ever so popular in it; or so nearly approached itself in the extravagance of his inconsistencies. The light of his ascending star is compared, by no partial witness, to the majesty of Pitt's descending glory; nor does it seem doubtful that his later influence in debate transcended even the great commoner's. But a man is not remembered in history for his mere predominance in the house of commons; and he who exactly suits that audience, and hits the 'house between wind and water,' may be found to have lost a nobler hearing, and to have missed much worthier aims. Little spoken of, indeed, as Charles Townshend now is, it seems necessary to call to mind, when any modern writer pauses at his once famous name, that as well in the copious abundance of his faults as the wonderful brilliancy of his parts he had far outstripped competition ; and must have ranked even beyond his contemporaries for the most knowing man of their age, but for his ignorance of 'common truth, common sincerity, common 'honesty, common modesty, common steadiness, com'mon courage, and common sense.' Wanting these qualities, and having every other in surprising abundance, he most thoroughly completed the charm of powerful trouble which Chatham was now preparing; and in which every shade of patriot and courtier, king's friend and republican, tory and whig, treacherous ally and open enemy, were at length most ingeniously united. Nobody knew each other in this memorable cabinet, and every body hated each other. Soon did even its

author turn sullenly away from the monstrous prodigy he had created, and leave it to work its mischief unrestrained.

Poor Conway first took the alarm, and got Grafton to urge the necessity of having some one in the lower house, on whom real reliance could be placed. There will be a strong phalanx of able personages against us,' he said; ' and among those whom Mr. Conway wishes to see support 'him, is Mr. Burke, the readiest man on all points perhaps ' in the whole house.' Burke had been a member little more than six months when this was written; yet even among the men who thus felt his usefulness, there was as little idea of recognising his claim to an office of any importance, as of offering to make him prime minister. His own wish had been, as soon as it became certain that the Rockinghams must resign, to obtain an office which happened then to be vacant, and to have held which, however quickly surrendered, would have increased his parliamentary consideration; but he failed in the attempt, and was styled, by the vehement Bishop of Chester, nothing short of a 'madman' to have made it. Here is an Irishman' wrote General Lee in the following month to the Prince Royal of Poland, 'sprung up in the house of commons, who has astonished

every body by the power of his eloquence, and his com'prehensive knowledge in all our exterior and internal politics, and commercial interests. He wants nothing but 'that sort of dignity annexed to rank and property in Eng'land, to make him the most considerable man in the lower

'house.' Wanting that, however, he wanted all, so far as office was concerned. Well might Walpole say that the narrowness of his fortune kept him down. The great families disowned him. Not many weeks after this letter was written, the amiable Conway himself (from whose service, greatly to his honour, William Burke soon afterwards retired, and was replaced by David Hume), irritated by his predominance, jeered at him in public debate as 'an Irish adventurer:' though, within a month, seventy-seven Lancaster merchants had publicly thanked him for his strenuous efforts to relieve the burdens on trade and commerce; and Grafton had even gone so far as to urge upon Chatham, that 'he looked upon it he was a most material man to gain' even at the price of some office a trifle higher than that of a lordship at the Board of Trade. The attempt was made, and failed; and it was well that it did so. It was well that when America again was taxed, Burke should have been free to enter his protest against it; that when the public liberties were again invaded, Burke should have had the power to defend them; that when the elective franchise was trampled under foot, and five several free elections were counted void, Burke, amidst even some defection of his friends, should have had the freedom, as he had the courage, to proclaim the constitution violated, and allegiance endangered; that when Townshend began to make public ridicule of his colleagues, and raise the laugh of the house of commons against the Graftons and Conways, Burke should have met him with a wit as keen as his own, and a laugh more likely to

endure; and that throughout those counter-intrigues into which the palace intrigues now drove the great families, which would have shamed the morality of the highway, and which engaged the three' gangs' of the Bedfords, the Temple-Grenvilles, and the Court, in a profligate and desperate conflict of venality, rapacity, and falsehood, Burke and the Rockinghams should have held aloof, and escaped contamination of the baseness that so rode at the top of the world. What chance had quiet or lofty literature amid such scenes as these? What hope of hearing or consideration could fall to its professors from the class that should have led the nation? What possibility of reward for having dignified their calling, and snatched it from the servitude it had so long lain under? By such labours as Johnson's had been, and as Goldsmith's continued to be, they had provided for another generation of writers, if not for themselves, surer friends and better paymasters than either patron or publisher; nor was it possible for men of letters again to become, what Robert Walpole made and would have kept them. Never again with abject servility, as Goldsmith pithily expresses it, could they

"importune his Grace,

Nor ever cringe to men in place,

Nor undertake a dirty job,

Nor draw the quill to write for Bob;"

but what had been the effect of the change on Walpole's successors, the ministers and governors of the nation? Had they stooped to pick up the hack livery

which the Goldsmiths had flung down, and put it on to serve themselves? It seemed so. No other interest did they appear to take in the condition or the uses of literature. To them it had become but one vast engine of libel, available only for the sordid trafficking, the shameless corruption, the servile submission, which in turn ruled all the factions. George Grenville had used it to assail Conway and the Rockinghams; two new-made deans resorted to it to uphold their patron Grafton; parson Scott had made a firebrand of it, to fling destruction at the enemies of Sandwich; Lord Temple had not scrupled to employ it for the purpose of blackening his brother and his brother-in-law; and it had helped the unblushing Rigby to show, by jovial abuse of everybody all round, how entirely and exclusively he was his Grace the Duke of Bedford's, her Grace the Duchess's, and the whole House of Woburn's. Every month, every week, had its periodical calumny. The unwieldy column of quarto and octavo, the light squadron of pamphlet and flying sheet, alike kept up the fire. 'Politics and abuse,' confesses one who stood behind the scenes, have totally corrupted our taste. Nobody thinks of writing a line 'that is to last beyond the next fortnight;' or of listening to a line so written. A politician and man of rank left an account of the literature of the day, in which half a line is given to Goldsmith as 'the correct author of the Traveller,' another to Smollett as a profligate hireling and abusive Jacobite writer, and a third to Johnson as a lumber of