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followed his second marriage-let not desponding widowers resign themselves to despair!-were, in his own words, 'perhaps the most agreeable of his life:' and well they might. He had a most charming companion in his wife, and enjoyed the most refined and intellectual society, which latter was increased by the establishment of a dinner-club, founded at a party at his own house, and happily called, in foresight of its future eminence, (the most distinguished men of the time being afterwards members of it) The King of Clubs.' He now, too, lived in the uniform and successful exercise of his profession, and so high was his reputation as a jurist, that he received an application through the Russian minister, from the Emperor Alexander, to take up his residence in Russia, to assist at a projected digest of the Ukases of that country into a code of law; but his domestic ties and professional engagements led him to decline the offer. He found leisure, however, for a tour to the Highlands of Scotland in 1801, where he disposed of his paternal estate, and for a visit to Paris in 1802, where he was introduced to Buonaparte, who, by an odd mistake had addressed to another the compliment intended for him, as the person who wrote the unanswerable answer to Burke.' On his return from Paris he was engaged some time in preparing to defend M. Peltier, an emigrant royalist, for libel on the First Consul of France his defence was described by the Attorney-General as one of the most splendid displays of eloquence he ever had occasion to hear,' and by a still higher authority, the ornament of the English bar, nostræ eloquentiæ forensis facile princeps ;' it was designated a most powerful and wonderful speech-one of the most splendid monuments of genius, learning and eloquence.' After the display of such oratorical powers as justly entitled him to this high praise from so competent a judge as Erskine, and after having realised, during the last year of his professional practice, somewhat more than £1200, it was natural to suppose he would have gone on increasing his fame and his stores, by renewed efforts at the bar but he had unfortunately turned his eyes to India, which seemed to present to him a prospect of future wealth, without much labour in the acquisition of it, and of its much desired accompaniment literary leisure. He therefore, in 1803, on the death of Sir William Syer, the Recorder of Bombay, obtained the vacant situation he had held, receiving on his appointment to it, the honour of Knighthood, and in the beginning of 1804 embarked with his family for India, where he continued discharging the duties of his office with strict integrity, but ever regretting the step that had separated him from the intelligence, the society, the literature and the politics of Europe, till 1811, when, with declining health, he left Bombay, on his return to England, which he reached in the April

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of 1812, and gladly rejoined his wife, and younger children, (who had been previously compelled to leave the unhealthy climate of the East,) in London. Scarcely was he arrived at home when an offer of a seat in Parliament was made him by Mr. Perceval, the minister of the day, which his political principles led him immediately to reject; and his integrity was rewarded by his subsequent election as member for the County of Nairn. He soon took a leading part in the debates of the House of Commons, but his eloquence was of too deliberative and temperate a kind for the stormy atmosphere of party and vituperative politics, though on favourable occasions, his speeches were of the highest order of excellence, and elicited unqualified applause. In the cause of humanity his voice, vibrating with the benevolent emotions of his heart, sometimes swelled in indignation or melted in pathos: and the martyred missionary, and the fettered slave, had no bolder, no more generous advocate.

His speech on the murder (for such we regard it) of the Rev. John Smith, a Wesleyan missionary in Demarara, is too long for extract, but we cannot deny ourselves the pleasure of quoting a few sentences from the close of the truly pathetic narrative of his sufferings and his wrongs:

This meeting took place eighteen days after the death of Mr. Smith. It might be hoped that, if their hearts were not touched by his fate, at least their hatred might have been buried in his grave; but they soon showed how little chance of justice he had when living within the sphere of their influence, by their rancorous persecution of his memory after death. Eighteen days after he had expired in a dungeon, they passed a resolution of strong condemnation against two names not often joined, the London Missionary Society' and Lord Bathurst; the society, because they petitioned for mercy, (for that is a crime in their eyes); Lord Bathurst, because he had advised his Majesty to dispense it to Mr. Smith. With an ignorance suitable to their qualities, they consider the exercise of mercy as a violation of justice. They are not content with persecuting their victim to death; they arraign nature, which released him, and justice, in the form of mercy, which would have delivered him out of their hands. Not satisfied with his life, they are incensed at not being allowed to brand his memory, to put an ignominious end to his miseries, and to hang up his skeleton on a gibbet, which, as often as it waved in the winds, should warn every future missionary to fly from such a shore, and not to dare to enter that colony to preach the doctrines of peace, of justice, and of mercy.'-p. 399. vol. ii.

His attendance on Parliament did not occupy all his time: his leisure hours were devoted to social intercourse, literary studies and projects, and travelling excursions. In 1814 he again visited Paris, and took a tour in Switzerland. The following short extract from his Journal is descriptive of his feelings on visiting the sacred hills of Grutli and the chapel of Tell, the monuments of Swiss liberty.

The combination of what is grandest in nature with whatever is pure and sublime in human conduct, affected me in this passage more powerfully than any scene which I had ever seen. Perhaps neither Greece nor Rome would have had such power over me. They are dead. The present inhabitants are a new race, who regard with little or no feeling the memorials of former ages. This is perhaps the only place in our globe where deeds of pure virtue, ancient enough to be venerable, are consecrated by the religion of the people, and continue to command interest and reverence. No local superstition so beautiful and so moral anywhere exists. The inhabitants of Thermopyla and Marathon know no more of these famous spots, than that they are so many square feet of earth. England is too extensive a country to make Runnymede an object of national affection. In countries of industry and wealth, the stream of events sweeps away these old remembrances. The solitudes of the Alps is a sanctuary destined for the monuments of ancient virtue. Grutli and Tell's chapel are as much reverenced by the Alpine peasants as Mecca by a devout Mussulman; and the deputies of the three ancient cantons met so late as the year 1715 to renew their alliance and their oaths of eternal union.'

On his return from the French capital he committed to the press some Reflections on continental affairs, in which he anticipated the restoration of Buonaparte, which actually took place almost at the very moment of publication-a proof of his political sagacity. In order to avoid the distractions of public life, which greatly interrupted his private studies, and to recruit his constitution, which still suffered from having been exposed to the baneful influence of a tropical climate, he retired in the summer of 1815, to Weedon Lodge, in the neighbourhood of Aylesbury, in Buckinghamshire. Here, for the three following years, he devoted much of the time he could spare from attendance in Parliament, to historical reading, and the collection and arrangement of M.S. authorities, (amounting to fifty volumes,) as a basis of a noble history of his country, which he had long designed to write, and from which his various occupations had too long diverted his attention. He also wrote articles, as a relief to his more recondite studies, on literary and political subjects, for the Edinburgh Review.' In the February of 1818 he accepted the chair of the Professor of Law and General Politics in the College instituted for the education of the civil servants of the East India Company at Haileybury, and shortly afterwards removed with his family to Mardocks, pleasantly situated a few miles from the College,' in the vicinity of the town of Ware. His lectures extended to four terms, of four months each, and were delivered extempore from notes, so that a mere skeleton of them remains in his note-book, though sufficient to show their comprehensive nature, and to excite strong regret that only the outlines of them are left. Besides the communication of positive instruction, he constantly aimed at a higher object in

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these lectures-to 'elevate the minds of his youthful hearers to the principles of a high-toned morality, and to embue them with a love and veneration for all the social and active virtues which most ennoble the mind of man'; and the kindness of his manners, which won the hearts of the students, united to his affectionate zeal, and fascinating eloquence, contributed greatly to the accomplishment of this important object. He had not long been engaged in the earnest discharge of his duties at Haileybury, when, by the death of the late celebrated Thomas Brown, the chair of moral philosophy became vacant at Edinburgh, a succession to which had been one of the dreams of his early youth', nor had it yet lost its attractions in his eyes, but political considerations prevented him from becoming a candidate for it, though it was probably the language of his heart at that time, as at a future period, I sigh for the Professorship.' In the January of 1819 he was returned to the new Parliament for Knaresborough, his connexion with Nairn having terminated with the previous dissolution; he continued to represent this borough, in the interest of the Duke of Devonshire, to the time of his death, and had he lived to the first election under the Reform Bill, he would probably have been returned for it by the free voice of the people. From 1819 to 1824, when he resigned his office at Haileybury, was the most active period of his political life: he spoke frequently and fervently in support of all temperate reforms, both civil and religious, and proved himself, on various occasions, the sympathising friend of the wronged and the oppressed. In the commencement of the year 1823 he was installed in the office of Lord Rector of the University at Glasgow-an honour that was enhanced by the circumstance, that Sir Walter Scott had been a rival candidate for it. In the autumn of 1824 he made another excursion through the Netherlands and part of Germany, to Paris: the three following years he took little active part in the debates in Parliament, and his attendance was in a great measure discontinued in consequence of impaired health. The greater part of this time he resided at Ampthill Park, a seat of Lord Holland's, in Bedfordshire, where he experienced the salutary influence of country air, and relaxation from business, both on his mind and body: but he was drawn from the tranquil seclusion of this beautiful spot in 1827, in order to give his support to the government of Mr. Canning. On the premature death of that enlightened statesman and the return of the Tories to power, under the administration of the Duke of Wellington, he again took his place on the side of freedom in the ranks of the opposition, and spoke with renewed energy on a variety of topics in the sessions of 1828 and 1829. Notwithstanding his political avocations, after his return to public life

from his retirement at Ampthill Park, he did more in the way of literary exertion, than at any other period of his life, as if, conscious that it was drawing to a close, he was desirous of making the best use of the little that remained: the lambent flame of his genius burned the brighter the nearer it ap proached the fatal moment of its extinction. In the spring of 1830 he finished his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy,' which was prefixed to an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.' About the same time appeared, the first volume of the History of England,' which he had consented to write for the Cabinet Cyclopædia': it was followed by a second in 1831, and a third was rapidly advancing, having been brought down to the fourteenth year of the reign of Elizabeth, when it was abruptly terminated by his death. On this history, which is of a much more compendious and popular character than the more philosophical and elaborate one he had long contemplated, the celebrated Channing has passed a high eulogium:

'I think the history a noble one; perhaps I never read one with equal gratification. He knows on what parts of history to throw the strongest light: he judges past ages with discrimination and candour, enters into their spirit, and knows the significance of actions in different stages of society. A genuine sympathy with the human race, and a high moral feeling, breathe through the work. He is a thorough Englishman, yet interested in the cause of mankind, and a staunch friend of liberty, without going into the extravagance of liberalism. It does one good to see a man so conversant with the world and with history, holding fast his confidence in the power and triumphs of truth, freedom, and virtue. A man may know the world, it seems, without despairing of it.'

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For the same work he also wrote the Life of Sir Thomas More a most pleasing and instructive piece of biography: and to the Edinburgh Review' he contributed some valuable articles on historical subjects, amongst which may be mentioned, as illustrative of his skill and diligence in detecting error and tracing evidence, those on Wraxall's Memoirs,' and on the question, Who wrote the Icon Basilike?' To these publications must be added, his History of the Revolution of 1688,' published after his decease, which, though a fragment, is pronounced by an able writer in the Edinburgh Review,' decidedly the best history now extant of the reign of James the Second.' In the May of 1830 he lost his second wife, and by her death one of the strongest and most endearing ties that bound him to existence was snapped asunder, a feebler one having been previously broken in 1823, when he lost his second daughter, in her twentieth year. Under this affliction he paid a visit to Cresselly, which was calculated rather to increase than lessen his grief, associated as that place was with the fondest recollections

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