Chapter XVIII: Part I (1)

FROM BIRTH AND EDUCATION TO DUEL WITH LORD CASTLEREAGH.

Proper time for writing a biography.--Mr. Canning born
(1770).--Education at Eton and Oxford.--Early literary
performances.--Brought into Parliament by Mr. Pitt.--Politics
he espoused.--His commencement as a speaker.--Writes for the
_Anti-Jacobin_.--Quits office with Mr. Pitt.--Opposes Mr.
Addington.--Returns to office with Mr. Pitt.--Distinguishes
himself in opposition to “All the Talents.”--Becomes Minister
of Foreign Affairs on their fall.--Foreign policy.--Quarrel
with Lord Castlereagh, and duel.

I.

There is no period at which an eminent person is so little considered, so much forgotten and disregarded, as during the few years succeeding his decease. His name, no longer noised above that of others by the busy zeal of his partisans, or the still more clamorous energies of his opponents, drops away suddenly, as it were, from the mouths of men. To his contemporaries he has ceased to be of importance--the most paltry pretender to his place is of more;--while posterity does not exist for him, until the dead are distinctly separated from the living; until the times in which he lived, and the scenes in which he acted, have become as a distant prospect from which the eye can at once single out from amidst the mass of ordinary objects, those which were the memorials of their epoch, and are to become the beacons of after-generations.

The French, who are as fond of putting philosophy into action as we are coy of connecting theory with practice, marked out, at one moment, a kind of intermediate space between the past and the present, the tomb and the pantheon; but the interval of ten years, which they assigned for separating the one from the other, is hardly sufficient for the purpose.

We are, however, now arrived at the period that permits our considering the subject of this memoir as a character in history which it is well to describe without further procrastination. Every day, indeed, leaves us fewer of those who remember the clearly-chiselled countenance which the slouched hat only slightly concealed,--the lip satirically curled,--the penetrating eye, peering along the Opposition benches,--of the old parliamentary leader in the House of Commons. It is but here and there that we find a survivor of the old day, to speak to us of the singularly mellifluous and sonorous voice, the classical language--now pointed into epigram, now elevated into poesy, now burning with passion, now rich with humour--which curbed into still attention a willing and long-broken audience.

The great changes of the last half-century have, moreover, created such a new order of ideas and of society, that the years preceding 1830 appear as belonging to an antecedent century; and the fear now is--not that we are too near, but that we are gliding away too far from the events of that biography which I propose to sketch. And yet he who undertakes the task of biographical delineation, should not be wholly without the scope of the influences which coloured the career he desires to sketch. The artist can hardly give the likeness of the face he never saw, nor the writer speak vividly of events which are merely known to him by tradition.

II.

It is with this feeling that I attempt to say something of a man, the most eminent of a period at which the government of England was passing, imperceptibly perhaps, but not slowly, from the hands of an exclusive but enlightened aristocracy, into those of a middle class, of which the mind, the energy, and the ambition had been gradually developed, under the mixed influences of a war which had called forth the resources, and of a peace which had tried the prosperity, of our country;--a middle class which was growing up with an improved and extended education, amidst stirring debates as to the height to which the voice of public opinion should be allowed to raise itself, and the latitude that should be given, in a singularly mixed constitution, to its more democratic parts.

Mr. Canning was born on the 11th of April, 1770, and belonged to an old and respectable family originally resident in Warwickshire.[110] A branch of it, obtaining a grant of the manor of Garvagh, settled in Ireland in the reign of James I., and from this branch Mr. Canning descended; but the misfortunes of his parents placed him in a situation below that which might have been expected from his birth.

His father, the eldest of three sons--George, Paul, and Stratford--was disinherited for marrying a young lady (Miss Costello) without fortune; and having some taste for literature, but doing nothing at the bar, he died amidst the difficulties incidental to idle habits and elegant tastes.

Mrs. Canning, left without resources, attempted the stage, but she had no great talents for the theatrical profession, and never rose above the rank of a middling actress. Her son thus fell under the care of his uncle, Mr. Stratford Canning, a highly respectable merchant, and an old Whig, much in the confidence of the leaders of the Whig party and possessing considerable influence with them. A small inheritance of 200_l._ or 300_l._ a year sufficed for the expenses of a liberal education, and after passing through the regular ordeal of a private school, young Canning was sent to Eton, and subsequently to Christ Church, Oxford. At Eton no boy ever left behind him so many brilliant recollections. Gay and high-spirited as a companion, clever and laborious as a student, he obtained a following from his character, and a reputation from his various successes. This reputation was the greater from the schoolboy’s triumphs not being merely those of school. Known and distinguished as “George Canning,” he was yet more known and distinguished as the correspondent of “Gregory Griffin;”--such being the name adopted by the fictitious editor of the _Microcosm_, a publication in the style of the _Spectator_, and carried on solely by Eton lads. In this publication, the graver prose of the young orator was incorrect and inferior to that of one or two other juvenile contributors, but some of his lighter productions were singularly graceful, and it would be difficult to find anything of its kind superior to a satirical commentary upon the epic merits of an old ballad:

“The queen of hearts
She made some tarts
_All on a summer’s day_,” &c[111]

“I cannot leave this line,” says the witty commentator, “without remarking, that one of the Scribleri, a descendant of the famous Martinus, has expressed his suspicions of the text being corrupted here, and proposes, instead of ‘All on,’ reading ‘Alone,’ alleging, in the favour of this alteration, the effect of solitude in raising the passions. But Hiccius Doctius, a High Dutch commentator, one nevertheless well versed in British literature, in a note of his usual length and learning, has confuted the arguments of Scriblerus. In support of the present reading, he quotes a passage from a poem written about the same period with our author’s, by the celebrated Johannes Pastor (most commonly known as Jack Shepherd), entitled, ‘An Elegiac Epistle to the Turnkey of Newgate,’ wherein the gentleman declares, that, rather indeed in compliance with an old custom than to gratify any particular wish of his own, he is going

“‘_All hanged_ for to be
Upon that fatal Tyburn tree.’

“Now, as nothing throws greater light on an author than the concurrence of a contemporary writer, I am inclined to be of Hiccius’ opinion, and to consider the ‘All’ as an elegant expletive, or, as he more aptly phrases it, ‘elegans expletivum.’”

The other articles to which the boyish talent of the lad, destined to be so famous, may lay claim, are designated in the will of the supposed editor, Mr. Griffin (contained in the concluding number of the _Microcosm_), which, amongst special bequests assigns to “Mr. George Canning, now of the college of Eton, all my papers, essays, &c., signed B.”

III.

It is needless to observe that an Eton education is more for the man of the world than for the man of books. It teaches little in the way of science or solid learning, but it excites emulation, encourages and gratifies a love of fame, and prepares the youth for the competitions of manhood. Whatever is dashing and showy gives pre-eminence in that spirited little world from which have issued so many English statesmen. It developed in Canning all his natural propensities. He was the show boy at Montem days with master and student.

“Look, papa,--there, there;--that good-looking fellow is Canning--such a clever chap, but a horrible Whig. By Jupiter, how he gives it to Pitt!”

Nor was this wonderful. The youthful politician spent his holidays with his uncle, who only saw Whigs; and then, what clever boy would not have been charmed by the wit and rhetoric of Sheridan--by the burning eloquence of Fox?

The same dispositions that had shown themselves at Eton, carried to Oxford, produced the same distinctions. Sedulous at his studies, almost Republican in his principles, the pride of his college, the glory of his debating society, the intimate associate of the first young men in birth, talents, and prospects, young Canning was thus early known as the brilliant and promising young man of his day, and thought likely to be one of the most distinguished of those intellectual gladiators whom the great parties employed in their struggles for power; struggles which seemed at the moment to disorder the administration of affairs, but which, carried on with eloquence and ability in the face of the nation, kept its attention alive to national interests, and could not fail to diffuse throughout it a lofty spirit, and a sort of political education.

IV.

From the University Canning went to Lincoln’s Inn. It does not appear, however, that in taking to the study of the law he had any idea of becoming a Lord Chancellor. There was nothing of severity in his plan of life--he dined out with those who invited him, and his own little room was at times modestly lit up for gatherings together of old friends, who enjoyed new jokes, and amongst whom and for whom were composed squibs, pamphlets, newspaper articles, in steady glorification of school and college opinions, which the Oxonian, on quitting the University, had no doubt the intention to sustain in the great battles of party warfare.

But events were then beginning to make men’s convictions tremble under them; and, with the increasing differences amongst veteran statesmen, it was difficult to count on youthful recruits.

At all events, it is about this time that Mr. Canning’s political career begins. It must be viewed in relation to the particular state of society and government which then existed.

From the days of Queen Anne there had been a contest going on between the two aristocratic factions, “Whig” and “Tory.” The principles professed by either were frequently changed. The Tories, such as Sir William Windham, under the guidance of Bolingbroke, often acting as Reformers; and the Whigs, under Walpole, often acting as Conservatives. The being in or out of place was in fact the chief difference between the opposing candidates for office, though the Whigs generally passed for being favourable to popular pretensions, and the Tories for being favourable to Royal authority.

In the meantime public opinion, except on an occasional crisis when the nation made itself heard, was the opinion of certain coteries, and public men were the men of those coteries. It not unfrequently happened that the most distinguished for ability were the most distinguished for birth and fortune. But it was by no means necessary that it should be so. The chiefs of the two conflicting armies sought to obtain everywhere the best soldiers. Each had a certain number of commissions to give away, or, in other words, of seats in Parliament to dispose of. They who had the government in their hands could count from that fact alone on thirty or forty. It matters little how these close boroughs were created. Peers or gentlemen possessed them as simple property, or as the effect of dominant local influence. The Treasury controlled them as an effect of the patronage or employments which office placed in its hands. A certain number were sold or let by their proprietors, and even by the Administration; and in this manner men who had made fortunes in our colonies or in trade, and were averse to a public canvass, and without local landed influence, found their way into the great National Council. They paid their 5000_l._ down, or their 1000_l._ a year, and could generally, though not always, find a seat on such terms. But a large portion of these convenient entries into the House of Commons was kept open for distinguished young men, who gave themselves up to public affairs as to a profession. A school or college reputation, an able pamphlet, a club, or county meeting oration, pointed them out. The minister, or great man who wished to be a minister, brought them into Parliament. If they failed, they sank into insignificance; if they succeeded, they worked during a certain time for the great men of the day, and then became great men themselves.

This system had advantages, counterbalanced by defects, and gave to England a set of trained and highly educated statesmen, generally well informed on all national questions, strongly attached to party combinations, connected by the ties of gratitude and patronage with the higher classes, having a certain contempt for the middle: keenly alive to the glory, the power, the greatness of the country, and sympathising little with the habits and wants of the great masses of the people.

They had not a correct knowledge of the feelings and wants of the poor man,--they understood and shared the feelings of the gentleman. Bread might be dear or cheap, they cared little about it; a battle gained or lost affected them more deeply. A mob might be massacred without greatly exciting their compassion; but the loss of a great general or of a great statesman they felt as a national calamity.

Such were the men who might fairly be called “political adventurers:” a class to which we owe much of our political renown, much of our reputation for political capacity, but which, in only rare instances, won the public esteem or merited the popular affections. Such were our political adventurers when Mr. Pitt sent for Mr. Canning, a scholar of eminence and a young man of superior and shining abilities, and offered him a seat in the House of Commons.

The following is the simple manner in which this interview is spoken of by a biographer of Mr. Canning:[112]

“Mr. Pitt, through a private channel, communicated his desire to see Mr. Canning; Mr. Canning of course complied. Mr. Pitt immediately proceeded, on their meeting, to declare to Mr. Canning the object of his requesting an interview with him, which was to state that he had heard of Mr. Canning’s reputation as a scholar and a speaker, and that if he concurred in the policy which the Government was then pursuing, arrangements would be made to bring him into Parliament.”

The person to whom this offer was made accepted it; nor was this surprising.

I have already said that events were about this period taking place, that made men’s convictions tremble under them; and in fact the mob rulers of Paris had in a few months so desecrated the name of Freedom, that half of its ancient worshippers covered their faces with their hands, and shuddered when it was pronounced.

But there were also other circumstances of a more personal nature, which, now that young Canning had seriously to think of his entry into public life, had, I have been assured, an influence on his resolutions.

The first incident, I was once told by Mr. John Allen, that disinclined Mr. Canning (who had probably already some misgivings) to attach himself irrevocably to the Whig camp, was the following one: Lord Liverpool, then Mr. Jenkinson, had just made his appearance in the House of Commons. His first speech was highly successful. “There is a young friend of mine,” said Mr. Sheridan, “whom I soon hope to hear answering the honourable gentleman who has just distinguished himself: a contemporary whom he knows to possess talents not inferior to his own, but whose principles, I trust, are very different from his.”

This allusion, however kindly meant, was disagreeable, said Mr. Allen, to the youthful aspirant to public honours. It pledged him, as he thought, prematurely; it brought him forward under the auspices of a man, who, however distinguished as an individual, was not in a position to be a patron. Other reflections, it is added, followed. The party then in opposition possessed almost every man distinguished in public life: a host of formidable competitors in the road to honour and preferment, supposing preferment and honour to be attainable by talent. But this was not all. The Whig party, then, as always, was essentially an exclusive party; its preferments were concentrated on a clique, which regarded all without it as its subordinates and instruments.

On the other side, the Prime Minister stood almost alone. He had every office to bestow, and few candidates of any merit for official employments. Haughty from temperament, and flushed with power, which he had attained early and long exercised without control, he had not the pride of rank, nor the aristocratic attachments for which high families linked together are distinguished. His partisans and friends were his own. He had elevated them for no other reason than that they were his. By those to whom he had once shown favour he had always stood firm; all who had followed had shared his fortunes; there can be no better promise to adherents.

These were not explanations that Mr. Canning could make precisely to the Whig leaders, but he had an affection for Mr. Sheridan, who had always been kind to him, and by whom he did not wish to be thought ungrateful. He sought, then, an interview with that good-natured and gifted person. Lord Holland, Mr. Canning’s contemporary, was present at it, and told me that nothing could be more respectful and unreserved than the manner in which the ambitious young man gave his reasons for the change he was prepared to make, or had made; nothing more warm-hearted, unprejudiced, and frank, than the veteran orator’s reception of his retiring _protégé’s_ confession: nor, indeed, could Mr. Sheridan help feeling the application, when he was himself cited as an example of the haughtiness with which “the great Whig Houses” looked down on the lofty aspirations of mere genius. The conversation thus alluded to took place a little before Mr. Pitt’s proposals were made, but probably when they were expected. Mr. Canning, his views fairly stated to the only person to whom he felt bound to give them, and his seat in Parliament secured, placed himself in front of his old friends, whom Colonel Fitz-Patrick avenged by the following couplet:

“The turning of coats so common is grown,
That no one would think to attack it;
But no case until now was so flagrantly known
Of a schoolboy turning his jacket.”

V.

There was little justice in Colonel Fitz-Patrick’s satire. Nine-tenths of Mr. Fox’s partisans, old and young, were deserting his standard when Mr. Canning quitted him. The cultivated mind of England was, as it has been said in two or three of these sketches, against the line which the Whig leader persisted to take with respect to the French Revolution--even after its excesses; and it is easy to conceive that the cause of Liberty and Fraternity should have become unfashionable when these weird sisters were seen brandishing the knife, and dancing round the guillotine. Admitting, however, the legitimacy of the horror with which the assassins of the Committee of Public Safety inspired the greater portion of educated Englishmen, it is still a question whether England should have provoked their hostility; for, after the recall of our ambassador and our undisguised intention of making war, the Republic’s declaration of it was a matter of course.

“Where could be the morality,” said Mr. Pitt’s opponents, “of bringing fresh calamities upon a land which so many calamities already desolated? Where the policy of concentrating and consolidating so formidable an internal system by an act of foreign aggression? And if the struggle we then engaged in was in itself inhuman and impolitic, what was to be said as to the time at which we entered upon it?

“The natural motives that might have suggested a French war, were--the wish to save an unhappy monarch from an unjust and violent death; the desire to subdue the arrogance of a set of miscreants who, before they were prepared to execute the menace, threatened to overrun the world with their principles and their arms. If these were our motives, why not draw the sword, before the Sovereign whose life we wished to protect had perished? Why defer our conflict with the French army until, flushed with victory and threatened with execution in the event of defeat, raw recruits were changed into disciplined and desperate soldiers? Why reserve our defence of the unhappy Louis till he had perished on the scaffold--our war against the French Republic until the fear of the executioner and the love of glory had made a nation unanimous in its defence? Success was possible when Prussia first entered on the contest: it was impossible when we subsidized her to continue it.”

The antagonists of the First Minister urged these arguments with plausibility. His friends replied, “that Mr. Pitt had been originally against all interference in French affairs; that the conflict was not of his seeking; that the conduct of the French government and the feelings of the English people had at last forced him into it; that he had not wished to anticipate its necessity; but that if he had, the minister of a free country cannot go to war at precisely the moment he would select; he cannot guard against evils which the public itself does not foresee. He must go with the public, or after it; and the public mind in England had, like that of the Ministers, only become convinced by degrees that peace was impossible.

“As to neutrality, if it could be observed when the objects at stake were material, it could not be maintained when those objects were moral, social, and religious.

“When new ideas were everywhere abroad, inflaming, agitating men’s minds, these ideas were sure to find everywhere partisans or opponents, and to attempt to moderate the zeal of one party merely gave power to the violence of the other.

“It was necessary to excite the English people against France, in order to prevent French principles, as they were then called, from spreading and fixing themselves in England.”

Such was the language and such the opinions of many eminent men with whom Mr. Canning was now associated, when, after a year’s preliminary silence, he made his first speech in the House of Commons.

VI.

This first speech (January 31, 1794), like many first speeches of men who have become eminent orators, was more or less a failure. The subject was a subsidy to Sardinia, and the new member began with a scoff at the idea of looking with a mere mercantile eye at the goodness or badness of the bargain we were making. Such a scoff at economy, uttered in an assembly which is the especial guardian of the public purse, was injudicious. But the whole speech was bad; it possessed in an eminent degree all the ordinary faults of the declamations of clever young men. Its arguments were much too refined: its arrangement much too systematic: cold, tedious, and unparliamentary, it would have been twice as good if it had attempted half as much; for the great art in speaking, as in writing, consists in knowing what should not be said or written.

This instance of ill success did not, however, alienate the Premier; for Mr. Pitt, haughty in all things, cared little for opinions which he did not dictate. In 1795, therefore, the unsubdued favourite was charged with the seconding of the address, and acquitted himself with some spirit and effect.

The following passage may be quoted both for thought and expression:

“The next argument against peace is its insecurity; it would be the mere name of peace, not a wholesome and refreshing repose, but a feverish and troubled slumber, from which we should soon be roused to fresh horrors and insults. What are the blessings of peace which make it so desirable? What, but that it implies tranquil and secure enjoyment of our homes? What, but that it will restore our seamen and our soldiers, who have been fighting to preserve those homes, to a share of that tranquillity and security? What, but that it will lessen the expenses and alleviate the burdens of the people? What, but that it explores some new channel of commercial intercourse, or reopens such as war had destroyed? What, but that it renews some broken link of amity, or forms some new attachment between nations, and softens the asperities of hostility and hatred into kindness and conciliation and reciprocal goodwill? And which of all these blessings can we hope to obtain by a peace, under the present circumstances, with France? Can we venture to restore to the loom or to the plough the brave men who have fought our battles? Who can say how soon some fresh government may not start up in France, which may feel it their inclination or their interest to renew hostilities? The utmost we can hope for is a short, delusive, and suspicious interval of armistice, without any material diminution of expenditure; without security at home, or a chance of purchasing it by exertions abroad; without any of the essential blessings of peace, or any of the possible advantages of war: a state of doubt and preparation such as will retain in itself all the causes of jealousy to other states which, in the usual course of things, produce remonstrances and (if these are answered unsatisfactorily) war.”

VII.

In 1796, Parliament was dissolved, and Mr. Canning was returned to Parliament this time for Wendover. He had just been named Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs; and it has been usual to refer to this appointment as a proof of his early parliamentary success. He owed the promotion, however, entirely to the Prime Minister’s favour; for though his late speech, better than the preceding one, had procured him some credit, there was still a careless impertinence in his manner, and a classical pedantry in his style, which were unsuitable to the taste of the House of Commons. Indeed, so much had he to reform in his manner, that he now remained, by, as it is said, Mr. Pitt’s advice, silent for three years, endeavouring during this time to correct his faults and allow them to be forgotten.

It does not follow that he was idle. The _Anti-Jacobin_, started in 1797, under the editorship of Mr. Gifford, for the purpose which its title indicates, was commenced at the instigation and with the support of the old contributor to the _Microcosm_, and did more than any parliamentary eloquence could have done in favour of the anti-Jacobin cause.

“Must wit,” says Mr. Canning, who had now to contend against the most accomplished humorists of his day, “be found alone on falsehood’s side?” and having established himself as the champion of “Truth,” he brought, no doubt, very useful and very brilliant arms to her service. The verses of “New Morality,” spirited, exaggerated, polished, and virulent, satisfied the hatred without offending the taste (which does not seem to have been at that time very refined) of those classes who looked upon our neighbours with almost as much hatred and disgust as were displayed in the verses of the young poet; while the “Friend of Humanity and the Knife-grinder”--almost too trite to be quoted, and yet too excellent to be omitted--will long remain one of the happiest efforts of satire in our language:

“IMITATION SAPPHICS.

“THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER.

“_Friend of Humanity_:

“Needy Knife-grinder, whither are you going?
Rough is the road,--your wheel is out of order;
Bleak blows the blast,--your hat has got a hole in’t,
So have your breeches.

“Weary Knife-grinder, little think the proud ones,
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike
Road, what hard work ’tis crying all day, ‘Knives and
Scissors to grind, O!’

“Tell me, Knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives?
Did some rich man tyrannically use you?
Was it the squire, or parson of the parish,
Or the attorney?

“Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or
Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining?
Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little
All in a lawsuit?

“Have you not read the ‘Rights of Man,’ by Tom Paine?
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids,
Ready to fall as soon as you have told your
Pitiful story.

“_Knife-Grinder_:

“Story! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir;
Only last night, a-drinking at the ‘Chequers,’
These poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.

“Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the justice:
Justice Aldmixon put me in the parish
Stocks for a vagrant.

“I should be glad to drink your honour’s health in
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence;
But, for my part, I never love to meddle
With politics, sir.

“_Friend of Humanity_:

“I give thee sixpence? I’ll see thee damn’d first.
Wretch, whom no sense of wrong can rouse to vengeance!
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast!”

[_Exit, kicking over the wheel, in a
fit of universal philanthropy._]

An instance of the readiness of Mr. Canning’s Muse may be here related.

When Frere had completed the first part of the “Loves of the Triangles,” he exultingly read over the following lines to Canning, and defied him to improve upon them:

“Lo! where the chimney’s sooty tube ascends,
The fair Trochais from the corner bends!
Her coal-black eyes upturned, incessant mark
The eddying smoke, quick flame, and volant spark;
Mark with quick ken, where flashing in between,
Her much-loved _smoke-jack_ glimmers thro’ the scene;
Mark how his various parts together tend,
Point to one purpose,--in one object end;
The spiral grooves in smooth meanders flow,
Drags the long chain, the polished axles glow,
While slowly circumvolves the piece of beef below.”

Canning took the pen, and added:

“The conscious fire with bickering radiance burns,
Eyes the rich joint, and roasts it as it turns.”

These two lines are now blended with the original text, and constitute, it is said, the only flaw in Frere’s title to the sole authorship of the first part of the poem, from which I have been quoting: the second and third parts were both by Canning.

In prose I cite the report of a peroration by Mr. Erskine, whose egotism could hardly be caricatured, at a meeting of the Friends of Freedom.

“Mr. Erskine concluded by recapitulating, in a strain of agonizing and impressive eloquence, the several more prominent heads of his speech: He had been a soldier, and a sailor, and had a son at Winchester School; he had been called by special retainers, during the summer, into many different and distant parts of the country, travelling chiefly in post-chaises; he felt himself called upon to declare that his poor faculties were at the service of his country--of the free and enlightened part of it, at least. He stood here as a man; he stood in the eye, indeed in the hand, of God--to whom (in the presence of the company, and waiters) he solemnly appealed; he was of noble, perhaps royal blood; he had a house at Hampstead; was convinced of the necessity of a thorough and radical reform; his pamphlet had gone through thirty editions, skipping alternately the odd and even numbers; he loved the Constitution, to which he would cling and grapple; and he was clothed with the infirmities of man’s nature; he would apply to the present French rulers (particularly _Barras_ and _Reubel_) the words of the poet:

“‘_Be to their faults a little blind;_
_Be to their virtues ever kind,_
_Let all their ways be unconfined,_
_And clap the padlock on their mind!_’

and for these reasons, thanking the gentlemen who had done him the honour to drink his health, he should propose ‘_Merlin_, the late Minister of Justice, under the Directory, and Trial by Jury.’”

I refer those who wish to know more of the literary merits of Mr. Canning to an article, July, 1858, in the “Edinburgh Review,” in which article the accomplished writer has exhausted the subject he undertook to treat.

Nor was Mr. Canning’s reputation for wit, at this time, gained solely by his pen. Living with few, though much the fashion, who could be more charming in his own accomplished circle--when, the pleasant thought lighting up his eye, playing about his mouth, and giving an indescribable charm to his handsome countenance, he abandoned himself to the inspiration of some happy moment, and planned a practical joke, or quizzed an incorrigible bore, or related some humorous anecdote? No one’s society was so much prized by associates; no one’s talents so highly estimated by friends; and his fame in the drawing-room, or at the dining-table, was at least as brilliant as that which he subsequently acquired in the senate.

This, indeed, was the epoch in his life at which perhaps he had the most real enjoyment; for though he felt conscious that his success in Parliament had not yet been complete, the feeling of certainty that it would become so, now began to dawn upon him, and the triumphs that his ardent nature anticipated went probably even beyond those which his maturer career accomplished.

VIII.

On the 11th of December, 1798, Mr. Tierney made a motion respecting peace with the French Republic. The negotiations at Lille, never cordially entered into, were at this time broken off. We had formed an alliance with Russia and the Porte, and were about to carry on the struggle with new energies, though certainly not under very encouraging auspices. The coalition of 1792-3 was completely broken up. Prussia had for three years been at peace with France; nor had the Cabinet of Vienna seen any objection to signing a treaty which, disgracefully to all parties, sacrificed the remains of Venetian liberty.

France, in the meanwhile, distracted at home, had, notwithstanding, enlarged her empire by Belgium, Luxemburg, Nice, Savoy, Piedmont, Genoa, Milan, and Holland. There were many arguments to use in favour of abandoning the struggle we had entered upon: the uncertain friendship of our allies; the increased force of our enemy; and the exhausting drain we were maintaining upon our own resources. In six years we had added one hundred and fifty millions to our debt, by which had been created the necessity of adding to our annual burdens eight millions, a sum equal to the whole of our expenditure when George III. came to the throne.

But the misfortunes which attend an expensive contest, though they necessarily irritate and dissatisfy a people with war, are not always to be considered irrefutable arguments in favour of peace. This formed the substance of the speech which Mr. Canning delivered on Mr. Tierney’s motion. Defective in argument, it was effective in delivery, and added considerably to his reputation as a speaker.

In the meantime, our sworn enmity to France and to French principles, encouraged an ardent inclination to both in those whom we had offended or misgoverned. The Directory in Paris and the discontented in Ireland had, therefore, formed a natural if not a legitimate league. The result was an Irish rebellion, artfully planned, for a long time unbetrayed, and which, but for late treachery and singular accidents, would not have been easily overcome.

Mr. Pitt, taking advantage of the fears of a separation between Great Britain and the sister kingdom, which this rebellion, notwithstanding its prompt and fortunate suppression, had created, announced, in a message from the Crown, a desire still further to incorporate and consolidate the two kingdoms. Whatever may have been the result of the Irish Union, the promises under which it was passed having been so long denied, so unhappily broken, there was certainly at this period reason to suppose that it would afford the means of instituting a fairer and less partial system of government than that under which Ireland had long been suffering.

As for the wail which was then set up, and which has since been re-awakened, for the independent Legislature which was merged into that of Great Britain, the facility with which it was purchased is the best answer which can be given to the assertions made of its value.

The part, therefore, that Mr. Canning adopted on this question (if with sincere and honest views of conferring the rights of citizenship on our Irish Catholic fellow-subjects, and not with the intention, which there is no reason to presume, of gaining their goodwill and then betraying their confidence) is one highly honourable to an English statesman. But another question now arose. That Catholic Emancipation was frequently promised as the natural result of the Union, has never been disputed. As such promises were made plainly and openly in Parliament, the King could not be supposed ignorant of them. Why, then, if his Majesty had such insuperable objections to their fulfilment, did he allow of their being made? And, on the other hand, how could his Ministers compromise their characters by holding out as a lure to a large majority of the Irish people a benefit which they had no security for being able to concede? Mr. Canning’s language is not ambiguous:

“Here, then, are two parties in opposition to each other, who agree in one common opinion; and surely if any middle term can be found to assuage their animosities, and to heal their discords, and to reconcile their jarring interests, it should be eagerly and instantly seized and applied. That an union is that middle term, appears the more probable when we recollect that the Popery code took its rise after a proposal for an union, which proposal came from Ireland, but which was rejected by the British government. This rejection produced the Popery code. _If an union were therefore acceded to, the Popery code would be unnecessary._ I say, if it was in consequence of the rejection of an union at a former period that the laws against Popery were enacted, it is fair to conclude that an union would render a similar code unnecessary--that an union would satisfy the friends of the Protestant ascendency, without passing new laws against the Catholics, and without maintaining those which are yet in force.”[113]

The Union, nevertheless, was carried; the mention of Catholic Emancipation, in spite of the language just quoted, forbidden. Mr. Pitt (in 1801) retired.

IX.

There will always be a mystery hanging over the transaction to which I have just referred,--a mystery difficult to explain in a manner entirely satisfactory to the character of the King and his minister. One can only presume that the King was willing to let the Union be carried, on the strength of the Premier’s promises, which he did not think it necessary to gainsay until he was asked to carry them into effect; and that the Minister counted upon the important service he would have rendered if the great measure he was bringing forward became law, for the influence that would be necessary to make his promises valid. It cannot be denied that each acted with a certain want of candour towards the other unbecoming their respective positions, and that both behaved unfairly towards Ireland. Mr. Pitt sought to give consistency to his conduct by resigning; but he failed in convincing the public of his sincerity, because he was supposed to have recommended Mr. Addington, then Speaker of the House of Commons, and the son of a Doctor Addington, who had been the King’s physician (to which circumstance the son owed a nickname he could never shake off), as his successor; and Mr. Addington was only remarkable for not being remarkable either for his qualities or for his defects, being just that staid, sober sort of man who, respectable in the chair of the House of Commons, would be almost ridiculous in leading its debates.

Thus an appointment which did not seem serious, perplexed and did not satisfy the public mind; more especially as the seceding minister engaged himself to support the new Premier, notwithstanding their difference of opinion on the very question on which the former had left office. The public did not know then so clearly as it does now that the King, who through his whole life seems to have been on the brink of insanity, was then in a state of mind that rendered madness certain, if the question of the Catholics, on which he had morbid and peculiar notions, was persistingly pressed upon him; and that Mr. Pitt thus, rightly or wrongly, thought it was his duty, after sacrificing office, to stop short of driving the master he had so long served into the gloom of despair. This, however, was a motive that could not be avowed, and consequently every sort of conjecture became current. Was the arrangement made on an understanding with the King, and would Mr. Pitt shortly resume the place he had quitted? Did Mr. Pitt, if there was no such arrangement, really mean to retain so incapable a person as Mr. Addington, at so important a time, at the head of the Government of England, or was his assistance given merely for the moment, with the intention of subsequently withdrawing it?

At first the aid offered to the new Premier by the old one was effective and ostentatious; but a great portion of the Opposition began also to support Mr. Addington, intending in this way to allure him into an independence which, as they imagined, would irritate his haughty friend, and separate the _protégé_ from the patron. The device was successful. The Prime Minister soon began to entertain a high opinion of his own individual importance, Mr. Pitt to feel sore at being treated as a simple official follower of the Government, which he had expected unofficially to command, and ere long he retired almost entirely from Parliament. He did not, however, acknowledge the least desire to return to power.

In this state of things, the conduct of Mr. Canning seemed likely to be the same as Mr. Pitt’s, but it was not so. He did not, even for a moment, affect any disposition to share the partiality which the late First Lord of the Treasury began by testifying for the new one. Sitting in Parliament for a borough for which he had been elected through government influence, his conduct for a moment was fettered; but obtaining, at the earliest opportunity, a new seat (in 1802) by his own means--that is, by his own money--he then went without scruple into the most violent opposition.

His constant efforts to induce Achilles to take up his spear and issue from his tent, are recorded by Lord Malmesbury, and though not wholly disagreeable to his discontented chief, were not always pleasing to him. He liked, no doubt, to be pointed out as the only man who could direct successfully the destinies of England, and enjoyed jokes levelled at the dull gentleman who had become all at once enamoured of his own capacity; but he thought his dashing and indiscreet adherent passed the bounds of good taste and decorum in his attacks, and he disliked being pressed to come forward before he himself felt convinced that the time was ripe for his doing so. Too strong a show of reluctance might, he knew, discourage his friends; too ready an acquiescence compromise his dignity, and give an advantage to his enemies.

He foresaw, indeed, better than any one, all the difficulties that lay in his path. The unwillingness of the Sovereign to exchange a minister with whom he was at his ease, for a minister of whom he always stood in awe; the unbending character of Lord Grenville, with whom he must of necessity associate, if he formed any government that could last, and who, nevertheless, rendered every difficulty in a government more difficult by his uncompromising character, his stately bearing, and his many personal engagements and connections. More than all, perhaps, he felt creeping over him what his friends did not see and would not believe--that premature decrepitude which consigned him, in the prime of life, to the infirmities of age. Thus, though he felt restless at being deprived of the only employment to which he was accustomed, he was not very eager about a prompt reinstatement in it, and preferred waiting until an absolute necessity for his services, and a crisis, on which he always counted, should float him again into Downing Street, over many obstacles against which his bark might otherwise be wrecked.

His real feelings, however, were matter of surmise; many people, not unnaturally, imagined that Mr. Canning represented them; and the energetic partisan, mixing with the world, derived no small importance from his well-known intimacy with the statesman in moody retirement. His marriage, moreover, at this time with Miss Joan Scott, one of the daughters of General Scott, and co-heiress with her sisters, Lady Moray and Lady Titchfield, brought him both wealth and connection, and gave a solidity to his position which it did not previously possess.

X.

In the meantime the Addington administration went on, its policy necessarily partaking of the timid and half-earnest character of the man directing it. Unequal to the burden and the responsibility of war, he had concocted a peace, but a peace of the character which Mr. Canning had previously described: “a peace without security and without honour:” a peace which, while it required some firmness to decline, demanded more to maintain, since the country was as certain to be at first pleased with it as to be soon ashamed of it. No administration would have had the boldness to surrender Malta; few would have been so weak as to promise the cession.

Indeed, almost immediately after concluding this halcyon peace, we find the Secretary of War speaking of “these times of difficulty and danger,” and demanding “an increased military establishment.” Nor was it long before an additional 10,000 men were also demanded for our naval service. On both these occasions Mr. Canning, supporting the demand of the Minister, attacked the Administration; and after stating his reasons for being in favour of the especial measure proposed, burst out at once into an eloquent exhibition of the reasons for his general opposition:

“I do think that this is a time when the administration of the Government ought to be in the ablest and fittest hands. I do not think the hands in which it is now placed answer to that description. I do not pretend to conceal in what quarter I think that fitness most eminently resides. I do not subscribe to the doctrines which have been advanced, that, in times like the present, the fitness of individuals for their political situations is no part of the consideration to which a Member of Parliament may fairly turn his attention. I know not a more solemn or important duty that a Member of Parliament can have to discharge than by giving, at fit seasons, a free opinion upon the character and qualities of public men. _Away with the cant of measures, not men--the idle supposition that it is the harness, and not the horse, that draws the chariot along._ No, sir; if the comparison must be made--if the distinction must be taken--measures are comparatively nothing, men everything. I speak, sir, of times of difficulty and danger--of times when systems are shaken, when precedents and general rules of conduct fail. Then it is that not to this or that measure, however prudently devised, however blameless in execution, but to the energy and character of individuals a state must be indebted for its salvation. Then it is that kingdoms rise and fall in proportion as they are upheld, not by well-meant endeavours (however laudable these may be), but by commanding, overawing talent--by able men. And what is the nature of the times in which we live? Look at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider what has made her what she is--a man! You will tell me that she was great, and powerful, and formidable before the date of Bonaparte’s government--that he found in her great physical and moral resources--that he had but to turn them to account. True; and he did so. Compare the situation in which he found France with that to which he has raised her. I am no panegyrist of Bonaparte; but I cannot shut my eyes to the superiority of his talents--to the amazing ascendency of his genius. Tell me not of his measures and his policy. It is his genius, his character, that keeps the world in awe. Sir, to meet, to check, to curb, to stand up against him, we want arms of the same kind. I am far from objecting to the large military establishments which are proposed to you. I vote for them with all my heart. But, for the purpose of coping with Bonaparte, one great commanding spirit is worth them all!”[114]

Mr. Canning was right. No cant betrays more ignorance than that which affects to undervalue the qualities of public men in the march of public affairs. However circumstances may contribute to make individuals, individuals have as great a share in making circumstances. Had Queen Elizabeth been a weak and timid woman, we might now be speaking Spanish, and have our fates dependent on the struggle between Prim and Narvaez. Had James II. been a wise and prudent man,--instead of the present cry against Irish Catholics, our saints of the day would have been spreading charges against the violence and perfidy of some Puritan Protestant, some English, or perhaps Scotch, O’Connell. Strip Mirabeau of his eloquence, endow Louis XVI. with the courage and the genius of Henry IV., and the history of the last eighty years might be obliterated.

Mr. Canning, I repeat, was right; the great necessity in arduous times is a man who inspires other men; and the satirist, in measuring the two rivals for office, was hardly wrong in saying:

“_As London to Paddington,_
_So Pitt is to Addington._”

XI.

Well-adapted ridicule no public man can withstand, and there seems to have been something peculiar to Mr. Addington that attracted it. Even Mr. Sheridan, his steady supporter to the last (for the main body of the Whigs, under Mr. Fox, when they saw a prospect of power for themselves, uniting with the Grenvillites, went into violent opposition)--even Mr. Sheridan, in those memorable lines:

“I do not love thee, Doctor Fell,
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not love thee, Doctor Fell”:

quoted in defence of the Minister whom so many attacked without saying why they disapproved, furnished a nickname that too well applied to him, and struck the last nail into the coffin that a mingled cohort of friends and enemies bore--a smile on their faces--to the tomb.

Previous to this, the war, which had been suspended by mutual bad faith, was recommenced, each party complaining of the other.