§ 90. Character of the Duke of NEWCASTLE.

adding, that he did not love new-fangled things. I did not, however, yield to the cogency of these arguments, The Duke of Newcastle will be so but brought in the bill, and it passed often mentioned in the history of unanimously. From such weaknesses these times, and with so strong a it necessarily follows, that he could bias, either for or against him, that have no great ideas, nor elevation of I resolved, for the sake of truth, to mind.

draw his character with my usual im- His ruling, or rather his only, paspartiality for as he had been a mi- sion was, the agitation, the bustle, and nister for above forty years together, the hurry of business, to which he and in the last ten years of that pe- had been accustomed above forty riod first minister, he had full time years; but he was as dilatory in deto oblige one half of the nation, and spatching it, as he was eager to ento offend the other. gage in it. He was always in a hurry,

We were contemporaries, near re-never walked, but always run, insolations, and familiar acquaintances; much that I have sometimes told him, sometimes well, and sometimes ill to- that by his fleetness one should ragether, according to the several va- ther take him for the courier, than riations of political affairs, which the author of the letters. know no relations, friends, or ac- He was as jealous of his powquaintances. er as an impotent lover of his mis

:

The public opinion put him be- tress, without activity of mind enough low his level for though he had no to enjoy or exert it, but could not superior parts, or eminent talents, he bear a share even in the appearances had a most indefatigable industry, a of it.

perseverance, a court craft, a servile His levees were his pleasure, and compliance with the will of his sove- his triumph; he loved to have them reign for the time being; which quali-crowded, and consequently they were ties, with only a common share of so: there he made people of business common sense, will carry a man wait two or three hours in the antisooner and more safely through the chamber, while he trifled away that dark labyrinths of a court, than the time with some insignificant favourmost shining parts would do, without ites in his closet. When at last he those meaner talents.

came into his levee-room, he accostHe was good-natured to a degree ed, hugged, embraced, and promised of weakness, even to tears, upon the every body, with a seeming cordiality, slightest occasions. Exceedingly ti- but at the same time with an illiberal morous, both personally and politi- and degrading familiarity. cally, dreading the least innovation, He was exceedingly disinterested: and keeping, with a scrupulous timi- very profuse of his own fortune, and dity, in the beaten track of business abhorring all those means, too often as having the safest bottom. used by persons in his station, either

I will mention one instance of this to gratify their avarice, or to supply disposition, which, I think, will set it their prodigality; for he retired from in the strongest light. When I brought business in the year 1762, above four the bill into the house of lords, for cor- hundred thousand pounds poorer than recting and amending the calendar, I when he first engaged in it. gave him previous notice of my inten- Upon the whole he was a comtions: he was alarmed at so bold an pound of most human weaknesses, undertaking, and conjured me not to but untainted with any vice or stir matters that had been long quiet; crime.

Chesterfield.

91. Character of Mr. HENRY FOX, the contrary and worse extreme of corafterwards Lord Holland. ruption and rapine. Rem, quocunque modo rem,* became his maxim, which Mr. Henry Fox was a younger bro- he observed (I will not say religiously ther of the lowest extraction. His and scrupulously, but) invariably and father, Sir Stephen Fox, made a con- shamefully.

siderable fortune, somehow or other, He had not the least notion of, or and left him a fair younger brother's regard for the public good or the portion, which he soon spent in the constitution, but despised those cares common vices of youth, gaming in- as the objects of narrow minds, or cluded this obliged him to travel the pretences of interested ones: for some time. and he lived, as Brutus died, callWhen he returned, though by edu- ing virtue only a name. Chesterfield. cation a Jacobite, he attached himself to Sir Robert Walpole, and was one of his ablest elèves. He had no fixed principles either of religion or morality, and was too unwary in ridiculing and exposing them.

$92. Character of Mr. PITT.

Mr. Pitt owed his rise to the most considerable posts and power in this He had very great abilities and in- kingdom singly to his own abilities; defatigable industry in business; great in him they supplied the want of skill in managing, that is, in corrupt- birth and fortune, which latter in ing, the house of commons; and a others too often supply the want of wonderful dexterity in attaching indi- the former. He was a younger broviduals to himself. He promoted, en- ther of a very new family, and his couraged, and practised their vices; fortune only an annuity of one hunhe gratified their avarice, or supplied dred pounds a year.

their profusion. He wisely and punc- The army was his original destinatually performed whatever he pro- tion, and a cornetcy of horse his first mised, and most liberally rewarded and only commission in it. Thus, their attachment and dependence. unassisted by favour or fortune, he By these, and all other means that had no powerful protector to introcan be imagined, he made himself duce him into business, and (if I many personal friends and political may use that expression) to do the dependants. honours of his parts; but their own

He was a most disagreeable speak-strength was fully sufficient. er in parliament, inelegant in his His constitution refused him the language, hesitating and ungraceful usual pleasures, and his genius forin his elocution, but skilful in dis- bad him the idle dissipations of youth; cerning the temper of the house, and for so early as at the age of sixteen, in knowing, when and how to press, he was the martyr of an hereditary or to yield. gout. He therefore employed the

A constant good-humour and seem- leisure which that tedious and paining frankness made him a welcome ful distemper either procured or allowcompanion in social life, and in all ed him, in acquiring a great fund of domestic relations he was good-na- premature and useful knowledge.— tured. As he advanced in life, his Thus, by the unaccountable relation ambition became subservient to his of causes and effects, what seemed avarice. His early profusion and the greatest misfortune of his life was, dissipation had made him feel the perhaps, the principal cause of its many inconveniences of want, and, splendour. as it often happens, carried him to

* Get money, no matter how.

His private life was stained by no situation, which one would have vices, nor sullied by any meanness. thought must have reduced either the All his sentiments were liberal and patriot or the minister to a decisive elevated. His ruling passion was an option, he managed with such ability, unbounded ambition, which, when that while he served the king more supported by great abilities, and effectually in his most unwarrantable crowned by great success, make electoral views than any former miniswhat the world calls "a great man." ter, however willing, had dared to do, He was haughty, imperious, impatient he still preserved all his credit and of contradiction, and overbearing; popularity with the public; whom he qualities which too often accompany, assured and convinced, that the probut always clog, great ones. tection and defence of Hanover, with

He had manners and address; but an army of seventy-five thousand one might discern through them too men in British pay, was the only posgreat a consciousness of his own su-sible method of securing our possesperior talents. He was a most agree- sions or acquisitions in North Ameriable and lively companion in social ca. So much easier is it to deceive life; and had such a versatility of than to undeceive mankind. wit, that he could adapt it to all sorts His own disinteredness, and even of conversation. He had also a most contempt of money, smoothed his happy turn to poetry, but he seldom way to power, and prevented or siindulged, and seldom avowed it. lenced a great share of that envy He came young into parliament, and which commonly attends it. Most upon that great theatre soon equal- men think that they have an equal led the oldest and the ablest actors. natural right to riches, and equal abiHis eloquence was of every kind, and lities to make the proper use of them; he excelled in the argumentative as but not very many of them have the well as in the declamatory way; but impudence to think themselves qualihis invectives were terrible, and ut- fied for power.

tered with such energy of diction, Upon the whole, he will make a and stern dignity of action and coun- great and shining figure in the antenance, that he intimidated those nals of this country, notwithstanding who were the most willing and the the blot which his acceptance of best able to encounter him ;* their three thousand pounds per annum arms fell out of their hands, and they pension for three lives, on his volunshrunk under the ascendant which tary resignation of the seals in the his genius gained over theirs. (first year of the present king, must

In that assembly, where the public make in his character, especially as good is so much talked of, and private to the disinterested part of it. Howinterest singly pursued, he set out ever, it must be acknowledged, that with acting the patriot, and perform- he had those qualities which none but ed that part so nobly, that he was a great man can have, with a mixture adopted by the public as their chief, of those failings which are the comor rather only unsuspected, champion. mon lot of wretched and imperfect. The weight of his popularity, and human nature. Chesterfield. his universally acknowledged abilities, obtruded him upon king George II. to whom he was personally obnoxious. He was made secretary of state in this difficult and delicate

Hume, Campbell, and Lord Chief Justice Mansfield.

93. Characters of Lord CHATHAM and Mr. C. TOWNSHend.

I have done with the third period of your policy: the return to your

ancient system, and your ancient without cement, here a bit of black tranquillity and concord. Sir, this stone and there a bit of white; paperiod was not as long as it was hap-triots and courtiers, king's friends py. Another scene was opened, and and republicans; whigs and tories; other actors appeared on the stage. treacherous friends and open eneThe state, in the condition I have mies; that it was indeed a very cudescribed it, was delivered into the rious show; but utterly unsafe to hands of lord Chatham-a great and touch, and unsure to stand on. celebrated name; a name that keeps the name of this country respectable in every other on the globe. It may be truly called,

Clarum et venerabile nomen

In consequence of this arrangement, the confusion was such that his own principles could not possibly have any effect or influence in the conduct of affairs. If ever he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other

Gentibus, et multum nostræ quod proderat urbi. cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly contrary Sir, the venerable age of this great were sure to predominate. When he man, his merited rank, his superior had executed his plan, he had not an eloquence, his splendid qualities, his inch of ground to stand on; when eminent services, the vast space he he had accomplished his scheme of fills in the eye of mankind; and more administration, he was no longer a than all the rest, his fall from power, minister. When his face was hid for which, like death, canonizes and a moment, his whole system was on sanctifies a great character, will not a wide sea, without chart or compass. suffer me to censure any part of his The gentlemen, his particular friends, conduct. I am afraid to flatter him; with a confidence in him which was I am sure I am not disposed to blame justified even in its extravagance by him. Let those who have betrayed his superior abilities, had never in him by their adulation, insult him any instance presumed upon any with their malevolence. But what I opinion of their own. Deprived of do not presume to censure, I may his guiding influence, they were have leave to lament. For a wise whirled about, the sport of every gust, man he seemed to me at that time and easily driven into any port; and to be governed too much by general as those who joined with them in maxims. I speak with the freedom manning the vessel of the state were of history, and I hope without of the most directly opposite to his opifence. One or two of these maxims, nions, measures, and character, and flowing from an opinion not the most far the most artful and most powerful indulgent to our unhappy species, of the set, they easily prevailed so as and surely a little too general, led to seize upon the vacant derelict him into measures that were greatly minds of his friends, and instantly mischievous to himself: and for that they turned the vessel wholly out of reason, among others, perhaps fatal the course of his policy. As it were to his country; measures, the effects to insult as well as to betray him, of which, I am afraid, are for ever even long before the close of the incurable. He made an administra- first session of his administration, tion, so checkered and speckled; he when every thing was publicly transput together a piece of joinery, so acted and with great parade, in his crossly indented and whimsically name, they made an act declaring dovetailed; a cabinet so variously it highly just and expedient to raise inlaid; such a piece of diversified a revenue in America. For even mosaic, such a tesselated pavement then, sir, even before this splendid

lord of the ascendant.

1

orb was entirely set, and while the history of the revolutions of America, western horizon was in a blaze with the characters of such men are of his descending glory, on the opposite much importance. Great men are quarter of the heavens arose another the guide-posts and land-marks in the luminary, and for his hour, became state. The credit of such men at court, or in the nation, is the sole This light too is passed and set for cause of all the public measures. It ever. You understand, to be sure, would be an invidious thing (most . that I speak of Charles Townshend, foreign, I trust to what you think my officially the re-producer of this fatal disposition) to remark the errors into scheme; whom I cannot even now which the authority of great names remember without some degree of has brought the nation without doing sensibility. In truth, he was the de- justice at the same time to the great light and ornament of this house, and qualities whence that authority arose. the charm of every private society The subject is instructive to those which he honoured with his presence. who wish to form themselves on whatPerhaps there never arose in this ever of excellence has gone before country, nor in any country, a man them. There are many young memof a more pointed and finished wit;bers in the house, who never saw that and (where his passions were not prodigy, Charles Townshend; nor of concerned) of a more refined, exqui- course know what ferment he was site, and penetrating judgment. If he able to excite in every thing by the had not so great a stock as some have violent ebullition of his mixed virhad who flourished formerly, of know- tues and failings. For failings he ledge long treasured up, he knew bet- had undoubtedly-many of us rememter by far than any man I ever was ber them-we are this day consideracquainted with, how to bring toge- ing the effects of them. But he had ther, within a short time, all that was no failings which were not owing to necessary to establish, to illustrate, a noble cause; to an ardent, geneand to decorate that side of the ques-rous, perhaps an immoderate passion tion he supported. He stated his for fame; a passion which is the inmatter skilfully and powerfully. He stinct of all great souls. He worshipparticularly excelled in a most lumi-ped that goddess wheresoever she apnous explanation and display of his peared; but he paid his particular subject. His style of argument was devotious to her in her favourite haneither trite and vulgar, nor subtle bitation, in her chosen temple, the and abstruse. He hit the house just house of commons. Besides the chabetween wind and water. And not racters of the individuals who combeing troubled with too anxious a pose our body, it is impossible, Mr. zeal for any matter in question, he Speaker, not to observe, that this was never more tedious or more ear- house has a collective character of its nest than the pre-conceived opinions own. That character, too, however and present temper of his hearers imperfect, is not unamiable. Like required to whom he was always in all great public collections of men, perfect unison. He conformed ex- you possess a marked love of virtue, actly to the temper of the house; and an abhorrence of vice. But and he seemed to guide, because he among vices, there is none which the was always sure to follow it. house abhors in the same degree with I beg pardon, sir, if, when I speak of obstinacy. Obstinacy, sir, is certainly this and of other great men, I appear a great vice; and in the changeful to digress in saying something of state of political affairs it is frequenttheir characters. In this eventful ly the cause of great mischief. It