GEORGE CANNING was a smart and brilliant politician; and Mr. Bell is a smartish biographer. The former lived and occupied no small space in the public eye, during the most stirring and eventful period of England's history; and both his excellencies and his defects were such as to captivate the admiration of our author, whose praises and commendations have been elicited not more, perhaps we might say not so much, by the powers both of reasoning and of eloquence, which he undoubtedly possessed, as by the giddiness and party spirit, which sometimes gave to them a mischievous, or, an eccentric direction.

Canning was the son of an Irish gentleman, who was born heir to the estate of Garvagh, in the county of Londonderry, but had the misfortune to incur the displeasure of his father, by whom he was disinherited, and dismissed from the paternal mansion, with an allowance of one hundred and fifty pounds a year. His mother was a Miss Costello, whose ancient Irish lineage our author traces to the family originally called M'Costello, and who were settled in the County of Mayo, as lords or barons of the district which bears the name, long before the Conquest.

Mr. Canning, the elder, was called to the bar, but never addressed himself to his legal studies, so as to be qualified for practice. He was not without a talent for popular composition, both in prose and verse; and if he lived at the present day, it is very probable that his abilities would procure for him profitable employment; but circumstanced as he then was, we are not surprised to learn from Mr. Bell, that "his various flirtations with literature and politics resulted only in a succession of failures." Other schemes were

"He

tried with no better success. set up as a wine merchant, and failed, as might have been expected." And it was in the midst of the troubles and distresses in which he was thus involved, that his son George was born. This event took place on the 11th of April, 1770; and Mr. Bell observes, the man would have been a bold prophet, who should have ventured to predict, "that the child of such afflictions would one day be prime minister of England."

His father died when young George was just one year old, and his widowed mother felt herself in a very forlorn and desolate position, not being fortunate enough to attract the regard or the sympathy of her husband's relatives; and the scanty pittance of £150 a-year, which had hitherto constituted their whole available income, now reverting to the family at Garvagh.

The stage was the only resource which presented itself as a refuge from present distress, and to that she turned with some hope that her personal attractions, and her theatrical capabilities, might win for her the favour of the public. But her success did not answer her expectations. Older and more experienced favourites were in possession of the principal parts; and it is no wonder that the struggling widow was not able to oppose any successful rivalry to such established actresses as Mrs. Ebrington and Mrs. Barry. She accordingly descended from the leading to inferior parts, and finally took her fortunes with a strolling company, where she fell in with, and married one Reddish, an actor of good family, but indifferent character, whose irregular life and brutal excesses caused her much misery, until they eventuated in insanity, and terminated in death.

It was during her connexion with this man, that the peculiar position of

London:

young George attracted the benevolent attention of the actor, Moody. The boy's talents must have made a strong impression upon this worthy man, to have induced him to interest himself about him as he did, and to plead his cause with his respectable relative, Mr. Strafford Canning, with an importunity and an energy that was at length successful. He saw that the boy's ruin would be the consequence of leaving him amongst the associates by whom he was surrounded; that his poor mother was utterly unable to prevent the moral contamination to which he was exposed; that in Reddish he had constantly before his eyes the very worst example. In short, he declared that, circumstanced as he was, "he was on the high road to the gallows.' Such were the very words of this honest and plain-spoken man ; "while," he added, "if he were only properly cared for, and justice done to his abilities, he must yet become an ornament to his country." The actor prevailed. Mr. Strafford Canning, then a member of the banking and mercantile firm of French, Burroughs, and Canning, consented to take the charge of his nephew, on condition that all intercourse with his mother's connexions should be strictly abridged; and the boy had thus an early oppor. tunity of meeting at his house the leading Whig politicians of the dayBurke, Fox, Sheridan, and General Fitzpatrick-and catching that tone of good society by which he did not fail to profit, and which may have been the more valued by him from its contrast with the scenes of odious debauchery from which, by this sudden revolution in his fortunes, he had been so happily redeemed. Poor Moody! how happy it must have made him thus to have been instrumental in rescuing such a youth from the ignominy and the degradation which full surely awaited him had he remained where he was, and introducing him into an atmosphere where he breathed a wholesome air, and trod upon a path which led to honour. We trust that his protégé, now no longer in need of his protection, felt a grateful sense of all that he owed to him. Canning did not want amiable and generous feelings; and we are very sure that the poor player would have experienced

their warmest glow, did any occasion present itself for manifesting them towards him. But none such does the biographer record. Of Moodywe hear no more. He dropped back into his quiet obscurity, well pleased to witness the triumph of his benevolence, while the youth, who was so fortunate as to have attracted his regard, aptly availed himself of every means of improvement and distinction which was placed within his reach, and very soon evinced both industry and abilities from which the very highest distinction might be expected.

Under the Rev. Richard Hyde, of Hyde Abbey school, in the neighbourhood of Winchester, he received the rudiments of his education, and retained so strong a sense of the services of that excellent man, that, when he came into power, towards the close of his career, he presented him to a prebendal stall in Winchester cathedral.!

From Hyde Abbey, he passed to Eton, whither he was sent by the advice of Fox, who took a personal interest in his progress. Here his course was marked by a steadiness and regularity which secured for him the respect of his superiors; while his good sense was strongly exhibited in keeping under proper control the lighter faculties of wit and humour which he was known to possess, and to the indulgence of which so many temptations must have been presented. He appears, his biographer tells us, to have commenced his studies with a sort of prescience of the course which lay before him, and to have trained his faculties with a steady reference to the uses to which they were to be put in after life. Already he had evinced considerable proficiency in the art of composition, both in Latin and English, and his rising reputation had drawn about him the chief spirits among his young cotemporaries.

"A society existed there for the practice of discussion, and used to meet periodically in one of the halls of the college. This little assembly was conducted with a strict eye to parliamentary usages; the chair was taken by a speaker duly elected to the office; the ministerial and opposition benches were regularly occupied; and the subject for consideration was entered upon with the most sincere and ludicrous formality. Noble lords,

and honourable and learned gentlemen, were here to be found in miniature, as they were in full maturity in another place; the contest for victory was as eager; and, when it is added that amongst the earlier debaters were the late Marquis Wellesley and Earl Grey, it will readily be believed that the eloquence was frequently as ardent and original. In this society Mr. Canning soon won distinction by the vigour and clearness of his speeches, anticipating upon the themes of the hour the larger views of the future statesman. And here, too, in these happy conflicts, he formed some solid friendships, that lasted through his life."

Nor was this the only mode in which the young Etonian evinced a desire for intellectual distinction. A little periodical publication, entitled "the Microcosm," to which Canning was a principal contributor, made its appearance on the 6th of November, 1780, and was characterized by a correctness of style and a degree of ability, which, considering the youth of the several writers, is quite sur prising. The following is our author's estimate of the merits of this little literary undertaking, which assuredly made known powers and pretensions of no ordinary kind, on the part of the tyros to whom it was indebted for its existence :

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"The work abounds in touches of well-bred humour, and quaint irony of amiable foibles, and sedulously displays a proper sense of the genteeler virtues, and an amusing sympathy for all sorts of oddities, especially that superannuated order of correspondents who represent abstract ideas and exploded eccentricities. As in the Spectator,' so in the Microcosm,' social weaknesses are laid bare-social vices never; or only in a way to give the greater importance to the externals of decorum, insisting with overwhelming sententiousness upon the doctrine of appearances, while great offences, too mighty for ridicule, are suffered to stalk abroad with impunity. The ethics of the Spectator' are diligently slipped and transplanted into this lighter soil, and blossom, as all such transplantations do, in diminished force and fainter hues.. Every thing is tested by a judgment too cautious and exceptional to throw out much vigour and freshness; the ear is lulled by the flowing repose of undulating periods; and

VOL. XXVIII-No. 163.

we have the satisfaction of retracing, in smooth and agreeable cadences, a whole anthology of truisms."

It is not easy to over-estimate the importance to the practical politician of the early intellectual discipline which gives him a command of his faculties, so as to render his powers effective and his knowledge availing. Without it, no amount of learning can enable him to meet the sudden emergencies which arise in debate, and which demand a promptitude and a vigour which can only be acquired by constant practice. The man of vast acquisitions may feel himself only embarrassed and encumbered by them, when not possessed of a ready eloquence, by which they might be exhibited to advantage. The armour to which he trusted for his defence may prove the source of his defeat and capture and many an intellectual Goliah has had his head cut off by his own sword, by some stripling, who, with a sling and a stone, has been more than a match for him in the combat. Of this most useful training' Mr. Canning knew the entire value, and took care to have his full share; and while no opportunity was lost for storing and cultivating his mind, the practice was never intermitted upon which his alertness and efficiency must depend, in the wordy contests by which his life was to be distinguished.

In 1788 he passed to Oxford. His uncle, Mr. Strafford Canning, had died just before his entrance at Christ Church College; and he was left at that early period of his life entirely to the guidance of his own discretion. Now it was that the discipline of Eton proved an invaluable protection. His literary tastes and habits effectually precluded any sordid or dissipating connexions; and the chosen companions with whom it was his privilege to associate, were all calculated to profit the studious and ambitious youth who looked forward to political advancement. Mr. Jenkinson, afterwards Earl of Liverpool, Mr. Sturges Bourne, Lord Holland, Lord Carlisle, Lord Seaford, Lord Grenville, and Lord Boringdon, were amongst his most familiar acquaintances, a proof in itself that not only

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