was one of the highest services of Lord Castlereagh.

In corroboration of those sentiments, if they could require any, it is observable how rapidly the loudest opponents of the measure lowered their voices, and adopted the tone of government. Plunket, the ablest rhetorician of the party-who had made his opposition conspicuous by the ultra-poetic extravagance, of pledging himself to swear his sons at the altar, as Hamilcar swore Hannibal to Roman hostility took the first opportunity of reconciling his wrath to office, and settled down into a chancellor. Foster, the speaker, who had led the opposition, received his salary for life without a pang, and filled the office of chancellor of the Irish exchequer. Bushe, the Cicero of the house, glowing with oratorical indignation, condescended to be chief-justice. All the leaders, when the battle was over, quietly slipped off their armour, hung up sword and shield on their walls, put on the peace costume of handsome salary, and subsided into title and pension.

No one blamed them then, nor need blame them now. They had all been actors--and who shall reproach the actor, when the lamps are put out and the audience gone, for thinking of his domestic meal, and dropping into his bed? Nature, like truth, is powerful, and the instinct of the lawyer must prevail.

One man alone "refused to be comforted." Grattan, the Demosthenes of Ireland, for years kept, without swearing it, the Carthaginian oath, which had slipped out of the mind of Plunket. He talked of the past with the rapt anguish of a visionary, and eschewed human occupation with the rigid inutility of a member of La Trappe. Grattan long continued to linger in Ireland, until he was hissed out of his patriotic romance, and laughed into England. There, he found, that he had lost the better part of his life in dreams, and that the world demanded evidence that he had not lived in vain. Fortunately for his own fame, he listened to the demand; forgot his sorrows over the dead in the claims of the living; threw in his share to the general contribution of the national heart against the tyranny of

Napoleon; and by some noble speeches vindicated the character of his national eloquence, and left an honourable recollection of himself in that greatest temple of fame and free minds which the world has ever seen-the parliament of England.

Lord Castlereagh, on the final dissolution of the Irish legislature, transferred his residence to London, where (in July 1802) he took office under the Addington ministry as President of the Board of Control—an appointment which, on the return of Pitt, he retained, until (in 1805) he was placed by the great minister in the office of secretary for the war and colonial department.

The death of Pitt (1806) surrendered the cabinet to the Whigs, and Lord Castlereagh retired with his colleagues. The death of Fox soon shook the new administration, and their own imprudence broke it up, (1807.) The Grey and Grenville party were superseded by Perceval; and Lord Castlereagh returned to the secretaryship at war, which he held until 1809, when his duel with Canning caused the retirement of both.

In the Memoir, the circumstances of this painful transaction are scarcely more than referred to; but the reply to a letter from Lord Castlereagh to the King, distinctly shows the sense of his conduct entertained in the highest quarter.

"The King has no hesitation in assuring Lord Castlereagh that he has, at all times, been satisfied with the zeal and assiduity with which he has discharged the duties of the various situations which he has filled, and with the exertions which, under every difficulty, he has made for the support of his Majesty's and the country's interest.

"His Majesty must ever approve of the principle which shall secure the support and protection of government to officers exposing their reputation, as well as their lives, in his service; when their characters and conduct are attacked, and aspersed on loose and insufficient grounds, without adverting to embarrassments and local difficulties, of which those on the spot alone can form an adequate judgment." This, of course, settled the royal opinion; and the ministerial confidence

shortly after reposed in Lord Castlereagh, in the most conspicuous manner, fully clears his reputation from every stain.

But the letter confirms one fact, hitherto not much known, yet which would alone entitle him to the lasting gratitude of the empire. In allusion to the campaign of Portugal under Moore, and the appointment of a successor, it adds,-"It was also this impression which prompted the King to acquiesce in the appointment of so young a lieutenant-general as Lord Wellington to the command of the troops in Portugal." Thus, it is to Lord Castlereagh's sense of talent, and to his public zeal, that we ministerially owe the liberation of the Peninsula. His selection of the great duke, in defiance of the claims of seniority, and probably of parliamentary connexion, gave England seven years of victory, and finally gave Europe the crowning triumph of Waterloo.

But a still more extensive field of statesmanship was now opened to him. Canning had left the Foreign Office vacant; before the close of the year it was given to Lord Castlereagh. Another distinction followed. The unhappy assassination of Perceval left the premiership vacant; and Lord Castlereagh, though nominally under Lord Liverpool, virtually became, by his position in the House of Commons, prime minister.

There never was a moment of European history, when higher interests were suspended on the intrepidity, the firmness, and the wisdom of British council. The Spanish war, difficult, though glorious, was at all risks to be sustained; Austria had taken up arms, (in 1809,) was defeated, and was forced to make the bitter peace that follows disaster. Napoleon, at Erfurth, sat on a throne which looked over Europe, and saw none but vassals. At home, Opposition flung its old predictions of evil in the face of the minister, and incessantly charged him with their realisation. An infirm minister in England at that crisis would have humiliated her by a treaty; that treaty would have been but a truce, and that truce would have been followed by an invasion. But the Secretary never swerved, and his confidence in the courage of England

was rewarded by the restoration of liberty to Europe.

The fortunes of Napoleon were at length on the wane. France had been stripped of her veterans by the retreat from Moscow, and the Russian and German armies had hunted the wreck of the French across the Rhine. But, in sight of final victory, the councils of the Allies became divided, and it was of the first importance to reunite them. An interesting letter of the late Lord Harrowby, to the present Marquis of Londonderry, gives the narrative of this diplomatic mission.

"I cannot recollect dates, but it was at the time when you, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Cathcart, were accredited to the three sovereigns. It was mooted in Cabinet, I think, by Lord Castlereagh, whether it would not be desirable, in order to carry the full weight of the British Government to bear upon the counsels of the assembled sovereigns, that some one person should be appointed who might speak in its name to them all.

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"The notion was approved of; and after the Cabinet was over, Castlereagh called me into his private room, and proposed the mission to me. was, of course, highly flattered by such a proposal from such a person; but I had not a moment's hesitation in telling him, that I had tried my hand unsuccessfully on a somewhat similar mission to Berlin, where I had also been accredited to the two Emperors; that I had found myself quite incompetent to the task, which had half-killed me; that I thought the measure highly advisable, but that there was one person only who could execute it, and that person was himself. He started at first. How could he, as Secretary of State, undertake it? The thing was unheard of. I then told him, that it was not strictly true that it had never been done: that Lord Bolingbroke went to Paris in a diplomatic capacity when Secretary of State; and that, though in that case the precedent was not a good one, it was still a precedent, and I believed there were more. The conclusion to which this conversation led was, that he would talk it over with Liverpool;' and the consequence was that, the next day, or the day after, his mission was decided."

A letter, not less interesting, from Lord Ripon, gives some striking particulars of this mission. Lord Ripon had accompanied him to the Congress. "I allude to his first mission to the Continent, at the close of 1813. I travelled with him from the Hague to Bâle, where he first came in contact with any of the ministers of the Allied powers; and thence we proceeded to Langres, where the headquarters of the Grand Army were established, and where the allied sovereigns, the Emperors of Austria and Russia and the King of Prussia, with their respective ministers, were assembled."

The letter proceeds to state the views of the mission, much of whose success it attributes to the combined suavity and firmness of Lord Castlereagh's conduct. But, an instance of his prompt and sagacious decision suddenly occurred. Blucher's impetuous advance had been checked, with serious loss, by desperate assault of Napoleon, who, availing himself of this success, had fallen upon all the advanced forces of the Allies. There was wavering at headquarters, and there were even proposals of retiring beyond the Rhine. It was essential to reinforce Blucher, but there were no troops at hand. Lord Castlereagh demanded, "Where were any to be found?" He was answered, that there were two strong corps of Russians and Prussians under the command of Bernadotte; but that he was very tenacious of his command," and they could not be withdrawn without a tedious negotiation,-in other words, we presume, without fear of giving that clever but tardy commander a pretext for abandoning the alliance altogether. The difficulty was, by a high authority, pronounced insurmountable. Lord Castlereagh, who was present at the council, simply demanded, "whether the reinforcement was necessary;" and, on being answered in the affirmative, declared that the order must be given; that England had a right to expect that her allies should not be deterred from a decisive course by any such difficulties; and that he would take upon himself all the responsibility that might arise, regarding the CrownPrince of Sweden.

The order was issued: Blucher was reinforced; Napoleon was beaten at

Laon; and the campaign rapidly approached its close. Still, formidable difficulties arose. Napoleon, though he had at last found that he could not face the army of the Allies, conceived the daring manoeuvre of throwing himself in their rear-thus alarming them for their communications, and forcing them to follow him back through France. The consequences of a desultory war might have been the revival of French resistance, and the ruin of the campaign. The manœuvre became the subject of extreme anxiety in the Allied camp, and some of the chief authorities were of opinion, that he ought to be pursued. It is said (though the Memoir has not yet reached that part of the subject,) that the decision of leaving him behind, and marching direct on Paris, was chiefly owing to Lord Castlereagh; who pointed out the weakness of taking counsel from an enemy, the advantage of finding the road to Paris open at last, and the measureless political importance of having the capital in their possession.

This advice prevailed: a few thousand cavalry were sent in the track of Napoleon, to entrap him into the idea that he was followed by the Grand Army, while Schwartzenberg marched in the opposite direction; and the first intelligence which reached the French army was in the thunderclap which announced the fall of the Empire!

Lord Harrowby's letter, in referring to a subsequent period, gives a curious instance of the chances on which the highest events may turn.

"Now for my other service in the dark. After the attempt to assassinate the Duke of Wellington at Paris, the Government was naturally most anxious to get him away. But how? Under whatever pretext it might be veiled, he would still call it running away, to which he was not partial. But, when Castlereagh was obliged to leave Vienna, in order to attend his duty in parliament, I was fortunate enough to suggest that the Duke should be sent to replace him; and that would be a command which he could not refuse to obey.

"When I mentioned this to the Duke, just after I left you-for I was then quite full of the memory of my

little exploits-he quite agreed that, if he had been at Paris, on the return of Buonaparte to France, it would have been highly probable that they would have seized him.

"Small events are great to little men; and it is not nothing, to have contributed in the smallest degree to the success of the Congress at Vienna, (nor was it then so called,) and of the subsequent campaign, and to the saving of the Duke for WATERLOO!"

After this triumphant course of political life, with every gift of fortune around him, and perhaps the still higher consciousness of having achieved a historic name, how can we account for the closing of such a career in suicide?

The only probable cause was the intolerable burden of public business, by his having in charge the chief weight of the home department as well as the foreign. His leadership of the House of Commons was enough to have worn him out. Canning once said"that no vigour of mind or body can stand the wear and tear of a minister, above ten years." Castlereagh had been immersed in indefatigable toil since 1794. He had stood "the wear and tear" for thirty years. His life was wholly devoted to business. During the summer he rose at five, in winter at seven, and frequently laboured for twelve or fourteen hours in succession.

In person he was tall, with a mild and very handsome countenance in early life, of which we must regret that the portrait in the first volume of the Memoir gives but an unfavourable resemblance. The most faithful likeness is that by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in the Windsor Gallery of Statesmen, though it has the effeminate air which that admirable painter had the unlucky habit of giving to his men.

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The death of Lord Castlereagh seems to have been justly attributed to mental exhaustion, with the addition of a fit of the gout, for which he had taken some depressing medicines. The state of his spirits was marked by the King, on his Majesty's departure for Scotland. At the Cabinet Council, he had been observed to remain helplessly silent, and his signature to public papers had become

suddenly almost illegible. On those symptoms, he was expressly put into the hands of his physician, and sent to Foot's Cray, his villa in Kent. The physician attended him until the Monday following. Early on that day he was hastily summoned, and found his Lordship dead in his dressing-room.

A letter from the Duke of Wellington conveyed the lamentable intelligence to the present Marquis, who was then at Vienna. After some prefatory remarks, the Duke says "You will have seen, that I witnessed the melancholy state of mind which was the cause of the catastrophe. I saw him after he had been with the King on the 9th instant, to whom he had likewise exposed it. But, fearing that he would not send for his physician, I considered it my duty to go to him; and not finding him, to write to him, which, considering what has since happened, was a fortunate circumstance.

"You will readily believe what a consternation this deplorable event has occasioned here. The funeral was attended by every person in London of any mark or distinction, of all parties; and the crowd in the streets behaved respectfully and creditably."

The Duke's remarks on "the fortunate circumstance" of applying to the physician, we presume to have meant, the vindication of the Marquis's character from the guilt of conscious suicide. For the same reason, we have given the details. They relieve the mind of the Christian and the Englishman from the conception, that the most accomplished intellect, and the highest sense of duty, may not be protective against the mingled crime and folly of self-murder.

We have now given a general glance at the matériel of those volumes. They contain a great variety of public documents, valuable to the future historian, though too official for the general reader. One, however, is too curious to be altogether passed by: it is from Lord Brougham, (dated 1812,) offering himself for employment in American affairs:

"MY LORD,-I am confident that the step which I am now taking can

not be misconstrued by your lordship. Under the present circumstances, I beg to make a tender of my services to his Majesty's government in the conduct of the negotiation with the United States, wheresoever the same may be carried on.

I am induced to think that I might be of use as a negotiator in this affair. I trust it is unnecessary to add, that I can have no motive of a private or personal nature in making this offer. Should it be accepted, I must necessarily sustain a considerable injury in my professional pursuits," &c.

We think that, in giving these volumes to the country, the present Marquis of Londonderry has not merely fulfilled an honourable fraternal duty, but has rendered a service to public character. Faction had calumniated Lord Castlereagh throughout a large portion of his career. The man who breaks down a fierce rebellion, and who extinguishes a worthless legislature, must be prepared to encounter the hostility of all whose crimes he has punished, or whose traffic he has put to shame. The felon naturally hates the hand which holds the scales of justice, and, if he cannot strike, is sure to malign. The contemptuous dignity with which Lord Castlereagh looked down upon his libellers, and his equally contemptuous disregard of defence, of course only rendered libel more inveterate; and every low artifice of falsehood was exerted against the administration of a man who was an honour to Ireland.

His course in England was in a higher region, and he escaped the mosquitoes which infest the swamps of Irish political life. Among the leaders of English party he had to contend with men of honour, and on the Continent his task was to sustain the cause of Europe. There, mingling with monarchs in the simplicity of a British gentleman, he carried with him all the influence of a great British minister, and entitled himself to that influence by the value of his services. Yet, among the highest distinctions of his statesmanship, we have but slight hesitation in naming the rapid overthrow of the rebellion. The scene was new, the struggle

singularly perplexing. Political artifice was mingled with brute violence. If the spirit of revolt raged in the superstition, the fears, and the rude memories of peasant life, it was still more hazardously spread among the professional ranks, whose ambition was frenzied by the prospect of a republic, or whose guilt was to be screened by its establishment. He has been charged with tyranny and torture in its suppression; his correspondence in these volumes shows the manly view which he took of the true condition of Ireland.

The question of the safety of Ireland has now come before the legislature once again, in all its breadth. Is Ireland to be a perpetual seat of rebellion? is every ruffian to find there only an armoury? is every faction to find there only a paradeground? Is its soil to be a perpetual fount of waters, that can flow only to poison the healthful channels of society? Is the power of government to be employed only in the hideous duties of the gaoler and the executioner? Is the noblest constitution that man has ever seen to be utterly paralysed, from the moment when it touches a soil containing millions of our fellow-subjects?—and to be paralysed by the act of these millions?

These are the questions which well may disturb the pillow of the statesmen of England. We have no hesitation in answering them. As the ruin of Ireland has been the act of a false religion, its renovation must be the act of the true. This is no time for tardiness in this experiment. Revolt has thrown aside its arms, but its antipathy remains. We shall have revolt upon revolt, until the country is turned into a field of battle or a sepulchre. If the rude, vulgar, and cowardly conspirators of the present hour have found followers, what might not be the national hazard if some valorous hand and vivid intellect--some one of those mighty men who are born to take the lead of nations, should marshal the willing multitudes at a time when England was once again struggling for the liberties of Europe? Are we to leave Ireland, with all its natural advantages, to the unchecked