Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1
by
Thomas Babington Macaulay
Part 15 out of 16
The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of
William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at
the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed
the just sentence of Bacon and the just absolution of Somers, the
hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment awed and
melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall
where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the
placid courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither military
nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with
grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers,
robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under
Garter King-at-Arms. The judges in their vestments of state
attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and
seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper House as the Upper
House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of
assembling to the tribunal. The junior Baron present led the way,
George Eliott, Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his
memorable defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of
France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of
Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and
by the brothers and sons of the King. Last of all came the Prince
of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The
grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were
crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or
the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from
all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire,
grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the
representatives of every science and of every art. There were
seated round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the
house of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great Kings and
Commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no other
country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of
her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing
all the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman
Empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded the cause of
Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate which still
retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the
oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest
painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had
allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved to us the
thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen, and the
sweet smiles of to many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to
suspend his labours in that dark and profound mine from which he
had extracted a vast treasure of erudition, a treasure too often
buried in the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and
inelegant ostentation, but still precious, massive, and splendid.
There appeared the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of
the throne had in secret plighted his faith. There too was she,
the beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia,
whose delicate features, lighted up by love and music, art has
rescued from the common decay. There were the members of that
brilliant society which quoted, criticised, and exchanged
repartees, under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague. And
there the ladies whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox
himself, had carried the Westminster election against palace and
treasury, shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.
The Serjeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar,
and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that
great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country,
had made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and
pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne
himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and
that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory, except
virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A
person small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage
which, while it indicated deference to the Court, indicated also
habitual self-possession and self-respect, a high and
intellectual forehead, a brow pensive, but not gloomy, a mouth of
inflexible decision, a face pale and worn, but serene, on which
was written, as legibly as under the picture in the council-
chamber at Calcutta, Mens aequa in arduis; such was the aspect
with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges.
His counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were afterwards
raised by their talents and learning to the highest posts in
their profession, the bold and strong-minded Law, afterwards
Chief Justice of the King's Bench; the more humane and eloquent
Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Plomer,
who, near twenty years later, successfully conducted in the same
high court the defence of Lord Melville, and subsequently became
Vice-chancellor and Master of the Rolls.
But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much
notice as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery,
a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for the
Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, appeared in full
dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even
Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the
illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword.
Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of the impeachment;
and his commanding, copious, and sonorous eloquence was wanting
to that great muster of various talents. Age and blindness had
unfitted Lord North for the duties of a public prosecutor; and
his friends were left without the help of his excellent sense,
his tact and his urbanity. But in spite of the absence of these
two distinguished members of the Lower House, the box in which
the managers stood contained an array of speakers such as perhaps
had not appeared together since the great age of Athenian
eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes
and the English Hyperides. There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or
negligent of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to
the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of
comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every
orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially fixed
on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age, his form
developed by every manly exercise, his face beaming with
intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-
souled Windham. Nor, though surrounded by such men, did the
youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age when most of those who
distinguish themselves in life are still contending for prizes
and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a conspicuous
place in Parliament. No advantage of fortune or connection was
wanting that could set off to the height his splendid talents and
his unblemished honour. At twenty-three he had been thought
worthy to be ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared as
the delegates of the British Commons, at the bar of the British
nobility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone,
culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now in
the vigour of life, he is the sole representative of a great age
which has passed away. But those who, within the last ten years,
have listened with delight, till the morning sun shone on the
tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated
eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of
the powers of a race of men among whom he was not the foremost.
The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. The
ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered less tedious
than it would otherwise have been by the silver voice and just
emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of
the amiable poet. On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were
occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a
general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of
thought and a splendour of diction which more than satisfied the
highly raised expectation of the audience, he described the
character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the
circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of Britain had
originated, and set forth the constitution of the Company and of
the English Presidencies. Having thus attempted to communicate to
his hearers an idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which
existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the
administration of Hastings as systematically conducted in
defiance of morality and public law. The energy and pathos of the
great orator extorted expressions of unwonted admiration from the
stem and hostile Chancellor, and, for a moment, seemed to pierce
even the resolute heart of the defendant. The ladies in the
galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of eloquence, excited by
the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwilling to
display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of
uncontrollable emotion. Handkerchiefs were pulled out; smelling
bottles were handed round; hysterical sobs and screams were
heard: and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At length the
orator concluded. Raising his voice till the old arches of Irish
oak resounded, "Therefore," said be, "hath it with all confidence
been ordered, by the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach
Warren Hastings of high crimes and misdemeanours. I impeach him
in the name of the Commons' House of Parliament, whose trust he
has betrayed. I impeach him in the name of the English nation,
whose ancient honour he has sullied. I impeach him in the name of
the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot, and
whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of
human nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of
every age, in the name of every rank, I impeach the common enemy
and oppressor of all!"
When the deep murmur of various emotions had subsided, Mr. Fox
rose to address the Lords respecting the course of proceeding to
be followed. The wish of the accusers was that the Court would
bring to a close the investigation of the first charge before the
second was opened. The wish of Hastings and of his counsel was
that the managers should open all the charges, and produce all
the evidence for the prosecution, before the defence began. The
Lords retired to their own House to consider the question. The
Chancellor took the side of Hastings. Lord Loughborough, who was
now in opposition, supported the demand of the managers. The
division showed which way the inclination of the tribunal leaned.
A majority of near three to one decided in favour of the course
for which Hastings contended.
When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, opened
the charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days were spent in
reading papers and hearing witnesses. The next article was that
relating to the Princesses of Oude. The conduct of this part of
the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The curiosity of the public
to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly finished
declamation lasted two days; but the Hall was crowded to
suffocation during the whole time. It was said that fifty guineas
had been paid for a single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded,
contrived, with a knowledge of stage effect which his father
might have envied, to sink back, as if exhausted, into the arms
of Burke, who hugged him with the energy of generous admiration.
June was now far advanced. The session could not last much
longer; and the progress which had been made in the impeachment
was not very satisfactory. There were twenty charges. On two only
of these had even the case for the prosecution been heard; and it
was now a year since Hastings had been admitted to bail.
The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when the
Court began to sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan spoke on
the charge relating to the Begums. From that time the excitement
went down fast. The spectacle had lost the attraction of novelty.
The great displays of rhetoric were over. What was behind was not
of a nature to entice men of letters from their books in the
morning, or to tempt ladies who had left the masquerade at two to
be out of bed before eight There remained examinations and cross-
examinations. There remained statements of accounts. There
remained the reading of papers, filled with words unintelligible
to English ears, with lacs and crores, zemindars and aumils,
sunnuds and perwarmahs, jaghires and nuzzurs. There remained
bickerings, not always carried on with the best taste or the best
temper, between the managers of the impeachment and the counsel
for the defence, particularly between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law.
There remained the endless marches and counter-marches of the
Peers between their House and the Hall: for as often as a point
of law was to be discussed, their Lordships retired to discuss it
apart; and the consequence was, as a Peer wittily said, that the
judges walked and the trial stood still.
It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when the trial
commenced, no important question, either of domestic or foreign
policy, occupied the public mind. The proceeding in Westminster
Hall, therefore, naturally attracted most of the attention of
Parliament and of the country. It was the one great event of that
season. But in the following year the King's illness, the debates
on the Regency, the expectation of a change of ministry,
completely diverted public attention from Indian affairs; and
within a fortnight after George the Third had returned thanks in
St. Paul's for his recovery, the States General of France met at
Versailles. In the midst of the agitation produced by these
events, the impeachment was for a time almost forgotten.
The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the session of 1788,
when the proceedings had the interest of novelty, and when the
Peers had little other business before them, only thirty-five
days were given to the impeachment. In 1789, the Regency Bill
occupied the Upper House till the session was far advanced. When
the King recovered the circuits were beginning. The judges left
town; the Lords waited for the return of the oracles of
jurisprudence; and the consequence was that during the whole year
only seventeen days were given to the case of Hastings. It was
clear that the matter would be protracted to a length
unprecedented in the annals of criminal law.
In truth, it is impossible to deny that impeachment, though it is
a fine ceremony, and though it may have been useful in the
seventeenth century, is not a proceeding from which much good can
now be expected. Whatever confidence may be placed in the
decision of the Peers on an appeal arising out of ordinary
litigation, it is certain that no man has the least confidence in
their impartiality, when a great public functionary, charged with
a great state crime, is brought to their bar. They are all
politicians. There is hardly one among them whose vote on an
impeachment may not be confidently predicted before a witness has
been examined; and, even if it were possible to rely on their
justice, they would still be quite unfit to try such a cause as
that of Hastings. They sit only during half the year. They have
to transact much legislative and much judicial business. The law-
lords, whose advice is required to guide the unlearned majority,
are employed daily in administering justice elsewhere. It is
impossible, therefore, that during a busy session, the Upper
House should give more than a few days to an impeachment. To
expect that their Lordships would give up partridge-shooting, in
order to bring the greatest delinquent to speedy justice, or to
relieve accused innocence by speedy acquittal, would be
unreasonable indeed. A well-constituted tribunal, sitting
regularly six days in the week, and nine hours in the day, would
have brought the trial of Hastings to a close in less than three
months. The Lords had not finished their work in seven years.
The result ceased to be matter of doubt, from the time when the
Lords resolved that they would be guided by the rules of evidence
which are received in the inferior courts of the realm. Those
rules, it is well known, exclude much information which would be
quite sufficient to determine the conduct of any reasonable man,
in the most important transactions of private life. These rules,
at every assizes, save scores of culprits whom judges, jury, and
spectators, firmly believe to be guilty. But when those rules
were rigidly applied to offences committed many years before, at
the distance of many thousands of miles, conviction was, of
course, out of the question. We do not blame the accused and his
counsel for availing themselves of every legal advantage in order
to obtain an acquittal. But it is clear that an acquittal so
obtained cannot be pleaded in bar of the judgment of history.
Several attempts were made by the friends of Hastings to put a
stop to the trial. In 1789 they proposed a vote of censure upon
Burke, for some violent language which he had used respecting the
death of Nuncomar and the connection between Hastings and Impey.
Burke was then unpopular in the last degree both with the House
and with the country. The asperity and indecency of some
expressions which he had used during the debates on the Regency
had annoyed even his warmest friends. The vote of censure was
carried; and those who had moved it hoped that the managers would
resign in disgust. Burke was deeply hurt. But his zeal for what
he considered as the cause of justice and mercy triumphed over
his personal feelings. He received the censure of the House with
dignity and meekness, and declared that no personal mortification
or humiliation should induce him to flinch from the sacred duty
which he had undertaken.
In the following year the Parliament was dissolved; and the
friends of Hastings entertained a hope that the new House of
Commons might not be disposed to go on with the impeachment. They
began by maintaining that the whole proceeding was terminated by
the dissolution. Defeated on this point, they made a direct
motion that the impeachment should be dropped; but they were
defeated by the combined forces of the Government and the
Opposition. It was, however, resolved that, for the sake of
expedition, many of the articles should be withdrawn. In truth,
had not some such measure been adopted, the trial would have
lasted till the defendant was in his grave.
At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pronounced,
near eight years after Hastings had been brought by the Sergeant-
at-Arms of the Commons to the bar of the Lords. On the last day
of this great procedure the public curiosity, long suspended,
seemed to be revived. Anxiety about the judgment there could
be none; for it had been fully ascertained that there was a
great majority for the defendant. Nevertheless many wished
to see the pageant, and the Hall was as much crowded as on the
first day. But those who, having been present on the first day,
now bore a part in the proceedings of the last, were few; and
most of those few were altered men.
As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken place before
one generation, and the judgment was pronounced by another. The
spectator could not look at the woolsack, or at the red benches
of the Peers, or at the green benches of the Commons, without
seeing something that reminded him of the instability of all
human things, of the instability of power and fame and life, of
the more lamentable instability of friendship. The great seal was
borne before Lord Loughborough, who, when the trial commenced,
was a fierce opponent of Mr. Pitt's Government, and who was now a
member of that Government, while Thurlow, who presided in the
court when it first sat, estranged from all his old allies, sat
scowling among the junior barons. Of about a hundred and sixty
nobles who walked in the procession on the first day, sixty had
been laid in their family vaults. Still more affecting must have
been the sight of the managers' box. What had become of that fair
fellowship, so closely bound together by public and private ties,
so resplendent with every talent and accomplishment? It had been
scattered by calamities more bitter than the bitterness of death.
The great chiefs were still living, and still in the full vigour
of their genius. But their friendship was at an end. It had been
violently and publicly dissolved, with tears and stormy
reproaches. If those men, once so dear to each other, were now
compelled to meet for the purpose of managing the impeachment,
they met as strangers whom public business had brought together,
and behaved to each other with cold and distant civility. Burke
had in his vortex whirled away Windham. Fox had been followed by
Sheridan and Grey.
Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found Hastings
guilty on the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums.
On other charges, the majority in his favour was still greater.
On some he was unanimously absolved. He was then called to the
bar, was informed from the woolsack that the Lords had acquitted
him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed respectfully and
retired.
We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It was
also generally approved. At the commencement of the trial there
had been a strong and indeed unreasonable feeling against
Hastings. At the close of the trial there was a feeling equally
strong and equally unreasonable in his favour. One cause of the
change was, no doubt, what is commonly called the fickleness of
the multitude, but what seems to us to be merely the general law
of human nature. Both in individuals and in masses violent
excitement is always followed by remission, and often by
reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate whatever we have
overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence
where we have shown undue rigour. It was thus in the case of
Hastings. The length of his trial, moreover, made him an object
of compassion. It was thought, and not without reason, that, even
if he was guilty, he was still an ill-used man, and that an
impeachment of eight years was more than a sufficient punishment.
It was also felt that, though, in the ordinary course of criminal
law, a defendant is not allowed to set off his good actions
against his crimes, a great political cause should be tried on
different principles, and that a man who had governed an empire
during thirteen years might have done some very reprehensible
things, and yet might be on the whole deserving of rewards and
honours rather than of fine and imprisonment. The press, an
instrument neglected by the prosecutors, was used by Hastings and
his friends with great effect. Every ship, too, that arrived from
Madras or Bengal, brought a cuddy full of his admirers. Every
gentleman from India spoke of the late Governor-General as having
deserved better, and having been treated worse, than any man
living. The effect of this testimony unanimously given by all
persons who knew the East, was naturally very great. Retired
members of the Indian services, civil and military, were settled
in all corners of the kingdom. Each of them was, of course, in
his own little circle, regarded as an oracle on an Indian
question; and they were, with scarcely one exception, the zealous
advocates of Hastings. It is to be added, that the numerous
addresses to the late Governor-General, which his friends in
Bengal obtained from the natives and transmitted to England, made
a considerable impression. To these addresses we attach little or
no importance. That Hastings was beloved by the people whom he
governed is true; but the eulogies of pundits, zemindars,
Mahommedan doctors, do not prove it to be true. For an English
collector or judge would have found it easy to induce any native
who could write to sign a panegyric on the most odious ruler that
ever was in India. It was said that at Benares, the very place at
which the acts set forth in the first article of impeachment had
been committed, the natives had erected a temple to Hastings; and
this story excited a strong sensation in England. Burke's
observations on the apotheosis were admirable. He saw no reason
for astonishment, he said, in the incident which had been
represented as so striking. He knew something of the mythology of
the Brahmins. He knew that as they worshipped some gods from
love, so they worshipped others from fear. He knew that they
erected shrines, not only to the benignant deities of light and
plenty, but also to the fiends who preside over smallpox and
murder; nor did he at all dispute the claim of Mr. Hastings to be
admitted into such a Pantheon. This reply has always struck us as
one of the finest that ever was made in Parliament. It is a grave
and forcible argument, decorated by the most brilliant wit and
fancy.
Hastings was, however, safe. But in everything except character,
he would have been far better off if, when first impeached, he
had at once pleaded guilty, and paid a fine of fifty thousand
pounds. He was a ruined man. The legal expenses of his defence
had been enormous. The expenses which did not appear in his
attorney's bill were perhaps larger still. Great sums had been
paid to Major Scott. Great sums had been laid out in bribing
newspapers, rewarding pamphleteers, and circulating tracts.
Burke, so early as 1790, declared in the House of Commons that
twenty thousand pounds had been employed in corrupting the press.
It is certain that no controversial weapon, from the gravest
reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemployed. Logan
defended the accused Governor with great ability in prose. For
the lovers of verse, the speeches of the managers were burlesqued
in Simpkin's letters. It is, we are afraid, indisputable that
Hastings stooped so low as to court the aid of that malignant and
filthy baboon John Williams, who called himself Anthony Pasquin.
It was necessary to subsidise such allies largely. The private
boards of Mrs. Hastings had disappeared. It is said that the
banker to whom they had been intrusted had failed. Still if
Hastings had practised strict economy, he would, after all his
losses, have had a moderate competence; but in the management of
his private affairs he was imprudent. The dearest wish of his
heart had always been to regain Daylesford. At length, in the
very year in which his trial commenced, the wish was
accomplished; and the domain, alienated more than seventy years
before, returned to the descendant of its old lords. But the
manor-house was a ruin; and the grounds round it had, during many
years, been utterly neglected. Hastings proceeded to build, to
plant, to form a sheet of water, to excavate a grotto; and,
before he was dismissed from the bar of the House of Lords, he
had expended more than forty thousand pounds in adorning his
seat.
The general feeling both of the Directors and of the proprietors
of the East India Company was that he had great claims on them,
that his services to them had been eminent, and that his
misfortunes had been the effect of his zeal for their interest.
His friends in Leadenhall Street proposed to reimburse him the
costs of his trial, and to settle on him an annuity of five
thousand pounds a year. But the consent of the Board of Control
was necessary; and at the head of the Board of Control was Mr.
Dundas, who had himself been a party to the impeachment, who had,
on, that account, been reviled with great bitterness by the
adherents of Hastings, and who, therefore, was not in a very
complying mood. He refused to consent to what the Directors
suggested. The Directors remonstrated. A long controversy
followed. Hastings, in the meantime, was reduced to such distress
that he could hardly pay his weekly bills. At length a compromise
was made. An annuity for life of four thousand pounds was settled
on Hastings; and in order to enable him to meet pressing demands,
he was to receive ten years' annuity in advance. The Company was
also permitted to lend him fifty thousand pounds, to be repaid by
instalments without interest. This relief, though given in the
most absurd manner, was sufficient to enable the retired Governor
to live in comfort, and even in luxury, if he had been a skilful
manager. But he was careless and profuse, and was more than once
under the necessity of applying to the Company for assistance,
which was liberally given.
He had security and affluence, but not the power and dignity
which, when he landed from India, he had reason to expect. He had
then looked forward to a coronet, a red riband, a seat at the
Council Board, an office at Whitehall. He was then only fifty-
two, and might hope for many years of bodily and mental vigour.
The case was widely different when he left the bar of the Lords.
He was now too old a man to turn his mind to a new class of
studies and duties. He had no chance of receiving any mark of
royal favour while Mr. Pitt remained in power; and, when Mr. Pitt
retired, Hastings was approaching his seventieth year.
Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he interfered in
politics; and that interference was not much to his honour. In
1804 he exerted himself strenuously to prevent Mr. Addington,
against whom Fox and Pitt had combined, from resigning the
Treasury. It is difficult to believe that a man, so able and
energetic as Hastings, can have thought that, when Bonaparte was
at Boulogne with a great army, the defence of our island could
safely be intrusted to a ministry which did not contain a single
person whom flattery could describe as a great statesman. It is
also certain that, on the important question which had raised Mr.
Addington to power, and on which he differed from both Fox and
Pitt, Hastings, as might have been expected, agreed with Fox and
Pitt, and was decidedly opposed to Addington. Religious
intolerance has never been the vice of the Indian service, and
certainly was not the vice of Hastings. But Mr. Addington had
treated him with marked favour. Fox had been a principal manager
of the impeachment. To Pitt it was owing that there had been an
impeachment; and Hastings, we fear, was on this occasion guided
by personal considerations, rather than by a regard to the public
interest.
The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly passed at
Daylesford. He amused himself with embellishing his grounds,
riding fine Arab horses, fattening prize-cattle, and trying to
rear Indian animals and vegetables in England. He sent for seeds
of a very fine custard-apple, from the garden of what had
once been his own villa, among the green hedgerows of Allipore.
He tried also to naturalise in Worcestershire the delicious
leechee, almost the only fruit of Bengal which deserves to be
regretted even amidst the plenty of Covent Garden. The Mogul
emperors, in the time of their greatness, had in vain attempted
to introduce into Hindostan the goat of the table-land of Thibet,
whose down supplies the looms of Cashmere with the materials of
the finest shawls. Hastings tried, with no better fortune, to
rear a breed at Daylesford; nor does he seem to have succeeded
better with the cattle of Bootan, whose tails are in high esteem
as the best fans for brushing away the mosquitoes.
Literature divided his attention with his conservatories and his
menagerie. He had always loved books, and they were now necessary
to him. Though not a poet, in any high sense of the word, he
wrote neat and polished lines with great facility, and was fond
of exercising this talent. Indeed, if we must speak out, he seems
to have been more of a Trissotin than was to be expected from the
powers of his mind, and from the great part which he had played
in life. We are assured in these Memoirs that the first thing
which he did in the morning was to write a copy of verses. Men
the family and guests assembled, the poem made its appearance as
regularly as the eggs and rolls; and Mr. Gleig requires us to
believe that, if from any accident Hastings came to the
breakfast-table without one of his charming performances in his
hand, the omission was felt by all as a grievous disappointment.
Tastes differ widely. For ourselves, we must say that, however
good the breakfasts at Daylesford may have been,--and we are
assured that the tea was of the most aromatic flavour, and that
neither tongue nor venison-pasty was wanting,--we should have
thought the reckoning high if we had been forced to earn our
repast by listening every day to a new madrigal or sonnet
composed by our host. We are glad, however, that Mr. Gleig has
preserved this little feature of character, though we think it by
no means a beauty. It is good to be often reminded of the
inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look without
wonder or disgust on the weaknesses which are found in the
strongest minds. Dionysius in old times, Frederic in the last
century, with capacity and vigour equal to the conduct of the
greatest affairs, united all the little vanities and affectations
of provincial bluestockings. These great examples may console the
admirers of Hastings for the affliction of seeing him reduced to
the level of the Hayleys and Sewards.
When Hastings had passed many years in retirement, and had long
outlived the common age of men, he again became for a short time
an object of general attention. In 1813 the charter of the East
India Company was renewed; and much discussion about Indian
affairs took place in Parliament. It was determined to examine
witnesses at the bar of the Commons; and Hastings was ordered to
attend. He had appeared at that bar once before. It was when he
read his answer to the charges which Burke had laid on the table.
Since that time twenty-seven years had elapsed; public feeling
had undergone a complete change; the nation had now forgotten his
faults, and remembered only his services. The reappearance, too,
of a man who had been among the most distinguished of a
generation that had passed away, who now belonged to history, and
who seemed to have risen from the dead, could not but produce a
solemn and pathetic effect. The Commons received him with
acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for him, and, when he
retired, rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a few who did
not sympathise with the general feeling. One or two of the
managers of the impeachment were present. They sate in the same
seats which they had occupied when they had been thanked for the
services which they had rendered in Westminster Hall: for, by the
courtesy of the House, a member who has been thanked in his place
is considered as having a right always to occupy that place.
These gentlemen were not disposed to admit that they had employed
several of the best years of their lives in persecuting an
innocent man. They accordingly kept their seats, and pulled their
hats over their brows; but the exceptions only made the
prevailing enthusiasm more remarkable. The Lords received the old
man with similar tokens of respect. The University of Oxford
conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; and, in the
Sheldonian Theatre, the undergraduates welcomed him with
tumultuous cheering.
These marks of public esteem were soon followed by marks of royal
favour. Hastings was sworn of the Privy Council, and was admitted
to a long private audience of the Prince Regent, who treated him
very graciously. When the Emperor of Russia and the King of
Prussia visited England, Hastings appeared in their train both at
Oxford and in the Guildhall of London, and, though surrounded by
a crowd of princes and great warriors, was everywhere received
with marks of respect and admiration. He was presented by the
Prince Regent both to Alexander and to Frederic William; and his
Royal Highness went so far as to declare in public that honours
far higher than a seat in the Privy Council were due, and would
soon he paid, to the man who had saved the British dominions in
Asia. Hastings now confidently expected a peerage; but, from some
unexplained cause, he was again disappointed.
He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of good
spirits, of faculties not impaired to any painful or degrading
extent, and of health such as is rarely enjoyed by those who
attain such an age. At length, on the twenty-second of August,
1818, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, he met death with the
same tranquil and decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all
the trials of his various and eventful life.
With all his faults,--and they were neither few nor small--only
one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of
silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty
generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which has during many
ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and
bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall,
the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the
dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the
place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the
parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the
bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the
coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and
widely extended name. On that very spot probably, four-score
years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed,
had played with the children of ploughmen. Even then his young
mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet,
however romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange
as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen
fortunes of his line--not only had he repurchased the old lands,
and rebuilt the old dwelling--he had preserved and extended an
empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government
and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He had
patronised learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He
had been attacked by the most formidable combination of enemies
that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and over
that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had
triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave in the fulness
of age, in peace, after so many troubles, in honour, after so
much obloquy.
Those who look on his character without favour or malevolence
will pronounce that, in the two great elements of all social
virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy for
the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were
somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot
with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful
ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude and
fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command, for
administration, and for controversy, his dauntless courage, his
honourable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests of the
State, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune,
and never disturbed by either.
LORD HOLLAND
(July 1841)
The Opinions of Lord Holland, as recorded in the journals of the
House of Lords from 1797 to 1841. Collected and edited by D. C.
MOYLAN, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-law. 8vo. London: 1841.
Many reasons make it impossible for us to lay before our readers,
at the present moment, a complete view of the character and
public career of the late Lord Holland. But we feel that we have
already deferred too long the duty of paying some tribute to his
memory. We feel that it is more becoming to bring without further
delay an offering, though intrinsically of little value, than to
leave his tomb longer without some token of our reverence and
love.
We shall say very little of the book which lies on our table. And
yet it is a book which, even if it had been the work of a less
distinguished man, or had appeared under circumstances less
interesting, would have well repaid an attentive perusal. It is
valuable, both as a record of principles and as a model of
composition. We find in it all the great maxims which, during
more than forty years, guided Lord Holland's public conduct, and
the chief reasons on which those maxims rest, condensed into the
smallest possible space, and set forth with admirable
perspicuity, dignity, and precision. To his opinions on Foreign
Policy we for the most part cordially assent; but now and then we
are inclined to think them imprudently generous. We could not
have signed the protest against the detention of Napoleon. The
Protest respecting the course which England pursued at the
Congress of Verona, though it contains much that is excellent,
contains also positions which, we are inclined to think, Lord
Holland would, at a later period, have admitted to be unsound.
But to all his doctrines on constitutional questions, we give our
hearty approbation; and we firmly believe that no British
Government has ever deviated from that line of internal policy
which he has traced, without detriment to the public.
We will give, as a specimen of this little volume, a single
passage, in which a chief article of the political creed of the
Whigs is stated and explained, with singular clearness, force,
and brevity. Our readers will remember that, in 1825, the
Catholic Association raised the cry of emancipation with most
formidable effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of
removing the grievance they tried to put down the agitation, and
brought in a law, apparently sharp and stringent, but in truth
utterly impotent, for restraining the right of petition. Lord
Holland's Protest on that occasion is excellent:
"We are," says he, "well aware that the privileges of the people,
the rights of free discussion, and the spirit and letter of our
popular institutions, must render,--and they are intended to
render,--the continuance of an extensive grievance and of the
dissatisfaction consequent thereupon, dangerous to the
tranquillity of the country, and ultimately subversive of the
authority of the State. Experience and theory alike forbid us to
deny that effect of a free constitution; a sense of justice and a
love of liberty equally deter us from lamenting it. But we have
always been taught to look for the remedy of such disorders in
the redress of the grievances which justify them, and in the
removal of the dissatisfaction from which they flow--not in
restraints on ancient privileges, not in inroads on the right of
public discussion, nor in violations of the principles of a free
government. If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress,
which has been resorted to by persons labouring under grievous
disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the
State, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since
foretold by great authority--namely, that the British
constitution, and large exclusions, cannot subsist together; that
the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the
constitution."
It was not, however, of this little book, valuable and
interesting as it is, but of the author, that we meant to speak;
and we will try to do so with calmness and impartiality.
In order to fully appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is
necessary to go far back into the history of his family; for he
had inherited something more than a coronet and an estate. To the
House of which he was the head belongs one distinction which we
believe to be without a parallel in our annals. During more than
a century, there has never been a time at which a Fox has not
stood in a prominent station among public men. Scarcely had the
chequered career of the first Lord Holland closed, when his son,
Charles, rose to the head of the Opposition, and to the first
rank among English debaters. And before Charles was borne to
Westminster Abbey a third Fox had already become one of the most
conspicuous politicians in the kingdom.
It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness
which, in spite of diversities arising from education and
position, appears in these three distinguished persons. In their
faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as is common
enough in novels, where one picture is good for ten generations,
but such as in real life is seldom found. The ample person, the
massy and thoughtful forehead, the large eyebrows, the full cheek
and lip, the expression, so singularly compounded of sense,
humour, courage, openness, a strong will and a sweet temper, were
common to all. But the features of the founder of the House, as
the pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens have handed
them down to us, were disagreeably harsh and exaggerated. In his
descendants, the aspect was preserved, but it was softened, till
it became, in the late lord, the most gracious and interesting
countenance that was ever lighted up by the mingled lustre of
intelligence and benevolence.
As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was
it also with their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She
had moulded them all of that clay of which she is most sparing.
To all she had given strong reason and sharp wit, a quick relish
for every physical and intellectual enjoyment, constitutional
intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional
intrepidity is generally accompanied, spirits which nothing could
depress, tempers easy, generous, and placable, and that genial
courtesy which has its seat in the heart, and of which artificial
politeness is only a faint and cold imitation. Such a disposition
is the richest inheritance that ever was entailed on any family.
But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities
which nature lavished with such profusion on three generations of
the house of Fox. The first Lord Holland was a needy political
adventurer. He entered public life at a time when the standard of
integrity among statesmen was low. He started as the adherent of
a minister who had indeed many titles to respect, who possessed
eminent talents both for administration and for debate, who
understood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the
country, but who had seen so much perfidy and meanness that he
had become sceptical as to the existence of probity. Weary of the
cant of patriotism, Walpole had learned to talk a cant of a
different kind. Disgusted by that sort of hypocrisy which is at
least a homage to virtue, he was too much in the habit of
practising the less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously
displays, and sometimes even simulates vice. To Walpole Fox
attached himself, politically and personally, with the ardour
which belonged to his temperament. And it is not to be denied
that in the school of Walpole he contracted faults which
destroyed the value of his many great endowments. He raised
himself, indeed, to the first consideration in the House of
Commons; he became a consummate master of the art of debate; he
attained honours and immense wealth; but the public esteem and
confidence were withheld from him. His private friends, indeed,
justly extolled his generosity and good nature. They maintained
that in those parts of his conduct which they could least defend
there was nothing sordid, and that, if he was misled, he was
misled by amiable feelings, by a desire to serve his friends, and
by anxious tenderness for his children. But by the nation he was
regarded as a man of insatiable rapacity and desperate ambition;
as a man ready to adopt, without scruple, the most immoral and
the most unconstitutional manners; as a man perfectly fitted, by
all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing the
Parliament by means of secret-service money, and of keeping down
the people with the bayonet. Many of his contemporaries had a
morality quite as lax as his: but very few among them had his
talents, and none had his hardihood and energy. He could not,
like Sandys and Doddington, find safety in contempt. He therefore
became an object of such general aversion as no statesman since
the fall of Strafford has incurred, of such general aversion as
was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind
and cordial a disposition. A weak mind would have sunk under such
a load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive
new firmness from the public hatred. The only effect which
reproaches appeared to produce on him, was to sour, in some
degree, his naturally sweet temper. The last acts of his public
life were marked, not only by that audacity which he had derived
from nature, not only by that immorality which he had learned in
the school of Walpole, but by a harshness which almost amounted
to cruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his
character. His severity increased the unpopularity from which it
had sprung. The well-known lampoon of Gray may serve as a
specimen of the feeling of the country. All the images are taken
from shipwrecks, quicksands, and cormorants. Lord Holland is
represented as complaining, that the cowardice of his accomplices
bad prevented him from putting down the free spirit of the city
of London by sword and fire, and as pining for the time when
birds of prey should make their nests in Westminster Abbey, and
unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's.
Within a few months after the death of this remarkable man, his
second son Charles appeared at the head of the party opposed to
the American War. Charles had inherited the bodily and mental
constitution of his father, and had been much, far too much,
under his father's influence. It was indeed impossible that a son
of so affectionate and noble a nature should not have been warmly
attached to a parent who possessed many fine qualities, and who
carried his indulgence and liberality towards his children even
to a culpable extent. Charles saw that the person to whom he was
bound by the strongest ties was, in the highest degree, odious to
the nation; and the effect was what might have been expected from
the strong passions and constitutional boldness of so high-
spirited a youth. He cast in his lot with his father, and took,
while still a boy, a deep part in the most unjustifiable and
unpopular measures that had been adopted since the reign of James
the Second. In the debates on the Middlesex Election, he
distinguished himself, not only by his precocious powers of
eloquence, but by the vehement and scornful manner in which he
bade defiance to public opinion. He was at that time regarded as
a man likely to be the most formidable champion of arbitrary
government that had appeared since the Revolution, to be a Bute
with far greater powers, a Mansfield with far greater courage.
Happily his father's death liberated him early from the
pernicious influence by which he had been misled. His mind
expanded. His range of observation became wider. His genius broke
through early prejudices. His natural benevolence and magnanimity
had fair play. In a very short time he appeared in a situation
worthy of his understanding and of his heart. From a family whose
name was associated in the public mind with tyranny and
corruption, from a party of which the theory and the practice
were equally servile, from the midst of the Luttrells, the
Dysons, the Barringtons, came forth the greatest parliamentary
defender of civil and religious liberty.
The late Lord Holland succeeded to the talents and to the fine
natural dispositions of his House. But his situation was very
different from that of the two eminent men of whom we have
spoken. In some important respects it was better, in some it was
worse than theirs. He had one great advantage over them. He
received a good political education. The first lord was educated
by Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Fox was educated by his father. The
late lord was educated by Mr. Fox. The pernicious maxims early
imbibed by the first Lord Holland, made his great talents useless
and worse than useless to the State. The pernicious maxims early
imbibed by Mr. Fox, led him, at the commencement of his public
life, into great faults which, though afterwards nobly expiated,
were never forgotten. To the very end of his career, small men,
when they had nothing else to say in defence of their own
tyranny, bigotry, and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by
some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the
imprisonment of the lord mayor, and other measures in which the
great Whig leader had borne a part at the age of one or two and
twenty. On Lord Holland no such slur could be thrown. Those who
most dissent from his opinions must acknowledge that a public
life more consistent is not to be found in our annals. Every part
of it is in perfect harmony with every other part; and the whole
is in perfect harmony with the great principles of toleration and
civil freedom. This rare felicity is in a great measure to be
attributed to the influence of Mr. Fox. Lord Holland, as was
natural in a person of his talents and expectations, began at a
very early age to take the keenest interest in politics; and Mr.
Fox found the greatest pleasure in forming the mind of so hopeful
a pupil. They corresponded largely on political subjects when the
young lord was only sixteen; and their friendship and mutual
confidence continued to the day of that mournful separation at
Chiswick. Under such training such a man as Lord Holland was in
no danger of falling into those faults which threw a dark shade
over the whole career of his grandfather, and from which the
youth of his uncle was not wholly free.
On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as compared with his
grandfather and his uncle, laboured under one great disadvantage.
They were members of the House of Commons. He became a Peer while
still an infant. When he entered public life, the House of Lords
was a very small and a very decorous assembly. The minority to
which he belonged was scarcely able to muster five or six votes
on the most important nights, when eighty or ninety lords were
present. Debate had accordingly become a mere form, as it was in
the Irish House of Peers before the Union. This was a great
misfortune to a man like Lord Holland. It was not by occasionally
addressing fifteen or twenty solemn and unfriendly auditors that
his grandfather and his uncle attained their unrivalled
parliamentary skill. The former had learned his art in "the great
Walpolean battles," on nights when Onslow was in the chair
seventeen hours without intermission, when the thick ranks on
both sides kept unbroken order till long after the winter sun had
risen upon them, when the blind were led out by the hand into the
lobby and the paralytic laid down in their bed-clothes on the
benches. The powers of Charles Fox were, from the first,
exercised in conflicts not less exciting. The great talents of
the late Lord Holland had no such advantage. This was the more
unfortunate, because the peculiar species of eloquence which
belonged to him in common with his family required much practice
to develop it. With strong sense, and the greatest readiness of
wit, a certain tendency to hesitation was hereditary in the line
of Fox. This hesitation arose, not from the poverty, but from the
wealth of their vocabulary. They paused, not from the difficulty
of finding one expression, but from the difficulty of choosing
between several. It was only by slow degrees and constant
exercise that the first Lord Holland and his son overcame the
defect. Indeed neither of them overcame it completely.
In statement, the late Lord Holland was not successful; his chief
excellence lay in reply. He had the quick eye of his house for
the unsound parts of an argument, and a great felicity in
exposing them. He was decidedly more distinguished in debate than
any peer of his time who had not sat in the House of Commons.
Nay, to find his equal among persons similarly situated, we must
go back eighty years to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, Thurlow,
Loughborough, Grey, Grenville, Brougham, Plunkett, and other
eminent men, living and dead, whom we will not stop to enumerate,
carried to the Upper House an eloquence formed and matured in the
Lower. The opinion of the most discerning judges was that Lord
Holland's oratorical performances, though sometimes most
successful, afforded no fair measure of his oratorical powers,
and that, in an assembly of which the debates were frequent and
animated, he would have attained a very high order of excellence.
It was, indeed, impossible to listen to his conversation without
seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his uncle, the
exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With
the greatest good nature and good breeding, he was the very
opposite to an assenter. The word "disputatious" is generally
used as a word of reproach; but we can express our meaning only
by saying that Lord Holland was most courteously and pleasantly
disputatious. In truth, his quickness in discovering and
apprehending distinctions and analogies was such as a veteran
judge might envy. The lawyers of the Duchy of Lancaster were
astonished to find in an unprofessional man so strong a relish
for the esoteric parts of their science, and complained that as
soon as they had split a hair, Lord Holland proceeded to split
the filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind less happily
constituted, there might have been a risk that this turn for
subtilty would have produced serious evil. But in the heart and
understanding of Lord Holland there was ample security against
all such danger. He was not a man to be the dupe of his own
ingenuity. He put his logic to its proper use; and in him the
dialectician was always subordinate to the statesman.
His political life is written in the chronicles of his country.
Perhaps, as we have already intimated, his opinions on two or
three great questions of foreign policy were open to just
objection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, were amiable and
respectable. We are not sure that we do not love and admire him
the more because he was now and then seduced from what we regard
as a wise policy by sympathy with the oppressed, by generosity
towards the fallen, by a philanthropy so enlarged that it took in
all nations, by love of peace, a love which in him was second
only to the love of freedom, and by the magnanimous credulity of
a mind which was as incapable of suspecting as of devising
mischief.
To his views on questions of domestic policy the voice of his
countrymen does ample justice. They revere the memory of the man
who was, during forty years, the constant protector of all
oppressed races and persecuted sects, of the man whom neither the
prejudices nor the interests belonging to his station could
seduce from the path of right, of the noble, who in every great
crisis cast in his lot with the commons, of the planter, who made
manful war on the slave-trade of the landowner, whose whole heart
was in the struggle against the corn-laws.
We have hitherto touched almost exclusively on those parts of
Lord Holland's character which were open to the observation of
millions. How shall we express the feelings with which his memory
is cherished by those who were honoured with his friendship? Or
in what language shall we speak of that house, once celebrated
for its rare attractions to the furthest ends of the civilised
world, and now silent and desolate as the grave? To that house, a
hundred and twenty years ago, a poet addressed those tender and
graceful lines, which have now acquired a new meaning not less
sad than that which they originally bore:
"Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace,
Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race,
Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears,
O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears?
How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair,
Thy sloping walks and unpolluted air!
How sweet the glooms beneath thine aged trees,
Thy noon-tide shadow and thine evening breeze
His image thy forsaken bowers restore;
Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more
No more the summer in thy glooms allayed,
Thine evening breezes, and thy noon-day shade."
Yet a few years, and the shades and structures may follow their
illustrious masters. The wonderful city which, ancient and
gigantic as it is, still continues to grow as fast as a young
town of logwood by a water-privilege in Michigan, may soon
displace those turrets and gardens which are associated with so
much that is interesting and noble, with the courtly magnificence
of Rich with the loves of Ormond, with the counsels of Cromwell,
with the death of Addison. The time is coming when, perhaps, a
few old men, the last survivors of our generation, will in vain
seek, amidst new streets, and squares, and railway stations, for
the site of that dwelling which was in their youth the favourite
resort of wits and beauties, of painters and poets, of scholars,
philosophers, and statesmen. They will then remember, with
strange tenderness, many objects once familiar to them, the
avenue and the terrace, the busts and the paintings, the carving,
the grotesque gilding, and the enigmatical mottoes. With peculiar
fondness they will recall that venerable chamber, in which all
the antique gravity of a college library was so singularly
blended with all that female grace and wit could devise to
embellish a drawing-room. They will recollect, not unmoved, those
shelves loaded with the varied learning of many lands and many
ages, and those portraits in which were preserved the features of
the best and wisest Englishmen of two generations. They will
recollect how many men who have guided the politics of Europe,
who have moved great assemblies by reason and eloquence, who have
put life into bronze and canvas, or who have left to posterity
things so written as it shall not willingly let them die, were
there mixed with all that was loveliest and gayest in the society
of the most splendid of capitals. They will remember the peculiar
character which belonged to that circle, in which every talent
and accomplishment, every art and science, had its place. They
will remember how the last debate was discussed in one corner,
and the last comedy of Scribe in another; while Wilkie gazed with
modest admiration on Sir Joshua's Baretti; while Mackintosh
turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation; while
Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the
Luxembourg, or his ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz.
They will remember, above all, the grace, and the kindness, far
more admirable than grace, with which the princely hospitality of
that ancient mansion was dispensed. They will remember the
venerable and benignant countenance and the cordial voice of him
who bade them welcome. They will remember that temper which years
of pain, of sickness, of lameness, of confinement, seemed only to
make sweeter and sweeter, and that frank politeness, which at
once relieved all the embarrassment of the youngest and most
timid writer or artist, who found himself for the first time
among Ambassadors and Earls. They will remember that constant
flow of conversation, so natural, so animated, so various, so
rich with observation and anecdote; that wit which never gave a
wound; that exquisite mimicry which ennobled, instead of
degrading; that goodness of heart which appeared in every look
and accent, and gave additional value to every talent and
acquirement. They will remember, too, that he whose name they
hold in reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible
uprightness of his political conduct than by his loving
disposition and his winning manners. They will remember that, in
the last lines which he traced, he expressed his joy that he had
done nothing unworthy of the friend of Fox and Grey; and they
will have reason to feel similar joy, if, in looking back on many
troubled years, they cannot accuse themselves of having done
anything unworthy of men who were distinguished by the friendship
of Lord Holland.
Xxx
INDEX AND GLOSSARY OF ALLUSIONS
ACBAR, contemporary with Elizabeth, firmly established the Mogul
rule in India; Aurungzebe (1659-1707) extended the Mogul Empire
over South India.
Aislabie, Chancellor of the Exchequer; forfeited most of his huge
profits.
Alexander VI., Pope, father of Lucretia and Caesar Borgia. He
obtained his office by bribery and held it by a series of
infamous crimes (d. 1503).
Alguazils, "a Spanish adaptation of the Arabic al-wazir, the
minister and used in Spanish both for a justiciary and a
bailiff." Here it implies cruel and extortionate treatment.
Allipore, a suburb of Calcutta.
Amadis, the model knight who is the hero of the famous mediaeval
prose-romance of the same title. Of Portuguese origin, it was
afterwards translated and expanded in Spanish and in French.
Aminta, a pastoral play composed by Tasso in 1581.
Antiochus and Tigranes, overthrown respectively by Pompey, B.C.
65, and Lucullus, B.C. 69.
Atahualpa, King of Peru, captured and put to death by Pizarro in
1532.
Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester and champion of the High Church
and Tory party (1662-1732).
Aumils, district governors.
Aurungzebe, dethroned and succeeded Shah Jehan in 1658 (d. 1707).
Austrian Succession, War of (see the Essay on Frederic the Great,
vol. v. of this edition).
BABINGTON, Anthony, an English Catholic, executed in 1586 for
plotting to assassinate Elizabeth. Everard Digby was concerned in
the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.
Babington, an English Catholic executed in 1586 for plotting to
assassinate Elizabeth under the instruction of a Jesuit named
Ballard.
Ballard. See Babington.
Barbariccia and Draghignazzo, the fiends who torment the lost
with hooks in the lake of boiling pitch in Malebolge, the eighth
circle in Dante's Inferno.
Baretti, Giuseppe, an Italian lexiographer who came to London,
was patronised by Johnson and became Secretary of the Royal
Academy.
Barillon, the French Ambassador in England.
Barnard, Sir John, an eminent London merchant, and Lord Mayor
(1685-1764).
Barras, a member of the Jacobin (q. v.) club; he put an end to
Robespierre's Reign of Terror and was a member of the Directory
till Napoleon abolished it (d. 1829).
Batavian liberties, Batavia is an old name for Holland; the
Celtic tribe known as Batavii once dwelt there.
Bath, Lord, William Pulteney, Sir R. Walpole's opponent, and
author of a few magazine articles (1684-1764).
Belisarius, Justinian's great general, who successively repulsed
the Persians, Vandals, Goths, and Huns, but who, tradition says,
was left to become a beggar (d. 565).
Benevolences, royal demands from individuals not sanctioned by
Parliament and supposed to be given willingly; declared illegal
by the Bill of Rights, 1689.
Bentinck, Lord William, the Governor. General (1828-1835) under
whom suttee was abolished, internal communications opened up, and
education considerably furthered.
Bentivoglio, Cardinal, a disciple of Galileo, and one of the
Inquisitors who signed his condemnation (1579-1641).
Berkeley and Pomfret, where Edward II. and Richard II.
respectively met their deaths.
Bernier, a French traveller who wandered over India, 1656-1668.
Blues, The, Royal Horse Guards.
Board of Control, a body responsible to the Ministry with an
authoritative parliamentary head established by Pitt's India Bill
(1784).
Bobadil, the braggart hero in Johnson's Every Man in his Humour,
Bolingbroke, Viscount, Tory Minister under Anne; brought about
the Peace of Utrecht, 1713. His genius and daring were undoubted,
but as a party leader he failed utterly.
Bolivar, the Washington of South America, who freed Venezuela,
Colombia, and Bolivia from Spain (1783-1830).
Bonner, Bishop of London, served "Bloody" Mary's anti-Protestant
zeal, died in the Marshalsea Prison under Elizabeth.
Bonslas, a Maratha tribe not finally subdued till 1817.
Bradshaw, President of the Court that condemned Charles I.
Braganza, House of, the reigning family of Portugal; Charles II
married Catherine of Braganza in 1662.
Breda, Peace of, July 21, 1667. Breda is in North Brabant,
Holland.
Brissotines, those moderate republicans in the French Revolution
who are often known as the Girondists.
Broghill, Lord, better known as Rope Boyle, author of
Parthenissa, etc.
Brooks's, the great Whig Club in St. James's Street amongst whose
members were Burke, Sheridan, Fox, and Garrick.
Brothers, Richard, a fanatic who held that the English were the
lost ten tribes of Israel(1757-1824).
Browne's Estimate (of the Manners and Principles of the Times),
the author was a clergyman noted also for his defence of
utilitarianism in answer to Shaftesbury (Lecky, Hist. Eng. in
18th Cent., ii, 89 f.).
Brutus, i. The reputed expeller of the last King of Rome; ii. One
of Caesar's murderers.
Bulicame, the seventh circle in the Inferno, the place of all the
violent.
Buller, Sir Francis, English judge, author of Introduction to the
Law of Trials at Nisi Prius (1745-1800).
Burger, Gottfried, German poet (1748-1794), author of the fine
ballad "The Wild Huntsman."
Burgoyne, afterwards the General in command of the British troops
whose surrender at Saratoga practically settled the American War
of Independence.
Burlington, Lord, Richard Boyle, an enthusiastic architect of the
Italian school (1695-1Z53).
Button, Henry, a Puritan divine, pilloried, mutilated, and
imprisoned by the Star Chamber (1578-1648).
Busiris, a mythological King of Egypt who used to sacrifice one
foreigner yearly in the hope of ending a prolonged famine.
Buxar, between Patna and Benares, where Major Munro defeated
Sujah Dowlah and Meer Cossim in 1765.
CALAS, Jean, a tradesman of Toulouse, done to death on the wheel
in 1762 on the false charge of murdering his son to prevent his
becoming a Romanist. Voltaire took his case up and vindicated his
memory.
Camden, Lord, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas who declared
general warrants illegal and released Wilkes in 1763.
Capel, Lord Arthur, at first sided with the Parliament, but
afterwards joined the King; executed for attempting to escape
from Colchester in 1649.
Caracci, Annibal, an Italian painter of the Elizabethan age.
Carlton House, the residence of George IV. when Prince of Wales.
Cartoons, the, the famous designs by Raphael, originally intended
for tapestry.
Cato, Addison's play, produced in 1713.
Cavendish, Lord, first Duke of Devonshire (d. 1707). He gave
evidence in favour of Russell and tried to secure his escape.
Cesare Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI. and brother of Lucrezia,
whose infamous ability, cruelty, and treachery he even surpassed.
Chandernagora, on the Hooghly twenty miles from Calcutta.
Pondicherry, in the Carnatic (i.e. the S.E. coast of India) is
still a French possession.
Chemnitius, a seventeenth-century German historian who wrote a
History of the Swedish War in Germany.
Chicksands, in Bedfordshire.
Childeric or Chilperic, the former was King of the Franks (c460-
480), the latter King of Neustria (c. 560-580); both were puppets
in the hands of their subjects.
Chorasan, a Persian province.
Chowringhee, still the fashionable quarter of Calcutta.
Chudleigh, Miss, maid of honour to the Princess of Wales (mother
of George III.); the original of Beatrix in Thackeray's Esmond.
Churchill, John, the famous Duke of Marlborough.
Clootz, a French Revolutionary and one of the founders of the
Worship of Reason; guillotined 1794.
Cocytus, one of the five rivers of Hades (see Milton's Paradise
Lost, ii. 577ff).
Coleroon, the lower branch of the river Kaveri: it rises in
Mysore and flows to the Bay of Bengal.
Colman, the Duke of York's confessor, in whose rooms were found
papers held to support Oates's story.
Conde, a French general who, fighting for Spain, besieged Arras
but had to abandon it after a defeat by Turenne.
Conjeveram, south-west from Madras and east from Arcot.
Conway, Marshal, cousin to Walpole; fought at Fontenoy and
Culloden; moved the repeal of the Stamp Act (1766).
Corah, one hundred miles north-west from Allahabad, formerly a
town of great importance, now much decayed.
Cornelia, a noble and virtuous Roman matron, daughter of Scipio
Africanus and wife of Sempronius Graccus.
Cortes, conqueror of Mexico (1485-1547).
Cosmo di Medici, a great Florentine ruler, who, however,
understood the use of assassination,
Cossimbuzar (see the description in the Essay on Hastings).
Court of Requests, instituted under Henry VII. for the recovery
of small debts and superseded by the County Courts in 1847.
Covelong and Chingleput, between Madras and Pondicherry.
Craggs. Secretary of State: a man of ablity and character,
probably innocent in the South Sea affair.
Crevelt, near Cleves, in West Prussia; Minden is in Westphalia.
Cumberland . . . single victory, at Culloden, over the young
Pretender's forces, in 1745.
Cutler, St. John, a wealthy London merchant (1608?-1693) whose
permanent avarice outshone his occasional benefactions (see Pope,
Moral Essays, iii. 315).
DAGOBERTS . . . Charles Martel, nominal and real rulers of France
in the seventh and eighth centuries.
D'Aguesseau, a famous French jurist, law reformer, and magistrate
(1668-1751).
D'Alembert, a mathematician and philosopher who helped to sow the
seeds of the French Revolution. Macaulay quite misrepresents
Walpole's attitude to him (see letter of 6th Nov. 1768).
Damien, the attempted assassinator of Louis XV. in 1757.
Danby, Thomas Osborne, Esq. of, one of Charles II.'s courtiers,
impeached for his share in the negotiations by which France was
to pension Charles on condition of his refusal to assist the
Dutch.
Danes, only had a few trading stations in India, which they sold
to the British in 1845.
Demosthenes and Hyperides, the two great orators of Athens who
were also contemporaries and friends.
De Pauw, Cornelius, a Dutch canon (1739-99), esteemed by Frederic
the Great among others, as one of the freest speculators of his
day.
Derby, James Stanley, Earl of, one of Charles I's supporters,
captured at Worcester and beheaded in 1651.
Derwentwater . . . Cameron, Stuart adherents who suffered for
their share in the attempts of 1715 and 1745.
Dido, Queen of Carthage, who after years of mourning for her
first husband, vainly sought the love of Aeneas.
Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse (367-343 B.C.) who gathered to
his court the foremost men of the time in literature and
philosophy.
Dodd, Dr., a royal chaplain and fashion ablepreacher whose
extravagance led him to forge a bond of Lord Chesterfield's, for
which he was sentenced to death and duly executed (1729-77).
Dodington, George Bubb, a time-serving and unprincipled
politician in the time of George II., afterwards Baron Melcombe.
Dubois, Cardinal, Prime Minister of France. An able statesman and
a notorious debauchee (1656-1723).
Duke of Lancaster, Henry IV., the deposer and successor of
Richard II.
Dumont, Pierre, a French writer who settled in England and became
the translator and exponent of Bentham's works to Europe (1759-
1829).
Dundee, the persecutor of the Scottish Covenanters under Charles
II
Dyer, John, author of some descriptive poems, e.g. Grongar Hill
(1700-58).
ELDON, John Scott, Earl of, was in turn Solicitor-General,
Attorney-General, Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas and Lord
Chancellor, and throughout a staunch Tory (1751-1838).
Empson and Dudley, ministers and tax-raisers under Henry VII,
executed by Henry VIII.
Ensign Northerton (see Fielding's Tom Jones, VII. xii.-xv.).
Escobar, a Spanish Jesuit preacher and writer (1589-1669).
Escurial, the palace and monastery built by Philip II.
Essex, One of the Rye House Conspirators; he was found in the
Tower with his throat cut, whether as the result of suicide or
murder is not known.
Euston, a late Jacobean house (and park) 10 miles from Bury St.
Edmunds.
Faithful Shepherdess, a pastoral by Fletcher which may have
suggested the general plan and some of the details of Comus.
Farinata (see Dante's Inferno, canto 10).
Farmer-general, the tax-gatherers of France, prior to the
Revolution: they contracted with the Government for the right to
collect or "farm" the taxes.
Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Aragon, who, by marrying Isabella
of Castile and taking Granada from the Moors, united Spain under
one crown.
Filicaja, a Florentine poet (1642-1707); according to Macaulay
("Essay on Addison") "the greatest lyric poet of modern times,".
Filmer, Sir Robert, advocated the doctrine of absolute regal
power in his Patriarcha, 1680.
Foigard, Father, a French refugee priest in Farquhar's Beaux
Stratagem.
Fouche, Joseph, duke of Otranto. A member of the National
Convention, who voted for the death of Louis XVI., and afterwards
served under Napoleon (as Minister of Police) and Louis XVIII.
Fox, Henry F., father of Charles James Fox, and later Lord
Holland.
Franche-Comte, that part of France which lies south of Lorraine
and west of Switzerland.
French Memoirs, those of Margaret of Valois, daughter of Henry
II. Of and wife of Henry (IV.) of Navarre.
Friar Dominic, a character in Dryden's Spanish Friar designed
to ridicule priestly vices.
Fronde, a French party who opposed the power Of Mazarin and the
Parliament of Paris during the minority of Louis XIV.
GRERIAH, c. seventy miles south from Bombay.
Ghizni, in Afghanistan, taken by Sir John Keane in 1839.
Gifford, John, the pseudonym of John Richards Green, a voluminous
Tory pamphleteer (1758-1818).
Giudecca. In the ninth and lowest circle of the Inferno, the
place of those who betray their benefactors,
Glover, a London merchant who wrote some poetry, including
Admiral Hosier's Ghost.
Godfrey, Sir Edmund, this Protestant magistrate who took Titus
Oates's depositions and was next morning found murdered near
Primrose Hill.
Godolphin, Lord of the Treasury under Charles II., James II., and
William III. Prime Minister 1702-10 when Harley ousted him (d.
1712)
Gooti, north from Mysore in the Bellary district, 589
Goree, near Cape Verde, west coast of Africa, Gaudaloupe, is in
West Indies; Ticonderaga and Niagara, frontier forts in Canada.
Gowries, the, Alexander Ruthven and his brother, the Earl of
Gowrie, who were killed in a scuffle during the visit of King
James to their house in Perth (Aug. 1600).
Grammont, a French count whose Memoirs give a vivid picture of
life at Charles II.'s court.
Grandison, Sir Charles . . . Miss Byron, the title character (and
his lady-love) of one of Richardson's novels.
Granicus, Rocroi, Narva, won respectively by Alexander (aged 22)
against the Persians, by Conde (aged 22) against the Spaniards,
and by Charles XII. (aged 18) against the Russians.
Great Captain, the, Gonzalvo Hernandez di Cordova, who drove the
Moors from Granada and the French from Italy (d. 1515).
Guarini, (see Pastor Fido).
Guicciardini, Florentian statesman and historian; disciple of
Macchiavelli secured the restoration of the Medici, (1485-1540).
Guizot and Villemain, in 1829 upheld liberal opinions against
Charles X., in 1844 took the part of monarchy and Louis Philippe.
Genonde and Jaquelin made the reverse change.
HAFIZ and Ferdusi, famous Persian poets: the former flourished in
the eleventh, the latter in the thirteenth century.
Hamilton, Count, friend of James II. and author of the Memoirs of
the Count de Grammont, the best picture of the English court of
the Restoration (1646-1720)
Hamilton's Bawn, a tumble-down house in the north of Ireland
which inspired Swift to write an amusing Poem.
Hamilton, Gerard, M.P. for Petersfield, a man of somewhat
despicable character. The nickname was "Single-speech Hamilton."
Hammond, Henry, Rector of Penshurst in Kent, and commentator on
the New Testament, the Psalms, etc.
Hardwicke, Lord, the Lord Chancellor (1737-56), whose Marriage
Act (1753) put an end to Fleet marriages.
Harte, Walter, poet, historian, and tutor to Lord Chesterfield's
son (1709-74).
Hayley and Seward, inferior authors who were at one time very
popular.
Hebert, Jacques Rene, editor of the violent revolutionary organ
Pere Duchesne; for opposing his colleagues he was arrested and
guillotined (1756-94).
Heliogabalus, made emperor of Rome by the army in 218; ruled
moderately at first, but soon abandoned himself to excesses of
all kinds, and was assassinated.
Helvetius, a French philosopher of the materialist school (1715-
71).
Henry the Fourth, the famous French king, "Henry of Navarre"
(?1589-1610).
Hildebrand, Pope Gregory VII., who waged war against the vices of
society and the imperial tyranny over the Church.
Hilpa and Shalum, Chinese antediluvians (see Spectator, vol.
viii.). Hilpa was a princess and Shalum her lover.
Hoadley, Benjamin, a prelate and keen controversialist on the
side of civil and religious liberty (1676-1761).
Holkar, a Mahratta chief whose headquarters were at Indore.
Hosein, the son of Ali Hosein's mother was Fatima, the
favourite daughter of Mahomet.
Houghton, Sir R. Walpole's Norfolk seat.
Hunt, Mr., a well-to-do Wiltshire farmer, who after many attempts
entered Parliament in 1832.
Huntingdon, William, the S.S.="Sinner Save"; Huntingdon was one
of those religious impostors who professed to be the recipient of
divine visions and prophetic oracles.
Hydaspes, or Hytaspes, the Greek name for the river Jhelam in the
Punjab.
Hyphasis, the Greek name for the river Beds in the Punjab.
ILDEFONSO, ST., a village in Old Castile containing a Spanish
royal residence built by Philip V. on the model of Versailles.
JACOBINS, those holding extreme democratic principles. The name
is derived from an extreme Party of French Revolutionists who
used to meet in the ball of the Jacobin Friars.
Jaghires, landed estates.
Jauts, a fighting Hindoo race inhabiting the North-West
Provinces.
Jefferson, Thomas, an American statesman, who took a prominent
part in struggle for independence, and became President, 1801 to
1807.
Jenkinson, one of Bute's supporters, afterwards Earl of
Liverpool.
Jomini, a celebrated Swiss military writer, who served in the
French army as aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney (1779-1869).
Monsieur Jourdain, the honest but uneducated tradesman of
Moliere's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, whose sudden wealth lands him
in absurd attempts at aristocracy. 539
Justices in Eyre, i.e. in itinere, on circuit. In @1284 such were
superseded by judges of assize.
KLOPSTOCK, author of the German epic Messiah, and one of the
pioneers of modern German literature (1724-1803).
Knight of Malta, a play by Fletcher, Massinger, and another,
produced before 1619.
Knipperdoling, one of the leading German Anabaptists, stadtholder
of Munster, 1534-35, beheaded there in Jan. 1536.
LALLY, Baron de Tollendal, a distinguished French general in
India who, however, could not work harmoniously with his brother
officers or with his native troops, and was defeated by Eyre
Coote at Wandewash in January 1760. He was imprisoned in the
Bastille and executed (1766) on a charge of betraying French
interests.
Las Casas, a Catholic bishop who laboured among the aborigines of
South America, interposing himself between them and the cruelty
of the Spaniards. Clarkson (ib.) was Wilberforce's fellow-worker
in the abolition of slavery.
Latitudinarians, the school of Cudworth and Henry More (end of
seventeenth century), who sought to affiliate the dogmas of the
Church to a rational philosophy,
Law Mr., afterwards Edward (first) Lord Ellenborough.
Lee, Nathaniel, a minor play-writer (1653-92).
Legge, son of the Earl of Dartmouth. Lord Of the Admiralty 1746,
of the Treasury 1747, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1754 (1708-
64).
Lennox, Charlotte, friend of Johnson and Richardson, wrote The
Female Don Quixote and Shakespeare Illustrated.
Lenthal, Speaker, who presided at the trial of Charles I.
Leo, tenth pope (1513-21) of the name, Giovanni de Medici, son of
Lorenzo the Magnificent, and patron of art, science, and letters.
Lingard, Dr. Job., a, Roman Catholic priest who wrote a history
of England to the Accession of William and Mary (d. 1851).
Locusta, a famous female poisoner employed by Agrippina and Nero.
Lothario, a loose character in Rowe's tragedy of The Fair
Penitent.
Lucan, the Roman epic Poet whose Pharsalia describes the struggle
between Caesar and Pompey and breathes freedom throughout.
Ludlow, Edmund, a member of the Court that condemned Charles I.
An ardent republican, he went into exile when Cromwell was
appointed Protector.
MACKENZIE, HENRY, author of The Man of Feeling and other
sentimental writings.
Maccaroni, an eighteenth-century term for a dandy or fop.
Maecenas, patron of literature in the Augustan age of Rome.
Virgil and Horace were largely favoured by him,
Malebolge, i.e. the place of darkness and horror--the eighth Of
the ten circles or pits in Dante's Inferno, and the abode of
barterers, hypocrites, evil counsellors, etc.
Malwa, about 100 miles east from Baroda and nearly 350 miles
north-cast from Bombay.
Marat, Jean Paul, a fanatical democrat whose one fixed idea was
wholesale slaughter of the aristocracy; assassinated by Charlotte
Corday (1743-93).
Mariendal, in Germany. Turenne's defeat here was an incident in
the Thirty Years' War.
Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, the first was made Prince of
Mindelheim by Emperor Joseph I, the second Duke of Bronte by
Ferdinand IV., the third Duke of Vittoria by Ferdinand VII.
Marli, a forest and village ten miles west from Paris, seat of a
royal (now presidential) country-house.
Marten, Henry, one of the most extreme and most conspicuous
members of the Parliamentary Party. Charles I insulted him in
public and ordered him to he turned out of Hyde Park (1602-80).
The Marten mentioned on p.4 as guilty of judicial misfeasance was
his father (1562?-41).
Mason, William, friend and biographer of Gray; wrote Caractacus
and some odes (1725-97).
Mathias, a noted Anabaptist who, with John of Leyden, committed
great excesses in the endeavour to set up a Kingdom of Mount Zion
in Munster, Westphalia (1535).
Maurice, Elector of Saxony (1521-23) and leader of the Protestants
of Germany against the Emperor Charles V.
Mayor of the Palace, the chief minister of the Kings of France
between 638 and 742.
Mayor of the Palace, the name given to the comptroller of the
household of the Frankish kings. By successive encroachments these
officials became at length more powerful than the monarchs, whom
they finally ousted.
Mazarin(e) Cardinal, chief minister of France during the first
eighteen years of Louis XIV.'s reign,
Memmius, Roman Governor of Bithynia, distinguished for his
rhetorical and literary gifts, 270
Merovingian line, a dynasty of Frankish kings in the sixth and
seventh centuries A.D. They were gradually superseded in power by
their "Mayors of the Palace," and were succeeded by the
Carolingians.
Middleton, Conyers, a Cambridge theologian who had some
controversy with Bentley; distinguished for his "absolutely plain
style" of writing (1683-50).
Miguel, Don, King of Portugal, whose usurpation of the throne,
refusal to marry Maria, daughter of Don Pedro of Brazil, and
general conduct of affairs, led to a civil war, as a result of
which he had to withdraw to Italy (1802-66).
Mississippi Scheme, a plan for reducing the French National Debt,
similar in folly and in downfall to the South Sea Bubble.
Mite, Sir Matthew (see Foote's comedy, The Nabob).
Montague, Charles, Earl of Halifax, Chancellor of the Exchequer
1694; First Lord of Treasury 1697; impeached by the Tories for
peculation and acquitted; Prime Minister 1714; reformed the
currency.
Montezuma and Guatemozin, two of the native rulers of Mexico prior
to its conquest by Cortez in 1519.
Montezuma, Emperor of Mexico, seized by Cortez in 1519.
Moro, the, a strong fort at the entrance to the harbour of Havana,
taken after a hard struggle by the English under Admiral Sir
George Pocock and General the Earl of Albemarle in July 1762.
Moore, Dr., father of Sir John Moore, European traveller, and
author of the novel Zeluco.
Moorish Envoy, Algerine in Humphrey Clinker.
Mountain of Light, the Koh-i-noor, which after many adventures is
now one of the English crown jewels.
Mucius, a Roman, who, when condemned to the stake, thrust his
right hand unflinchingly into a fire lit for a sacrifice. He was
spared and given the name Scaevola, i. e. left-handed.
Murray, orator; afterwards Earl of Mansfield, and Lord Chief
Justice (1705-93).
NAPIER, COLONEL, served under Sir John Moore. Like Southey he
wrote a History of the Peninsular War.
Nimeguen, treaty of; by this it was agreed that France should
restore all her Dutch conquests, but should keep the Spanish
conquest of Franche-Comte, a clause which naturally incensed the
Emperor and the King of Spain.
Nollekens, Joseph, the eminent English sculptor, and friend of
George III. (1737-1823).
Nuzzurs, presents to persons in authority.
OATES, Bedloe, Dangerfield, in 1678 pretended to have discovered a
"Popish Plot" which aimed at overthrowing the King and
Protestantism.
Odoacer, a Hun, who became emperor in 476 and was assassinated by
his colleague, Theodoric (ib.) the Ostrogoth in 493.
O'Meara, Barry Edward, Napoleon's physician in St. Helena, and
author of A Voice from St. Helena; or, Napoleon in Exile.
Onomasticon, a Greek dictionary of antiquities, in ten books,
arranged according to subject-matter.
Onslow, Arthur, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1728 to 1761.
Oromasdes and Arimanes, Ormuzd and Ahriman, the embodiments of the
principles of good and evil respectively, in the Zoroastrian
religion.
Oxenstiern, Chancellor to Gustavus Adolphus and the director of
the negotiations which led to the Peace of Westphalia and the
close of the Thirty Years' War.
PAGE, SIR FRANCIS, a judge whose "reputation for coarseness and
brutality (e.g. Pope, Dunciad, iv. 2730) is hardly warranted by
the few reported cases in which he took part"(1661?-1741).
Palais Royal, in Paris, formerly very magnificent.
Pannonia, roughly equivalent to the modern Hungary.
Pasquin, Anthony, a fifteenth-century Italian tailor, noted for
his caustic wit.
Pastor Fido, a pastoral play, composed in 1585 by Guarini on the
model of Aminta.
Patna, massacre of.
Peacock Throne, a gilded and jewelled couch with a canopy,
described by a French jeweller named Tavernier, who saw it in
1665, and possibly the present throne of the Shah of Persia.
Perceval, Spencer, supported the Tory party, and became its leader
in 1809; assassinated in the Commons Lobby, 1812/.
Perwannahs, magisterial documents containing instructions or
orders.
Peters, Hugh, a famous Independent divine and chaplain to the
Parliamentary forces, executed in 1660 for his alleged share in
the death of Charles 1. He was an upright and genial man, but
somewhat lacking in moderation and taste.
Petit Trianon, a chateau built for Madame du Barry by Louis XV,
and afterwards the favourite resort of Marie Antoinette. In a
subsequent edition Macaulay substituted Versailles.
Phalaris, a tyrant of Agrigentum in Sicily (sixth century).
Pigot, Governor of Madras when Clive was in Bengal, and also, as
Lord Pigot, in the time of Warren Hastings.
Pinto, Fernandez Mendez, a Portuguese traveller (d. 1583), who
visited the Far East and possibly landed in the Gulf of Pekin.
Politian, one of the early scholars of the Renaissance; patronized
by Lorenzo de Medici (1454-94).
Pontiff, that inglorious, Peter Marone (Celestine V.), who was
tricked into abdicating the papacy for Boniface VIII, and died in
prison.
Porto Novo and Pollilore, where Coote defeated Hyder Ali in July
and August 1781, and so finished a long campaign in the Carnatic.
Powis, Lord, Edward Clive, created Earl of Powis in 1804.
Powle, a leading Politician and lawyer in the events connected
with the accession Of William III.
Prynne, William, a Puritan, who attacked the stage and the Queen's
virtue, and suffered by order of the Star Chamber. In late life he
changed his opinions, was imprisoned by Cromwell, and favoured by
Charles II.
Pyrenees, treaty of the, closed the war between France and Spain
(1660), which had continued twelve years after the Peace of
Westphalia was signed. For the other treaties mentioned here see
the essay on "The War of the Spanish Succession," in vol. ii.
RAPIN, a Huguenot who joined the army of William of Orange, and
wrote a Histoire d'Angleterre which surpassed all its
predecessors.
Ricimer, a fifth-century Swabian soldier who deposed the Emperor
Avitus, and then set up and deposed Majorian, Libius Severus and
Anthemius, and finally set up Olybrius.
Rix dollar, a Scandinavian coin worth between three and four
shillings.
Roe, Sir Thomas, an English traveller who, in 1615, went on an
embassy to Jehangir at Agra.
Rohilcund, north-west of Oude.
Rohillas, Mussulman mountaineers inhabiting Rohilcund (q.v.).
Russell, Lord William, the Hampden of the Restoration period.
Fought hard for the exclusion of James II. from the crown;
unjustly executed for alleged share in the "Rye House Plot" (1639-
83). Algernon Sydney (1621-83) was a fellow-worker and sufferer.
SACHEVERELL, Henry, a famous divine of Queen Anne's reign, who was
impeached by the Whigs for forwardly preaching the doctrine of
non-resistance.
Sackville, Lord George, the general commanding the British cavalry
at Minden. Nervousness led to his disobeying a critical order to
charge, which would have completed the French rout, and he was
court-martialled and degraded.
Saint Cecilia, Mrs. Sheridan, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in
this character because of her love of, and skill in, music.
Salmacius, the Latin name of Claude de Saumaise an eminent French
scholar and linguist (1588-1653), whose Defence of Charles 1.
provoked Milton's crushing reply, Defensio Pro populo Anglicano
Sandys, Samuel, opposed Sir R. Walpole, on whose retirement he
became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards a peer.
Sattara, a fortified town c. one hundred miles southeast from
Bombay.
Saxe, the foremost French general in the War of the Austrian
Succession (1696-1750.)
Scaligers;, Julius Caesar S., a learned Italian writer and
classical scholar (1484-1558) and his son Joseph Justus S., who
lived in France and was also an eminent scholar.
Schedules A and B. In the Reform Act Of 1832 Schedule A comprised
those boroughs which were no longer to be represented, B those
which were to send one member instead of two.
Scroggs, the infamous Chief-Justice of the King's Bench in the
reign of Charles II., impeached in 680, and pensioned by Charles.
Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1758 to 1768.
Seigneur Oreste and Madame Andromaque. See Racine's Andromaque.
Settle, Elkanah. See Flecknoe and Settle.
Sidney, Algernon, condemned and executed on scanty and illegal
evidence on a charge of implication in the Rye House Plot of 1683.
Somers, President of the Council (1708-10) a great Whig leader (he
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