he was Lord-Advocate and Mr. Ellice was Secretary of the Treasury, that he marvelled at the accuracy and variety of his information. If he had held the seals of the Foreign Office he could not have known better what Louis Philippe and his ministers were discussing in the secret chambers of the Tuileries; and not any of the daily intrigues which have so long disgraced the court of Madrid were concealed from his view. He had an eye which seemed to reveal every political movement from the Land's End to John O'Groat's; and while one of our northern M.Ps. was serenely congragulating himself on the security of his seat, Mr. Ellice would probably expose to him some scheme of Highland duplicity and cunning which had been organized to displace him. Must I confess to the truth of the lines No truth in plaids, no faith in tartan trews, All his associations and predilections are with the Whigs; but he is no laggard. He studies and respects public opinion-not that noisy and unmeaning description which makes itself heard in our market-places, which denounces the aristocracy and smashes their windows-but the thoughtful and intelligent public opinion of our middle classes, whose education and character have made them in reality the leading power of the state, and who by the persistent advocacy of any measure must at length command for it the assent of the legislature. It was Mr. Fox who said of Lord Thurlow that it was impossible to be so wise as Thurlow looked. Mr. Ellice looks wise, but not wiser than he really is. He knows many subjects well, and something about everything. Mr. Grant and Mr. Ellice were born in 1783. It is a strange coincidence that the great majority of the most distinguished statesmen of my day have come into the world in considerable groups. Thus, in 1730-31, were born, Burke, Wedderburn, Thurlow, Dunning. Three of these eminent men exercised an important influence on the career of another not less remarkable. Warren Hastings, their junior by a few months, experienced the fickleness and caprices of fortune in a wonderful degree. Fortune, you say, flies from us. She but circles, Like the fleet sea bird, the fowler's skiff, Lost in the mist one moment, and the next Brushing the white sail with her white wing, The Vice-regent of British India in those days held no mean court. Its appointments were on the most splendid scale, and princes, after the fashion of the Queen of Sheba, came to offer their gifts and to learn wisdom from the lips of this potent Englishman. But the authority and greatness of Hastings were doomed to be shorn of their imposing proportions. The immense wealth that he had amassed in the East nearly faded away before the unexampled expenses of his impeachment and trial, for ever memorable in the annals of English history; and his fair fame ran imminent risk of destruction when subjected to the bitterest attacks of men on whom Providence had bestowed the powers of rhetoric and logic not inferior to those with which Demosthenes thundered against Philip of Macedon, and Cicero exposed and defeated the conspiracy of Catiline. The excitement it produced was universal. The place in which the trial was commenced is thus thrillingly described by the pen of a great master: "It was the great hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamation 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 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 kingat-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 Elliott, 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 so 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, 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, criticized, and exchanged repartees under the rich |