they inflicted in every possible mode, and at every possible opportunity.

We have seen that Mr. Canning received the king's commands on the 10th of April. He immediately applied to all his late colleagues, inviting them to remain in their offices. Of the replies that he received, the most extraordinary appears to be that of the Duke of Wellington, who requested to know, before signifying his intentions, who was to be at the head of the government. Mr. Canning's answer of course was that it is usually understood that the individual charged with the construction of a government is to be at the head of it; and then the duke resigned. 'It was on the 11th of April,' to adopt Mr. Canning's own statement of the affair, that he received the resignation of Lord Westmoreland. Of the resignation of Mr. Peel he was aware some days before. He received the resignation of the Duke of Wellington on the 12th, at half past ten A.M. Lord Bexley sent in his shortly after. With these, and the verbal resignation of Mr. Peel, he went to St. James's. Those of Lord Eldon and Lord Bathurst arrived during his absence, and did not reach him till he was in the king's closet, having been sent after him, according to his directions, in case of their arrival. He would state further that, so far were they from anticipating the resignation of Lord Eldon, that the king and himself were both under the delusion that there were the best reasons to expect the support of his services in the new arrangements. . . It was bare justice to Lord Eldon to say that his conduct was that of a man of the highest feelings of honour, and that throughout it had been above all exception.' Mr. Canning presented this handful of resignations to the king, saying: 'Here, sire, is that which disables me from executing the orders I have received from you, respecting the formation of a new administration. It is now open to your majesty to adopt a new course, for no step has yet been taken in the execution of those orders that is irrecoverable; but it becomes my duty fairly to state to your majesty that, if I am to go on in the position where you have been pleased to place me, my writ must be moved for to-day-it was the last day before the Easter recess, and orders for the moving of the

writ had been given-'for if we wait till the holidays, without adopting any definitive steps, I see that it is quite hopeless for me to attempt to persevere in the objects I have undertaken.' The king, in reply, gave him his hand to kiss, and confirmed him in his appointment; declaring, however, according to some accounts, that he himself was resolved to oppose any further concessions to the Catholics. In two hours after this interview in the royal closet, the House of Commons was ringing with acclamations-Mr. Wynn moving: 'That a new writ be issued for the borough of Newport, in consequence of the Right Hon. George Canning having accepted the office of first lord-commissioner of the treasury."

The minister had now the Easter recess before him for constructing his cabinet; but there were more resignations to come in. The Duke of Wellington gave up his office in the ordnance, as well as that of commander-in-chief. Lord Melville, though agreeing with Mr. Canning on Catholic question, declined holding office with some whom he believed Mr. Canning about to solicit. The master of the Mint, Mr. Wallace the attorney-general, Sir Charles Wetherell-and the judge-advocate, Sir J. Beckett, next resigned; and even four of the king's household officers. There must have been among these personages an expectation of a new time-of a transition to what they called Radicalism or revolution, under a minister of liberal politics; for it is difficult to see how some of them could be affected by Mr. Canning's becoming the head of a cabinet in which the Catholic question was still to remain open, the king's resolution to oppose further concession being understood.

It was this which made Mr. Canning's task a very difficult one, it being impossible for him to fill up the vacant offices with men of his own opinions on the great question of the day. The task was achieved, however, by the 27th of April. On that day every office in the government was declared to be filled up. Lord Bexley returned to office; the heir-presumptive became lord high admiral the day after Lord Melville's resignation of his office at the head of the admiralty; Sir John Copley, created Lord Lyndhurst, became chancellor; Lord Anglesey went to the

ordnance, Lord Dudley to the foreign and Mr. Sturges Bourne to the home office. Mr. Robinson, who had remained, was removed to the Upper House, with the title of Lord Goderich, in order to lead the business there. Mr. Canning himself assumed the chancellorship of the exchequer, uniting it with that of first lord of the treasury, in order that Mr. Huskisson and he might work with the fuller effect together in matters of finance. Thus the minister was prepared with a complete government to meet the House of Commons on its assembling on the 1st of May, to the surprise of not a few of both friends and foes, who had believed it impossible that he could surmount such a mass of impediments as had been thrown in the way of his entrance into the highest office of the state. The curiosity was now intense to see how he would proceed.

The times were so busy and exciting that men had hardly leisure to note, as they would have done at any former period, the retirement of the aged chancellor. Perhaps there was in their minds, perhaps there was in his own, a doubt whether he had retired, never to return-he who had talked of it so often and so long, and had yet adhered to office for a longer time than any other chancellor, lay or clerical, from the Norman conquest downwards. His tenure of office had been but once interrupted, and had extended over within a few weeks of a quarter of a century. He felt sensibly the calmness with which his resignation was received by the political world and the country at large, though he was ready to be at least invited back to office under future ministers. He has left on record one really painful fact in connection with his retirement—a fact so painful as to enable us partly to account for his low estimate of persons beyond his own set of acquaintances. He writes, on the eve of his retirement: If I had all the livings in the kingdom vacant when I communicated my resignation for what, since that, falls vacant I have nothing to do with—and they were cut each into threescore livings, I could not do what is asked of me by letters received every five minutes, full of eulogies upon my virtues, all which will depart when my resignation actually takes place, and all concluding with: “Pray, give me a living

before you go out." Ho delivered up the seals on the 30th of April, the day before the reassembling of parliament. His usual self-gratulation did not fail him on this great occasion of his life. By the heartiness with which Lord Eldon is always found rejoicing in his own conscientiousness, as in a special gift of Providence, it seems as if he could not suppose that other men could ordinarily desire and endeavour to do their duty. He writes: 'I have now taken my farewell of office. I bless God that He has enabled me to look back to a period of nearly half a century, spent in professional and judicial situations and stations, with a conviction that the remembrance of the past will gild the future years which His providence may allow to me, not merely with content, but with that satisfaction and comfort, and with much happiness, of which the world cannot deprive me.' This is characteristic; and the old chancellor might be partly right in his special self-gratulation. We hope that most public men are at least as conscientious as he; but there are probably few who are so confident and exulting in their own righteousness. The enjoyment of his special prerogative seems, however, to have been far from sufficient for his peace. It was necessary to him that others should value him as highly as he valued himself; and it is not long before we find him sore and irritated at that diminution of his political importance which was the natural and inevitable consequence of his retirement into private life.

CHAPTER II.

Enmity to Mr. Canning-Business of Parliament-The Corn BillClose of the Session--Mr. Canning's Health-His Death-Funeral and Honours-Character of Mr. Canning.

THE session lasted two months after the reassembling of parliament on the 1st of May. It was a season of turbulence and rancour, which it is painful and humbling to look back upon. The only consolation is in the reflection that the disorder, though it took the appearance of hatred between individual men, was in fact a feature of the state of political transition. The minister was the professed object of the rancour, and it was he who sank under it; but not even he, with all his powers, and all his attributes of offence, could have caused such perturbation at another time, and in another position. The real conflict was between old and new principles of policy, and the wounds which men received were as representatives of those principles. In as far as Mr. Canning could keep this truth before him, he was able to bear what was inflicted; but he could not always keep it in full view. Perhaps no man of any temperament could have done so; and it was not to be expected of one so sensitive as he. Yet he might have got through if he had had any fair chance of health; but he had been ill ever since the funeral in that cold January night which had been nearly fatal to many besides himself. Now, feeble and exhausted, he was to experience no mercy. Those who had differed from his former politics, and those who detested his present aims; all who had suffered under his sarcastic wit; all who were disappointed that he had overcome his late difficulties; all who were jealous of a 'political adventurer' having risen over the heads of the aristocracies both of birth and of political administration, stimulated one another to insult, and overpower, if they could, the minister who stood exposed to all attacks incapable of aid, because himself so