his revenge in his own way, by drawing a sketch of Mr. Canning, in which it would not be very easy to discover the likeness. yeagull The "A smart, six-form boy, the little hero of a little world, matures his precocious parts at college, and sends before him his fame to the metropolis: a Minister, or some borough-holder of the day, thinks him worth saving from his democratic associates, and from the unprofitable principles which the thoughtless enthusiasm of youth may have inclined him hitherto to adopt. hopeless youth yields at once, and placed in the true line of promotion, he takes his place with the more veteran prostitutes of Parliament. There he minds his periods; there he balances his antitheses; there he adjusts his alliterations; and, filling-up the interstices of his piebald patch-work rhetoric with froth and foam, this master of pompous nothings becomes first favourite of the Great Council of the nation." Mr. Hobhouse, very innocently and intending something very different, betrayed the real secret of all the spleen and jealousy Mr. Canning had to resist through life. It was because he was the "first favourite of the Great Council of the Nation," that men of false pretensions and selfish natures shed their spite upon his path. They could not endure his brightness-they could not bear to hear Aristides called the Just. All this is very intelligible. Leading minds at all times have paid this penalty for being in advance, and must be content to take their risk of being shot at from behind. From the moment he obtained a clear opportunity for carrying out his principles, (unfortunately for England, too near the close of his career), he rose to a height of popularity, never reached before by any member of his party. Fancy the rage of the "mighty hunters," to see themselves distanced by his swifter blood. The Many, everywhere, placed implicit confidence in his character and the universality of his influence. If England entered into a war, in defence of Portugal, he promised her that she would find arrayed under her banners, "all the discontented and restless spirit of the age-all those who, whether justly or unjustly, were dissatisfied with the state of their own countries." These classes all over the earth were his "clients." His eloquence was indentified with their cause; his name was the watchword of deliverance, "Where Andes, giants of the western-star, With meteor standard to the winds unfurled, Looks from his throne of clouds o'er half the world." The gallantry of his bearing, his personal grace and manliness, and the classical beauty and refinement with which he was ideally associated in the general imagination, secured for him the suffrages of an influential section at home—a section rarely interested in political affairs, but intimately concerned in shaping and colouring public opinion. The women of England were with him with their whole hearts, as they are with every generous champion of human freedom. It was a part of his influence, this charm he exercised over the gentle and trustful; and not the least important. He was sometimes taunted with it-half in jest and half in earnest. Every body who was capable of being jealous of his fame, was most jealous of it for taking that direction, as if it had conquered so much neutral ground! This was the strangest of all the littlenesses to which he was exposed. Even Hazlitt (a very bigoted hater of bigotry in others), found something supercilious and egotistical to suggest about it, and talks of Canning and the love-locks of the constitution! XI. THE LIVER THE PERCEVAL ADMINISTRATION. DEATH OF PERCEVAL. UPON the retirement of the Duke of Portland, Mr. Perceval undertook to replenish the cabinet. He first applied to Lords Grey and Grenville, who indignantly rejected his proposal as involving a dereliction of public principle. He protested he could not see it; Lord Liverpool could not see it. They could see nothing but office straight before them, with the door shut upon the Papists. He was more successful with the Marquis of Wellesley, who had just returned from Spain, and who accepted the Foreign Office, to the astonishment of every body. Mr. Perceval himself absorbed the premiership, in addition to the Exchequer. It was under the auspices of this administration that Mr. (now Sir Robert) Peel commenced his parliamentary career. He was selected by Mr. Perceval to second the Address, which was moved by Lord Barnard, and before the close of the year was appointed Under-Secretary in the Colonial Department. Mr. Canning took very little part in the proceedings of the first session. The principal matter which interested him was the grant of an annuity to the Duke of Wellington, which he energetically supported, and was mainly instrumental in obtaining. Parliament met in the following November (1810) under novel circumstances. The king was insane. There was no speech for the Houses-no commission to meet themno authority to prorogue them. It was impossible to proceed to business in the usual way. Without the customary sanction and formalities, this gathering of peers and knights of the shire was, technically, not the parliament, but a convention of the estates. But parliament is too expert in the invention of technical difficulties, not to know how to escape from them. Nothing is impossible to parliament. Nothing can be impossible to parliament, after the vote on the Septennial Bill, in 1716, by which it re-elected itself for four years, without thinking it necessary to trouble its constituents. Parliament resolved itself into a committee on the state of the nation; and Mr. Perceval moved several resolutions, the object of which was to settle the means of acting in this emergency. These resolutions determined the question so vehemently disputed in 1788 and 1789, that parliament alone had the disposal of the Regency; and that the heir-apparent had no more authority, without the sanction of Parliament, than any private gentleman in the kingdom. Having decided upon the right of Parliament to nominate the Regency, it was next proposed to confer the powers of the crown on the Prince of Wales, with restrictions. This question presented one of considerable embarrassment to Mr. Canning. Consistency demanded that he should follow the course which had been formerly taken by Mr. Pitt, who contended for the right of Parliament to appoint the Regent, and also for the policy of binding him within strict limitations. But Mr. Canning, agreeing in the right, was resolved to resist the restrictions. The difficulty was to steer between these rocks—a task which he performed with the most wary dexterity. "The right of the two Houses," he observed, " was proclaimed and maintained by Mr. Pitt. This is the point on which his authority is truly valuable. * * * The principles upon which this right was affirmed and exercised, if true at all, are true universally, for all times and on all occasions. If they were the principles of the constitution in 1788, they are equally so in 1811. The lapse of twenty-two years has not impaired-the lapse of centuries cannot impair them. But the mode in which the right so asserted should be exercised, the precise provisions to be framed for the temporary substitution of the execu tive power - these were necessarily then, as they must be now, matters not of eternal and invariable principle, but of prudence and expediency. In regard to these, therefore, the authority of the opinions of any individual, however great and wise, and venerable, can be taken only with reference to the circumstances of the time in which he had to act, and are not to be applied without change or modification to other times and circumstances.' While the shade of Pitt was appeased by this ample recognition of the abstract principle, the living prince was apostrophised by the management of its application. The policy of this proceeding may readily be discerned, although it was also inspired by a higher motive. His Royal Highness had not attempted to conceal his chagrin at the proposed abridgement of the regal functions; and the next most likely event would be a new ministry. An exclusive cabinet was no longer probable. The Whigs were the natural successors to power, but they could not succeed alone. These distant signs on the horizon may have influenced Mr. Canning's views; but it is only fair to add that every consideration which could be urged for the public welfare lay on that side also. |