Protestant operatives of Dublin call for impeachments in exceedingly bad English. But what did you expect? Did you think when, to serve your turn, you called the Devil up, that it was as easy to lay him as to raise him? Did you think, when you went on, session after session, thwarting and reviling those whom you knew to be in the right, and flattering the worst passions of those whom you knew to be in the wrong, that the day of reckoning would never come? It has come. There you sit, doing penance for the disingenuousness of years. If it be not so, stand up manfully and clear your fame before the House and the country. Show us that some steady principle has guided your conduct with respect to Irish affairs. Show us how, if you are honest in 1845, you can have been honest in 1841. Explain to us why, after having goaded Ireland to madness for the purpose of ingratiating yourselves with the English, you are now setting England on fire for the purpose of ingratiating yourself with the Irish. Give us some reason which shall prove that the policy which you are following, as Ministers, is entitled to support, and which shall not equally prove you to have been the most factious and unprincipled Opposition that ever this country saw.

(From Speech on the Maynooth Grant.)

The Roman Catholic Church.

There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The history of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are but of yesterday, when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontiffs. That line we trace back in an unbroken series, from the Pope who crowned Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the eighth; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends till it is lost in the twilight of fable. The Republic of Venice came next in antiquity. But the Republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy; and the Republic of Venice is gone, and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youth. ful vigour. The Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the world missionaries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augustine, and still confronting hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Attila. The number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the Old. Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which a century hence may, not improbably, contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a hundred and fifty millions; and it will be difficult to show that all the other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected

before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished in Antioch, when idols were still worshipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge to sketch the ruins of St Paul's.

(From Essay on Ranke's History of the Popes, Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1840; in Works, 1866, vol. vi.)

There have been numerous anticipations of this famous last sentence, the latest by Macaulay himself at the very end of his article on Mitford's History of Greece, published in Knight's Quarterly Magazine in 1824. Five years before, in the preface to Peter Bell the Third, Shelley had spoken of the time when London shall be an habitation of bitterns, when St Paul's and Westminster Abbey shall stand shapeless and nameless ruins for the contemplation of some transatlantic commentator.' Wilcocks in his Roman Conversations (1792-94) imagined foreigners 2000 years hence sailing up the Thames in search of antiquities,' passing 'through some arches of the broken bridge,' and viewing 'with admiration the still remaining portico of St Paul's.' Still earlier, in 1791, there is Volney's meditation in the second chapter of Les Ruines, that some day on the banks of the Seine, the Thames, or the Zuider Zee' a traveller may 'seat himself on silent ruins and bemoan in solitude the ashes of nations and the memory of their greatness.' And seventeen years before Volney's book appeared, Horace Walpole in 1774 had warned Sir Horace Mann that 'at last some curious traveller' would 'visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul's.' Other anticipations are cited in our articles on Mrs Barbauld (Vol. II. p. 582) and on Henry Kirke White (Vol. II. p. 729).

The Death of Chatham.

The Duke of Richmond had given notice of an address to the throne, against the further prosecution of hostilities with America. Chatham had, during some time, absented himself from Parliament, in consequence of his growing infirmities. He determined to appear in his place on this occasion, and to declare that his opinions were decidedly at variance with those of the Rockingham party. He was in a state of great excitement. His medical attendants were uneasy, and strongly advised him to calm himself, and to remain at home. But he was not to be controlled. His son William, and his son-inlaw Lord Mahon, accompanied him to Westminster. He rested himself in the Chancellor's room till the debate commenced, and then, leaning on his two young relations, limped to his seat. The slightest particulars of that day were remembered, and have been carefully recorded. He bowed, it was remarked, with great courtliness to those peers who rose to make way for him and his supporters. His crutch was in his hand. He wore, as was his fashion, a rich velvet coat. His legs were swathed in flannel. His wig was so large and his face so emaciated that none of his features could be discerned, except the high curve of his nose, and his eyes, which still retained a gleam of the old fire.

When the Duke of Richmond had spoken Chatham rose. For some time his voice was inaudible. At length his tones became distinct and his action animated. Here and there his hearers caught a thought or an expression which reminded them of William Pitt. But it was clear that he was not himself. He lost the thread of his discourse, hesitated, repeated the same words several times, and was so confused that, in speaking of the Act of Settlement, he could not recall the name of the Electress Sophia. The House listened in solemn silence, and with the aspect of profound respect and compassion. The stillness was so deep that the dropping of a handkerchief

would have been heard. The Duke of Richmond replied with great tenderness and courtesy; but while he spoke, the old man was observed to be restless and irritable. The Duke sat down. Chatham stood up again, pressed his hand on his breast, and sank down in an apoplectic fit. Three or four lords who sat near him caught him in his fall. The House broke up in confusion. The dying man was carried to the residence of one of the officers of Parliament, and was so far restored as to be able to bear a journey to Hayes. At Hayes, after lingering a few weeks, he expired in his seventieth year. His bed was watched to the last, with anxious tenderness, by his wife and children; and he well deserved their care. Too

often haughty and wayward to others, to them he had been almost effeminately kind. He had through life been dreaded by his political opponents and regarded with more awe than love even by his political associates. But no fear seems to have mingled with the affection which his fondness, constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing forms, had inspired in the little circle at Hayes.

Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, in both Houses of Parliament, ten personal adherents. Half the public men of the age had been estranged from him by his errors, and the other half by the exertions which he had made to repair his errors. His last speech had been an attack at once on the policy pursued by the Government and on the policy recommended by the Opposition. But death restored him to his old place in the affection of his country. Who could hear unmoved of the fall of that which had been so great, and which had stood so long? The circumstance, too, seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than to real life. A great statesman, full of years and honours, led forth to the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of his country, could not but be remembered with peculiar veneration and tenderness. Detraction was overawed. The voice even of just and temperate censure was mute. Nothing was remembered but the lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the undisputed services, of him who was no more. For once, all parties were agreed. A public funeral, a public monument, were eagerly voted. The debts of the deceased were paid. A provision was made for his family. The City of London requested that the remains of the great man whom she had so long loved and honoured might rest under the dome of her magnificent cathedral. But the petition came too late. Everything was already prepared for the interment in Westminster Abbey.

Chatham sleeps near the northern door of the church, in a spot which has ever since been appropriated to statesmen, as the other end of the same transept has long been given to poets. Mansfield rests there, and the second William Pitt, and Grattan, and Canning, and Wilberforce. In no other cemetery do so many great citizens lie within so narrow a space. High over those venerable graves towers the stately monument of Chatham, and from above his effigy, graven by a cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face and outstretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer, and to hurl defiance at her foes. The generation which reared that memorial of him has disappeared. The time has come when the rash and indiscriminate judgments which his contemporaries passed on his character may be calmly revised by history. And history, while, for the warning of vehement, high, and

daring natures, she notes his many errors, will yet deliberately pronounce that, among the eminent men whose bones lie near his, scarcely one has left a more stainless and none a more splendid name.

(From Essay on the Earl of Chatham, Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1844; in Works, 1866, vol. vii.)

The Relief of Londonderry.

It was the twenty-eighth of July. The sun has just set; the evening sermon in the cathedral was over, and the heart-broken congregation had separated, when the sentinels on the tower saw the sails of three vessels coming up the Foyle. Soon there was a stir in the Irish camp. The besiegers were on the alert for miles along both shores. The ships were in extreme peril, for the river was low; and the only navigable channel ran very near to the left bank, where the headquarters of the enemy had been fixed, and where the batteries were most numerous. Leake performed his duty with a skill and spirit worthy of his noble profession, exposed his frigate to cover the merchantmen, and used his guns with great effect. At length the little squadron came to the place of peril. Then the Mountjoy took the lead, and went right at the boom. The huge barricade cracked and gave way; but the shock was such that the Mountjoy rebounded, and stuck in the mud. A yell of triumph rose from the banks; the Irish rushed to their boats, and were preparing to board, but the Dartmouth poured on them a well-directed broadside, which threw them into disorder. Just then the Phanix dashed at the breach which the Mountjoy had made, and was in a moment within the fence. Meantime the tide was rising fast. The Mountjoy began to move, and soon passed safe through the broken stakes and floating spars. But her brave master was no more. A shot from one of the batteries had struck him; and he died by the most enviable of all deaths, in sight of the city which was his birthplace, which was his home, and which had just been saved by his courage and self-devotion from the most frightful form of destruction. The night had closed in before the conflict at the boom began; but the flash of the guns was seen and the noise heard by the lean and ghastly multitude which covered the walls of the city. When the Mountjoy grounded, and when the shout of triumph rose from the Irish on both sides of the river, the heart of the besieged died within them. One who endured the unutterable anguish of that moment has told us that they looked fearfully livid in each other's eyes. Even after the barricade had been passed, there was a terrible half-hour of suspense. It was ten o'clock before the ships arrived at the quay. The whole population was there to welcome them. A screen made of casks filled with earth was hastily thrown up to protect the landing place from the batteries on the other side of the river, and then the work of unloading began. First were rolled on shore barrels containing six thousand bushels of meal Then came great cheeses, casks of beef, flitches of bacon, kegs of butter, sacks of peas and biscuit, ankers of brandy. Not many hours before, half a pound of tallow and three-quarters of a pound of salted hide had been weighed out with niggardly care to every fighting man The ration which each now received was three pounds of flour, two pounds of beef, and a pint of peas. It is easy to imagine with what tears grace was said over the suppers of that evening. There was little sleep on either side of the wall. The bonfires shone bright along the

whole circuit of the ramparts. The Irish guns continued to roar all night, and all night the bells of the rescued city made answer to the Irish guns with a peal of joyous defiance. Through the three following days the batteries of the enemy continued to play. But on the third night flames were seen arising from the camp; and, when the first of August dawned, a line of smoking ruins marked the site lately occupied by the huts of the besiegers, and the citizens saw far off the long column of spikes and standards retreating up the left bank of the Foyle towards Strabane.

A

Five generations have since passed away, and still the wall of Londonderry is to the Protestants of Ulster what the trophy of Marathon was to the Athenians. lofty pillar, rising from a bastion which bore during many weeks the heaviest fire of the enemy, is seen far up and down the Foyle. On the summit is the statue of Walker, such as when, in the last and most terrible emergency, his eloquence roused the fainting courage of his brethren. In one hand he grasps a Bible; the other, pointing down the river, seems to direct the eyes of his famished audience to the English topmasts in the distant bay. Such a monument was well deserved; yet it was scarcely needed, for in truth the whole city is to this day a monument of the great deliverance. The wall is carefully preserved; nor would any plea of health or convenience be held by the inhabitants sufficient to justify the demolition of that sacred enclosure which, in the evil time, gave shelter to their race and their religion. The summit of the ramparts

forms a pleasant walk. The bastions have been turned to little gardens. Here and there, among the shrubs and flowers, may be seen the old culverins which scattered bricks, cased with lead, among the Irish ranks. One antique gun, the gift of the fishmongers of London, was distinguished during the hundred and five memorable days by the loudness of its report, and still bears the name of Roaring Meg. The cathedral is filled with relics and trophies. In the vestibule is a huge shell, one of many hundreds of shells which were thrown into the city. Over the altar are still seen the French flagstaves, taken by the garrison in a desperate sally. The white ensigns of the Bourbons have long been dust, but their place has been supplied by new banners, the work of the fairest hands in Ulster. The anniversary of the day on which the gates were closed, and the anniversary of the day on which the siege was raised, have been down to our own time celebrated by salutes, processions, banquets, and sermons. There is still a Walker Club and a Murray Club. The humble tombs of the Protestant captains have been carefully sought out, repaired, and embellished. It is impossible not to respect the sentiment which indicates itself by these tokens. It is a sentiment which belongs to the higher and purer part of human nature, and which adds not a little to the strength of states. people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote descendants. Yet it is impossible for the moralist or the statesman to look with unmixed complacency on the solemnities with which Londonderry commemorates her deliverance, and on the honours which she pays to those who saved her. Unhappily, the animosities of her brave champions have descended with their glory. The faults which are ordinarily found in dominant castes and dominant sects have not seldom shown themselves without disguise at her festivities; and even with the expressions of pious

A

gratitude which have resounded from her pulpits have too often been mingled words of wrath and defiance. (From History of England, Chap. XII.; Works, 1866,

vol. ii.)

Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay (1876) is one of the great biographies of the nineteenth century. Interesting criticisms of Macaulay may be found in J. Cotter Morison's Macaulay (English Men of Letters' series), in Leslie Stephen's Hours in a Library, in Bagehot's Literary Studies, in John Morley's Critical Miscellanies, and in vol. ii. of M. Taine's History of English Literature. His accuracy has been disputed by John Paget, in his New Examen (1861) and Puzzles and Paradoxes (1874); by James Spedding, in Evenings with a Reviewer (1881); and by Sir J. F. Stephen, in The Story of Nuncomar (1885).

RICHARD LODGE.

John Austin (1790-1859), born at Creeting Mill, Suffolk, served some five years in the army in Sicily and Malta, but in 1818 was called to the Bar. In 1820 he married Sarah Taylor (daughter of John Taylor of Norwich;' see Vol. II. p. 742), and from 1826 to 1832, when he resigned from lack of students, was Professor of Jurisprudence in the newly founded university of London (now University College). His Province of Jurisprudence Determined, defining (on a utilitarian basis) the sphere of ethics and law, practically revolutionised English views on the subject. He was once or twice put upon a royal commission, but his health was bad; in 1841-44 he lived in Germany, and in 1844-48 in Paris. The Revolution of 1848 drove him back to England, and he then settled at Weybridge, where he died. His Lectures on Jurisprudence were published by his widow (1863; new ed. by Campbell, 1869). A Memoir by Mrs Austin was prefixed to a new edition of the Province (1861). Mrs Austin (1793-1867) was known by her translations from German and French, including Ranke's Popes and Guizot's Civilisation, and wrote books on Germany and national education. The only child of this gifted couple, Lucie (1821-69), who married Sir Alexander Duff Gordon (1811–72; latterly a Commissioner of Inland Revenue), was also an accomplished translator from the German, and in South Africa, whither she had gone for her health, indited her vivacious Letters from the Cape (1862; new ed., with preface by George Meredith, 1903). From 1862 she lived, almost like a native, on the Nile or in Egypt, whence she sent to the press two series of Letters from Egypt. See Three Generations of Englishwomen (1889), by Janet Ross, daughter of Lady Duff Gordon; who has also written several books on things Tuscan.

John Kitto (1804-54), son of a Plymouth stone-mason, worked at his father's craft, but in 1817 became stone-deaf through a fall, and, sent to the workhouse, learned shoemaking. In 1824 he went to Exeter to learn dentistry; in 1825 he published Essays and Letters; at the Missionary College at Islington he learned printing; in 1829-33 he accompanied a patron on a tour to the East. The rest of his life was spent in the service of the publishers, chiefly in that of Charles Knight. His

principal works are The Pictorial Bible (1838; new ed. 1855); two works on Palestine; one of powerful autobiographical interest, on The Lost SensesDeafness and Blindness (1845); Daily Bible Illustrations (1849-53; new ed. by Dr Porter, 1867); and he edited the Journal of Sacred Literature. He was a D.D. of Giessen; and there are Lives of him by Ryland (1856) and Eadie (1857).

Henry Rogers (1806-77), born at St Albans, became a Congregational preacher, and was Professor of English at University College, London (1836-39), and at Spring Hill College, Birmingham, and president (1858-71) of the Lancashire Independent College, Manchester. Having made a first venture with a volume of Poems Miscellaneous and Sacred (1826), he contributed admirable critical and biographical articles to the Edinburgh (republished in 1850-55 as Essays), and wrote much also for other reviews and magazines, as also for the Encyclopædia Britannica. Among his more notable works are a Life of John Howe (1836); The Eclipse of Faith (1852), a criticism of various current forms of religious unbeliefs, and a Defence (1854) of it in reply to F. W. Newman; an Essay on Thomas Fuller (1856); and The Superhuman Origin of the Bible (1873; 9th ed., with Memoir by Dr Dale, 1893).

Philip Henry, Earl Stanhope (1805-75), a descendant of the first Earl of Chesterfield, and fourth in descent from the first Earl of Stanhope, Prime Minister of England in 1717, was known as Lord Mahon until he succeeded his father in the earldom in 1855. Educated at Oxford, he entered the House of Commons as a moderate Tory in 1830, and was successively Foreign Under-Secretary and President of the Indian Board of Control under Peel, who made him one of his literary executors. It was he that introduced the Copyright Bill of 1842, which, with Macaulay's amendments, became the Act still in force. His first work that drew attention was the History of the War of the Succession in Spain (1832), which was praised, with some reservations, by Macaulay in the Edinburgh Review. It was followed four years later by the first volume of his History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles (1836-54), which, when supplemented with the Life of William Pitt (1861) and the History of the Reign of Queen Anne (1870), became a complete history of England in the eighteenth century, and, in spite of later and more ambitious writers, is not yet out of date. Some chapters of it were afterwards published separately in two small volumes, entitled 'The Forty-Five' and A History of British India till the Peace of 1783. Stanhope undoubtedly, as Macaulay allowed, had many of the best qualities of an historian, 'great diligence in examining authorities, great judgment in weighing testimony, and great impartiality in estimating characters.' His experience as a politician had taught him to understand the springs of political history, and his acquaintance with many of those who had been

actors in some of the scenes he describes avails often to give authentic vividness to his narrative. While neither a brilliant writer nor a deep or original thinker, he is to be ranked among the most trustworthy and agreeable of English historians. His industry as a writer was untiring and various. He published a History of Spain under Charles II., a collection of Essays and Miscellanies, and two short biographies of Belisarius and the great Condé, the latter an admirable monograph originally written and issued privately in French. He was editor also of Peel's Memoirs and Chesterfield's Letters, and was mainly instrumental in procuring the appointment of the Historical MSS. Commission and the foundation of the National Portrait Gallery.

The Surrender at Brihuega.

Their left wing under Stanhope consisted of eight battalions and as many squadrons; all of them English except only one battalion of Portuguese, and even that commanded by English officers. Thinned as were both battalions and squadrons by this toilsome campaign, the total numbers did not exceed 5500 men. It had been agreed with Staremberg that he and Stanhope should proceed in parallel lines. Stanhope was to march in four days from Chinchon to Brihuega, and there halt to give his troops some rest and to bake for them some bread, while Staremberg did the like at Cifuentes, the two places being about five hours' march from each other. Brihuega is a town of great antiquity; the Roman Centobriga, built on the River Tajuna and with high uplands around it on every side but one. For its defence it had only a decaying Moorish wall.

In pursuance of this plan, Stanhope had entered Brihuega late at night on the 6th of December. Next day he employed himself in collecting corn and in baking loaves. So adverse to him was the disposition in all Castille that neither at Brihuega nor through his four days' march did he receive the slightest intimation of the enemy's advance. It was therefore with surprise that, on the morning of the 8th, he observed some of their horse on the brow of the neighbouring hills. His surprise increased when, early in the afternoon, there appeared some infantry also. Till that time,' he writes, 'nobody with me, nor I believe did the Marshal, imagine that they had any foot within some days' march of us. And our misfortune is owing to the incredible diligence which their army made; for having, as we have since learnt, decamped from Talavera on the 1st of December, they arrived before Brihuega on the 8th, which is forty-five long leagues.'

In face of a force so superior to his own, Stanhope could not attempt to march out of Brihuega and seek a junction with Staremberg. He despatched one of his aides-de-camp full speed to apprise the Marshal of his danger, gave a becoming answer to a summons of sur render which was sent him by Vendome, and prepared for a resolute defence until succour should arrive. Al that night his men were most actively employed in barricading the gates and making loopholes for musketry in the houses.

Before sunset there had already come up 6000 of the enemy's cavalry and 3000 of their foot. Vendome sent the Marquis of Valdecañas with one division to seize the bridge over the Tajuna, which was outside the town; and

he completed his investment of the latter. Towards midnight he was joined by several more bodies of his troops, with twelve pieces of the battering train. These he at once disposed in due order, and at daybreak of the 9th of December they began to play. Two breaches were soon made in the old Moorish wall. Through these the Spaniards poured in. But the English had cast up entrenchments behind the breaches, as also barricades across the streets, and they continued to defend themselves with the utmost intrepidity. Several times were the assailants driven back in disarray.

After some hours of sharp conflict a short pause ensued. But at three in the afternoon Vendome, having sent a second summons, which was rejected like the former, gave orders for a general assault. Besides playing fieldpieces from the hills, which were so close as to command most of the streets, and besides renewing the onset in the two breaches, he sprang a mine under one of the gates. Some of his men, moreover, found means to break passages through the wall into houses which adjoined it; and there they established themselves in force before they were perceived. The English, however, with unabated spirit still fought on. Still on every point they beat back their assailants. How many an anxious look must they meanwhile have cast to the opposite heights, on which they expected every moment to see Staremberg and his army appear! Hour after hour passed and no sign of such succour came. Still worse was the rumour now rife among themselves, that their own ammunition had begun to fail.

...

Even then the resistance of these stout soldiers did not cease. 'Even with bayonets'-so writes Stanhope to Lord Dartmouth-'the enemy were more than once driven out by some of our troops who had spent their shot; and when no other remedy was left, the town was preserved some time by putting fire to the houses which they had possessed, and where many of them were destroyed; . . . and when things were reduced to the last extremity, that the enemy had a considerable body of men in the town, and that in our whole garrison we had not five hundred men who had any ammunition left, I thought myself obliged in conscience to save so many brave men, who had done good service to the Queen, and will, I hope, live to do so again. So about seven of the clock I beat the chamade, and obtained the capitulation of which I send your Lordship the copy.'

In this capitulation the enemy had been willing to grant most honourable terms; and on these terms then did Stanhope and his gallant little army become prisoners of war. Their defence of Brihuega had cost them 600 men in killed and wounded, while that of the Spaniards was acknowledged by themselves as double, and may even have amounted to 1500, which was Stanhope's computation. (From the History of England, Chap. XIII.)

Lord North's Resignation of Office.

For some time past it had been manifest—and to none more clearly than to Lord North-that although the downfall of the Ministry might be a little delayed or a little quickened, it could not, at that juncture, be averted. With honest zeal he had been striving to reconcile the King's mind to this unavoidable necessity. On the 10th, at last, His Majesty agreed that the Chancellor should see Lord Rockingham, and learn from him on what terms he might be willing to construct another Ministry. Lord Rockingham's demands were found to be, that a Ministry

should be formed on the basis of peace and economy, and that three Bills—namely, Sir Philip Clerke's on Contractors, Mr Burke's on Economical Reform, and Mr Crewe's on Revenue Officers-should be made Government measures. To the basis Thurlow offered no objection, but he would by no means consent to the three Bills. At last, in a final conference with Rockingham, the Chancellor broke off in much wrath, declaring (and with many an oath, no doubt) that he would have no further communication with a man who thought the exclusion of a contractor from Parliament, and the disfranchisement of an exciseman, of more importance than the salvation of the country at this crisis. 'Lord Rockingham,' added he, 'is bringing things to a pass where either his head or the King's must go, in order to settle which of them is to govern the country!'

Scarcely less ardent were, at one time, the feelings of the Sovereign himself. He contemplated with the utmost aversion his return to the oligarchy of the great Whig Houses. He had even some design of taking his departure for Hanover if the terms required of him should be altogether irreconcilable with his sense of right. Such a design had once before arisen in his mind in the midst of the Gordon riots. We now find a mysterious hint of it in his letters to Lord North; and it is certain, writes Horace Walpole, that for a fortnight together the Royal yacht was expediting and preparing for his voyage. What further steps His Majesty may have had in view -whether his recession was to be permanent or temporary - whether he meant to leave the Queen as Regent or to take her and the Princes with him-can at present only be surmised.

It appears, however, that by degrees the King became more reconciled to the present, or more hopeful of the future. Lord North being with him on the afternoon of the 20th, His Majesty acknowledged that, considering the temper of the Commons, he thought the administration at an end. Then, Sir,' said Lord North, 'had I not better state the fact at once?'-' Well, you may do so,' replied the King. Eager to make use of this permission, Lord North hastened down to the House of Commons in Court dress. He rose to speak at the same moment with Lord Surrey, and neither would give way. Loud were the shouts and cries in that thronged House; the one party calling for Lord Surrey, and the other for Lord North. At length, to restore some order, Fox moved 'That the Earl of Surrey do first speak.' But immedi ately Lord North, with presence of mind mixed with pleasantry, started up again. 'I rise,' he said, 'to speak to that motion;' and, as his reason for opposing it, stated that he had resigned, and that the Ministry was no more. Next, in some farewell sentences, he proceeded, with excellent taste and temper, to thank the House for their kindness and indulgence, and he would add forbearance, during so many years. And finally, to leave time for his successors, he proposed and carried an adjournment of some days.

There was on this occasion another slight but characteristic incident which more than one eye-witness has recorded. It was a cold wintry evening, with a fall of snow. The other Members, in expectation of a long debate, had dismissed their carriages. Lord North, on the contrary, had kept his waiting. He put into it one or two of his friends, whom he invited to go home with him; and then, turning to the crowd chiefly composed of his bitter enemies, as they stood shivering and clustering