те Pale mourner of her child's disgrace, Well, royal spectre, may'st thou frown--- There came a fiend---with with'ring breath He told a tale of shame; Of blights on England's rosy wreath, Of scorn on Mary's name. The word of Calais on my heart More slowly roll'd the sanguine tide, O that I could have shed the blood By drops, or in one gushing flood, From me and England---to have gone Amid a nation's woe, That little deems how much I lov'd But they had turned to fancies wild, And sooth'd the desolate; But now my unblest diadem Seems dropt with blood for pearls to them, A thing to curse and hate. Gone are my hopes of glory---fled My dreams of shout and song-- Still must I hide my unwreath'd head Amid the courtier throng: Joy lights for me no sparkling eyes, And mine may never be: Ye Saints of Heav'n, for whom I've borne Ye might have spar'd to me. There is no time to call my brave, To win my glory back ;-- There is no time---the grave, the grave, Lies close before my track. Still, be it welcome---I've not been Perhaps, too, there may yet be one "She had an English heart." ZARACH. PARLIAMENTARY SKETCHES.-No. II. MR. SECRETARY CANNING. "Mr. Canning is a genius, almost an universal one,---an Orator, a Wit, a Poet, and a Statesman."---BYRON. Mr. Canning is one of the few men whose success in life has been more than a realization of the sanguine hopes and predictions of youthful friends and contemporaries---one of the few whose literary reputation has preceded him in Parliament without ultimately injuring him, and who is likely to bear undimmed to the grave the splendour of his school-boy glory. He is one of the still fewer whose rise to power and distinction has been chiefly owing to the fame of that school-boy glory, and to those endowments by which (with crowds of young men, in the sequel less known,) he was distinguished during his career at the university. These youthful indications of talent were the elements of his fortune---the materials of that fabric of power and fame, of which circumstance may have been the architect, but of which he was himself the sole builder. On this point he may with truth say---hæc sub numine nos nobis fecimus, sapientia duce, fortuna permitente. No doubt his education, in early as well as more advanced youth, was most favorable to the development of his peculiar faculties. From his parents he inherited a taste for literature. His father was a distinguished pamphleteer, and the author of several verses then much admired; and his mothert is still attractive for her various and elegant accomplishments. At Eton, where he was " Captain," a strong rivalry existed against the Harrow boys---a rivalry that induced young Canning, then in his 16th year, (in 1786,) and other clever Etonians, to set up a periodical, as well to assert a literary pre-eminence, as to give vent to their antagonist feelings. To this, called the "Microcosm," The most influential of these circumstances were his friendship with the then Hon. Mr. Jenkinson, (the present Earl of Liverpool) commenced at Oxford; his connection with Mr. Sheridan; and subsequently his marriage. To the first he was indebted for an early and flattering introduction to Mr. Pitt, who soon brought him into Parliament; to Sheridan he was indebted for the good opinions of the wits and men of letters of the day; and by his union with Miss Scott, he became intimately connected with the Duke of Portland. Lord Liverpool has been his steadfast friend through all times and changes; and Sheridan paid him the highest compliment ever perhaps paid to a Member of Parliament-that of congratulating the House on his accession nearly a year before he opened his lips. The occasion is told in Moore's life. Mr. Canning's attention to his mother speaks volumes for the excellence of his heart. He visits her (at Bath, where she resides) as often as the public business permits him; and never fails to write to her every Sunday of his life. Mrs. Hunn, (her present name) is well known to an admiring circle for her national predilections. Mr. Canning was censured more than once in the House for his Anti-galican antipathies. The readers of the Anti-jacobin know his feelings regarding France and French morality: they are not extinct. he was the principal and most spirited contributor; some of his pieces, though written in the wantonness and rawness of youth, are still worthy of perusal for their vivacity and pointed humour. The following extracts, from one of the earliest of them, will shew the successful ease of his first attempts at versification, and how early the cause of Greece---the cause of liberty, civilization, gratitude, and humanity, (and the cause whose satisfactory conclusion the classic world expects from the hands of Mr. Canning,) engaged his thoughts. The poem is entitled "The Slavery of Greece." "Unrivall'd Greece! thou ever honor'd name, "Trace thy past worth, and view thee with a sigh," &c. "This was thy state! but, oh! how chang'd thy fame "And all thy glories fading into shame. "What? that thy bold, thy freedom breathing land, "Who could have thought? Who sees without a groan "In conscious pride its huge gigantic form, "It falls, and falling cleaves the trembling ground, (The school-boy detail and elaborateness of this metaphor is observable in his speeches at the present hour.) By his mother he was related to the gifted family of the Sheridans; in consequence of which, it was his good fortune to spend all his vacations with the author of the best comedy, the best opera, the best farce, and the best speech in the language, and we may add, with the most brilliant wit of modern times. Sheridan was at this time (from 1780 to 1790,) in the full blaze of public admiration and of his meteoric prosperity, and was the means of introducing young Canning to the notice of several of his most distinguished contemporaries; among others to Edmund Burke, whose prophetic acumen did not fail him in his auguries of Canning's success as a parliamentary orator, and of his failure if he made the bar* his sole means of attaining wealth and distinction, as he had originally intended. Mr. Canning's admiration and respect for that extraordinary man still partake of the freshness of youthful enthusiasm. Burke's principles are, in a great measure, the rule of his conduct, the guide of his political determinations, and his works are still his daily study; ranking in his estimation higheras models of perfect eloquence-than those of the Roman orator, and in relation to the English constitution, as safer than those of Demosthenes. He omits no opportunity of testifying his predilection. No later than last session he declared, that every new step ministers are now taking in the career of national improvement emanated from that mighty genius, and would serve to confirm the sagacity of his judgment, revive the sense of his merits, and add new lustre to his reputation. In one of his largest pieces in the "Antijacobin," New Morality,' which is moreover but a paraphrase of Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution,' he apostrophises Burke at great length; -the first lines must suffice as a specimen : "O thou!-lamented sage !-whose prescient scan Mr. Burke sat in Parliament but for two years after Mr. Canning in 1793 entered it. This was in the end a most fortunate circumstance for Mr. Canning, whose admiration of the philosophic orator was so great, as not only to lead, as we have said, to an identity of political views and opinions, but also to an assimilation of style and manner. The comparative failure of his first efforts in Parliament, may therefore be justly attributed to a too close imitation of the character of Burke's eloquence-the most dangerous that a man of Mr. Canning's fancy, playful wit, and Tully-an taste, could well hit upon. It was Apollo learning graceful motion from Hercules. Burke addressed himself too much to the intellect of philosophers, and con • Mr. Canning was not entered of Gray's Inn, as has been frequently asserted, but of Lincoln's Inn. While a law-student, he was a frequent speaker at a debating society that held its meetings in Old Bond Street. Sheridan occasionally attended to witness the display of his young friend; and thus confirmed his high opinion of his abilities. It is a remarkable fact---indeed a living commentary on the usefulness of these institutions---that almost all the Parliamentary orators first fledged their wings at debating societies. Oratory at these institutions would thus appear to be a kind of apprenticeship to greater efforts. Whether, and how far, this is a coincidence or a consequence, would be a bad "subject of discussion" to the parties most interested. sequently valued too little the immediate effect of his exertions, to be an effective debater. There was no fusing earnestness in his mannerno locality of feeling-no appearance of personal interest- therefore his auditors were cold and unmoved. He spoke too like a man, who, "proudly eminent above the rest, in the shape and gesture" of his intellect, felt, that all mixture of fleshly feeling was a questioning of his dignity, and that the ordinary local interests and emotions of humanity, were derogatory from the character of one who legislated for all times, and all places, and many people. This was evident in the ex-cathedra aristocratic tone of his voice, and in the fixed, seeingnothing-present stare of his eyes. Like Bossuet, "Il semble que du "sommet d'un lieu élevé, ii decouvre des grands événconeus qui se passent sous ses yeux, et qu'il les raconte à des hommes qui sont en "bas." (Thomas. Eloge.) His standard of perfection was therefore too indefinite and abstract; and the rewards of his ambition placed too much in the applause and admiration of posterity, for him to be very anxious or successful in his efforts to conciliate his opponents, and win the suffrage of his contemporaries. Like Bacon, he knew he would be oftener misunderstood than mistaken; and that as it would take ages to ripen his fame, so it would take centuries to sound its depth, and was therefore indifferent about his temporary reputation. Besides, he confined himself too exclusively to convince, by instructing, and thus demand support, to be a safe model of imitation in a popular assembly. Consequently, though no orator before or after him, or even in his own time, fruitful as it was in orators, at all approached him in the correctness and consistency of his application of sound general principles to questions of particular growth and interest; in the sustained tone of his philosophy, the practicability of his theories, and in the availableness of his various and profound knowledge, he was, consideratis consideranis, one of the most inefficient speakers in either House of Parliament. In addition, no man was less regardful of the amour propre of others, though from the natural vehemence of his temper, no man was more impatient of cavilling opposition. He was altogether a dangerous model to Mr. Canning; the more so, as he had neither Burke's dictatorial arrogance of tone and manner, nor the domineering influence of his genius; nor his knowledge, at once serious and profound, of the human heart, and of the productions of the human intellect, so essential to bear him out against the offended self love, the prejudices and the interests of his adversaries. Mr. Canning had too much good sense, and regard for his own fame, not to soon abandon a course that probably would have ended only in the shipwreck of his reputation; he was the more enabled to do this by the speedy termination of Mr. Burke's parliamentary and earthly labors, which we have alluded to. Unbacked by family influence, as he was in early life, the task of convincing, by mere fact and argumentative sarcasm, his opponents of their errors, was perilous in the extreme; while that of insinuating himself into their confidence, by gracefully persuading them of the soundness of his own doctrines, and of obtaining their support, by exhibiting |