A milder sway. I poison'd Tancred's nature, Hate, Fear, and Pride. I was that envious shade, And stung an injur'd people into madness. I was that wizard, conjuring up all ill, Myself invisible, while Tancred drew On his less guilty head his people's hatred. But now I fall, in my own wiles insnared, The victim of my guilt." The last passage is taken from an interview between the king and his relative, the prelate : "TANC.-Know, brother, These taunts but ill become you. Must I kneel 'Fore a monk's consist'ry? Is that the bar Where I must plead, and justify my actions?" "ARCHB.-No, Tancred, no; yet there's a judgment-seat Or flattery can set them, must be summon'd; "Tis in their subjects' rigorous inquisition They may forestall the more tremendous process That waits beyond the grave. Thinkst thou thy people, John Cartwright. BORN A. D. 1740.-DIED A. D. 1825. THIS celebrated and sturdy reformer was the third son of William Cartwright, Esq. of Marnham, Nottinghamshire, and was born on the 28th of September, 1740. He was considered somewhat of a dunce at school, but this appears to have been the result of bad management on the part of his tutors, for his mind was an active and powerful one, when fully engaged upon any subject or inquiry. He spent several years in the naval service, in which he always acquitted himself with gallantry; but he declined to bear arms in the American war. In 1776 he produced his first pamphlet on parliamentary reform,the great object to which his pen and future life were to be dedicated. It was entitled, Take your Choice,' and advocated equal representa tion and annual parliaments. He had, previously to the publication of this pamphlet, written two others: one On the Rights and Interests of Fishing companies,' and the other consisting of a series of Letters on American Independence.' In 1780 he took a very active part in the formation of a society for constitutional information, and drew up their Declaration of Rights, of which Sir William Jones was heard to say, that it ought to be written in letters of gold. This was followed by a brochure, entitled The People's Barrier against undue Influence and Corruption. His last publication appeared in 1823. It is entitled The Constitution Produced and Illustrated,' and is a surprisingly vigorous work for a man of eighty-four years of age. Between the years 1800 and 1821 his exertions in the cause of reform were incessant, and gave to him a kind of ubiquity at political meetings all over the country. He died in September, 1824. 66 Major Cartwright," says one of his party, "was not only a sturdy parliamentary reformer, but an honest, upright, and amiable man; one of those truly estimable patriots, who, while they love their country, and spend their lives in unremitted efforts to improve the political condition of their fellow-citizens, stretch forth their thoughts, at the same time, to the interests and happiness of the whole human race, and do something, do much, in their day and generation, to make future ages better than the present or the past. In his domestic relations he appears the model of all that is good, gentle, and gentlemanly; beloved with no common affection, served with no common zeal, and honoured with no common esteem. It is impossible to follow him into his daily walk of existence, without admiring the many excellencies of his character, and without wondering at that strange and vicious perversity which, on account of honest political opinions, would load so good a man with obloquy during his life, and even pour forth its vials of contempt and bitterness upon his grave. Whether the course he pursued for the furtherance of his political views was always the best possible, will be hereafter considered; but that he thought it the best, and that he acted from this persuasion, is evident from the whole course and tenor of his conduct through his long and eventful career. Major Cartwright has been rather erroneously considered the father of modern parliamentary reformers; since long before the Major wrote his first pamphlet, viz. in 1776, many works had appeared, in which it was contended, that the holding a new parliament at least once in the year had been for many ages the law of the land. An universality of suffrage for all who had attained the age of twenty-one, and the protection of the ballot, had been frequently advocated; and Burgh, in the 'Conclusion' to his Political Disquisitions,' had recently suggested the propriety of a general association for restoring the constitution,' which he imagined might be effected by petitions to the king and parlia ment, signed by a clear majority of the people of property, for obtaining the necessary acts of parliament, and by raising and having in readiness the strength of the nation, in order to influence government and prevent mischief.' Major Cartwright brought all these propositions together. He contended that annual parliaments and universal suffrage were the ancient unalienable and indefeasible rights of the people, were derived from nature, recognised and adopted by our Saxon ancestors, and not to be abrogated by any act or acts of parliament. He proposed a plan for the equal division of the people, whose votes were to be taken at the same hour on a certain day in every year, in their respective parishes, and all voting to be by ballot. To attain these objects, he quoted Burgh's suggestions of a Grand National Association,' called upon every man of intelligence and influence to promote such an association, and concluded his work with these words :-I hope there lives not a man upon our isle so unworthy of the society of men, who, if need were, would not subscribe it with his blood.' The creed of the Major thus early settled was religiously adhered to by him to the hour of his death." The following is a list of Major Cartwright's publications:-'Ameri can Independence the Interest and Glory of Great Britain,' 1774, 8vo; - A Letter to Edmund Burke, Esq., controverting the Principles of Government, laid down in his Speech of April 9th, 1774,' 1775, 8vo; — Take your Choice, &c. &c.' 1776, 8vo; reprinted 1777 under the title of The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty Vindicated,' 8vo: -A Letter to the Earl of Abingdon, discussing a Position relative to a fundamental Right of the Constitution, contained in his Lordship's Thoughts on the Letter of Edmund Burke, Esq.' 1777, 8vo;-' The People's Barrier,' 1780, 8vo; Letter to the Deputies of the Associated Counties, Cities, and Towns, on the Means necessary to a Reformation of Parliament,' 1781, 8vo;- Give us our Rights,' 1782, 8vo;— 'Internal Evidence, or an Inquiry how far Truth and the Christian Religion have been consulted by the Author of Thoughts on a Parliamentary Reform, (Soame Jenyns)' 1784, 8vo; Letter to the Duke of Newcastle,' 1792, 8vo;- A Plan for providing the Navy with Timber, 1793, 8vo; Letter to a Friend at Boston,' 1793, 8vo;— The Commonwealth in Danger,' 1795, 8vo; Letter to the High Sheriff of the County of Lincoln,' 1795, 8vo; The Constitutional Defence of England,' 1796, 8vo;- An Appeal on the Subject of the English Constitution,' 1797, 8vo; 2d edition greatly enlarged, 1799; The Trident,' 1800, 4to; Letter to the Electors of Nottingham,' 1803, 8vo; The State of the Nation,' 1805, 8vo;― England's Ægis,' 1806, 8vo; Reasons for Reformation,' 1809, 8vo;- The Comparison,' 1810, 8vo;- Six Letters to the Marquess of Tavistock,' 1812, 8vo; A Bill of Rights and Liberties, 1817, 8vo; The English Constitution produced,' 1823, 8vo. Major Cartwright was also the author of several papers in Young's Annals of Agriculture. Richard, Earl of Donoughmore. BORN A. D. 1756.-DIED A. d. 1825. THIS nobleman was the eldest son of the Right Hon. John Hely Hutchinson. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, but graduated at Dublin. As soon as qualified by age, he obtained a seat in the Irish house of commons. The tone of his politics, and the estimation in which he was held by the great portion of the Irish community, may be best gathered from the following address, which was presented to him in 1795 by a delegation from the Roman Catholics in Dublin :— "TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD DONOUGHMORE. "MY LORD,-The Catholics of Dublin have instructed us to express to your lordship the sentiments of sincere and ardent gratitude which they feel to you and your family; and in discharging this duty we assume to ourselves no small degree of pride, because we know that in addressing your lordship we address the hereditary advocate of Catholic emancipation. "Your late illustrious father had attentively considered the whole code of Popery laws, not only as far as they related to the persons who unfortunately were the victims of their severity, but also as far as they affected the interests of this kingdom in general; and never was the Catholic question the subject of parliamentary discussion that he did not forcibly reprobate the impolicy of imposing penalties on opinions, and classifying people according to their creeds. "He was too great a statesman to think that four-fifths of a nation could be politically degraded, without the degradation, in a great measure, of the remaining part of its inhabitants; and that civil disabilities could be added to political restraints, without the ruin of many of the arts that are useful to life, and the total extinction of all those sentiments of national honour and pride which give rank and dignity to one country in the mind of another. "You, my lord, are heir not only to the fortunes, but to the talents and opinions of your father; and in conjunction with your liberal and enlightened brothers, are endeavouring to complete the work which he was among the first to begin. "You feel in common with the reflecting and disinterested part of the community, that the slavery of Catholics is not necessary to the freedom of Protestants. The genius and character of the times in which you live have not escaped your observation. You know that neither superstition nor enthusiasm, in matters of religion, are among the maladies of the present day; and that, whatever might have been the delusions of former ages, nothing is now less likely than contests among sectaries to procure legal and temporal preferences for their clergy and their respective creeds. You are sensible that a change of circumstances will produce a change of tastes and opinions; that bigotry in one age may be succeeded by liberality in another; and you have too much penetration not to perceive that Catholics, instead of being fixed to an immoveable anchor of prejudice and passion, have floated with the times, and caught the manners of their contemporaries. "Influenced by these considerations, your lordship has uniformly laboured to purify the statute-book from the taint of penal laws, and to unite all descriptions of your countrymen in a bond of common interAnimated by the recollection of your father's example, and aided by that immortal man who restored to Ireland its constitution, your lordship cannot fail of success; and it is with the highest satisfaction we anticipate the day when there shall be no distinctions in this country, but those of subjects and rulers; and when churches, dedicated to different modes of worship, shall give rise to as little popular animosity and contention, as academies instituted for teaching the different branches of human learning. est. "As soon as this auspicious event shall obtain, several abuses, now existing, will be removed, and an end will be put to the insults which Ireland now receives, and is forced to bear in silence, from sordid and unworthy men who have not candour enough to make allowances for the causes of her depression, nor virtue and patriotism enough to assist in removing them. The ingenuity of the people will be called forth; in the place of religious discord and its folly, a spirit of emulation will arise in arts, in commerce, and in manufactures; habits of sobriety and industry will gradually introduce themselves; the pride and haughtiness of wealth and station will be softened; a peasantry of bold and manly feelings, more disposed to labour, and less disposed to riot, will grow up; each rank in society will acquire the character and manners suited to it; an easy gradation, together with a connexion and sympathy, will be felt through all the walks of life, from the palace to the cottage; no man will be so independent as to presume to act the tyrant, and few will be so dependent as to be completely servile and abject. "In a system of this kind, where relations and dependencies are all ascertained and established, the duties which one man owes to another will be better practised than where all is disconnected and disjointed. Statesmen will cease to be intemperate, ferocious, and inquisitorial; and the obedience of the people will be prompt and cheerful in proportion as their interests are consulted, their prejudices indulged, and their opinions respected, if not altogether satisfied. "To you, my lord, the merit of opening such fair and flattering prospects, in a great degree, belongs; and as they increase and ripen, your glory, and the gratitude of your countrymen, will increase together. "THOMAS BRAUGHALL, Chairman, JOHN SWEETMAN, Secretary.” To which his lordship was pleased to return the following answer: "GENTLEMEN, I am truly thankful to you for your affectionate address. You have placed me in the situation in which I am most proud to stand, by connecting me with the exertions of my family; and you have touched the master feeling of my heart, by honouring that integrity, and those talents which are unhappily lost to your cause and to that of the public. You state the opinions and conduct of my late father upon the great question of your emancipation, truly as they were. Amongst the various objects which engaged his attention during the course of a long parliamentary life, there was nothing which he considered so essential to the prosperity of Ireland, as the union of all her inhabitants. He had been taught, by his experience and observation, that the misfortunes of his country had proceeded from her political dissensions. He had, therefore, turned his attention to the absolute necessity of healing those animosities, and of repealing that fatal system of laws, in which he saw nothing but national calamity; in which he has been able to trace the decay of arts, agriculture, and manufactures; the ruin of your commerce, the extinguishment of the public mind, the oppression of the Catholic, the weakness of the Protestant, and the degradation of both. "Impressed with this conviction, he was the uniform and zealous asserter of your rights for a period of more than thirty years. He has bequeathed me his opinions and his example, and I cherish them as the most valued part of my inheritance. You have adopted my family and myself as your hereditary advocates. It is the post of honour, and we will not desert it. We will continue to support you in whatever situation you may be placed, unattracted by the fashion as unwarped by the prejudice of the moment. We will assert the justice of your claims. whether you are dignified again by royal recommendation, or driven a second time from the doors of the parliament. "When I supported your bill in 1792, it was not for the privileges only which it conferred, but for the principle which it established,-a growing principle of legitimate claim on the one hand, and liberal concession on the other.' I would have freely given you every thing |