Chapter I: Front Matter

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The Knickerbocker Press
1884

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1884.

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CONTENTS.

PAGE
GEORGE CANNING 1

GEORGE CANNING 13
ON THE POLICY OF GRANTING AID TO PORTUGAL WHEN INVADED
BY SPAIN; HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 12, 1826.

LORD MACAULAY 50

LORD MACAULAY 62
ON THE REFORM BILL OF 1832; HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH
2, 1831.

RICHARD COBDEN 95

RICHARD COBDEN 109
ON THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION ON THE AGRICULTURAL INTERESTS
OF THE COUNTRY; HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 13, 1845.

JOHN BRIGHT 155

JOHN BRIGHT 159
ON THE FOREIGN POLICY OF ENGLAND; DELIVERED AT A BANQUET
GIVEN IN HONOR OF MR. BRIGHT, AT BIRMINGHAM,
OCTOBER 29, 1858.

LORD BEACONSFIELD 204

LORD BEACONSFIELD 216
ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY; DELIVERED
AT MANCHESTER, APRIL 3, 1872.

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 277

WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE 287
ON DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS; DELIVERED AT WEST
CALDER, NOVEMBER 27, 1879.

GEORGE CANNING.

The subject of this sketch was born in London in 1770. When he was only one year old, the death of his father threw the responsibility of his training and education upon his mother. Dependent upon her own energies for the support of herself and her child, she at first established a small school in London, and a little later fitted herself for the stage, where she achieved considerable success.

As soon as George entered school, he began to show remarkable proficiency in the study of Latin and Greek, as well as in English literature. Mr. Stapleton, his biographer, tells us that when still a child, young Canning was incidentally called upon to recite some verses, when he began with one of the poems of Gray, and did not stop or falter till he repeated the contents of the entire volume. At the age of fifteen he went to Eton, where he was at once recognized as a boy of surpassing abilities and attainments. In the following year some of his school-fellows joined him in starting a weekly paper, called the _Microcosm_, to which he acted the part of editor and chief contributor. The brilliancy and wit of the paper were such as to attract even the attention of the leading reviews. He also paid great attention to the art of extemporaneous speaking. A society had been established in the school in which all the forms and methods of the House of Commons were rigidly observed. The Speaker, the Cabinet, and the Opposition played their mimic parts with all the energy and interest so many of the members afterward displayed in Parliament itself. George became “Captain” of the school, and, when in 1788 he went up to Oxford, he carried with him a reputation for accuracy and maturity of scholarship which at once drew the eyes of the whole university upon him. Even in his first year he entered the list of competitors for the Chancellor’s Prize offered for the best Latin poem, and was successful over all the upper classmen. Throughout his course his attention was absorbed with the study of literature and the practice of writing and speaking.

He left the University at the age of twenty-two, and at once began the study of law. His great reputation, however, had already attracted the attention of Pitt, who now invited him to take a seat in the House of Commons from one of the Government boroughs. With this request Canning complied; and, accordingly, he became a member of the House in 1793 in the twenty-fourth year of his age.

His maiden speech, delivered some two months after he entered the House, was brilliant, but was generally thought to be somewhat lacking in the qualities of solidity and good judgment. His tastes were so eminently rhetorical in their nature, that, for some years to come, he was inclined to excess of ornamentation. Joined to this peculiarity was an irresistible inclination to indulge in wit and badinage at the expense of his fellow-members. This tendency was so predominant that for a long time it was said that he never made what he called a successful speech without making an enemy for life.

In 1797, in connection with a few friends, Canning projected the journal known as the _Anti-Jacobin Review_. Its object was to counteract those peculiar doctrines of the French Revolution which its contributors thought dangerous. Many of Canning’s articles were satires, and were so admirable in their way as to be worthy of a place among the most noted extravaganzas of English literature. The “Knife Grinder,” and the drama entitled “The Rovers,” are perhaps the most successful. “The Rovers” was written to ridicule the German drama then prevailing, and it was regarded as of so much consequence that Niebuhr in one of his gravest works has devoted nearly a page to a refutation of it.[A] A good impression of Canning’s peculiar wit will be conveyed by “Rogers’ Song,” taken from “The Rovers.” Mr. Hayward[B] informs us that Canning had written the first five stanzas of the song, when Pitt, coming into his room and accidentally seeing it, was so amused that he took up a pen and added the fifth stanza on the spot. The following is the song entire:—

[A] “Geschichte des Zeitalters der Revolution,” ii., 242.

[B] “Biographical Essays,” i., 211.