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doctors, as poor Congreve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout. A monument was erected to the poet in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription written by the Duchess; and Lord Cobham honoured him with a cenotaph, which seems to us, though that is a bold word, the ugliest and most absurd of the buildings at Stowe.

must stop. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are not men to be hastily dismissed, and we have not left ourselves space to do them justice.

LORD HOLLAND. (JULY, 1841.) The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded in the Journals of the House of Lords, from 1797 to 1841. Collected and edited by D. C. MOYLAN, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. 8vo. London: 1841.

We have said that Wycherley was a worse Congreve. There was, indeed, a remarkable analogy between the writings and lives of these two men. Both were gentlemen liberally educated. MANY reasons make it impossible for Both led town lives, and knew human us to lay before our readers, at the prenature only as it appears between Hyde sent moment, a complete view of the Park and the Tower. Both were men character and public career of the late of wit. Neither had much imagina- Lord Holland. But we feel that we tion. Both at an early age produced have already deferred too long the lively and profligate comedies. Both duty of paying some tribute to his retired from the field while still in early memory. We feel that it is more manhood, and owed to their youthful achievements in literature whatever consideration they enjoyed in later life. Both, after they had ceased to write for the stage, published volumes of miscellanies which did little credit either to their talents or to their morals. Both, during their declining years, hung loose upon society; and both, in their last moments, made eccentric and unjustifiable dispositions of their estates.

becoming to bring without further delay an offering, though intrinsically of little value, than to leave his tomb longer without some token of our reverence and love.

We shall say very little of the book which lies on our table. And yet it is a book which, even if it had been the work of a less distinguished man, or had appeared under circumstances less interesting, would have well repaid But in every point Congreve main- an attentive perusal. It is valuable, tained his superiority to Wycherley. both as a record of principles and as a Wycherley had wit; but the wit of model of composition. We find in it Congreve far outshines that of every all the great maxims which, during comic writer, except Sheridan, who has more than forty years, guided Lord arisen within the last two centuries. Holland's public conduct, and the chief Congreve had not, in a large measure, reasons on which those maxims rest, the poetical faculty; but compared with condensed into the smallest possible Wycherley he might be called a great space, and set forth with admirable poet. Wycherley had some know- perspicuity, dignity, and precision. To ledge of books; but Congreve was a his opinions on Foreign Policy we for man of real learning. Congreve's the most part cordially assent; but, offences against decorum, though highly now and then we are inclined to think culpable, were not so gross as those of them imprudently generous. We could Wycherley; nor did Congreve, like not have signed the protest against the Wycherley, exhibit to the world the detention of Napoleon. The Protest deplorable spectacle of a licentious respecting the course which England dotage. Congreve died in the enjoy-pursued at the Congress of Verona, ment of high consideration; Wycher- though it contains much that is excelley forgotten or despised. Congreve's lent, contains also positions which, we will was absurd and capricious; but are inclined to think, Lord Holland Wycherley's last actions appear to have would, at a later period, have admitted been prompted by obdurate malignity. to be unsound. But to all his doctrines Here, at least for the present, we on constitutional questions, we give our

hearty approbation; and we firmly believe that no British government has ever deviated from that line of internal policy which he has traced, without detriment to the public.

the House of which he was the head belongs one distinction which we believe to be without a parallel in our annals. During more than a century, there has never been a time at which a Fox has not stood in a prominent station among public men. Scarcely had the chequered career of the first Lord Holland closed, when his son, Charles,

We will give, as a specimen of this little volume, a single passage, in which a chief article of the political creed of the Whigs is stated and explained, with singular clearness, force, and bre-rose to the head of the Opposition, and vity. Our readers will remember that, to the first rank among English dein 1825, the Catholic Association raised baters. And before Charles was borne the cry of emancipation with most for- to Westminster Abbey a third Fox had midable effect. The Tories acted after already become one of the most contheir kind. Instead of removing the spicuous politicians in the kingdom. grievance they tried to put down the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently sharp and stringent, but in truth utterly impotent, for restraining the right of petition. Lord Holland's Protest on that occasion is excellent. "We are," says he, "well aware that the privileges of the people, the rights of free discussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular institutions, must render,-and they are intended to render, the continuance of an extensive grievance, and of the dissatisfaction consequent thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the country, and ultimately subversive of the authority of the state. Experience and theory alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free constitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty equally deter us from lamenting it. But we have always been taught to look for the remedy of such disorders in the redress of the grievances which justify them, and

in the removal of the dissatisfaction from

which they flow-not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in inroads on the right of public discussion, nor in violations of the principles of a free government. If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress, which has been resorted to by persons labouring under grievous disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the state, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since foretold by great authority-namely, that the British constitution, and large exclusions, cannot subsist together; that the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution."

It was not, however, of this little book, valuable and interesting as it is, but of the author, that we meant to speak; and we will try to do so with calmness and impartiality.

In order to fully appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back into the history of his family; for he had inherited something more than a coronet and an estate. To

It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common enough in novels, where one picture is good for ten generations, but such as in real life is seldom found. The ample person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip, the expression, so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet But the temper, were common to all. features of the founder of the House, as the pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens have handed them down to us, were disagreeably harsh and exaggerated. In his descendants, the aspect was preserved, but it was softened, till it became, in the late lord, the most gracious and interesting countenance that was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of intelligence and benevolence.

As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it also with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay of which she is most sparing. To all she had given strong reason and sharp wit, a quick relish for every physical and intellectual enjoyment, constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional intrepidity is generally accompanied, spirits which nothing could depress, tempers easy, generous, and placable, and that genial courtesy which has its seat in

the heart, and of which artificial po- | out scruple, the most immoral and the liteness is only a faint and cold imita- most unconstitutional manners; as a tion. Such a disposition is the richest man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions inheritance that ever was entailed on and feelings, for the work of managing any family. the Parliament by means of secretservice-money, and of keeping down the people with the bayonet. Many of his contemporaries had a morality quite as lax as his: but very few among them had his talents, and none had his hardihood and energy. He could not, like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in contempt. He therefore became an object of such general aversion as no statesman since the fall of Strafford has incurred, of such general aversion as was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a disposition. A weak mind would have sunk under such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the public hatred. The only effect which reproaches appeared to produce on him, was to sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet temper. The last acts of his public life were marked, not only by that audacity which he had derived from nature, not only by that immorality which he had learned in the school of Walpole, but by a harshness which almost amounted to cruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his character. His severity increased the unpopularity from which it had sprung. The wellknown lampoon of Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling of the country. All the images are taken from shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord Holland is represented as complaining, that the cowardice of his accomplices had prevented him from putting down the free spirit of the city of London by sword and fire, and as pining for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's.

But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities which nature lavished with such profusion on three generations of the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was a needy political adventurer. He entered public life at a time when the standard of integrity among statesmen was low. He started as the adherent of a minister who had indeed many titles to respect, who possessed eminent talents both for administration and for debate, who understood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country, but who had seen so much perfidy and meanness that he had become sceptical as to the existence of probity. Weary of the cant of patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of hypocrisy which is at least a homage to virtue, he was too much in the habit of practising the less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously displays, and sometimes even simulates vice. To Walpole Fox attached himself, politically and personally, with the ardour which belonged to his temperament. And it is not to be denied that in the school of Walpole he contracted faults which destroyed the value of his many great endowments. He raised himself, indeed, to the first consideration in the House of Commons; he became a consummate master of the art of debate; he attained honours and immense wealth; but the public esteem and confidence were withheld from him. His private friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity and good nature. They maintained that in those parts of his conduct which they could least defend there was nothing sordid, and that, if he was misled, he was misled Within a few months after the death by amiable feelings, by a desire to of this remarkable man, his second serve his friends, and by anxious ten-son Charles appeared at the head of derness for his children. But by the the party opposed to the American nation he was regarded as a man of War. Charles had inherited the boinsatiable rapacity and desperate am- dily and mental constitution of his bition; as a man ready to adopt, with- | father, and had been much, far too VOL. II.

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much, under his father's influence. It worse than theirs. He had one great was indeed impossible that a son of so advantage over them. He received affectionate and noble a nature should a good political education. The first not have been warmly attached to a lord was educated by Sir Robert Walparent who possessed many fine qua- pole. Mr. Fox was educated by his lities, and who carried his indulgence father. The late lord was educated by and liberality towards his children even Mr. Fox. The pernicious maxims early to a culpable extent. Charles saw that imbibed by the first Lord Holland, the person to whom he was bound by made his great talents useless, and the strongest ties was, in the highest worse than useless, to the state. The degree, odious to the nation; and the pernicious maxims early imbibed by effect was what might have been ex- Mr. Fox, led him, at the commencepected from the strong passions and ment of his public life, into great faults constitutional boldness of so high- which, though afterwards nobly exspirited a youth. He cast in his lot piated, were never forgotten. To the with his father, and took, while still a very end of his career, small men, when boy, a deep part in the most unjustifi- they had nothing else to say in defence able and unpopular measures that had of their own tyranny, bigotry, and imbeen adopted since the reign of James becility, could always raise a cheer by the Second. In the debates on the some paltry taunt about the election Middlesex Election, he distinguished of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment himself, not only by his precocious of the lord mayor, and other measures powers of eloquence, but by the vehe- in which the great Whig leader had ment and scornful manner in which he borne a part at the age of one or two bade defiance to public opinion. He and twenty. On Lord Holland no was at that time regarded as a man such slur could be thrown. Those likely to be the most formidable cham- who most dissent from his opinions pion of arbitrary government that must acknowledge that a public life had appeared since the Revolution, to more consistent is not to be found in be a Bute with far greater powers, a our annals. Every part of it is in perMansfield with far greater courage. fect harmony with every other part; Happily his father's death liberated and the whole is in perfect harmony him early from the pernicious influence with the great principles of toleration by which he had been misled. His and civil freedom. This rare felicity mind expanded. His range of obser- is in a great measure to be attributed vation became wider. His genius to the influence of Mr. Fox. Lord broke through early prejudices. His Holland, as was natural in a person of natural benevolence and magnanimity his talents and expectations, began at had fair play. In a very short time a very early age to take the keenest he appeared in a situation worthy of interest in politics; and Mr. Fox found his understanding and of his heart. the greatest pleasure in forming the From a family whose name was asso- mind of so hopeful a pupil. They corciated in the public mind with tyranny responded largely on political subjects and corruption, from a party of which when the young lord was only sixteen; the theory and the practice were equally and their friendship and mutual conservile, from the midst of the Luttrells, fidence continued to the day of that the Dysons, the Barringtons, came mournful separation at Chiswick. Unforth the greatest parliamentary de- der such training such a man as Lord fender of civil and religious liberty. Holland was in no danger of falling into those faults which threw a dark shade over the whole career of his

The late Lord Holland succeeded to the talents and to the fine natural dispositions of his House. But his si-grandfather, and from which the youth tuation was very different from that of the two eminent men of whom we have spoken. In some important respects it was better, in some it was

of his uncle was not wholly free.

On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as compared with his grandfather and his uncle, laboured under one

great disadvantage. They were mem- distinguished in debate than any peer bers of the House of Commons. He of his time who had not sat in the became a Peer while still an infant. House of Commons. Nay, to find his When he entered public life, the House equal among persons similarly situof Lords was a very small and a very ated, we must go back eighty years decorous assembly. The minority to to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, which he belonged was scarcely able to Thurlow, Loughborough, Grey, Grenmuster five or six votes on the most ville, Brougham, Plunkett, and other important nights, when eighty or eminent men, living and dead, whom ninety lords were present. Debate we will not stop to enumerate, carried had accordingly become a mere form, to the Upper House an eloquence as it was in the Irish House of Peers formed and matured in the Lower. before the Union. This was a great The opinion of the most discerning misfortune to a man like Lord Holland. | judges was that Lord Holland's oratorIt was not by occasionally addressing ical performances, though sometimes fifteen or twenty solemn and unfriendly most successful, afforded no fair meaauditors, that his grandfather and his uncle attained their unrivalled parliamentary skill. The former had learned his art in "the great Walpolean battles," on nights when Onslow was in the chair seventeen hours without intermission, when the thick ranks on both sides kept unbroken order till long after the winter sun had risen upon them, when the blind were led out by the hand into the lobby and the paralytic laid down in their bed-clothes on the benches. The powers of Charles Fox were, from the first, exercised in conflicts not less exciting. The great talents of the late Lord Holland had no such advantage. This was the more unfortunate, because the peculiar species of eloquence which belonged to him in common with his family required much practice to develope it. With strong sense, and the greatest readiness of wit, a certain tendency to hesitation was hereditary in the line of Fox. This hesitation arose, not from the poverty, but from the wealth of their vocabu-a lary. They paused, not from the difficulty of finding one expression, but from the difficulty of choosing between several. It was only by slow degrees and constant exercise that the first Lord Holland and his son overcame the defect. Indeed neither of them overcame it completely.

In statement, the late Lord Holland was not successful; his chief excellence lay in reply. He had the quick eye of his house for the unsound parts of an argument, and a great felicity in exposing them. He was decidedly more

sure of his oratorical powers, and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to listen to his conversation without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the greatest good nature and good breeding, he was the very opposite to an assenter. The word "disputatious" is generally used as a word of reproach; but we can express our meaning only by saying that Lord Holland was most courteously and pleasantly disputatious. In truth, his quickness in discovering and apprehending distinctions and analogies was such as a veteran judge might envy. The lawyers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonished to find in an unprofessional man so strong a relish for the esoteric parts of their science, and complained that as soon as they had split

hair, Lord Holland proceeded to split the filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind less happily constituted, there might have been a risk that this turn for subtilty would have produced serious evil. But in the heart and understanding of Lord Holland there was ample security against all such danger. He was not a man to be the dupe of his own ingenuity. put his logic to its proper use; and in him the dialectician was always subordinate to the statesman.

He

His political life is written in the chronicles of his country. Perhaps, as

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