IN TIMES PAST TESTED BY SUBSEQUENT EVENTS. BY THE DUKE OF NEWCASTLE. LONDON: T. AND W. BOONE, NEW BOND STREET. 1837. My Collection being printed, I thought the volume completed, until I observed that it wanted a Dedication. Aware of the deficiency, could I doubt how my want was best to be supplied? To whom could I so aptly look to countenance such opinions as I have maintained throughout the following pages, as to the Earl of Eldon? the "justum et tenacem propositi virum"-who, "intaminatis fulget honoribus: nec sumit aut ponit secures, arbitrio popularis auræ." a To you, without permission, I ventured to dedicate my first publication; with your permission, I now dedicate to you what may be my last. If I look for sanction of the doctrines which I profess and would wish to inculcate, who has exemplified his approval of them so strenuously as he who would have exclaimed— "Quid tristes querimoniæ, Si non supplicio culpa reciditur? Vanæ, proficiunt ?" When I revert to my notice of the acts of Mr. Pitt's administration, I do not forget that to the rectitude, the sagacity, the ability, and the firmness of Mr. Pitt's Attorney-General, was mainly owing much of the success which attended his memorable suppression of French revolutionary principles. The licence, not the liberty of the press, was vigilantly restrained within salutary bounds, to rebellion in any shape was justly awarded the punishment due to crime, nor was the sacred duty committed to his trusty charge ever otherwise than fearlessly and inviolably fulfilled by Sir John Scott. In after times, when his own distinguished merit pointed him out as the fittest man in the realm to fill the highest office in the state, we find him, as Lord Eldon, rendering his name illustrious, and his office dignified, by the consummate justice and judgment of his decrees, as well as by the profound legal knowledge which made him equally eminent as a practical Statesman, either in the Court, the Cabinet, or the Senate. To you, then, my Lord, this great nation is most deeply indebted; if I mistake not, it gratefully acknowledges the debt. Its many worthies must ever revere your unshaken patriotism, your unblemished character, your love of justice and mercy, your pure impartiality, your undeviating integrity, your mind able to comprehend all within its grasp, with a soul too high to be unmindful of courtesy and the more amiable emotions of the heart. Thus, "taken for all in all, we may not look upon your like again." I cannot be suspected of flattery-what could it avail me? "I worship not the rising sun, I sing the man whose race is run." Why then should I forego the gratification of laying even before your eyes, what I conceive to be |