one of the handsomest men in Europe: his countenance open and manly; his figure tall, and strikingly proportioned; his address remarkable for easy elegance, and his whole air singularly noble. His contemporaries still describe him as the model of a man of fashion, and amusingly lament over the degeneracy of an age which no longer produces such men.

"But he possessed qualities which might have atoned for a less attractive exterior. He spoke the principal modern languages with sufficient skill; he was a tasteful musician; his acquaintance with English literature was, in early life, unusually accurate and extensive; Markham's discipline, and Jackson's scholarship, had given him a large portion of classical knowledge; and nature had given him the more important public talent of speaking with fluency, dignity, and vigour.

"Admiration was the right of such qualities, and we can feel no surprise if it were lavishly offered by both sexes. But it has been strongly asserted, that the temptations of flattery and pleasure were thrown in his way for other objects than those of the hour; that his wanderings were watched by the eyes of politicians; and that every step which plunged him deeper into pecuniary embarrassment was triumphed in, as separating him more widely from his natural connexions, and compelling him in his helplessness to throw himself into the arms of factions alike hostile to his character and his throne."

Our readers may compare the above portrait of his royal highness, with that which Mr. Jefferson draws of him in one of his letters.

In 1787, the Prince had involved himself in debt to such an amount, that it was found necessary to solicit Parliament, not only for a sum sufficient to liquidate his obligations, but also for an increase of his income, the salary first granted having proved quite inadequate for his royal propensities. The following account of his debts and expenditure was laid before the House of Commons, and furnishes a teeming commentary on the blessings of hereditary government. In considering this matter, one might be tempted to regard Parliament as a species of eleemosynary institution, for the relief of insolvent royalty.

Privy purse,

16,050

Payments made by Col. Hotham, particulars delivered in to his majesty, 37,203 Other extraordinaries,

Salaries,

Stables,

Mr. Robinson's,

11,406

£93,936

54,734

37,919

7,059

£193,648

The debate upon the grant was of a highly animated character, and in the course of it the Prince was not spared. He was befriended by the opposition, with Fox at its head, having thrown himself into the arms of that party, who were endeavouring in every way to drive Pitt from his ministerial seat. But in this instance, as in most others, the latter succeeded in carrying his point; in consequence of which, £161,000 were issued out of the civil list to pay the Prince's debts, and £20,000 for the completion of Carlton House, but no augmentation of his income was allowed. "Hopeless of future appeal, stung by public rebuke, and committed before the empire in hostility to the court and the minister, the Prince was now thrown completely into Fox's hands."

Perhaps the two most interesting chapters in Mr. Croly's book, are those entitled "the Prince's friends," in which he has brought into review most of the principal characters of that period of intellectual giants, whose renown continues to shed increasing lustre around the political and literary horizon of England. The world is never tired of reading whatever has reference to those personages, and a book that professes to speak respecting them, may be said to possess a sure passport to public favour at the present day. Well may the old man now living in England, the prime of whose life was passed in that time, be allowed to be a "laudator temporis acti," without having it imputed to the fond weakness of senility. We shall make copious extracts from this portion of our author's work.

"England had never before seen such a phalanx armed against a minister. A crowd of men of the highest natural talents, of the most practised ability, and of the first public weight in birth, fortune, and popularity, were nightly arrayed against the administration, sustained by the solitary eloquence of the young Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"Yet Pitt was not careless of followers. He was more than once even charged with sedulously gathering round him a host of subaltern politicians, whom he might throw forward as skirmishers, or sacrifices, which they generally were. Powis, describing the forces led by the right honourable gentleman on the treasury bench,' said, 'the first detachment may be called his body-guard, who shoot their little arrows against those who refuse allegiance to their chief.' This light infantry were of course, soon scattered when the main battle joined. But Pitt, a son of the aristocracy, was an aristocrat in all his nature, and he loved to see young men of family around him; others were chosen for their activity, if not for their force, and some, probably, from personal liking. In the later period of his career, his train was swelled by a more influential and promising race of political worshippers, among whom were Lord Mornington, since Marquess Wellesley; Ryder, since Lord Harrowby; and Wilberforce, still undignified by title, but possessing an influence, which, perhaps, he values more. The minister's chief agents in the house of commons, were Mr. Grenville (since Lord Grenville) and Dundas.

"Yet, among those men of birth or business, what rival could be found to the popular leaders on the opposite side of the house,-to Burke, Sheridan, Grey, Windham, or to Fox, that

"Prince and chief of many throned powers,

Who led the embattled seraphim to war.””

Without adopting the bitter remark of the Duke de Montausier to Louis the Fourteenth, in speaking of Versailles :-Vous avez beau faire, sire, vous n'en ferez jamais qu'un favori sans mérite,' it was impossible to deny their inferiority on all the great points of public impression. A debate in that day was one of the highest intellectual treats: there was always some new and vigorous feature in the display on both sides; some striking effort of imagination or masterly reasoning, or of that fine sophistry, in which, as was said of the vices of the French noblesse, half the evil was atoned by the elegance. The ministerialists sarcastically pronounced that, in every debate, Burke said something which no one else ever said; Sheridan said something that no one else ought to say, and Fox something that no one else would dare to say. But the world, fairer in its decision, did justice to their extraordinary powers; and found in the Asiatic amplitude and splendour of Burke; in Sheridan's alternate subtlety and strength, reminding it at one time of Attic dexterity, and another of the uncalculating boldness of barbarism; and in Fox's matchless English self-possession, unaffected vigour, and overflowing sensibility, a perpetual source of admiration.

"But it was in the intercourses of social life that the superiority of Opposition was most incontestable. Pitt's life was in the senate; his true place of existence was on the benches of that ministry, which he conducted with such unparalleled ability and success: he was, in the fullest sense of the phrase, a public man; and his indulgences in the few hours which he could spare from the business of office, were more like the necessary restoratives of a frame already shattered, than the easy gratifications of a man of society and on this principle we can safely account for the common charge of Pitt's propensity to wine. He found it essential, to relieve a mind and body exhausted by the perpetual pressure of affairs wine was his medicine: and it was drunk in total solitude, or with a few friends from whom the minister had no concealment. Over his wine the speeches for the night were often concerted; and when the dinner was done, the table council broke up only to finish the night in the house.

:

"But with Fox, all was the bright side of the picture. His extraordinary powers defied dissipation. No public man of England ever mingled so much personal pursuit of every thing in the form of indulgence with so much parliamentary activity. From the dinner he went to the debate, from the debate to the gaming-table, and returned to his bed by day-light, freighted with parlia mentary applause, plundered of his last disposable guinea, and fevered with sleeplessness and agitation; to go through the same round within the next twenty-four hours. He kept no house; but he had the houses of all his party at his disposal, and that party were the most opulent and sumptuous of the nobility. Cato and Antony were not more unlike, than the public severity of Pitt, and the native and splendid dissoluteness of Fox.

"They were unlike in all things. Even in such slight peculiarities as their manner of walking into the house of commons, the contrast was visible. From the door Pitt's countenance was that of a man who felt that he was coming into his high place of business. 'He advanced up the floor with a quick firm step, with the head erect, and thrown back, looking to neither the right nor the left, nor favouring with a glance or a nod any of the individuals seated on either side, among whom many of the highest would have been gratified by such a mark of recognition.' Fox's entrance was lounging or stately, as it might happen, but always good-humoured; he had some pleasantry to exchange with every body, and until the moment when he rose to speak, continued gaily talking with his friends."

"Of all the great speakers of a day fertile in oratory, Sheridan had the most conspicuous natural gifts. His figure, at his first introduction into the house, was manly and striking; his countenance singularly expressive, when excited by debate; his eye large, black, and intellectual; and his voice one of the richest, most flexible, and most sonorous, that ever came from human lips. Pitt's was powerful, but monotonous; and its measured tone often wearied the ear. Fox's was all confusion in the commencement of his speech; and it required some tension of ear throughout to catch his words. Burke's was loud

and bold, but unmusical; and his contempt for order in his sentences, and the abruptness of his grand and swelling conceptions, that seemed to roll through his mind like billows before a gale, often made the defects of his delivery more striking. But Sheridan, in manner, gesture, and voice, had every quality that could give effect to eloquence.

"Pitt and Fox were listened to with profound respect, and in silence, broken only by occasional cheers; but from the moment of Sheridan's rising, there was an expectation of pleasure, which to his last days was seldom disappointed. A low murmur of eagerness ran round the house; every word was watched for, and his first pleasantry set the whole assemblage in a roar. Sheridan was aware of this; and has been heard to say, 'that if a jester would never be an orator, yet no speaker could expect to be popular in a full house, without a jest; and that he always made the experiment, good or bad; as a laugh gave him the country gentlemen to a man.'

"In the house he was always formidable; and though Pitt's moral or physical courage never shrank from man, yet Sheridan was the antagonist with whom he evidently least desired to come into collision, and with whom the collision, when it did occur, was of the most fretful nature. Pitt's sarcasm on him as a theatrical manager, and Sheridan's severe, yet fully justified retort, are too well known to be now repeated; but there were a thousand instances of that 'keen encounter of their wits,' in which person was more involved than party.""

"Burke was created for parliament. His mind was born with a determination to things of grandeur and difficulty.

"Spumantemque dari, pecora inter inertia, votis

Optat aprum, aut fulvum descendere monte leonem."" Nothing in the ordinary professions, nothing in the trials or triumphs of private life, could have satisfied the noble hunger and thirst of his spirit of exertion. This quality was so predominant, that to it a large proportion of his original failures, and of his unfitness for general public business, which chiefly belongs to detail, is to be traced through life. No Hercules could wear the irresistible weapons and the lion's skin with more natural supremacy; but none could make more miserable work with the distaff. Burke's magnitude of grasp, and towering conception, were so much a part of his nature, that he could never forego their exercise, however unsuited to the occasion. Let the object be as trivial as it might, his first instinct was to turn it into all shapes of lofty speculation, and try how far it could be moulded and magnified into the semblance of greatness. If he had no large national interest to summon him, he winged his tempest against a turnpike bill; or flung away upon the petty quarrels and obscure peculations of the underlings of office, colours and forms that might have emblazoned the fall of a dynasty."

Erskine, like many other characters of peculiar liveliness, had a morbid sensibility to the circumstances of the moment, which sometimes strangely enfeebled his presence of mind; any appearance of neglect in his audience, a cough, a yawn, or a whisper, even among the mixed multitude of the courts, and strong as he was there, has been known to dishearten him visibly. This trait was so notorious, that a solicitor, whose only merit was a remarkably vacant face, was said to be often planted opposite to Erskine by the adverse party, to yawn when the advocate began.

"The cause of his first failure in the house, was not unlike this curious mode of disconcerting an orator. He had been brought forward to support the falling fortunes of Fox, then struggling under the weight of the coalition. The 'India Bill' had heaped the king's almost open hostility on the accumulation of public wrath and grievance which the ministers had with such luckless industry been employed during the year in raising for their own ruin. Fox looked abroad for help; and Gordon, the member for Portsmouth, was displaced from his borough, and Erskine was brought into the house, with no slight triumph of his party, and perhaps some degree of anxiety on the opposite side. On the night

of his first speech, Pitt, evidently intending to reply, sat with pen and paper in his hand, prepared to catch the arguments of this formidable adversary. He wrote a word or two; Erskine proceeded; but with every additional sentence Pitt's attention to the paper relaxed; his look became more careless; and he obviously began to think the orator less and less worthy of his attention. At length, while every eye in the house was fixed upon him, he, with a contemptuous smile, dashed the pen through the paper, and flung them on the floor. Erskine never recovered from this expression of disdain; his voice faltered, he struggled through the remainder of his speech, and sank into his seat dispirited and shorn of his fame.

"But a mind of the saliency and variety of Erskine's, must have distinguished itself wherever it was determined on distinction; and it is impossible to believe, that the master of the grave, deeply-reasoned, and glowing eloquence of this great pleader, should not have been able to bring his gifts with him from Westminster-hall to the higher altar of parliament. There were times when his efforts in the house reminded it of his finest effusions at the bar. But those were rare. He obviously felt that his place was not in the legislature; that no man can wisely hope for more than one kind of eminence; and except upon some party emergency, he seldom spoke, and probably never with much expectation of public effect. His later years lowered his name; by his retirement from active life, he lost the habits forced upon him by professional and public rank; and wandered through society, to the close of his days, a pleasant idler; still the gentleman and the man of easy wit, but leaving society to wonder what had become of the great orator, in what corner of the brain of this perpetual punster and story-teller, this man of careless conduct and rambling conversation, had shrunk the glorious faculty, that in better days flashed with such force and brightness; what cloud had absorbed the lightnings that had once alike penetrated and illumined the heart of the British nation."

The following investigation of the authorship of Junius will be read with interest.

"The trial of Hastings had brought Sir Philip Francis into public notice, and his strong Foxite principles introduced him to the prince's friends. His rise is still unexplained. From a clerk in the War-office, he had been suddenly exalted into a commissioner for regulating the affairs of India, and sent to Bengal with an appointment, estimated at ten thousand pounds a-year. On his return to England he joined Opposition, declared violent hostilities against Hastings, and gave his most zealous assistance to the prosecution; though the house of commons would not suffer him to be on the committee of impeachment. Francis was an able and effective speaker; with an occasional wildness of manner and eccentricity of expression, which, if they sometimes provoked a smile, often increased the interest of his statements.

"But the usual lot of those who have identified themselves with any one public subject, rapidly overtook him. His temperament, his talents, and his knowledge, were all Indian. With the impeachment he was politically born, with it he lived, and when it withered away, his adventitious and local celebrity perished along with it. He clung to Fox for a few years after; but while the great leader of opposition found all his skill necessary to retain his party in existence, he was not likely to solicit a partisan at once so difficult to keep in order and to employ. The close of his ambitious and disappointed life was spent in ranging along the skirts of both parties, joining neither, and speaking his mind with easy, and perhaps sincere, scorn of both; reprobating the Whigs, during their brief reign, for their neglect of fancied promises; and equally reprobating the ministry, for their blindness to fancied pretensions.

"But he was still to have a momentary respite for fame. While he was going down into that oblivion which rewards the labours of so many politicians; a pamphlet, ascribing Junius's letters to Sir Phillip, arrested his descent. Its arguments were plausible; and, for a while, opinion appeared to be in favour of the conjecture, notwithstanding a denial from the presumed Junius; which, however, had much the air of his feeling no strong dislike to being suspected of this