Having made these few preliminary remarks, we shall proceed to give our readers an outline of the contents of this work, and one or two specimens of the manner in which it is executed. If we were to present them with every thing in it that is striking, we should very far indeed exceed our limits. We merely wish to do enough to stimulate curiosity as to a book which very well deserves to be read through, whether it be with a view to amusement or instruction. Lord Charlemont was born in 1728. After an education, the advantages of which do not appear to have completely corresponded with his rank and fortune, he went abroad at the age of 18. Few men, it seems, ever travelled to better purpose. In an absence of ten years from home, he visited every part of Europe that was worth attention, and formed a personal acquaintance with almost every individual that was conspicuous in literature or politics; and thus acquired those elegant manners, those liberal views, and that inexhaustible fund of agreeable information, for which he was remarkable through life. Among his illustrious acquaintance were Hume and Montesquieu. Hume appears to have been desirous to find in him, not only a friend, but a disciple: but though he felt a just admiration for the talents of this great historian and political philosopher, and bore willing testimony to the active benevolence of his heart, yet he happily remained free from the infection of his ostentatious scepticism and comfortless infidelity. We could, with pleasure, insert the whole of two papers by Lord Charlemont, which Mr. Hardy has given us, relating entirely to Hume, but we must content ourselves with an extract or two. Of all the philosophers of his sect, none, I believe, ever joined more real benevolence to its mischievous principles than my friend Hume. His love to mankind was universal and vehement; and there was no service he would not cheerfully have done to his fellow creatures, excepting only that of suffering them to save their souls in their own way. He was tender-hearted, friendly, and charitable in the extreme, as will appear from a fact, which I bave from good authority. When a member of the University of Edinburgh, and in great want of money, having little or no paternal fortune, and the collegiate stipend being very inconsiderable, he had procured, through the interest of some friend, an office in the University, which was worth about forty pounds a-year. On the day when he had received this good news, and just when he had got into his possession the patent, or grant, entitling him to his office, he was visited by his friend Blacklock, the poet, who is much better known by his poverty and blindness, than by his genius. This poor man began a long descant on his misery, bewailing his want of sight, his large family of children, and his utter inability to provide for them, or even to procure them the necessaries of life. Hume, unable to bear his complaints, and destitute of money to assist him, ran instantly instantly to his desk, took out the grant, and presented it to his miserable friend, who received it with exultation, and whose name was soon aftre, by Hume's interest, inserted instead of his own. After such a relation it is needless that I should say any more of his genuine philanthropy, and generous beneficence: but the difficulty will now occur, how a man, endowed with such qualities, could possibly consent to become an agent of so much mischief, as undoubtedly has been done to mankind by his writings; and this difficulty can only be solved by having recourse to that universal passion, which has, I fear, a much more general influence over all our actions than we are willing to confess. Pride, or vanity, joined to a sceptical turn of mind, and to an education which, though learned, rather sipped knowledge than drank it, was, probably, the ultimate cause of this singular phænomenon: and the desire of being placed at the head of a sect, whose tenets controverted and contradicted all received opinions, was too strong to be resisted by a man, whose genius enabled him to find plausible arguments, sufficient to persuade both himself and many others, that his own opinions were true. A philosophical knight-errant was the dragon he had vowed to vanquish, and he was careless, or thoughtless, of the consequences which might ensue from the achievement of the adventure to which he had pledged himself. He once professed himself the admirer of a young, most beautiful and accomplished lady at Turin, who only laughed at his passion. One day he addressed her in the usual com mon-place strain, that he was abîmé, aneanti. Oh! pour anéanti, replied the lady, ce n'est en effet qu'une opération très naturelle de votre systéme.'-p. 10. There is another paper, equally interesting, which gives an account of a visit to Montesquieu at his country seat near Bourdeaux, but we have not room to insert in entire, and it would suffer from abridgement. In the year 1755, Lord Charlemont returned to Ireland, where, more, we should suppose, from duty than inclination, he determined for the future to reside. The return of so considerable and so accomplished a gentleman, appears to have made a great impression in a country where the union of rank, talents, and political integrity, was then far more rare than it has been in our days. He was caressed by all parties, and though very young, employed, with success, in conducting a negociation between the Primate Stone and Mr. Boyle, by which Mr. Boyle's long course of patriotic opposition was crowned with the accustomed rewards of pension and peerage. But notwithstanding the favourable reception he experienced, there were many circumstances which must have rendered a residence in Ireland far from inviting to a person like Lord Charlemont. He was separated from all his friends, and became a member of a turbulent, half-civilized, and dependant community. Ireland was only beginning to rise from that state of depression to which a com VOL. VI. NO. XI. bination bination of unfortunate circumstances had hitherto condemned it. It was governed successively by different juntos of ferocious nobles and low jobbing politicians, who had no common feeling, and regarded themselves as having no common interest with a people which they treated with cruelty, and contempt, and by which they were regarded with detestation and horror. A few attempts at amelioration Lad been made, but chietly by persons whose principles and views naturally united against them the whole property of Ireland, and the whole people and property of England; and even justice was not a sufficient recommendation to a cause which had found its principal advocates among the known enemies to the religion of the empire, and to the family on the throne. The dependence of Ireland was a fundamental article in the creed of every English minister; and even Mr. Pelham, though mild in his government, and zealously attached to the principles of freedom, would have started back with horror at the bare mention of those concessions which, in thirty years from his time, statesmen of a less popular cast found themselves unable to refuse. Nothing could be more dismal or hopeless than the state of both houses of parliament. They afforded little or no scope for honest ambition or liberal accomplishments. That of which Lord Charlemont was by birth a member, 'met-heard prayers'—' ordered that the judges might be covered'—and then adjourned—and this for whole sessions together was all this noble assembly did, and pretty nearly all that it could do. The House of Commons was more active, but it, too, sympathized with the degraded state of the country. The subjects in discussion were low, and its eloquence did not rise above the subjects. We shall give Mr. Hardy's own account of it: Refinement of language was not to be found in parliament at this time, nor for many years preceding; so far from it, that an unlettered style, almost approaching to coarseness and vulgarity, was the only one permitted by the House of Commons. Some of the old members insisted that business could not be carried on in any other, and the young members, till Mr. Hutchinson appeared, would not venture to contradict them.' It required, however, no great prophetic powers to foresee that this state of things was fast approaching to an end. The country had already begun, in spite of a thousand obstacles, to participate in the general prosperity of the empire. It was increasing fast (though not so rapidly as of late years) in wealth, population, and in the consciousness of its own importance. A struggle about a trifling object in 1753, displayed a spirit which, when roused, might occasion important changes; and the more sagacious politicians on this side the channel already perceived that Ireland was in future to become an important, portant, and perhaps an embarrassing subject of attention to the English cabinet. Soon after the time when Lord Charlemont entered into public life, some very conspicuous persons began to appear on the theatre of public affairs in that country: of these Mr. Hardy has given us a very interesting account. In treating of a book upon Irish politics, we might, perhaps, with greater propriety, select the character of a purely Irish statesman; but we suspect the curiosity of our readers will be more gratified by a few particulars in addition to those of which they are already in possession from other sources, relative to an English gentleman who at this period enjoyed a high office, and a still higher reputation in Ireland-we mean Mr. Secretary Hamilton, a man alike remarkable for what he did, and for what he did not do. 'He (Lord Halifax) was attended to Ireland by a gentleman who derived no celebrity from his ancestors, however respectable, but was the founder of his own fame and fortune.-This was Mr. Gerard Hamilton, eminent for his very singular talents, and as much distinguished by his speech, as his silence, in the House of Commons. The uncommon splendour of his eloquence, which was succeeded by such inflexible taciturnity in St. Stephen's Chapel, became the subject, as might be supposed, of much, and idle speculation. The truth is, that all his speeches, whether delivered in London or Dublin, were not only prepared, but studied, with a minuteness and exactitude, of which those who are only used to the carelessness of modern debating can scarcely form any idea. Lord Charlemont, who had been long and intimately acquainted with him, previous to his coming to Ireland, often mentioned that he was the only speaker, among the many he had heard, of whom he could say, with certainty, that all his speeches, however long, were written and got by heart. A gentleman, well known to his Lordship and Hamilton, assured him, that he had heard Hamilton repeat, no less than three times, an oration, which he afterwards spoke in the House of Commons, and lasted almost three hours. As a debater, therefore, he became as useless to his political patrons as Addison was to Lord Sunderland; and, if possible, he was more scrupulous in composition than even that eminent man. Addison would stop the press to correct the most trivial error in a large publication; and Hamilton, as I can assert, on indubitable authority, would recall the footman, if, on recollection, any word, in his opinion, was misplaced, or improper, in the slightest note to a familiar acquaintance. Painful pre-eminence! Yet this weigher of words, and balancer of sentences, was most easy and agreeable in conversation. He passed his time, except with unnecessary anxiety as to his literary fame, unembarrassed and cheerful, among a few select friends of either sex; (to the fair sex he rendered himself peculiarly acceptable ;) intriguing statesmen, and grave philosophers. Johnson highly valued him, and was never slow or reluctant in acknowledging the superiority of his talents, or the generosity of his 1 2 disposition disposition towards those whom he valued and admired.'-pp. 60, 61. The appellation of Single-speech Hamilton bestowed upon this gentleman, is not to be understood literally; but only as referring to the transcendant superiority (real or supposed) of his first speech in the English parliament over any of his subsequent performance. But in that parliament he spoke more than once, and in the Irish House of Commons, though not a regular debater, he delivered several specimens of that prepared, elaborate, and finished eloquence which was so much in vogue among the ancients, but which has been almost extinguished by the suddenness and multiplicity of business in modern deliberative assemblies. Before we quit this period we shall extract one more portrait, that of the Earl of Carhampton, not because it is the best, but becaue it occupies less space than some which are equally interesting and well executed. Simon Luttrell, Earl of Carhampton, was descended from a long line of progenitors, who, for several centuries, were seated at Luttrellstown, in the county of Dublin, where, as well as in other counties of Ireland, they had very large possessions. The immediate ancestors of Lord Carhampton, or some of them at least, followed the fortunes of James the Second. His uncle held a high rank in that prince's army, and was by him appointed a privy councillor of Ireland on the same day with the celebrated Anthony, Count Hamilton. He was killed at the battle of Landen. Lord Carhampton was bred up in political principles directly opposite to those of his ancestors, and received the first part of his education at Eton, where he formed early habits of intimacy with Lord Camden, whose age corresponded exactly with his own. He was a distinguished member of the House of Lords in Ireland for many years, though by no means young when he took his seat in that assembly. Whilst he was there, he spoke with his accustomed wit and humour, great perspicuity, adroitness, knowledge of mankind, quickness in perceiving, and rallying the foibles of his adversaries, stimulating, if it suited his purpose, a warm temper to warmth still greater, with a general vigilance, and command of his own. To oratory he laid no claim. He was well versed in the proceedings of parliament, as, for the best part of his life, he had sat in the English House of Commons, where, though he did not press forward as a constant debater, he was a most keen and accurate observer of all that passed. As a companion a more agreeable man could scarcely be found. He was the delight of those whose society he frequented, whilst he resided in Dublin, as he did almost constantly towards the close of his life. His conversation (for I had long the honour and happiness of partaking of it) was charming; full of sound sense, perfect acquaintance with the histories of the most distinguished persons of his own age, and that which preceded it; without the least garrulity pursuing various narratives, and enlivening all with the most graceful original humour. In many respects it resembled that species of conversation which the French, at a period when society was best understood, distinguished above all other collo quial |