could severally aflign them to the perfons by whom they were delivered. Johnson upon hearing this, could not • Much more, Sir, is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked with lefs temptation, who prostitutes himself for money ⚫ which he cannot enjoy, and spends the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. • But youth, Sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may either imply ⚫ fome peculiarities of gesture, or a diffimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and language of another • man. In the first fenfe, Sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and deferves only to be mentioned that it may be defpised. I am at liberty, like every other man, to use my own <language; and though I may perhaps have fome ambition to please this gentleman, I fhall not lay myself under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction or his mien, however matur⚫ed by age, or modelled by experience. • If any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply, that I utter any fentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and a villain, nor fhall any protection shelter ⚫ him from the treatment which he deferves. I fhall, on fuch an ' occafion, without fcruple, trample upon all thofe forms with ⚫ which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor fhall any thing but age restrain my refentment. Age, which always brings one privilege, that of being infolent and fupercilious. without punishment. But with regard, Sir, to thofe whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have • avoided their cenfure; the heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and that zeal for the service of my country, which neither hope nor fear fhall influence me to suppress. I will not fit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor look in filence upon public robbery. I will exert my endeavours, at 'whatever hazard, to repel the aggreffor and drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect them in their villany, and who · ever not refrain from undeceiving him, by confeffing that himfelf was the author of them all. It rauft be owned, that with refpect to the general principles avowed in the fpeeches, and the fentiments therein contained, they agree with the characters of the perfons to whom they are afcribed. Thus, to instance in those of the upper house, the fpeeches of the duke of Newcastle, the lords Carteret and Ilay, are calm, temperate and perfuafive; thofe of the duke of Argyle and lord Talbot, furious and declamatory, and lord Chesterfield's and lord Hervey's florid but flimfy. In the other house the speeches may be thus characterifed; the minifter's mild and conciliatory, Mr. Pulte ever may partake of their plunder. And if the honourable gentleman-At these words Mr. Winnington rofe up, and calling Mr. Pitt to order, made a fhort fpeech, to which Mr. Pitt made this answer: If this be to preferve order, there is no danger of indecency from the moft licentious tongue, for what calumny can be more atrocious, or what reproach more fevere, than that of speaking with regard to any thing but truth. Order may fometimes be ⚫ broken by paffion or inadvertency, but will hardly be re-established by monitors like this, who cannot govern his own paffion, whilst he is reftraining the impetuofity of others. Happy, Sir, would it be for mankind, if every one knew his own province; we should not then see the fame man at once a criminal and a judge, nor would this gentleman affume the right of dictating to others, what he has not learned himself. That I may return in fome degree the favour which he intends me, I will advife him never hereafter to exert himself on the subject of order, but, whenever he finds himself inclined to speak on fuch occafions, to remember how he has now fucceeded, and condemn in filence, what his cenfures will never • reform * .' Gent. Mag. 1741, page 568 et feqq. ney's ney's nervous, methodical and weighty, Mr. Shippen's blunt and dogmatical, Sir John Barnard's clear, efpecially on commercial fubjects, Lyttelton's stiff and imitative of the Roman oratory, and Pitt's void of argument but rhapfodically and diffusively eloquent*. In other particulars the debates of Johnson are liable to the fame objections, but in a greater degree, as those of Guthrie; the language of them is too good, and the style fuch as none of the perfons to whom the speeches are affigned were able to difcourfe in. The confeffion of Johnson above-mentioned, was the first that revealed the fecret that the debates inferted in the Gentleman's Magazine were fictitious, and compofed by himself. After that, he was free, and indeed industrious, in the communication of it, for being informed that Dr. Smollet was writing a history of England, and had brought it down to the laft reign, he cautioned him not to rely on the debates as given in the Magazine, for that they were not authentic, but, excepting as to their general import, the work of his own imagination. As the fubjects of these debates are at this time become very little interefting, I fhall not attempt, farther than I have already done, to embellish these memoirs by a selection of any of those nervous arguments, or eloquent paffages with which they abound, and the rather as it is impoffible in the relation of a conflict between two contending parties, to determine the merits of their several pretenfions, or diftinguish between * Mr. Pitt profeffed himself to be no reafoner. In the meetings of his party to settle the method of conducting a debate, in oppofition to the minister, he declined the enforcing particular charges of mal-administration, and always chose what he called the peroration. VOL. I. K fpecious, fpecious, and found reafoning. In the attempts to remove the minifter, experience has however convinced us, that ambition and perfonal refentment were the motives that actuated his opponents, for neither when they attained to power did they manifeft greater integrity, nor did they ceafe to practise those methods for the maintaining their influence over the public councils, which were imputed to him as criminal. It is befide my purpose to enter into a formal defence of the adminiftration of this fervant of the public, or to attempt a detection of the arts that were practifed to render him odious: I will nevertheless mention a few facts respecting him that have come to my own knowledge, and may ferve to exculpate him, in fome degree, from the charge of being an enemy to the conftitution or the interefts of this country. When he firft came into power, he found it his duty to undertake the arduous task of reconciling the people to the dominion of a prince born in a foreign country, and fecuring the fucceffion to his descendants, and this he lived to fee effected. War he hated as much as fome of his fucceffors did peace, and from a war with Spain he forefaw that no good could follow: the fettlements abroad of that power are very remote; and in a climate destructive to Englishmen; fo that what we were ever able to take from them we never could hold. The extenfion of empire was never his wish; but the encouragement of commerce and the improvement of the revenue, in both which subjects his skill was unrivalled, engroffed his attention. To effect the one, a greater number of laws in its favour were framed and paffed paffed under his fanction, than had ever been enacted in any known period of equal duration with his ministry; and to carry the other into practice, he projected a scheme for an extenfion of the excife, as the only means of putting a stop to the frauds of merchants and illicit traders, and making the receipts of that branch of the public income equal to what they were computed at. This scheme, it is true, fubjected him to much obloquy, and he was neceffitated to abandon it; but in a fucceeding administration it was partly carried into execution, at the exprefs folicitation of the principal perfons concerned in that article of trade which it was fuggefted would have been moft affected had the scheme paffed into a law and afterwards the most popular minister that ever directed the councils of this country, fcrupled not to declare in full fenate, that if ever a time should arrive that was likely to render the project feasible, himself would recommend an extenfion of the excife-laws as a measure big with advantage to commerce, to the revenue, and to the general interests of the kingdom. The question whether he was in principle an enemy to his country or not, will poffibly be decided by the following fact, which the beft authority warrants me in relating: When he was feized with the diforder that put a period to his days, and from its violence he had abandoned the hope of living much longer, he called one of his fons to him, gaye him his blefling, and with tears in his eyes told him, that from intelligence he had obtained, he would affure him that within a twelvemonth's time the crown of England would be fought for upon English ground: the fubfequent rebellion K 2 |