Chapter XXXIII: Part 33

With all his faults,--and they were neither few nor small--only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very spot probably, four-score years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughmen. Even then his young mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line--not only had he repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwelling--he had preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He had patronised learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave in the fulness of age, in peace, after so many troubles, in honour, after so much obloquy.

Those who look on his character without favour or malevolence will pronounce that, in the two great elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command, for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless courage, his honourable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests of the State, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either.

LORD HOLLAND

(July 1841) _The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded in the journals of the House of Lords from 1797 to 1841. Collected and edited by D. C. MOYLAN, of Lincoln’s Inn, Barrister-at-law. 8vo. London: 1841._

MANY reasons make it impossible for us to lay before our readers, at the present moment, a complete view of the character and public career of the late Lord Holland. But we feel that we have already deferred too long the duty of paying some tribute to his memory. We feel that it is more becoming to bring without further delay an offering, though intrinsically of little value, than to leave his tomb longer without some token of our reverence and love.

We shall say very little of the book which lies on our table. And yet it is a book which, even if it had been the work of a less distinguished man, or had appeared under circumstances less interesting, would have well repaid an attentive perusal. It is valuable, both as a record of principles and as a model of composition. We find in it all the great maxims which, during more than forty years, guided Lord Holland’s public conduct, and the chief reasons on which those maxims rest, condensed into the smallest possible space, and set forth with admirable perspicuity, dignity, and precision. To his opinions on Foreign Policy we for the most part cordially assent; but now and then we are inclined to think them imprudently generous. We could not have signed the protest against the detention of Napoleon. The Protest respecting the course which England pursued at the Congress of Verona, though it contains much that is excellent, contains also positions which, we are inclined to think, Lord Holland would, at a later period, have admitted to be unsound. But to all his doctrines on constitutional questions, we give our hearty approbation; and we firmly believe that no British Government has ever deviated from that line of internal policy which he has traced, without detriment to the public.

We will give, as a specimen of this little volume, a single passage, in which a chief article of the political creed of the Whigs is stated and explained, with singular clearness, force, and brevity. Our readers will remember that, in 1825, the Catholic Association raised the cry of emancipation with most formidable effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of removing the grievance they tried to put down the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently sharp and stringent, but in truth utterly impotent, for restraining the right of petition. Lord Holland’s Protest on that occasion is excellent:

“We are,” says he, “well aware that the privileges of the people, the rights of free discussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular institutions, must render,--and they are intended to render,--the continuance of an extensive grievance and of the dissatisfaction consequent thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the country, and ultimately subversive of the authority of the State. Experience and theory alike forbid us to deny that effect of a free constitution; a sense of justice and a love of liberty equally deter us from lamenting it. But we have always been taught to look for the remedy of such disorders in the redress of the grievances which justify them, and in the removal of the dissatisfaction from which they flow--not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in inroads on the right of public discussion, nor in violations of the principles of a free government. If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress, which has been resorted to by persons labouring under grievous disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the State, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since foretold by great authority--namely, that the British constitution, and large exclusions, cannot subsist together; that the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution.”

It was not, however, of this little book, valuable and interesting as it is, but of the author, that we meant to speak; and we will try to do so with calmness and impartiality.

In order to fully appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is necessary to go far back into the history of his family; for he had inherited something more than a coronet and an estate. To the House of which he was the head belongs one distinction which we believe to be without a parallel in our annals. During more than a century, there has never been a time at which a Fox has not stood in a prominent station among public men. Scarcely had the chequered career of the first Lord Holland closed, when his son, Charles, rose to the head of the Opposition, and to the first rank among English debaters. And before Charles was borne to Westminster Abbey a third Fox had already become one of the most conspicuous politicians in the kingdom.

It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common enough in novels, where one picture is good for ten generations, but such as in real life is seldom found. The ample person, the massy and thoughtful forehead, the large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip, the expression, so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet temper, were common to all. But the features of the founder of the House, as the pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens have handed them down to us, were disagreeably harsh and exaggerated. In his descendants, the aspect was preserved, but it was softened, till it became, in the late lord, the most gracious and interesting countenance that was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of intelligence and benevolence.

As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it also with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them all of that clay of which she is most sparing. To all she had given strong reason and sharp wit, a quick relish for every physical and intellectual enjoyment, constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional intrepidity is generally accompanied, spirits which nothing could depress, tempers easy, generous, and placable, and that genial courtesy which has its seat in the heart, and of which artificial politeness is only a faint and cold imitation. Such a disposition is the richest inheritance that ever was entailed on any family.

But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities which nature lavished with such profusion on three generations of the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was a needy political adventurer. He entered public life at a time when the standard of integrity among statesmen was low. He started as the adherent of a minister who had indeed many titles to respect, who possessed eminent talents both for administration and for debate, who understood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country, but who had seen so much perfidy and meanness that he had become sceptical as to the existence of probity. Weary of the cant of patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of hypocrisy which is at least a homage to virtue, he was too much in the habit of practising the less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously displays, and sometimes even simulates vice. To Walpole Fox attached himself, politically and personally, with the ardour which belonged to his temperament. And it is not to be denied that in the school of Walpole he contracted faults which destroyed the value of his many great endowments. He raised himself, indeed, to the first consideration in the House of Commons; he became a consummate master of the art of debate; he attained honours and immense wealth; but the public esteem and confidence were withheld from him. His private friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity and good nature. They maintained that in those parts of his conduct which they could least defend there was nothing sordid, and that, if he was misled, he was misled by amiable feelings, by a desire to serve his friends, and by anxious tenderness for his children. But by the nation he was regarded as a man of insatiable rapacity and desperate ambition; as a man ready to adopt, without scruple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional manners; as a man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing the Parliament by means of secret-service money, and of keeping down the people with the bayonet. Many of his contemporaries had a morality quite as lax as his: but very few among them had his talents, and none had his hardihood and energy. He could not, like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in contempt. He therefore became an object of such general aversion as no statesman since the fall of Strafford has incurred, of such general aversion as was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind and cordial a disposition. A weak mind would have sunk under such a load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firmness from the public hatred. The only effect which reproaches appeared to produce on him, was to sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet temper. The last acts of his public life were marked, not only by that audacity which he had derived from nature, not only by that immorality which he had learned in the school of Walpole, but by a harshness which almost amounted to cruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his character. His severity increased the unpopularity from which it had sprung. The well-known lampoon of Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling of the country. All the images are taken from shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord Holland is represented as complaining, that the cowardice of his accomplices had prevented him from putting down the free spirit of the city of London by sword and fire, and as pining for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul’s.

Within a few months after the death of this remarkable man, his second son Charles appeared at the head of the party opposed to the American War. Charles had inherited the bodily and mental constitution of his father, and had been much, far too much, under his father’s influence. It was indeed impossible that a son of so affectionate and noble a nature should not have been warmly attached to a parent who possessed many fine qualities, and who carried his indulgence and liberality towards his children even to a culpable extent. Charles saw that the person to whom he was bound by the strongest ties was, in the highest degree, odious to the nation; and the effect was what might have been expected from the strong passions and constitutional boldness of so high-spirited a youth. He cast in his lot with his father, and took, while still a boy, a deep part in the most unjustifiable and unpopular measures that had been adopted since the reign of James the Second. In the debates on the Middlesex Election, he distinguished himself, not only by his precocious powers of eloquence, but by the vehement and scornful manner in which he bade defiance to public opinion. He was at that time regarded as a man likely to be the most formidable champion of arbitrary government that had appeared since the Revolution, to be a Bute with far greater powers, a Mansfield with far greater courage. Happily his father’s death liberated him early from the pernicious influence by which he had been misled. His mind expanded. His range of observation became wider. His genius broke through early prejudices. His natural benevolence and magnanimity had fair play. In a very short time he appeared in a situation worthy of his understanding and of his heart. From a family whose name was associated in the public mind with tyranny and corruption, from a party of which the theory and the practice were equally servile, from the midst of the Luttrells, the Dysons, the Barringtons, came forth the greatest parliamentary defender of civil and religious liberty.

The late Lord Holland succeeded to the talents and to the fine natural dispositions of his House. But his situation was very different from that of the two eminent men of whom we have spoken. In some important respects it was better, in some it was worse than theirs. He had one great advantage over them. He received a good political education. The first lord was educated by Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Fox was educated by his father. The late lord was educated by Mr. Fox. The pernicious maxims early imbibed by the first Lord Holland, made his great talents useless and worse than useless to the State. The pernicious maxims early imbibed by Mr. Fox, led him, at the commencement of his public life, into great faults which, though afterwards nobly expiated, were never forgotten. To the very end of his career, small men, when they had nothing else to say in defence of their own tyranny, bigotry, and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment of the lord mayor, and other measures in which the great Whig leader had borne a part at the age of one or two and twenty. On Lord Holland no such slur could be thrown. Those who most dissent from his opinions must acknowledge that a public life more consistent is not to be found in our annals. Every part of it is in perfect harmony with every other part; and the whole is in perfect harmony with the great principles of toleration and civil freedom. This rare felicity is in a great measure to be attributed to the influence of Mr. Fox. Lord Holland, as was natural in a person of his talents and expectations, began at a very early age to take the keenest interest in politics; and Mr. Fox found the greatest pleasure in forming the mind of so hopeful a pupil. They corresponded largely on political subjects when the young lord was only sixteen; and their friendship and mutual confidence continued to the day of that mournful separation at Chiswick. Under such training such a man as Lord Holland was in no danger of falling into those faults which threw a dark shade over the whole career of his grandfather, and from which the youth of his uncle was not wholly free.

On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as compared with his grandfather and his uncle, laboured under one great disadvantage. They were members of the House of Commons. He became a Peer while still an infant. When he entered public life, the House of Lords was a very small and a very decorous assembly. The minority to which he belonged was scarcely able to muster five or six votes on the most important nights, when eighty or ninety lords were present. Debate had accordingly become a mere form, as it was in the Irish House of Peers before the Union. This was a great misfortune to a man like Lord Holland. It was not by occasionally addressing fifteen or twenty solemn and unfriendly auditors that his grandfather and his uncle attained their unrivalled parliamentary skill. The former had learned his art in “the great Walpolean battles,” on nights when Onslow was in the chair seventeen hours without intermission, when the thick ranks on both sides kept unbroken order till long after the winter sun had risen upon them, when the blind were led out by the hand into the lobby and the paralytic laid down in their bed-clothes on the benches. The powers of Charles Fox were, from the first, exercised in conflicts not less exciting. The great talents of the late Lord Holland had no such advantage. This was the more unfortunate, because the peculiar species of eloquence which belonged to him in common with his family required much practice to develop it. With strong sense, and the greatest readiness of wit, a certain tendency to hesitation was hereditary in the line of Fox. This hesitation arose, not from the poverty, but from the wealth of their vocabulary. They paused, not from the difficulty of finding one expression, but from the difficulty of choosing between several. It was only by slow degrees and constant exercise that the first Lord Holland and his son overcame the defect. Indeed neither of them overcame it completely.

In statement, the late Lord Holland was not successful; his chief excellence lay in reply. He had the quick eye of his house for the unsound parts of an argument, and a great felicity in exposing them. He was decidedly more distinguished in debate than any peer of his time who had not sat in the House of Commons. Nay, to find his equal among persons similarly situated, we must go back eighty years to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, Thurlow, Loughborough, Grey, Grenville, Brougham, Plunkett, and other eminent men, living and dead, whom we will not stop to enumerate, carried to the Upper House an eloquence formed and matured in the Lower. The opinion of the most discerning judges was that Lord Holland’s oratorical performances, though sometimes most successful, afforded no fair measure of his oratorical powers, and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to listen to his conversation without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the greatest good nature and good breeding, he was the very opposite to an assenter. The word “disputatious” is generally used as a word of reproach; but we can express our meaning only by saying that Lord Holland was most courteously and pleasantly disputatious. In truth, his quickness in discovering and apprehending distinctions and analogies was such as a veteran judge might envy. The lawyers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonished to find in an unprofessional man so strong a relish for the esoteric parts of their science, and complained that as soon as they had split a hair, Lord Holland proceeded to split the filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind less happily constituted, there might have been a risk that this turn for subtilty would have produced serious evil. But in the heart and understanding of Lord Holland there was ample security against all such danger. He was not a man to be the dupe of his own ingenuity. He put his logic to its proper use; and in him the dialectician was always subordinate to the statesman.

His political life is written in the chronicles of his country. Perhaps, as we have already intimated, his opinions on two or three great questions of foreign policy were open to just objection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, were amiable and respectable. We are not sure that we do not love and admire him the more because he was now and then seduced from what we regard as a wise policy by sympathy with the oppressed, by generosity towards the fallen, by a philanthropy so enlarged that it took in all nations, by love of peace, a love which in him was second only to the love of freedom, and by the magnanimous credulity of a mind which was as incapable of suspecting as of devising mischief.

To his views on questions of domestic policy the voice of his countrymen does ample justice. They revere the memory of the man who was, during forty years, the constant protector of all oppressed races and persecuted sects, of the man whom neither the prejudices nor the interests belonging to his station could seduce from the path of right, of the noble, who in every great crisis cast in his lot with the commons, of the planter, who made manful war on the slave-trade of the landowner, whose whole heart was in the struggle against the corn-laws.

We have hitherto touched almost exclusively on those parts of Lord Holland’s character which were open to the observation of millions. How shall we express the feelings with which his memory is cherished by those who were honoured with his friendship? Or in what language shall we speak of that house, once celebrated for its rare attractions to the furthest ends of the civilised world, and now silent and desolate as the grave? To that house, a hundred and twenty years ago, a poet addressed those tender and graceful lines, which have now acquired a new meaning not less sad than that which they originally bore:

“Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace, Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick’s noble race, Why, once so loved, whene’er thy bower appears, O’er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears? How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair, Thy sloping walks and unpolluted air! How sweet the glooms beneath thine aged trees, Thy noon-tide shadow and thine evening breeze His image thy forsaken bowers restore; Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more No more the summer in thy glooms allayed, Thine evening breezes, and thy noon-day shade.”

Yet a few years, and the shades and structures may follow their illustrious masters. The wonderful city which, ancient and gigantic as it is, still continues to grow as fast as a young town of logwood by a water-privilege in Michigan, may soon displace those turrets and gardens which are associated with so much that is interesting and noble, with the courtly magnificence of Rich with the loves of Ormond, with the counsels of Cromwell, with the death of Addison. The time is coming when, perhaps, a few old men, the last survivors of our generation, will in vain seek, amidst new streets, and squares, and railway stations, for the site of that dwelling which was in their youth the favourite resort of wits and beauties, of painters and poets, of scholars, philosophers, and statesmen. They will then remember, with strange tenderness, many objects once familiar to them, the avenue and the terrace, the busts and the paintings, the carving, the grotesque gilding, and the enigmatical mottoes. With peculiar fondness they will recall that venerable chamber, in which all the antique gravity of a college library was so singularly blended with all that female grace and wit could devise to embellish a drawing-room. They will recollect, not unmoved, those shelves loaded with the varied learning of many lands and many ages, and those portraits in which were preserved the features of the best and wisest Englishmen of two generations. They will recollect how many men who have guided the politics of Europe, who have moved great assemblies by reason and eloquence, who have put life into bronze and canvas, or who have left to posterity things so written as it shall not willingly let them die, were there mixed with all that was loveliest and gayest in the society of the most splendid of capitals. They will remember the peculiar character which belonged to that circle, in which every talent and accomplishment, every art and science, had its place. They will remember how the last debate was discussed in one corner, and the last comedy of Scribe in another; while Wilkie gazed with modest admiration on Sir Joshua’s Baretti; while Mackintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation; while Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the Luxembourg, or his ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz. They will remember, above all, the grace, and the kindness, far more admirable than grace, with which the princely hospitality of that ancient mansion was dispensed. They will remember the venerable and benignant countenance and the cordial voice of him who bade them welcome. They will remember that temper which years of pain, of sickness, of lameness, of confinement, seemed only to make sweeter and sweeter, and that frank politeness, which at once relieved all the embarrassment of the youngest and most timid writer or artist, who found himself for the first time among Ambassadors and Earls. They will remember that constant flow of conversation, so natural, so animated, so various, so rich with observation and anecdote; that wit which never gave a wound; that exquisite mimicry which ennobled, instead of degrading; that goodness of heart which appeared in every look and accent, and gave additional value to every talent and acquirement. They will remember, too, that he whose name they hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible uprightness of his political conduct than by his loving disposition and his winning manners. They will remember that, in the last lines which he traced, he expressed his joy that he had done nothing unworthy of the friend of Fox and Grey; and they will have reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back on many troubled years, they cannot accuse themselves of having done anything unworthy of men who were distinguished by the friendship of Lord Holland.

INDEX AND GLOSSARY OF ALLUSIONS

ACBAR, contemporary with Elizabeth, firmly established the Mogul rule in India; Aurungzebe (1659-1707) extended the Mogul Empire over South India.

Aislabie, Chancellor of the Exchequer; forfeited most of his huge profits.

Alexander VI., Pope, father of Lucretia and Caesar Borgia. He obtained his office by bribery and held it by a series of infamous crimes (d. 1503).

Alguazils, “a Spanish adaptation of the Arabic al-wazir, the minister and used in Spanish both for a justiciary and a bailiff.” Here it implies cruel and extortionate treatment.

Allipore, a suburb of Calcutta.

Amadis, the model knight who is the hero of the famous mediaeval prose-romance of the same title. Of Portuguese origin, it was afterwards translated and expanded in Spanish and in French.

Aminta, a pastoral play composed by Tasso in 1581.

Antiochus and Tigranes, overthrown respectively by Pompey, B.C. 65, and Lucullus, B.C. 69.

Atahualpa, King of Peru, captured and put to death by Pizarro in 1532.

Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester and champion of the High Church and Tory party (1662-1732).

Aumils, district governors.

Aurungzebe, dethroned and succeeded Shah Jehan in 1658 (d. 1707).

Austrian Succession, War of (see the Essay on Frederic the Great, vol. v. of this edition).

BABINGTON, Anthony, an English Catholic, executed in 1586 for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth. Everard Digby was concerned in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Babington, an English Catholic executed in 1586 for plotting to assassinate Elizabeth under the instruction of a Jesuit named Ballard.

Ballard. See Babington.

Barbariccia and Draghignazzo, the fiends who torment the lost with hooks in the lake of boiling pitch in Malebolge, the eighth circle in Dante’s Inferno.

Baretti, Giuseppe, an Italian lexiographer who came to London, was patronised by Johnson and became Secretary of the Royal Academy.

Barillon, the French Ambassador in England.

Barnard, Sir John, an eminent London merchant, and Lord Mayor (1685-1764).

Barras, a member of the Jacobin (q. v.) club; he put an end to Robespierre’s Reign of Terror and was a member of the Directory till Napoleon abolished it (d. 1829).

Batavian liberties, Batavia is an old name for Holland; the Celtic tribe known as Batavii once dwelt there.

Bath, Lord, William Pulteney, Sir R. Walpole’s opponent, and author of a few magazine articles (1684-1764).

Belisarius, Justinian’s great general, who successively repulsed the Persians, Vandals, Goths, and Huns, but who, tradition says, was left to become a beggar (d. 565).

Benevolences, royal demands from individuals not sanctioned by Parliament and supposed to be given willingly; declared illegal by the Bill of Rights, 1689.

Bentinck, Lord William, the Governor. General (1828-1835) under whom suttee was abolished, internal communications opened up, and education considerably furthered.

Bentivoglio, Cardinal, a disciple of Galileo, and one of the Inquisitors who signed his condemnation (1579-1641).

Berkeley and Pomfret, where Edward II. and Richard II. respectively met their deaths.

Bernier, a French traveller who wandered over India, 1656-1668.

Blues, The, Royal Horse Guards.

Board of Control, a body responsible to the Ministry with an authoritative parliamentary head established by Pitt’s India Bill (1784).

Bobadil, the braggart hero in Johnson’s Every Man in his Humour,

Bolingbroke, Viscount, Tory Minister under Anne; brought about the Peace of Utrecht, 1713. His genius and daring were undoubted, but as a party leader he failed utterly.

Bolivar, the Washington of South America, who freed Venezuela, Colombia, and Bolivia from Spain (1783-1830).

Bonner, Bishop of London, served “Bloody” Mary’s anti-Protestant zeal, died in the Marshalsea Prison under Elizabeth.

Bonslas, a Maratha tribe not finally subdued till 1817.

Bradshaw, President of the Court that condemned Charles I.

Braganza, House of, the reigning family of Portugal; Charles II married Catherine of Braganza in 1662.

Breda, Peace of, July 21, 1667. Breda is in North Brabant, Holland.

Brissotines, those moderate republicans in the French Revolution who are often known as the Girondists.

Broghill, Lord, better known as Rope Boyle, author of Parthenissa, etc.

Brooks’s, the great Whig Club in St. James’s Street amongst whose members were Burke, Sheridan, Fox, and Garrick.

Brothers, Richard, a fanatic who held that the English were the lost ten tribes of Israel(1757-1824).

Browne’s Estimate (of the Manners and Principles of the Times), the author was a clergyman noted also for his defence of utilitarianism in answer to Shaftesbury (Lecky, Hist. Eng. in 18th Cent., ii, 89 f.).

Brutus, i. The reputed expeller of the last King of Rome; ii. One of Caesar’s murderers.

Bulicame, the seventh circle in the Inferno, the place of all the violent.

Buller, Sir Francis, English judge, author of Introduction to the Law of Trials at Nisi Prius (1745-1800).

Burger, Gottfried, German poet (1748-1794), author of the fine ballad “The Wild Huntsman.”

Burgoyne, afterwards the General in command of the British troops whose surrender at Saratoga practically settled the American War of Independence.

Burlington, Lord, Richard Boyle, an enthusiastic architect of the Italian school (1695-1753).

Button, Henry, a Puritan divine, pilloried, mutilated, and imprisoned by the Star Chamber (1578-1648).

Busiris, a mythological King of Egypt who used to sacrifice one foreigner yearly in the hope of ending a prolonged famine.

Buxar, between Patna and Benares, where Major Munro defeated Sujah Dowlah and Meer Cossim in 1765.

CALAS, Jean, a tradesman of Toulouse, done to death on the wheel in 1762 on the false charge of murdering his son to prevent his becoming a Romanist. Voltaire took his case up and vindicated his memory.

Camden, Lord, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas who declared general warrants illegal and released Wilkes in 1763.

Capel, Lord Arthur, at first sided with the Parliament, but afterwards joined the King; executed for attempting to escape from Colchester in 1649.

Caracci, Annibal, an Italian painter of the Elizabethan age.

Carlton House, the residence of George IV. when Prince of Wales.

Cartoons, the, the famous designs by Raphael, originally intended for tapestry.

Cato, Addison’s play, produced in 1713.

Cavendish, Lord, first Duke of Devonshire (d. 1707). He gave evidence in favour of Russell and tried to secure his escape.

Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. and brother of Lucrezia, whose infamous ability, cruelty, and treachery he even surpassed.

Chandernagora, on the Hooghly twenty miles from Calcutta. Pondicherry, in the Carnatic (i.e. the S.E. coast of India) is still a French possession.

Chemnitius, a seventeenth-century German historian who wrote a History of the Swedish War in Germany.

Chicksands, in Bedfordshire.

Childeric or Chilperic, the former was King of the Franks (c460-480), the latter King of Neustria (c. 560-580); both were puppets in the hands of their subjects.

Chorasan, a Persian province.

Chowringhee, still the fashionable quarter of Calcutta.

Chudleigh, Miss, maid of honour to the Princess of Wales (mother of George III.); the original of Beatrix in Thackeray’s Esmond.

Churchill, John, the famous Duke of Marlborough.

Clootz, a French Revolutionary and one of the founders of the Worship of Reason; guillotined 1794.

Cocytus, one of the five rivers of Hades (see Milton’s Paradise Lost, ii. 577ff).

Coleroon, the lower branch of the river Kaveri: it rises in Mysore and flows to the Bay of Bengal.

Colman, the Duke of York’s confessor, in whose rooms were found papers held to support Oates’s story.

Conde, a French general who, fighting for Spain, besieged Arras but had to abandon it after a defeat by Turenne.

Conjeveram, south-west from Madras and east from Arcot.

Conway, Marshal, cousin to Walpole; fought at Fontenoy and Culloden; moved the repeal of the Stamp Act (1766).

Corah, one hundred miles north-west from Allahabad, formerly a town of great importance, now much decayed.

Cornelia, a noble and virtuous Roman matron, daughter of Scipio Africanus and wife of Sempronius Graccus.

Cortes, conqueror of Mexico (1485-1547).

Cosmo di Medici, a great Florentine ruler, who, however, understood the use of assassination.

Cossimbuzar (see the description in the Essay on Hastings).

Court of Requests, instituted under Henry VII. for the recovery of small debts and superseded by the County Courts in 1847.

Covelong and Chingleput, between Madras and Pondicherry.

Craggs. Secretary of State: a man of ability and character, probably innocent in the South Sea affair.

Crevelt, near Cleves, in West Prussia; Minden is in Westphalia.

Cumberland... single victory, at Culloden, over the young Pretender’s forces, in 1745.

Cutler, St. John, a wealthy London merchant (1608?-1693) whose permanent avarice outshone his occasional benefactions (see Pope, Moral Essays, iii. 315).

DAGOBERTS... Charles Martel, nominal and real rulers of France in the seventh and eighth centuries.

D’Aguesseau, a famous French jurist, law reformer, and magistrate (1668-1751).

D’Alembert, a mathematician and philosopher who helped to sow the seeds of the French Revolution. Macaulay quite misrepresents Walpole’s attitude to him (see letter of 6th Nov. 1768).

Damien, the attempted assassinator of Louis XV. in 1757.

Danby, Thomas Osborne, Esq. of, one of Charles II.’s courtiers, impeached for his share in the negotiations by which France was to pension Charles on condition of his refusal to assist the Dutch.

Danes, only had a few trading stations in India, which they sold to the British in 1845.

Demosthenes and Hyperides, the two great orators of Athens who were also contemporaries and friends.

De Pauw, Cornelius, a Dutch canon (1739-99), esteemed by Frederic the Great among others, as one of the freest speculators of his day.

Derby, James Stanley, Earl of, one of Charles I’s supporters, captured at Worcester and beheaded in 1651.

Derwentwater... Cameron, Stuart adherents who suffered for their share in the attempts of 1715 and 1745.

Dido, Queen of Carthage, who after years of mourning for her first husband, vainly sought the love of Aeneas.

Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse (367-343 B.C.) who gathered to his court the foremost men of the time in literature and philosophy.

Dodd, Dr., a royal chaplain and fashionable preacher whose extravagance led him to forge a bond of Lord Chesterfield’s, for which he was sentenced to death and duly executed (1729-77).

Dodington, George Bubb, a time-serving and unprincipled politician in the time of George II., afterwards Baron Melcombe.

Dubois, Cardinal, Prime Minister of France. An able statesman and a notorious debauchee (1656-1723).

Duke of Lancaster, Henry IV., the deposer and successor of Richard II.

Dumont, Pierre, a French writer who settled in England and became the translator and exponent of Bentham’s works to Europe (1759-1829).

Dundee, the persecutor of the Scottish Covenanters under Charles II

Dyer, John, author of some descriptive poems, e.g. Grongar Hill (1700-58).

ELDON, John Scott, Earl of, was in turn Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas and Lord Chancellor, and throughout a staunch Tory (1751-1838).

Empson and Dudley, ministers and tax-raisers under Henry VII, executed by Henry VIII.

Ensign Northerton (see Fielding’s Tom Jones, VII. xii.-xv.).

Escobar, a Spanish Jesuit preacher and writer (1589-1669).

Escurial, the palace and monastery built by Philip II.

Essex, One of the Rye House Conspirators; he was found in the Tower with his throat cut, whether as the result of suicide or murder is not known.

Euston, a late Jacobean house (and park) 10 miles from Bury St. Edmunds.

Faithful Shepherdess, a pastoral by Fletcher which may have suggested the general plan and some of the details of Comus.

Farinata (see Dante’s Inferno, canto 10).

Farmer-general, the tax-gatherers of France, prior to the Revolution: they contracted with the Government for the right to collect or “farm” the taxes.

Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Aragon, who, by marrying Isabella of Castile and taking Granada from the Moors, united Spain under one crown.

Filicaja, a Florentine poet (1642-1707); according to Macaulay (“Essay on Addison”) “the greatest lyric poet of modern times,”.

Filmer, Sir Robert, advocated the doctrine of absolute regal power in his Patriarcha, 1680.

Foigard, Father, a French refugee priest in Farquhar’s Beaux Stratagem.

Fouche, Joseph, duke of Otranto. A member of the National Convention, who voted for the death of Louis XVI., and afterwards served under Napoleon (as Minister of Police) and Louis XVIII.

Fox, Henry F., father of Charles James Fox, and later Lord Holland.

Franche-Comte, that part of France which lies south of Lorraine and west of Switzerland.

French Memoirs, those of Margaret of Valois, daughter of Henry II. Of and wife of Henry (IV.) of Navarre.

Friar Dominic, a character in Dryden’s Spanish Friar designed to ridicule priestly vices.

Fronde, a French party who opposed the power Of Mazarin and the Parliament of Paris during the minority of Louis XIV.

GRERIAH, c. seventy miles south from Bombay.

Ghizni, in Afghanistan, taken by Sir John Keane in 1839.

Gifford, John, the pseudonym of John Richards Green, a voluminous Tory pamphleteer (1758-1818).

Giudecca. In the ninth and lowest circle of the Inferno, the place of those who betray their benefactors.

Glover, a London merchant who wrote some poetry, including Admiral Hosier’s Ghost.

Godfrey, Sir Edmund, this Protestant magistrate who took Titus Oates’s depositions and was next morning found murdered near Primrose Hill.

Godolphin, Lord of the Treasury under Charles II., James II., and William III. Prime Minister 1702-10 when Harley ousted him (d. 1712)

Gooti, north from Mysore in the Bellary district, 589

Goree, near Cape Verde, west coast of Africa, Gaudaloupe, is in West Indies; Ticonderaga and Niagara, frontier forts in Canada.

Gowries, the, Alexander Ruthven and his brother, the Earl of Gowrie, who were killed in a scuffle during the visit of King James to their house in Perth (Aug. 1600).

Grammont, a French count whose Memoirs give a vivid picture of life at Charles II.’s court.

Grandison, Sir Charles... Miss Byron, the title character (and his lady-love) of one of Richardson’s novels.

Granicus, Rocroi, Narva, won respectively by Alexander (aged 22) against the Persians, by Conde (aged 22) against the Spaniards, and by Charles XII. (aged 18) against the Russians.

Great Captain, the, Gonzalvo Hernandez di Cordova, who drove the Moors from Granada and the French from Italy (d. 1515).

Guarini, (see Pastor Fido).

Guicciardini, Florentian statesman and historian; disciple of Macchiavelli secured the restoration of the Medici, (1485-1540).

Guizot and Villemain, in 1829 upheld liberal opinions against Charles X., in 1844 took the part of monarchy and Louis Philippe. Genonde and Jaquelin made the reverse change.

HAFIZ and Ferdusi, famous Persian poets: the former flourished in the eleventh, the latter in the thirteenth century.

Hamilton, Count, friend of James II. and author of the Memoirs of the Count de Grammont, the best picture of the English court of the Restoration (1646-1720)

Hamilton’s Bawn, a tumble-down house in the north of Ireland which inspired Swift to write an amusing Poem.

Hamilton, Gerard, M.P. for Petersfield, a man of somewhat despicable character. The nickname was “Single-speech Hamilton.”

Hammond, Henry, Rector of Penshurst in Kent, and commentator on the New Testament, the Psalms, etc.

Hardwicke, Lord, the Lord Chancellor (1737-56), whose Marriage Act (1753) put an end to Fleet marriages.

Harte, Walter, poet, historian, and tutor to Lord Chesterfield’s son (1709-74).

Hayley and Seward, inferior authors who were at one time very popular.

Hebert, Jacques Rene, editor of the violent revolutionary organ Pere Duchesne; for opposing his colleagues he was arrested and guillotined (1756-94).

Heliogabalus, made emperor of Rome by the army in 218; ruled moderately at first, but soon abandoned himself to excesses of all kinds, and was assassinated.

Helvetius, a French philosopher of the materialist school (1715-71).

Henry the Fourth, the famous French king, “Henry of Navarre” (?1589-1610).

Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., who waged war against the vices of society and the imperial tyranny over the Church.

Hilpa and Shalum, Chinese antediluvians (see Spectator, vol. viii.). Hilpa was a princess and Shalum her lover.

Hoadley, Benjamin, a prelate and keen controversialist on the side of civil and religious liberty (1676-1761).

Holkar, a Mahratta chief whose headquarters were at Indore.

Hosein, the son of Ali Hosein’s mother was Fatima, the favourite daughter of Mahomet.

Houghton, Sir R. Walpole’s Norfolk seat.

Hunt, Mr., a well-to-do Wiltshire farmer, who after many attempts entered Parliament in 1832.

Huntingdon, William, the S.S. “Sinner Save”; Huntingdon was one of those religious impostors who professed to be the recipient of divine visions and prophetic oracles.

Hydaspes, or Hytaspes, the Greek name for the river Jhelam in the Punjab.

Hyphasis, the Greek name for the river Beds in the Punjab.

ILDEFONSO, ST., a village in Old Castile containing a Spanish royal residence built by Philip V. on the model of Versailles.

JACOBINS, those holding extreme democratic principles. The name is derived from an extreme Party of French Revolutionists who used to meet in the ball of the Jacobin Friars.

Jaghires, landed estates.

Jauts, a fighting Hindoo race inhabiting the North-West Provinces.

Jefferson, Thomas, an American statesman, who took a prominent part in struggle for independence, and became President, 1801 to 1807.

Jenkinson, one of Bute’s supporters, afterwards Earl of Liverpool.

Jomini, a celebrated Swiss military writer, who served in the French army as aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney (1779-1869).

Monsieur Jourdain, the honest but uneducated tradesman of Moliere’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, whose sudden wealth lands him in absurd attempts at aristocracy. 539

Justices in Eyre, i.e. in itinere, on circuit. In 1284 such were superseded by judges of assize.

KLOPSTOCK, author of the German epic Messiah, and one of the pioneers of modern German literature (1724-1803).

Knight of Malta, a play by Fletcher, Massinger, and another, produced before 1619.

Knipperdoling, one of the leading German Anabaptists, stadtholder of Munster, 1534-35, beheaded there in Jan. 1536.

LALLY, Baron de Tollendal, a distinguished French general in India who, however, could not work harmoniously with his brother officers or with his native troops, and was defeated by Eyre Coote at Wandewash in January 1760. He was imprisoned in the Bastille and executed (1766) on a charge of betraying French interests.

Las Casas, a Catholic bishop who laboured among the aborigines of South America, interposing himself between them and the cruelty of the Spaniards. Clarkson (ib.) was Wilberforce’s fellow-worker in the abolition of slavery.

Latitudinarians, the school of Cudworth and Henry More (end of seventeenth century), who sought to affiliate the dogmas of the Church to a rational philosophy.

Law Mr., afterwards Edward (first) Lord Ellenborough.

Lee, Nathaniel, a minor play-writer (1653-92).

Legge, son of the Earl of Dartmouth. Lord Of the Admiralty 1746, of the Treasury 1747, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1754 (1708-64).

Lennox, Charlotte, friend of Johnson and Richardson, wrote The Female Don Quixote and Shakespeare Illustrated.

Lenthal, Speaker, who presided at the trial of Charles I.

Leo, tenth pope (1513-21) of the name, Giovanni de Medici, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and patron of art, science, and letters.

Lingard, Dr. Job., a Roman Catholic priest who wrote a history of England to the Accession of William and Mary (d. 1851).

Locusta, a famous female poisoner employed by Agrippina and Nero.

Lothario, a loose character in Rowe’s tragedy of The Fair Penitent.

Lucan, the Roman epic Poet whose Pharsalia describes the struggle between Caesar and Pompey and breathes freedom throughout.

Ludlow, Edmund, a member of the Court that condemned Charles I. An ardent republican, he went into exile when Cromwell was appointed Protector.

MACKENZIE, HENRY, author of The Man of Feeling and other sentimental writings.

Maccaroni, an eighteenth-century term for a dandy or fop.

Maecenas, patron of literature in the Augustan age of Rome. Virgil and Horace were largely favoured by him.

Malebolge, i.e. the place of darkness and horror--the eighth Of the ten circles or pits in Dante’s Inferno, and the abode of barterers, hypocrites, evil counsellors, etc.

Malwa, about 100 miles east from Baroda and nearly 350 miles north-cast from Bombay.

Marat, Jean Paul, a fanatical democrat whose one fixed idea was wholesale slaughter of the aristocracy; assassinated by Charlotte Corday (1743-93).

Mariendal, in Germany. Turenne’s defeat here was an incident in the Thirty Years’ War.

Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, the first was made Prince of Mindelheim by Emperor Joseph I, the second Duke of Bronte by Ferdinand IV., the third Duke of Vittoria by Ferdinand VII.

Marli, a forest and village ten miles west from Paris, seat of a royal (now presidential) country-house.

Marten, Henry, one of the most extreme and most conspicuous members of the Parliamentary Party. Charles I insulted him in public and ordered him to be turned out of Hyde Park (1602-80). The Marten mentioned on p.4 as guilty of judicial misfeasance was his father (1562?-41).

Mason, William, friend and biographer of Gray; wrote Caractacus and some odes (1725-97).

Mathias, a noted Anabaptist who, with John of Leyden, committed great excesses in the endeavour to set up a Kingdom of Mount Zion in Munster, Westphalia (1535).

Maurice, Elector of Saxony (1521-23) and leader of the Protestants of Germany against the Emperor Charles V.

Mayor of the Palace, the chief minister of the Kings of France between 638 and 742.

Mayor of the Palace, the name given to the comptroller of the household of the Frankish kings. By successive encroachments these officials became at length more powerful than the monarchs, whom they finally ousted.

Mazarin(e) Cardinal, chief minister of France during the first eighteen years of Louis XIV.’s reign.

Memmius, Roman Governor of Bithynia, distinguished for his rhetorical and literary gifts, 270.

Merovingian line, a dynasty of Frankish kings in the sixth and seventh centuries A.D. They were gradually superseded in power by their “Mayors of the Palace,” and were succeeded by the Carolingians.

Middleton, Conyers, a Cambridge theologian who had some controversy with Bentley; distinguished for his “absolutely plain style” of writing (1683-50).

Miguel, Don, King of Portugal, whose usurpation of the throne, refusal to marry Maria, daughter of Don Pedro of Brazil, and general conduct of affairs, led to a civil war, as a result of which he had to withdraw to Italy (1802-66).

Mississippi Scheme, a plan for reducing the French National Debt, similar in folly and in downfall to the South Sea Bubble.

Mite, Sir Matthew (see Foote’s comedy, The Nabob).

Montague, Charles, Earl of Halifax, Chancellor of the Exchequer 1694; First Lord of Treasury 1697; impeached by the Tories for peculation and acquitted; Prime Minister 1714; reformed the currency.

Montezuma and Guatemozin, two of the native rulers of Mexico prior to its conquest by Cortez in 1519.

Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico, seized by Cortez in 1519.

Moro, the, a strong fort at the entrance to the harbour of Havana, taken after a hard struggle by the English under Admiral Sir George Pocock and General the Earl of Albemarle in July 1762.

Moore, Dr., father of Sir John Moore, European traveller, and author of the novel Zeluco.

Moorish Envoy, Algerine in Humphrey Clinker.

Mountain of Light, the Koh-i-noor, which after many adventures is now one of the English crown jewels.

Mucius, a Roman, who, when condemned to the stake, thrust his right hand unflinchingly into a fire lit for a sacrifice. He was spared and given the name Scaevola, i. e. left-handed.

Murray, orator; afterwards Earl of Mansfield, and Lord Chief Justice (1705-93).

NAPIER, COLONEL, served under Sir John Moore. Like Southey he wrote a History of the Peninsular War.

Nimeguen, treaty of; by this it was agreed that France should restore all her Dutch conquests, but should keep the Spanish conquest of Franche-Comte, a clause which naturally incensed the Emperor and the King of Spain.

Nollekens, Joseph, the eminent English sculptor, and friend of George III. (1737-1823).

Nuzzurs, presents to persons in authority.

OATES, Bedloe, Dangerfield, in 1678 pretended to have discovered a “Popish Plot” which aimed at overthrowing the King and Protestantism.

Odoacer, a Hun, who became emperor in 476 and was assassinated by his colleague, Theodoric (ib.) the Ostrogoth in 493.

O’Meara, Barry Edward, Napoleon’s physician in St. Helena, and author of A Voice from St. Helena; or, Napoleon in Exile.

Onomasticon, a Greek dictionary of antiquities, in ten books, arranged according to subject-matter.

Onslow, Arthur, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1728 to 1761.

Oromasdes and Arimanes, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the embodiments of the principles of good and evil respectively, in the Zoroastrian religion.

Oxenstiern, Chancellor to Gustavus Adolphus and the director of the negotiations which led to the Peace of Westphalia and the close of the Thirty Years’ War.

PAGE, SIR FRANCIS, a judge whose “reputation for coarseness and brutality (e.g. Pope, Dunciad, iv. 2730) is hardly warranted by the few reported cases in which he took part.” (1661?-1741).

Palais Royal, in Paris, formerly very magnificent.

Pannonia, roughly equivalent to the modern Hungary.

Pasquin, Anthony, a fifteenth-century Italian tailor, noted for his caustic wit.

Pastor Fido, a pastoral play, composed in 1585 by Guarini on the model of Aminta.

Patna, massacre of.

Peacock Throne, a gilded and jewelled couch with a canopy, described by a French jeweller named Tavernier, who saw it in 1665, and possibly the present throne of the Shah of Persia.

Perceval, Spencer, supported the Tory party, and became its leader in 1809; assassinated in the Commons Lobby, 1812.

Perwannahs, magisterial documents containing instructions or orders.

Peters, Hugh, a famous Independent divine and chaplain to the Parliamentary forces, executed in 1660 for his alleged share in the death of Charles 1. He was an upright and genial man, but somewhat lacking in moderation and taste.

Petit Trianon, a chateau built for Madame du Barry by Louis XV, and afterwards the favourite resort of Marie Antoinette. In a subsequent edition Macaulay substituted Versailles.

Phalaris, a tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily (sixth century).

Pigot, Governor of Madras when Clive was in Bengal, and also, as Lord Pigot, in the time of Warren Hastings.

Pinto, Fernandez Mendez, a Portuguese traveller (d. 1583), who visited the Far East and possibly landed in the Gulf of Pekin.

Politian, one of the early scholars of the Renaissance; patronized by Lorenzo de Medici (1454-94).

Pontiff, that inglorious, Peter Marone (Celestine V.), who was tricked into abdicating the papacy for Boniface VIII, and died in prison.

Porto Novo and Pollilore, where Coote defeated Hyder Ali in July and August 1781, and so finished a long campaign in the Carnatic.

Powis, Lord, Edward Clive, created Earl of Powis in 1804.

Powle, a leading Politician and lawyer in the events connected with the accession Of William III.