phalanx, when, after being overwhelmed with the powerful fire of the Whig Opposition, or galled by the fierce denunciations of the "Mountain,” or harassed by the brilliant though often tinsel displays of Mr. Canning, their chosen leader stood forth, and, presenting the graces of his eminently patrician figure, flung open his coat, displayed an azure ribbon traversing a snow-white chest, and declared "his high satisfaction that he could now meet the charges against him face to face, and repel with indignation all that his adversaries were bold and rash enough to advance."-Ibid. Light out of Darkness.—On one occasion (relates Earl Russell) Castlereagh had gone on for an hour speaking upon what subject no man could guess, when he exclaimed of a sudden, "So much, Mr. Speaker, for the law of nations." At another time, when he had spoken for an hour tediously and confusedly, he declared, "I have now proved that the Tower of London is a common law principle."- -"Before he spoke," said Lord Granville, "he would collect what he could on the subject, but never spoke above the level of a newspaper. Had three things in his favour: tact, good humour, and courage.' "-Thomas Moore's answer to the question, "Why is a pump like Viscount Castlereagh ?" will be remembered "Because it is a slender thing of wood, That up and down its awkward arm doth sway, And coolly spout and spout and spout away, In one weak, washy, everlasting flood." But some could see much more in Castlereagh than his opponents would allow. Thus Lytton, in "St. Stephen's" "They much, in truth, misjudge him who explain His graceless language by a witless brain. So firm his purpose, so resolved his will, It almost seem'd a craft to speak so ill As if, like Cromwell, flashing towards his end, Ignorant Impatience of Taxation.-Lord Castlereagh (says Alison) was at times eminently imprudent in expression, especially in those curt and pithy sayings which are easily recollected, and strike between wind and water the prevailing prejudices of the day. His sayings on these occasions were generally perfectly true, but that only rendered them more provoking, and induced the greater hostility against him. Never was a truer expression than " the ignorant impatience of taxation," of which he complained when the income-tax was thrown out in 1816.-Life of Castlereagh. Mr. Gladstone quoted this phrase when he introduced his " Commercial Treaty" budget in 1860. He said, "It was Lord Londonderry* who complained of the people of England as exhibiting an 'ignorant impatience of taxation;' but I think, were he to rise from the dead and again take his place in this House, he would be very much more likely to complain of an ignorant patience of taxation." * Castlereagh's later title. The Currycomb of the House.-The following entry appears in the Journal of Sir James Mackintosh: "March 22nd, 1817. Fsaid it was delightful to see how completely the currycomb of the House of Commons had taken off all the gilding and lackering that Castlereagh had brought from the Congress." Insulting Language in Parliament.-Nothing could be more just than the rebuke which, as connected with the question of personal courage, we may recollect his administering to a great man who had passed the limits of Parliamentary courtesy. "Every one must be sensible," he said, "that if any personal quarrel were desired, any insulting language used publicly where it could not be met as it deserved, was the way to prevent and not to produce such a rencounter."-Brougham's "Statesmen." It was Grattan who had attacked Castlereagh in the Irish Parliament, charging him with puerility, arrogance, and presumption. Lord Cornwallis thus wrote on the matter: "Lord Castlereagh rose with great coolness in reply. He said that he never should enter into personal altercation in that house; that he despised that parade of parliamentary spirit which led to nothing, and which denied in offensive terms what had been never uttered; that if any personal incivility were used to him, it was not in Parliament he should answer it, and that he should carefully avoid making himself an object for the interference of the House." The reply raised him much in the estimation of the House. Castlereagh, however, afterwards felt inclined to send Grattan a message, but was dissuaded by his friends, who represented to him that by doing so he would be quitting the high ground on which he stood. His Duel with Canning.-Unknown (says Alison) to Lord Castlereagh, and without giving him the slightest reason to suspect its existence, a party had been formed in the Cabinet inimical to him, and the object of which was to get him removed from his position as Minister at War, and Lord Wellesley substituted in his room. This was arranged by the whole Cabinet, with the exception of his lordship, as early as the 4th of April, 1809. It was not till Lord Castlereagh was shown the correspondence of Mr. Canning by Mr. Perceval that he showed any resentment or unpleasant feeling on the subject. It was from that he learned how early his removal had been consented to by his Majesty and his colleagues, and it was in that he met with passages which induced him to challenge Mr. Canning.. Lord Castlereagh, conceiving that the whole was an intrigue of Mr. Canning's to get him removed from office in order to facilitate his own advancement, and that he himself had been illused by being allowed so long, and at so critical a juncture, to retain the responsibility of office, when his removal had not been only resolved on by the Cabinet, but submitted to his Majesty and approved by him, sent Mr. Canning a challenge. The parties met on Putney Heath, September 21st, and exchanged shots. Mr. Canning's fire did not take effect; but that of Lord Castlereagh inflicted a severe flesh wound on the thigh of his adversary. Castlereagh in the Cabinet.-The letters given in the "Memoirs and Correspondence" of Castlereagh, edited by his brother, show the high estimation in which his personal qualities were held by his colleagues. Lord Ripon relates an anecdote of his firmness. Castlereagh was at the council when the question was raised respecting the reinforcement of Blucher's section of the Allied Army with two corps of Bernadotte's, without previous communication with the latter. "The moment he understood that, militarily speaking, the proposed plan was indispensable to success, he took his line. He stated that, in that case, the plan must be adopted, and the necessary orders immediately given; that England had a right to expect that her allies would not be deterred from a decisive course by any such difficulties as had been urged; and he boldly took upon himself the responsibility of any consequences as regarded the Crown Prince of Sweden. His advice prevailed; Blucher's army was reinforced in time; the battle of Laon was fought successfully, and no further efforts of Buonaparte could oppose the march of the Allies on Paris, and their triumphant occupation of that city."-Sir Robert Peel said, "I doubt whether any public man (with the exception of the Duke of Wellington), within the last half century, possessed the combination of qualities, intellectual and moral, which would have enabled him to effect, under the same circumstances, what Lord Londonderry did effect in regard to the union with Ireland, and to the great political transactions of 1813, 1814, and 1815. To do these things required a rare union of high and generous feelings, courteous and prepossessing manners, a warm heart and a cool head, great temper, great industry, great fortitude, great courage moral and personal, that command and influence which make other men willing instruments, and all these qualities combined with disdain for low objects of ambition, and with spotless integrity." A Lover of Ireland.-"It is said," remarks Earl Russell, "that when Grattan's friends were assembled round his bed, the dying patriot said to them, 'Don't be hard upon Castlereagh-he loves our country.' It is added that when Lord Castlereagh heard of. these words of his great opponent, he burst into tears. I cannot vouch for the truth of this anecdote, but I think it probably authentic." Death of Castlereagh.—The following are the particulars given by Sir A. Alison:-On the 9th of August, 1822, the Duke of Wellington was so much struck with the manner of Lord Castlereagh that, after walking with him to the Foreign Office, he went to his medical attendant, Dr. Bankhead, and not finding him at home, wrote a letter expressing his apprehensions, and not obscurely hinting at mental delusions. Dr. Bankhead no sooner received this alarming intelligence than he went out to Cray Farm, Lord Castlereagh's seat in Kent, and seeing the Duke of Wellington's fears too well founded, he slept in the house the next two nights, and gave orders to his valet to remove the razors from his lordship's dressing-case, and take other precautions against self-destruction. He did so without being observed; but, unfortunately, not recollecting that there was a penknife belonging to the case in one of the drawers of the washing-stand, he neglected to secure it. The consequences were fatal. During the 10th and 11th of August Castlereagh remained in bed, wandering, but expressing no alarming intentions. On the morning of the 12th of August, Lady Londonderry, who was with him, reported that he had passed a restless night, and that he wished to see Dr. Bankhead, who was in an adjoining apartment. When Dr. Bankhead went into his dressing-room, he found him standing opposite the window, looking out, with his hands above his head, his throat cut and bleeding profusely. Consciousness, as is often the case, returned with the flow of blood. He threw his arms round the doctor's neck, and saying, in a feeble voice, "Bankhead, let me fall on your arm; I have opened my neck; it is all over!" sank on the ground and expired. HENRY GRATTAN. (1750-1820.) Preparation for Parliamentary Life.-Grattan had taken a residence near Windsor Forest, where he was preparing sedulously for his future destination by addressing imaginary audiences. His landlady took such manifestations much to heart. "What a sad thing it was," she would say, "to see the poor young gentleman all day talking to somebody he calls Mr. Speaker, when there's no speaker in the house except himself." Grattan's Manner in Speaking.-The chief difficulty (says Phillips) in this great speaker's way was the first five minutes. During his exordium laughter was imminent. He bent his body almost to the ground; swung his arms over his head, up and down and around him; and added to the grotesqueness of his manner a hesitating tone and drawling emphasis. Truly, indeed, might it be said of him as he said of Chatham, "he was very great, and very odd." For a time the eye dissented from the verdict of the mind; but at last his genius carried all before it, and, as in the oracles of old, the contortions vanished as the inspirations became manifest. His Grant of £50,000.—In April, 1782, Grattan moved a resolution in the Irish Parliament, the main purport of which was the repeal of the statute of George I. by which England claimed a right to legislate for Ireland. He was at the time (says the Annual Register) in a most feeble state of health, his frame seemed bent down by debility, and everyone supposed he must have sunk under the exertion. But as he proceeded he warmed with the subject, appeared to shake off not merely illness, but mortality, and, amid the tumultuous enthusiasm of the House, he carried his resolution, "That no power on earth could make laws to bind Ireland except her own King, Lords, and Commons." The motion was afterwards proposed and carried in the English Parliament. The delight and gratitude of the people were unbounded; addresses poured in on him from every village in Ireland, and statues were voted to his memory. The Parliament also voted him a grant of 50,000l., as some testimony of the estimation in which he was held. The grant of public money subsequently gave rise to a bitter dispute between Grattan and Flood in the house, which is commemorated in the following epigrammatic dialogue : : "QUESTION.-Say, what has given to Flood a mortal wound? ANSWER.-Yes, if they give him fifty thousand more." His Oratory leading to the Expulsion of the Students.— The students of Trinity College, Dublin, were allowed free access to the Irish House of Commons to hear the debates, and, in 1792, better accommodation was provided for them than for the public who obtained admission by members' orders. "This proud distinction the gownsmen, however, soon forfeited. Lord Fitzwilliam had been sent over as a popular viceroy, and, on his sudden recall, a strong feeling of disappointed prevailed. On a night when the subject was brought before the House, our gallery was full, and I remember well the irrepressible excitement that seemed to actuate us all. At length it broke out. Grattan rose to deprecate the measure, as one calculated to cause the greatest disturbance in Ireland, by what was considered the perfidy of the Government, first exciting the high hopes of the people by promised measures of liberal policy, and then dashing them, by the sudden removal of the man who had been sent over expressly to accomplish them. At the conclusion of Grattan's inflammatory speech, the enthusiasm in the gallery was no longer capable of restraint. We rose as one man, shouting and cheering with the boisterous tumult of a popular meeting. When this subsided, Foster's (the Speaker's) peculiar voice was heard through his nose, ordering the students' gallery to be cleared, and a sergeant-at-arms, with a posse of messengers, entered among us. We were pushed out in a heap without the slightest ceremony, and were never again suffered to enter as privileged persons."―Ireland Sixty Years Ago (1847). Party and Place.-Attacking the administration on one occasion in the Irish House of Commons, Grattan made the following remarks: "Sir, I will tell gentlemen what description of party is beneficial: party united on public principle, by the bond of certain specific public measures, which measures cannot be carried by individuals, and can only succeed by party. . . I have submitted a description of a party which I conceive to be a public benefit; I will state to you a description of a party which I conceive to be a public curse: if party it can be called which is worse than a faction, and nothing more than an impudent phalanx of political mercenaries, coming from their little respective offices to vote for their bribe and vapour for their character; who have neither the principles of patriotism nor ambition, nor party nor honour; who are governed not by deliberation but discipline, and lick the hands that feed and worship the patron who bribes them. Degraded men, disgraceful tribe! When they vote for measures, they are venal; when such men talk against party, they are impudent." Infirmity Overcome.-On the 15th of January, 1800, the parliamentary session was opened in Ireland with a speech from the throne. Sir Laurence Parsons moved an amendment to the effect that it was their interest and their duty to maintain the local Parliament. A long debate ensued, which was carried far into the morning, when a scene occurred |