The Right Hon. GEORGE CANNING. DURING the early part of the last month the public mind was greatly agitated by intelligence of the severe and alarming illness, and subsequently of the death, of Mr. Canning, who had recently been raised to the high office of Prime Minister of Great Britain. His disorder terminated fatally, at the Duke of Devonshire's house, Chiswick, at ten mi

nutes before four o'clock on the morn

ing of Wednesday, the 8th of August. The following statement will be found to comprise the chief facts of his private and public history.

"Mr. George Canning, the father of the subject of the present memoir, was an Irish barrister of respectability, who was related to the family of Garvagh (for the present representative of which, the late Prime Minister, a short time since, procured an Irish peerage); and having displeased his wealthier relatives at an early age, by what they considered an imprudent marriage, he came over to this country, where he lived in great poverty, and died, leaving his widow and family entirely destitute of provision. While in Ireland, and when he was first at the bar, Mr. Canning the elder had produced some poetical pieces; these, however, though not devoid of taste and merit, met with no material success. In London he changed his course, and attempted to carry on the business of a wine-merchant; but this effort was not prosperous, and it is generally believed that he died of dejected spirits and a broken heart, brought on by the loss of all his early prospects and the subsequent miscarriage of several endeavours at ameliorating his condition. After her husband's death, Mrs. Canning attempted the profession of the stage, and performed Jane Shore, in in Rowe's tragedy of that name, to Garrick's Lord Hastings; but her talent was not sufficient to command a London engagement. She afterwards acted in various provincial companies, and eventually married a person in the same pursuit, of the name of Hunn. The Garvagh family, though deeply displeased with Mr. Canning's marriage, relented so far, at his death, as to take care of his son George's education, and the future Prime Minister was placed at Eton, where, while yet a boy, he exhibited considerable indications of genius,

and contributed several papers to a periodical publication called The Microcosm, in 1786. The essays signed "B." are the first number of which was published those written by Mr. Canning in this work, and the poem, The Slavery of Greece, may be quoted as a fair example From Eton of their general merit.* Mr. Canning went to Oxford, where he studied at Christ Church, and distinguished himself principally as a Latin scholar, gaining several prizes. And, from thence, coming to London, he entered himself a member of Lincoln's Inn, and proceeded in due course, with a view to being called to the bar. At this time, however, the friendship of Sheridan, who was then in his zenith, suggested another career to him-the career of politics; and at three-andtwenty years of age, he took his seat in Parliament, as member for the borough of Newport, in the Isle of Wight. Prior to the commencement of his political prospects, and while he was studying for the bar, Mr. Canning, at several private societies, had acquired considerable reputation as a speaker; so much

[* This periodical paper was projected by a few of the senior scholars at Eton, in 1786. The first number was published, as stated above, on Monday, the 6th of November, in that year; and the subsequent numbers followed in succession, every week, till Monday, July 30, 1787. The fictitious editor was Gregory Griffin, Esq.; the real conductor is understood to have been Mr. Canning. The other principal writers were, Mr. John Smith, afterwards of King's College, Cambridge; Mr. Robert Smith, Mr. John Frere, and Mr. Joseph Mellish. Other occasional contributors were, Mr. B. Way, Mr. Littlehales, and Lord Henry Spencer. In the concluding paper, the Editor, under the form of a last will and testament, assigns to each writer the papers composed by him. Mr. Canning's are, Nos. 2, 7, 11, 12, 18, 22, 26, 30, 32, 39. Appended to one of these is the poem on the "Slavery of Greece," which late circumstances have brought into public notice. Considering his age, the papers in the Microcosm did Mr. Canning great credit, and gave indications of the superior talents he afterwards displayed as a lively and elegant writer. EDIT.]

so, indeed, as to induce Mr. Pitt, who probably could have little other very cogent motive for befriending him, to offer him the post of Under Secretaryship of State, which he accepted in 1796, and was accordingly returned for the Treasury borough of Wendover. But he was some time in the House before he assumed courage to speak, although so strongly supported; for he was returned to Parliament in 1793, and his first effort was the speech in favour of the subsidy proposed to be granted in 1794 to the King of Sardinia, which was not at all in his best style, and met with a reception more favourable than its intrinsic merits, perhaps, deserved. About five years afterwards, in 1799, the young orator married Miss Scott, the sister of the Duchess of Portland, with whom he obtained such a fortune as gave him more standing in the country than he had heretofore possessed; and he continued a vehement supporter, and occasionally an ultra one, of Mr. Pitt and his measures, until the latter went out of office in the year 1803. The short administration of Mr. Addington and his colleagues was determinately opposed during its whole existence by Mr. Canning, whose talent for ridicule exhausted itself upon the Premier's person, while the political measures of the Ministry were assailed by his logic and his oratory. At this time he sat for the borough of Tralee; and as he had gone out of office with Mr. Pitt, so he returned with that Minister in the new situation of Treasurer of the Navy, which office he continued to hold until Mr. Pitt's death in 1806. On the death of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning went into opposition again; but his talents rendered him invaluable to any Ministry which could obtain his assistance; and it was not long before he found himself again in power with an accession of rank, having joined the Duke of Portland, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It was in this capacity that he made his famous speeches upon the bombardment of Copenhagen and the seizure of the Danish fleet. And he also fought a duel, upon a dispute arising out of the conduct of the Walcheren expedition, with the late Marquis of Londonderry, then Lord Castlereagh, who was the Secretary for War and Colonies, which terminated in Mr. Canning's being wounded, and in both parties going out of office. It was Lord Castlereagh who gave the challenge; and at six o'clock on the morning of the 21st of September, 1809, the parties met near the telegraph, Putney-heath. Lord Castle

reagh was attended by the present Marquis of Hertford, and Mr. Canning by Mr. Ellis. After taking their ground, they fired by signal, and missed; but no explanation taking place, they fired a second time, when Mr. Canning received his adversary's ball in his thigh. He did not fall from the wound, nor was it known by the seconds that he was wounded, and both parties stood ready to give or receive further satisfaction, when Mr. Ellis, perceiving blood on Mr. Canning's leg, the seconds interfered. Mr. Canning was conveyed to his house, Glocester-lodge, at Brompton, where he was for some time confined; but as the bone of the thigh was not fractured, he recovered sufficiently to attend the levee on the 11th of Oc tober, and resign his seals of office, as did Lord Castlereagh also.

"The quarrel excited a considerable sensation among the friends of both parties at the time; and it was understood that his late Majesty expressed his strong disapprobation of the practice of settling ministerial disputes by sword or pistol. Mr. Canning addressed two letters to Earl Camden (which were published), defending the part which he had taken in the affair; but the result was, his separation from the party with which he had acted; and not long after he made that which may be considered as his first demonstration in favour of popular principles, by offering himself as a candidate for the representation of Liverpool, for which place he was elected in 1812. Mr. Canning stood four times for Liverpool, and was each time elected, but never without a strong opposition. On the first occasion he had four antagonists, and his majority was 500; the numbers being for Mr. Canning, 1,631; for General Gascoyne (the second member), 1,532; for Mr. Brougham, 1,131; for Mr. Creevey, 1,068; and for General Tarleton, 11. The second election took place after Mr. Canning's embassy to Lisbon, and very great exertions indeed were made to throw him out; but he was nevertheless returned after a struggle of three days, by the retirement of his opponent, Mr. Leyland; whose name, indeed, had been set up by the hostile party, in spite of his personal declaration that he was desirous not to serve. The third election, of 1818, was distinguished by an extraordinary quantity of electioneering manœuvre, eighteen nominal candidates having been set up, on one side and the other, in addition to the four real ones; the majority, however, of Mr. Canning, was greater than on any occasion be

fore. The last election of 1820 was less warmly contested, his chief opponeut being a gentleman of the name of Crompton, who succeeded only in obtaining 345 votes. During the latter years of his life, the termination of Mr. Canning's political career seemed problematical, though few persons, even but a short time since, would have an ticipated its coming so early to a close. In 1818 he came into office as President of the Board of Control; but left England and abandoned his place, in pre ference to taking part in the proceedings against her Majesty the late Queen. Subsequently, in 1822, he was named Governor of India; and was on the point of again quitting the country, having actually taken leave of his coustituents at Liverpool, for the purpose of proceeding to Bengal. At that very moment, however, the death of the Marquis of Londonderry suddenly opened the situation of Secretary for Foreign Affairs to him, a post which he accepted, and held until the change consequent upon the recent illness of the Earl of Liverpool, when it was his fortune to attain that high station to which his talents pre-eminently entitled him, and in which a long list of valuable services to his country have, we feel little doubt, been cut short by his premature and regretted death. It is a curious circumstance, that Mr. Canning died in the same house in which Mr. Fox breathed his last; and, like that distinguished statesman, but a few months only after his last acceptance of office. He has left two sons alive, and a daughter. The latter is the present Marchioness of Clanricarde; the elder son is a captain in the navy; the younger a lad still at school, who was brought from York during his father's illness. As Mr. Canning has been repeatedly attacked upon the subject of the pensions granted to other members of his family-to his mother and sisters-it becomes fair to add what he has said in his defence. His answer to this charge was, that when he first retired, in 1803, from the office of Under Secretary of State, he was entitled to a pension of 5007. a year; and that, instead of taking that sum himself, he requested to have it settled upon his relations."

"Mr. Canning evinced over the companions of his boyhood a superiority of quick intelligence, to which there could not be fairly applied the usual term: 'precocious. There was nothing pre mature in his early taleut nothing fallacious, forced, or disappointing. The Mad which he took when a child, he

maintained through the intellectual tilts of youth, and through the sterner struggles of ambitious and unyielding manhood, until, after some partial defeats` and vicissitudes, for which he was more to blame than fortune, he reached the ne plus ultra of a British subject, and fell while the civilized world still cheered him with shouts of applause and felicitation.

"To the prompt and sensitive excitability of Mr. Caming may be traced the impediments which retarded his final success, and which more than once threatened to frustrate his most aspiring efforts. If Mr. Canning could have subdued for a while the indignation under which he wrought against Lord Castlereagh, by means which afforded his personal enemies a pretext for representing him, though falsely, as an intriguer, the feelings of other members of the Portland Cabinet would have cooperated with him and with the public voice, and have expelled, with something like contempt, from office, the incompetent author and director of the ruinous Walcheren expedition. The issue of this indiscreet quarrel with Lord Castlereagh was, their simultaneous loss of office, and Mr. Canning's long exclusion. The more plausible and measured temperament of Mr. Canning's adversary introduced him again to power under Mr. Perceval, in the department of Foreign Affairs, in which situation he had the good fortune to inflict on Mr. Canning the deep disgrace of an overpaid and unnecessary embassy to Lisbon. This was the real blot on Mr. Canning's political emblazonment-one, indeed, which we are ready to acknowledge that a series of illustrious services. have long since compensated and redeemed, if they have not entirely obliterated; but which the faith and moral use of history impose upon us the reluctant duty of here affixing to the name of Mr. Canning.

"That the earlier portions of this statesman's life exhibited no evidence compared with that which has flowed from every week and hour of its more recent progress, on which could be established any of Mr. Canning's now indefeasible claims to the reputation of a friend of human liberty, may be accounted for by the subaltern order of those duties which, until within these three years, and since the overthrow of Buonaparte, he had been called upon to discharge. An exception of course will be made for the time during which he filled a Cabinet office under Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Portland; but then the

great interests of the war swallowed up all questions on which might hinge the fame of a statesman for his free or despotic principles; so that it was not until his acceptance of the post of Foreign Minister, after the self-destruction of Lord Londonderry, that Mr. Canning had at once the forces wherewith to act, and a field on which to display them.

"Try the departed statesman by a test like this, and then let every Englishman determine how much he gain ed by Lord Londonderry's death, and what he has lost in Mr. Canning!

"England was disengaged from the trammels of the Holy Alliance, almost before the familiars of that body could look round them and discover the hand which set her free,

"An invasion of Spain, which no reasoning could palliate, was rendered, by Mr. Canning's dexterity and spirit, little more noxious in its result than it was defensible in its origin; and the world saw contrasted an outrage by France upon the Spaniards, which will bring about its own termination and punishment, with a blessing conferred by England on the Americans, which is at once its own guarantee and reward.

"Constitutional Portugal has been upheld against the invasions of the House of Bourbon, by diplomatic skill and military energy, so directed, disposed, and justified, as to protect, according to all reasonable calculation, the civil rights of the people of that kingdom, through the same means and on the same political and international obligations which Mr. Canning has made subservient to the independence of King Pedro's crown.

"The spirit through which the whole south of Europe must one day vindicate the liberties which belong to man, has been, though not ostentatiously encouraged, kept alive, and ready for seasonable exercise, by the mere notoriety that Mr. Canning was Minister of Great Britain.

"At home, whatever has been attempted by his Government has been attempted well, though, thanks to his enemies and those of the people of England, it has not been so well accomplished. The principles which he would bave realized, had life and power been granted, were those under which the poor man's food would have been increased, and the national expenses economized.

"Of the ornaments and accessories of the deceased Minister, whether as a member of the senate or of society, it is not strictly our design to speak. His eloquence that much and dangerously

overvalued art in England-his cloquence was perfect in its peculiar kind; but that kind was not the most admirable. Gracę and elegance, wit and spirit, copiousness and harmony, were all comprehended in it; they formed its distinctions and its attractions; but they are characteristics of a secondary rank. In our minds Mr. Canning was not the foremost, though among the foremost, of contemporary speakers. Brougham is more sarcastic, more impetuous, more friutful and discursive-Plunkett more logical, more original, more forcible, and impressive. Nowhere does there now exist the profound, the terrible, or sublime.

"In private life, and its endearing and sacred relations, Mr. Canning bears the repute of having been an estimable and exemplary person. The friends of his youth seem to be attached and devoted to him, while he is said to have been gaining rapidly on his friends of more recent acquisition.

"Sooner or later, even in this world, justice is rendered to most of us before we die. Let the respective partisans of Canning and Londonderry now meditate for a moment the place which each of these Ministers of the same kingdom fills in the heart of the people. Let, we say, the lesson be studied, and sink deep, The memory of the one is embalmed by his countrymen in unaffected sorrow: the remains of the other were loaded with execrations, and pelted with ordure at the grave." (Times.)

We add the following paragraph from another public journal.

"Mr. Canning had assumed almost a Tory mania; and, in 1798, in conjunction with Mr. Frere and Mr. Ellis, he became the conductor of The Anti-Jacobin; or, Weekly Examiner—a work which administered to the virulence of party, and to which nothing but the wit and elegance of Mr. Canning, and the ardent spirit of the times, could have given currency or a temporary fame. In this celebrated vehicle of party animosity, wit, sarcasm, irony, vituperation, and every possible weapon, were used to degrade and misrepresent the French leaders, and to render the liberal party in England ridiculous, if not odious, in the eyes of the country.

"In this also he published his 'New Morality,' a severe satire on the reigning follies and vices, in the style of the Imitations of Horace, or rather of Juvenal, which had so well succeeded with Gifford and others.

"A sense of humiliation marked his Parliamentary demeanour to the death of Lord Londonderry. All his speeches

during that interval are tinctured with a degree of morbid impatience, and a sort of personality in his political hostility, which rendered him more an unpleasant than a formidable adversary. He did not either see or take heed of the impressions which the arrows of his satire would make upon others, although no one appeared to be so poignantly sensitive to such attacks as himself. He has been repeatedly accused of alluding to human suffering with a levity inconsistent either with a proper degree of sympathy for the misfortunes of his fellow-creatures, or a decent respect for the feelings of the public. The supposed expression which he made use of, in allusion to an unhappy sufferer under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, has been made the theme of many a violent attack on Mr. Canning, and the "revered and ruptured Ogden," has been more than once thrown in the teeth of the Right Hon. Gentleman. The author of an anonymous Letter to Mr. Canning, which has been ascribed to Mr. Hobhouse, and which, as a specimen of forcible writing, would not shame the pen of Junius, accuses the speaker of having in this instance committed a monstrous outrage upon his audience; adding, that the stupid alliteration was one of the ill-tempered weapons coolly selected from his oratorical armoury.' However, there is some doubt that the epithets in question had been ever used by Mr. Canning. The letter of which we have just spoken, excited a very strong sensation throughout the country. It probed Mr. Canning to the quick, for he dispatched a short letter and a friend to the publisher's, inviting his literary antagonist to a contest with more serious weapons than those of pen and paper. Several years afterwards the arrow still rankled in Mr. Canning's heart-he took all opportunities of insulting Mr. Hobhouse in Parliament, and one night had the rashness to allude to him, and his colleague, as the Hon. Baronet aud his man.' For these offences Mr. Hobhouse, on a subsequent occasion, introduced, into a speech on the question of Reform, a very elaborate portrait of the Right Hon. Gentleman, which more than revenged the previous insults."

In copying from the public journals the preceding account of Mr. Canning, we must not be understood as pledging ourselves to the opinions of the writers on every part of his character. There are some points on which we decidedly differ from them they need not be specified. In respect to religious liberty, the chief evidence we possess of Mr. Canning's sentiments is his advocacy of the

:

cause of Catholic Emancipation. This he had latterly supported on very broad principles. The case of Protestant Dissenters he seems never to have understood, and when brought under his notice, to have treated with very unbecoming levity or contempt. He had expressed his opinion, that since the passing of the Annual Indemnity Bills, the Dissenters had no cause of complaint in consequence of the stigmas and proscriptions of the Corporation and Test Acts. It is, however, pleasing to add, that his mind was daily liberalizing in relation to religious as well as to civil freedom.-His speech on the Unitarian Marriage Bill (see above, p. 549), did him great honour. And his declaration as to the late application to Parliament for the repeal of the Sacramental Test, was probably forced from him by a momentary irritation. His threat of hostility, as subsequently explained, was meant to apply to the present time, and not to future, and, in his view, more eligible opportunities.

Rev. DAVID DAVIS.

Lately, at Llyn-rhyd Owen, Cardiganshire, in the 83rd year of his age, the Rev. DAVID DAVIS, for nearly sixty years one of the most eminent and popular of the Dissenting ministers, in the Presbyterian connexion, in South Wales. His father was a respectable farmer residing at Goetre-issa, near Lampeter, where Mr. Davis was born on the 14th of February, 1745, O. S. The first elements of his education he received at the village schools of the neighbourhood. For about a year and a half he was placed under the instruction of his relation, the Rev. Josiah Thomas, of Leominster, the father of the late Rev. Timothy Thomas, of Islingtou. On his return to Wales he went to Llanybydder, to Mr. David Jones, who had been educated at the Carmarthen Academy, and was deemed a man of excellent abilities and a good classical scholar. From hence he was removed to Llangeler, to Mr. Thomas Lloyd, a clergyman of the Establishment, who was considered a sound scholar, a very exact and critical teacher, and a severe disciplinarian.

Mr. Davis being intended for the Dissenting ministry, was sent, in 1763, to Carmarthen to the grammar school, kept by Mr., afterwards Dr., Jenkins, who was also assistant tutor at the Academy. Mr. Davis remained here only a quarter of a year, being admitted a student on the foundation after the Christmas vacation of 1763. At this time the excellent and learned Mr. Samuel Thomas held the