yers, as a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a jury;-as a standard, a sort of precedent for treating cases of libel, by keeping which in his eye, a man may hope to succeed in special pleading his client's case within its principle, who is destitute of the talent required even to comprehend the other and higher merits of his original. By those merits, it is recommended to lovers of pure diction,-of copious and animated description,-of lively, picturesque, and fanciful illustration, -of all that constitutes, if we may so speak, the poetry of eloquence, -all for which we admire it, when prevented from enjoying its music and its statuary. We shall venture to recommend this exquisite specimen of Mr Erskine's powers, by extracting a few passages almost at random.

"He thus introduces his audience to a striking view of the grand trial in Westminster Hall,-not for the sake of making fine sentences, or of adorning his speech with a beautiful description,—for the speeches of this great advocate may be searched through by the most crafty special pleader, from beginning to end, and no one instance of such useless ornament will be found, but for the solid and important purpose of interesting his hearers in the situation of Mr Hastings, and of his defender the author of the pamphlet,—of leading the mind to view the prisoner as an oppressed man, overwhelmed by the weight of parliamentary resentment, and ready to be crushed, in the face of the country, by the very forms and solemnities of his trial,-of insinuating that the pamphlet only ventures to say something in defence of this unhappy person,—and that, in such an unequal contest, an English jury may well excuse a little intemperance in the language of such a generous and almost hopeless defence. 'Gentlemen, before I venture to lay the book before you, it must be yet further remembered (for the fact is equally notorious), that, under these inauspicious circumstances, the trial of Mr Hastings at the bar of the lords had actually commenced long before its publication. There, the most august and striking spectacle was daily exhibited which the world ever witnessed. A vast stage of justice was erected, awful from its high authority, splendid from its illustrious dignity, venerable from the learning and wisdom of its judges, captivating and affecting from the mighty concourse of all ranks and conditions which daily flocked to it, as into a theatre of pleasure ;— there, when the whole public mind was at once awed and softened to the impression of every human affection, there appeared, day after day, one after another, men of the most powerful and exalted talents, eclipsing by their accusing eloquence the most boasted harangues of antiquity, rousing the pride of national resentment by the boldest invectives against broken faith and violated treaties,—and shaking the bosom with alternate pity and horror by the most glowing pictures of insulted nature and humanity;-ever animated and energetic, from the love of fame, which is the inherent passion of genius;-firm and indefatigable, from a strong prepossession of the justice of their cause. Gentlemen when the author sat down to write the book now before you, all this terrible, unceasing, exhaustless artillery of warm zeal, matchless vigour of understanding, consuming and devouring eloquence, united with the highest dignity, was daily, and without prospect of conclusion, pouring forth upon one private unprotected man, who was bound to hear it, in the face of the whole people of England, with reverential submission

and silence. I do not complain of this as I did of the publication of the charges, because it is what the law allowed and sanctioned in the course of a public trial; but when it is remembered that we are not angels, but weak fallible men, and that even the noble judges of that high tribunal are clothed beneath their ermines with the common infirmities of man's nature, it will bring us all to a proper temper for considering the book itself, which will in a few moments be laid before you. But first, let me once more remind you, that it was under all these circumstances, and amidst the blaze of passion and prejudice, which the scene I have been endeavouring faintly to describe to you might be supposed likely to produce, that the author, whose name I will now give to you, sat down to compose the book which is prosecuted to-day as a libel.' "He now brings the author more immediately before the audience, thus skilfully prepared to give him a favourable reception; and he proceeds to put to them at once the chief question they have to decide,— but in a striking shape: He felt for the situation of a fellow-citizen, exposed to a trial which, whether right or wrong, is undoubtedly a severe one ;—a trial, certainly not confined to a few criminal acts like those we are accustomed to, but comprehending the transactions of a whole life, and the complicated policies of numerous and distant nations; -a trial, which had neither visible limits to its duration, bounds to its expense, nor circumscribed compass for the grasp of memory or understanding;—a trial, which had therefore broke loose from the common form of decision, and had become the universal topic of discussion in the world, superseding not only every other grave pursuit, but every fashionable dissipation. Gentlemen, the question you have therefore to try upon all this matter is extremely simple. It is neither more nor less than this. At a time when the charges against Mr Hastings were, by the implied consent of the commons, in every hand, and on every table; when, by their managers, the lightning of eloquence was incessantly consuming him, and flashing in the eyes of the public;-when every man was with perfect impunity saying, and writing, and publishing just what he pleased of the supposed plunderer and devastator of nations-would it have been criminal in Mr Hastings himself to have reminded the public that he was a native of this free land, entitled to the common protection of her justice, and that he had a defence in his turn to offer to them, the outlines of which he implored them in the mean time to receive, as an antidote to the unlimited and unpunished poison in circulation against him?—This is, without colour or exaggeration, the true question you are to decide. Because I assert, without the hazard of contradiction, that if Mr Hastings himself could have stood justified or excused in your eyes for publishing this volume in his own defence, the author, if he wrote it bona fide to defend him, must stand equally excused and justified; and if the author be justified, the publisher cannot be criminal, unless you had evidence that it was published by him with a different spirit and intention from those in which it was written. The question therefore is correctly what I just now stated it to be could Mr Hastings have been condemned to infamy for writing this book? Gentlemen, I tremble with indignation to be driven to put such a question in England. Shall it be endured, that a subject of this country (instead of being arraigned and tried for some single act in her ordinary courts, where the accusation, as soon at least

as it is made public, is followed within a few hours by the decision) may be impeached by the commons for the transactions of twenty years, -that the accusation shall spread as wide as the region of letters,-that the accused shall stand, day after day, and year after year, as a spectacle before the public, which shall be kept in a perpetual state of inflammation against him; yet that he shall not, without the severest penalties, be permitted to submit any thing to the judgment of mankind in his defence? If this be law (which it is for you to-day to decide), such a man has no trial: that great hall, built by our fathers for English justice, is no longer a court, but an altar;-and an Englishman, instead of being judged in it by God and his country, is a victim and a sacrifice.'

"

In 1792 he supported Grey's motion for reform in parliament. In the same year he undertook the defence of Thomas Paine, the author of the Rights of Man,' against a charge of libel, and was in consequence deprived of his office of attorney-general to the prince of Wales, who, however, restored him to this office in 1802, and revived, in his favour, a long-dormant office, that of his chancellor. In 1794 he exerted himself prodigiously and with proportionate success in the defence of the various parties indicted in the course of that year of high treason. "Then it was that his consummate talents shone in their full lustre. His indefatigable patience his eternal watchfulness-his unceasing labour of body and of mind-the strength of an Herculean constitution -his untameable spirit-a subtlety which the merest pleader might envy a quickness of intellect which made up for the host he was opposed to these were the great powers of the man; and the wonderful eloquence of his speeches is only to be spoken of as second to these. Amidst all the struggles of the constitution, in parliament, in the council, and in the field,—there is no one man, certainly, to whose individual exertions it owes so much, as to this celebrated advocate; and if ever a single patriot saved his country from the horrors of a proscription, this man did this deed for us, in stemming the tide of state prosecutions."

It is somewhat remarkable that this consummate and unmatched pleader at the bar of courts of justice proved himself but a second-rate orator in the houses of parliament. On the death of Pitt, Mr Erskine was raised to the chancellorship, having been previously created a baron by the title of Lord Erskine of Restormel castle in Cornwall; he exercised his high professional functions only during the brief administration of Lord Grenville, and his public life may be said to have closed with his retirement from the woolsack.

A few desultory speeches, and the publication of a few pamphlets on passing topics, constituted the amount of the ex-chancellor's exertions after this period. His closing years were also shaded by a domestic mesalliance. Lord Erskine died on the 17th of November, 1823.

Charles Grant.

BORN A. D. 1746.-DIED A. D. 1823.

IF high talents, Christian worth, and the truest patriotism, entitle a name to commemoration, that of Charles Grant will long maintain a

high place in the estimation of the public. This distinguished senator was a native of Scotland. His father fell in the battle of Culloden, a few hours after the birth of this son. By his uncle his education was superintended, and he obtained for him a military appointment in India, whither he proceeded in 1767. In 1772 he obtained a writership on the Bengal establishment, and in the following year was appointed secretary to the Board of Trade at Calcutta. In 1784 he obtained the rank of senior merchant, and in 1787 was appointed by Lord Cornwallis a member of the Board of Trade.

After a residence in India of altogether nearly twenty years, he returned to England in the year 1790, and soon after drew up his Observations on the State of society among the Asiatic subjects of Great Britain with respect to Morals, and on the Means of improving it.' This production was for some years only circulated in private; but in 1813 it was ordered to be printed for the use of the house of commons, and proved of eminent service in effecting an amelioration on the system and tone of our Indian policy. In 1794 he was elected a director of the East India company. In 1804 he was elected deputy-chairman of the court of directors. While in this situation he did not hesitate to reprobate Lord Wellesley's Indian policy, and supported the motion of Sir Philip Francis, "that to pursue schemes of conquest and extension of dominion in India are measures repugnant to the wish, the honour, and the policy of Britain." In 1808 he zealously opposed the measure for deposing the nabobs of the Carnatic, declaring it to be his decided opinion "that not only was there nothing like legal evidence of the offences imputed to the nabobs, but even no such presumption as an individual or a nation could act upon with any regard to justice."

On the passing of the Charter act in July, 1813, Mr Grant obtained the introduction of various provisions for the supply of India with the institutions of Christianity and elementary schools,-objects which had hitherto been almost entirely overlooked, and which, but for his exertions, would probably have remained so for many years. In 1819 Mr Grant retired from public life, after having sat for about seventeen years in the house of commons, during fifteen of which he represented the county of Inverness. No man, perhaps, ever enjoyed more of the esteem and confidence of all parties than Charles Grant. In the religious world also his name stood very high. He was an active, liberal, and intelligent supporter of Missionary, Bible, and Educational societies; and readily lent his services and influence to the promotion of their objects. His death took place on the 31st of October, 1823. Mr Daniel Wilson, now bishop of Calcutta, thus depicted Mr Grant's character in a sermon which he preached on the occasion of his death: "This distinguished person, in point of natural endowments, was highly gifted. He had a vigorous understanding, a clear and sound judgment, a sagacity and penetration, particularly in the discernment of character, which were seldom deceived or eluded, a singular faculty of patient, impartial, and comprehensive investigation, an activity of spirit, and a power of continued and persevering application, which difficulties could not damp. nor labour exhaust. These qualities, united with quick sensibility of feeling, delicacy of sentiment, and a strong sense of moral rectitude, constituted, even independently of religion, that which is generally understood by the term greatness of character. It was not, however, the

possession, but the direction and the improvement of these endowments and qualifications; it was the use which he made of his powers and faculties; it was the sincere and honest dedication of every talent and acquirement to the service and glory of God, which constituted him, in the proper sense of the term, a Christian. He did not, indeed, learn this lesson easily, or at small cost. At an early stage of his Indian career, it pleased God to visit him with a succession of severe domestic afflictions, painfully illustrative of the vanity of human hopes, the precariousness of earthly enjoyments, and the awful nearness of the things which are unseen and eternal. He was in circumstances very unfavourable to religious instruction and improvement; heathenism and false religion prevailing all around; the partial intermixture of Christianity which existed, possessing little of that divine religion beyond the name; his situation ill allowing of seclusion from worldly occupation and society. Yet that season of heavy calamity was blessed to his mind. It led him to the only true source of felicity. He derived, on this occasion, much useful spiritual counsel from a friend, who afterwards became his near connection, and who was himself the friend and disciple of the celebrated missionary Schwartz. Thus, in a soil prepared by the means of grief and trouble, it pleased God that the good seed should be sown; it was subsequently cherished amidst the silence and comparative solitude of one of the remoter stations in our Indian dominions: and it produced blessed fruit to the praise and glory of God. The deep persuasion of the importance of religion which now possessed itself of his whole soul, did not slacken his attention to his proper duties. On the contrary, he laboured, if possible, only the more abundantly. A new principle of action governed him; a profound and abiding sense of his obligation as a Christian; a grateful and affecting remembrance of the mercies of God in Jesus Christ; a solemn and exciting anticipation of the awful account which he must one day give of the talents committed to his charge. He now sought to please, not men, but God, the judge of all. Let it not, however, be thought that these, his good deeds, formed, in any degree, the ground of his hopes before God. His reliance was on the meritorious cross and the mediation of Christ. was, indeed, a remarkable feature of his character, through his whole life, that, while no man entertained a stronger sense of the obligation of duty as such, or more assiduously strove to discharge with fidelity the trusts reposed in him; none ever avoided more carefully the ascription of merit to his own good works, or watched with more jealousy against the delusions of that self-righteousness to which the human heart is so lamentably prone, and which is apt to mingle with, and tarnish, even the graces of the most confirmed Christian."

Howard, Earl of Carlisle.

BORN A. D. 1748.-DIFD A.d. 1825

It

FREDERICK HOWARD, Earl of Carlisle, Viscount Howard of Morpeth, Baron Dacres, and a knight of the Garter, was born May 28th, 1748. As he was intended for public life, his lordship was sent early to Eton college, where he was the contemporary of Hare, whose verses