lessened by the death of the victim. The hatred of the King, and contempt for the men who had so disgracefully submitted to be his tools, continued as strong as ever. A Government so circumstanced was powerless to do

good, either by originating or supporting measures for the common weal. Whatever glimpses of prosperity might appear in England, Ireland was always in the background to darken the horizon. Catholic Emancipation appeared as far off as ever; for although Canning, opposing the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, still had the Catholic question much at heart, he, as a member of the Liverpool Cabinet, either could not or would not move in it, and emancipation appeared to be hopeless.

I had for many years been convinced that the best if not only hope of having that question carried, was the union between Canning and the leading Whigs. I was persuaded that such an union would do much to disunite and finally to break up the Tory party. I felt this strongly on public grounds, and I felt it notwithstanding the many well-founded objections I had ever avowed to Canning as a public man. I vainly attempted to bring Lord Grey to my way of thinking. But his aversion on political grounds to Canning was insurmountable. This dislike was, as he himself used to call it, "rooted." In the course of a very long and unusually intimate friendship, the arguments I used, and the decided part I took, to promote a junction with Canning, was the cause of the only serious difference I ever had with Grey: if we were separated for a time, the coolness did not last; for Grey, with his usual fairness and candour, gave me credit for the perfectly unselfish motives which had actuated me; and not very long after the Canning Government was formed, we were as firm friends After the Queen's death, from time to time there was an expectation that the Government, from

as ever.