George Canning, the eldest son and heir of Garvagh, had the misfortune to incur the parental displeasure by falling in love without his father's consent. Of this incident, which exercised a material influence over subsequent events, no particulars have transpired. Nothing is known of the lady or the liaison, farther than that the father disinherited the son, and dismissed him from his house with a scanty allowance of £150 a year, accompanied by a stern announcement that the offender was to look for no more from his bounty for the rest of his life. It is impossible to believe that so venial an offense could have been visited by so vindictive a punishment, unless the family dissensions had been aggravated by other circumstances. Strong political differences existed between father and son. The son

had taken the liberty of choosing for himself in politics, as he had done in love, and the one was no more to be forgiven than the other. The father thought he had a right to select opinions as well as wives for his children; and, being a gentleman of implacable temper and violent prejudices, he seized upon the first tangible excuse that offered, to drive forth upon the world a son who had so much sense and liberality as to embrace principles the very reverse of his own.

In 1757 we find George Canning in London, banished from his native country, which he was doomed never to see again. In that year he entered the Middle Temple, and in due time was called to the English bar. But he never practiced his profession. Politics and literature, either from choice or necessity, drew him off from the study of law, and it was natural enough that the conversation of poets and quidnuncs should possess greater attractions for a young barrister without connections, than the uncertain prospects of Westminster Hall. The

favorable reception given to several fugitive verses which he contributed to the miscellanies of the day, confirmed his alienation, while the freedom of his principles procured him the intimate friendship of Wilkes, in whose affairs he seems to have taken a zealous interest. Churchill, Lloyd, and Whitbread, the elder Colman, the good-natured Mr. Cambridge, and doubtless many other wits and poetasters of Dodsley's, were among his associates and acquaintances; and although he never obtained much distinction as a writer, his claims to admission into the literary circles were cheerfully conceded on all hands.*

The first publication by which he attracted notice was an ardent defense of civil and religious liberty, in a poem entitled "An Epistle from William Lord Russell to William Lord Cavendish," supposed to have been written by the former on the night before his execution. This piece was published in 1763, and met with such success as to reach a second edition in a few months. Its reception must be attributed solely to the boldness of its political doctrines, for its literary claims are very slender. But the author makes some compensation for the feeble monotony of his lines by his vigorous horror of priestly intolerance and kingly tyranny. He was fortunate, also, in appearing at a

moment when such sentiments were certain to cover a multitude of worse sins than indifferent verse.

* It is not improbable that Mr. Canning may have contributed to the latter part of the collection of poems made by Dodsley, who published nearly all his works; but, after a diligent inquiry on the subject, I can not trace any evidence of the fact. A writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine" (vol. xcvii.) says that the Epistle from Lord William Russell to Lord Cavendish is preserved in Dodsley's collection. This is a mistake. No such poem is to be found in the six volumes. Perhaps the writer was led into this error by discovering that Dodsley was the publisher of the epistle.

Noticed with high commendation in the "Monthly Review" for 1763.

The "North Briton" had only recently opened its fire upon Lord Bute and the "Auditor;" and in the state of the public mind at that period, such passages as the following, enunciating the popular doctrine that all power emanates from the people, and is only held in trust for the people, must have been sure of admiring audiences:

"What! shall a tyrant trample on the laws,

And stop the source whence all his power he draws?
His country's rights to foreign foes betray,

Lavish her wealth, yet stipulate for pay?

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*

In luxury's lap lie screen'd from cares and pains,
And only toil to forge his subjects' chains?
And shall he hope the public voice to drown,
The voice which gave, and can resume his crown?"

It would be scarcely just to say that this is a fair sample of the poem. There are better lines in it, and worse. But Mr. Canning evidently laid more stress on his political opinions than on the vehicle through which they were conveyed. Verse was the fashion of the day; and with enough of taste and education to make a correct use of so nice an instrument, he selected it as the most popular medium for the expression of popular opinions. success of the attempt was probably as great as he anticipated. Some passages were praised for their tenderness and pathos, such as the parting address to Lady Rachel Russell, beginning,

"Oh! my loved Rachel! all-accomplished fair, Source of my joy, and soother of my care! Whose heavenly virtues and unfading charms

The

Have blessed, through happy years, my peaceful arms!"* But, notwithstanding occasional touches of this sort of conventional refinement, the main purpose and surviving interest of the piece must be finally

It has been supposed that in this passage Mr. Canning gave vent to his own conjugal feelings; but, unfortunately for this ingenious conjecture, he was not married until five years after the publication of the poem.

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traced to its open and manly advocacy of opinions which could not at that time be avowed without a certain risk of odium and persecution.

Perhaps to that very circumstance may be attributed a fierce attack, which appeared in the "Critical Review," on his next work, “A Translation of Anti-Lucretius, by George Canning, of the Middle Temple," published by Dodsley in 1766. This volume contained an English version of the first three books of Cardinal Polignac's well-known poem, in which the doctrines of various schools of philosophers, but especially that of Lucretius, were dissected with masterly power, and in a style at once compact and graceful.* Upon the whole, the translation was diffuse, and occasionally careless and inelegant; but the writer in the Review exceeded all reasonable bounds of animadversion, and ran into such outrageous abuse of the book as to draw an indignant rejoinder from Mr. Canning. The "Critical Review" was notorious for the scurrilous malignity of its articles, which frequently descended to the lowest personalities; and Smollet, who appears to have done his best, or his worst, to deserve the distinction, generally got credit for all papers of an offensive character which appeared in its pages. On this occasion Mr. Canning attacked him unsparingly with his own weapons, and got the best of the argument as well as of the abuse. But Smollet had no character to lose, and suffered such things with the impunity which attaches to people who can not be much farther damaged by exposure. He

* A translation of the first book had been previously made (1757) by Mr. Dobson (the translator into Latin of the "Paradise Lost"), and reviewed by Oliver Goldsmith in the "Monthly Review," vol. xvii., p. 44. See "Prior's Life of Goldsmith," passim.

"An Appeal to the Public from the malicious Representations, impudent Falsifications, and unjust Decisions of the anonymous Fabricators of the Critical Review.' By George Canning, of the Middle Temple. Provoco ad populum. Dodsley. 1767."