lar topics? Who is there that possesses so extensive yet so accurate an acquaintance with every transaction, recent or remote? Who is there that can deviate from his subject, for the purposes of delight, with such engaging ease, and insensibly conduct his readers from the severity of reasoning to the festivity of wit? Who is there that can melt them, if the occasion requires, with such resistless power to grief and pity? Who is there that combines the charm of inimitable grace and urbanity with such magnificent and boundless expansion? He that can do this, I affirm it again and again, has Attic powers, and speaks a language which, while it soothes the multitude by its sweetness, by its correctness and pregnancy will captivate the judgment of the severest critic.

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Many men, of more talent than erudition, have fancied that they could speak better than they could write; and flattered themselves with a reputation for eloquence which never stood the test of severe and critical examination. Many a speech has been received with infinite applause in the delivery, which, when handed about in print, has appeared poor, languid, and lifeless. Lord Chatham was a great man, a most animated and terrific orator, and eminently endued with the first qualifications of a great statesman; yet as a speaker, his fame, doubtless from the witchery of his manner, was greater than his power. Like Cromwell, he had that perspicacity of eye which pried into the inmost recesses of the soul, and detected all the thoughts and impressions, and hopes and fears, of his auditors. He had that too which Cromwell had not; for Cromwell, we are told, was slow in the conception of his ideas when he spoke, and diffuse and perplexed in the delivery. But in Chatham, when he rose to speak, there was a fervour and vehemence of imagination, a headlong torrent of words, and power of sound, which deafened, and stunned, and confounded his opponents. In the man himself, I well remember, there was a native dignity of form, which commanded reverence and faith; and by filling his hearers with holy awe, predisposed them to his purpose. With powers little calculated to instruct or to delight, there was a vehemence of contention, an awakening energy of manner, an impassioned ardour, a confident and boastful exultation, which victory only rendered more ferocious and ungovernable. He often rose to dignity in the donation of applause, still oftener blazed to fierceness in the fulmination of invectives; and sometimes, in the violence of altercation, stung with a poignancy of wit peculiarly his own. But take away these showy appendages of eloquence, which are included almost in the very name of Chatham; take away that which in the judgment of Demosthenes was the first, the second, the third qualification of an orator; and which, in Chatham, were displayed as they prevailed in so astonishing a measure, and with such felicity of success; take away the imposing dignity of his presence, the strength and grandeur of his voice, the elaborate vehemence of his gesticulation, worked up often to extravagance, and adapted rather to the drama than the senate; take these away, and in those very speeches which were extolled by his auditors as transcending far all praise, you will find nothing scarcely which forcibly strikes or sweetly soothes the ear; nothing which by its strength or clearness captivates the judgment; nothing which the intelligent reader in a cool and temperate hour will highly approve; or having once read, will eagerly demand again.

"Such, I confess, was the giant scale of Chatham's mind, that he might well claim, and would assuredly fill with honour, the highest station to which a subject can aspire. To his other original and illustrious qualities was added that felicity of fortune which fills up the measure of all pre-eminent greatness. In his character as minister, such was the greatness and elevation of his spirit, that, like Scipio, he could revive expiring ardour, and fill men with a confidence of expectation which no mortal promises, nor the moral course of nature, ever did, or under any other auspices, ever ought to inspire. Those, however, who consider Chatham not as a first-rate orator, but as another Demosthenes, are greatly deceived. In Demosthenes, with a dignity which scarcely has been equalled, was combined a sagacity and coolness which can never be surpassed. He who aspires only to be rapid, vehement, and sonorous, without descending to plain narrative, cool statement, and close argument, sacrifices reason to passion, and touches on the precincts of a frantic eloquence. It was the lot of Chatham to owe whatever he possessed to a genius exercised by practice alone. The consequence was natural. With infinite fluency and animation he insured the fate of Galba, and while he breathed consuming fire as a speaker, all the force and all the blaze of his eloquence was extinguished upon paper. Far different is Burke. To wing his flight to the sublime of eloquence he has called in the labours of the closet. Burke would not that the fame of his powers should be circumscribed within the same poor limits that bound life; nor has he feared, most certainly he has not shunned, that solemn sentence which posterity, who 'extenuate nothing, nor set down aught in malice,' will hereafter pronounce upon his genius.

"There are many, I know, who, though well-convinced that the pen is the instructor of the tongue, and perfectly able to treat any subject upon paper with infinite correctness and art, yet, when drawn from the shade of studious retirement into action, are not only incapable of delivering with clearness what they have very justly conceived, but exhibit the spectacle of absolute helplessness and fatuity. But Burke, though fully satisfied that nothing contributes more to good speaking than good writing, is equally prepared for both. The same power of mind, the same divine and inextinguishable ardour which fires him in the senate, animates him in the solitude of composition; nor need he blush to say of his speeches what Thucydides has affirmed of his elaborate history, 'I give it to the public as an everlasting possession, and not as a contentious instrument of temporary applause.'

"There is an unwillingness in the world to show that the same man has excelled in various pursuits; yet Burke's compositions, diversified as they are in their nature, yet each excelling in its kind, who does not read with instruction and delight? I have hitherto surveyed the merits of the orator; let us now view him as a critic and philosopher.

Criticism, which others would have been content to study as they found it, Burke has enlarged by his discoveries, illustrated by his mul tifarious learning, and treated with all the graces of a style most elegant and refined, yet not polished into insipidity by too curious a care. Often has it been lamented that the language of philosophers is usually so crabbed and uncouth as to deter readers of taste from the perusal of their labours. It fell to Burke, by his purity and grace, to purge off

the inveterate rust, and to adapt to the knottiest and the subtlest disquisitions, such a flowing ease, and fertility and lustre of style, as the world has never witnessed. With such illustrious proofs of his own powers, he has at once, by his precepts and his example, instructed others to excel: for whether he luxuriates in speeches replete with the choicest phraseology and happiest periods, or bends his keen and subtle intelligence on critical disquisition, such is the felicity of his labours, that he at once quickens the sagacity of his readers, while he stores their memory and fertilizes their fancy with invigorating and varied information.

"On the morals of a man most conspicuously endued with the more amiable and the severe virtues, I hold it needless to descant. The unspotted innocence, the firm integrity of Burke, want no emblazoning, and if he is accustomed to exact a rigorous account of the moral conduct of others, it is justified in one who shuns not the most inquisitorial scrutiny into his own.

"I know what unsafe and treacherous ground I tread. Objectors, I am aware, are not wanting, who will exclaim that I have lavished praise with too prodigal a hand; that I have been hurried away by my love and admiration of the man; and unblushing malice may insinuate even this-that I have studiously praised him for those qualities in which I knew he was deficient. I care not. The tribute I have paid him is little to his deserts; and would to God that this little had come from any one who could have more suitably expanded and adorned it! This, however, I deliberately and steadily affirm-that of all the men who are, or who ever have been eminent for energy and splendour of eloquence, or for skill and grace in composition, there is not one who in genius or erudition, in philanthropy or piety, or in any of the qualities of a wise and good man, surpasses Burke. Such is my opinion of one9 of these prominent and illustrious characters; and it is my wish that it should be considered less as the effusion of my regard, than as the sincere and settled conviction of my judgment."

W. H. Lambton.

BORN A. D. 1764.-DIED A. D. 1797.

THIS young statesman, whose career was cut short by a premature death, was the son of General John Lambton, and Lady Susan Lyon, sister to the earl of Strathmore. He was born on the 15th of November, 1764. His predecessors had frequently represented the county and city of Durham in parliament, and his father had seated himself with considerable popularity for the latter, by asserting the privileges of the freemen in opposition to the usurpations of fictitious votes. The fond affection of a parent, hoping his son might one day hold a seat in the national councils, determined that no advantage of education should be wanting to render him worthy of the important trust. In conformity to this design, Mr Lambton was placed, at the early age of seven years,

"Lord North and Mr Fox were the two others to whom, with Mr Burke, this work of Bellendenus was dedicated by Dr Parr.

at Wandsworth school, in Surrey, which was then regarded a nursery for Eton. To that seminary he was removed at twelve, and there discovered the dawnings of his genius, in passing through the different forms till he reached the sixth class. His reputation was deservedly high amongst the scholars of his day; and in the composition of Latin verses he particularly excelled. He was entered a fellow-commoner of Trinity college, Cambridge, in October, 1782, and continued there till July, 1784, pursuing the career of his studies, and unfolding the vigour of his mind. Among the companions of Mr Lambton's academic life were those steady opponents of corruption, Whitbread and Grey.

To give a polish to his early acquisitions, and extend his knowledge of the world and mankind, Mr Lambton proceeded, with a private tutor, to the continent. The extent of his tour embraced France and Switzerland, with a short excursion into Spain; but the principal places of his residence were Paris and Versailles. Soon after his return from the continent, Mr Lambton became a member of the British legislature, being returned, on the resignation of his father-in February 1787— for the city of Dublin, which place he continued to represent during the remainder of his life.

In the senate Mr Lambton soon distinguished himself as a speaker, in seconding the motion of Mr Fox, for a repeal of the shop-tax, on the 24th of April, and then afforded a very promising prospect of those talents which he afterwards on many occasions displayed. The questions to which, in the sequel, he principally directed his attention, were such as related to the constitution of his country, or in which the welfare of the public was materially concerned. As an orator, his elocution was clear and articulate, his language manly and energetic, his arguments pertinent and often cogent; in quotation he was apt, happy in his allusions, and in his manner graceful. During the agitation of various motions relative to the abolition of the slave trade, Mr Lambton always divided with the friends of humanity, in opposition to the continuance of that abominable traffic. But the most important features of his political conduct, were his attacks on the corruptions of parliament, and his vindications of the necessity of reform. In March, 1792, he ably exposed the corrupt practices of the agents of government in the Westminster election of 1788, in seconding a motion for an inquiry into that subject. In the following month his name appeared as an original member of the society of The Friends of the People, associated for the Purpose of obtaining a Parliamentary Reform;' and, as chairman, he signed their celebrated declaration and address of the 26th of April. This association being exposed to considerable obloquy, Mr Lambton came forward in defence of its principles and proceedings on various occasions in the house of commons, and once as a freeholder in the county of Durham. The proceedings in parliament, relative to the memorable state-trials of 1794, met with Mr Lambton's decided opposition, both before and after the acquittal of the prisoners; and the principles which actuated the whole tenor of his public life induced him to make his last effort in the service of his country, by opposing the bills for altering the treason and sedition laws in November 1795. It is impossible for the candid observer to attribute the spirited conduct of Mr Lambton to any other motive than a generous impulse of disinterested patriotism, for though the ardent attachment to the welfare of

his country induced him to exert himself in the great theatre of political transactions, his own conviction led him to place real happiness in the enjoyment of domestic life. By the death of his father, on the 23d of March, 1794, he became possessed of a very considerable fortune, together with the family estate of Lambton, beautifully situated on the banks of the Dear, about nine miles from Durham.

Mr Lambton had just completed his thirty-first year when his friends were alarmed by the symptoms of a consumption, a complaint which nearly at the same age had carried off his mother. Retiring to the north, from the bustle of parliamentary exertion, in December, 1795, he was unable to resume his seat after the winter recess. In the spring

of 1796 he returned towards the south, for the advice of some distinguished physicians. Being advised to try the effects of a warmer climate, he embarked with his wife and family at Woolwich, on board a Swedish vessel, on the 29th of August, and after a two months' voyage landed at Naples, fortunately escaping the dangers and inconveniences to which even neutral vessels are exposed from the conflicts of contending nations. On his arrival in Italy, his health was so apparently recovered, that little doubt was entertained of his perfect restoration. From Naples Mr Lambton proceeded to Rome; but the return of his complaint put a period to his further prospects, and declining health convinced him of the approach of an early dissolution. In Rome his health was visibly impairing, and he departed thence to try the effects of a more congenial air in Tuscany. After being detained some days by illness at Sienna, he at length reached Pisa, where his life was closed on the 30th of November, at the early age of thirty-three years.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

BORN A. D. 1763.-DIED A. D. 1798.

THIS amiable nobleman was the fifth son of the first duke of Leinster, and of Lady Emilia Maria Lennox, daughter of Charles, second duke of Richmond. He was born on the 15th October, 1763. His father died in 1773; and his mother, not long after, married a Scottish gentleman of the name of Ogilvie, who treated his step-son with great affection, and was at pains to educate him for the military profession, to which the boy's taste strongly inclined.

He entered the army in his eighteenth year: a lieutenancy was procured for him in the 96th regiment of foot, from which he soon exchanged into the 19th, and sailed for America. In this his first active service he manifested great intrepidity combined with gentleness of character. Sir John Doyle, his superior officer, says of him at this period: "I never knew so loveable a person, and every man in the army, from the general to the drummer, would cheer the expression." He does not seem to have entertained any suspicion of the unjust nature of the contest with America; the germs of the future patriot were certainly not very clearly discernible in him at this period.

In 1783 he returned to Ireland, and was brought into the Irish parliament by his brother the duke of Leinster. Even in this situation he gave no indication of the latent energy of his temper, although his