tility to the maintenance of the poor by assessments with a fixity of purpose which indicates the depth an sincerity 1 of his convictions on this point.

Dr. Chalmers' ministrations in Glasgow were closed by a proposal made to him from St. Andrew's, to fill the vacant chair of Moral Philosophy in that university. He was unanimously elected on the 23d January, 1823, and took his farewell of his congregation at St. John's amid the most painful excitement. To his own feelings on this occasion of severing his pastoral relations, he alludes in an address delivered at a meeting of his agency, in February, 1823. After referring briefly to the subject of the poor-relief, and excusing himself from any more lengthened reference to it, he continued: "At present, I confess, I have no heart for it. This theme is, for the present, dispossessed by one that is greatly nearer and more interesting. The pauperism of England, for the time being, is not the matter in hand; and you will indulge me if, even in the treatment of that matter, there shall be a want of that vigour or distinctness which ought to characterise every intellectual exposition. There are seasons of turbulence in which, like the vessel in a storm, the mind is driven from all her purposed bearings, and lies at the mercy of a thousand fluctuations; there are moral hurricanes, throughout the violence of which all pilotage is abandoned, and there is nothing for it but to lie in helpless and hopeless endurance till the tempest shall be blown over, till the effervescence shall in some measure be wrought off and subsided, and those powers which stood off in passive abeyance shall again resume their wonted command, and take the same collected survey as before of those signs that are around it, and the prospects which lie before it. I wished to have convened you sooner, gentlemen; but, positively, I could not. To withstand the heavy and the altered countenances of my best friends, was greatly too much for me. Not that I have been led to construe it into any feeling of hostility on your part. I flatter myself with a better interpretation; and I am still confident, if not of your approbation, at least of your regard; and I know experimentally what the general complexion of every such separation is, and I remember well the cold and

withered aspect that sat on a muchloved parish, when all its kind and cherished intimacies I resolved to abandon, at the voice of a call from an unknown land. A few months wrought out, not, perhaps, a reconciliation of feeling, but what was of more importance, a reconciliation of principle. The conscientious of my former neighbourhood now admit that I was right. From you, on the present occasion, I cannot expect any such admission. I have done nothing which at all entitles me to require it at your hands; I have not yet made out my claim to such an acknowledgment. This is the season of my endurance, under which I must put up with the many adverse judgments of men, and lay my account with the censure and condemnation of many of my fellows. It is only by the history of my future years that I can work out a satisfactory vindication; and I do confess that, next to the force of that primary obligation under which I lie to do all and to suffer all in the service of my Master in heaven, there is a human or an earthly force that powerfully urges me on to vindicate the Christianity of my present movement."

It was, doubtless, a conscientious step; but, although his pre-eminent adaptation to the pulpit, and his unbounded popularity as a preacher, had not weakened his early predilection for academic pursuits, it was a painful severance of many endearing ties to leave the parish of St. John's. He devoted the last relics of available time to its interests. The separation was equally felt by pastor and people; and when the time came for the farewell discourse, so tremendous was the rush of the populace to gain access to the church, that a party of the 83d Regiment had hastily to be summoned from the barracks, to erect a barrier of bayonets against the pressure of the crowd. In a church capable of accommodating 1,700 persons, nearly double that number was packed; and when, at the close of a sermon whose lofty eloquence and profound effect we will not attempt to describe, the congregation sought to disperse, it took forty minutes for the edifice to empty itself of the crowded mass.

The introductory lecture at St. Andrew's was delivered on Monday, the 17th November.

The first four months of his residence at St. Andrew's were necessarily devoted to incessant literary labour. Except in his rich mental resources, he was wholly unprepared for the duties of a professor's chair. When he started in November, he had only sufficient lectures to last him for a week or two. But this close application from day to day, in order to keep his manuscript, if possible, in advance of his public exercises, which would have wearied and disgusted many men, had for him all the zest and charm of a pleasing excitement. He writes in March: "I shall be lecturing for six weeks yet, and am very near from hand to mouth with my preparations. I have the prospect of winning the course, though it will be by no more than the length of half-a-neck." Prepared under such circumstances, his lectures must have glided from his pen almost as freely and rapidly as they might have fallen, in the shape of extemporary effusions, from his lips. He had not time to re-write, to elaborate, to polish off; and in the form in which they were thus hastily written, they have for the most part-almost without correction-been given to the world. They seem to us, as we bend in rapture over their pages of lofty eloquence, to be the crude and rapid productions of a man who wrote to meet the imperious call of daily duty. What an impression do we receive, from their perusal, of the well-stored mind, the brilliant fancy, the exquisite taste, the facile pen, of the great divine!

There was much of similarity in the circumstances under which Dr. Chalmers and Dr. Thomas Brown commenced their career as professors of moral philosophy-the one at St. Andrew's, and the other at Edinburgh. They were equally unprepared, except in their profound acquaintance with the great subject they had to teach. Brown's pen had to labour hard to keep pace with the demands made upon it, and few of his lectures were written till far in the night preceding their delivery. Both these great men, under the excitement of the occasion, and possessing a rare facility of rapid composition, threw off writings scarcely admitting of emendation, and marked by a singular combination of keen, original analysis, and fascinating eloquence. But Chalmers never en

croached upon the night-hours. At early morning he braced himself to his task, and steadily pursuing it during such hours as were available throughout the day, enjoyed the luxury of relaxation in the bosom of his family, and of healthful rest, when the other was chained to his midnight task. He thus describes his day: "I get up at six o'clock; have a morning diet of study before breakfast; then a forenoon diet between one and three; and my last is between tea and supper. . . I walk before dinner."

Dr. Chalmers was as popular in the chair at St. Andrew's as he had been in the pulpit at Glasgow. During the first week he wrote to his wife: "I am quite over-crowded, and they seem to think that another and larger room will be indispensable." His reputation for eloquence at once insured him a large audience, and, at the same time, presented a strong temptation occasionally to forget the claims of the young unpractised students, who sat on the benches before him, for the sake of gratifying the numerous visitors who sat by their side, and amongst whom several of his brother professors might frequently be recognised. Whether Dr. Chalmers ever yielded to this temptation, we cannot say; that he was alive to its dangers is certain. Alluding at the very commencement of his course to the presence of visitors, he prepared them for a probable disappointment, by explaining the different conditions favourable to scholarship and spectatorship, and added this charming illustration: "In this respect, I can see no difference between the teaching of moral philosophy and the teaching of music. The lovers or the proficients of this noble art resort for their kindred gratification to the performances of a concert-room, but none, so far as I can understand, to the performances of a school; the ear that would be delighted with the flowing succession, with the lofty and unimpeded flight, with the free and the full out-goings of melody in the one, would be annoyed, I should imagine, beyond all sufferance by the stops and the trials, and the tuning of instruments, and the whole tribe of hideous discordances that go to make a very Babel of the other."

In the midst of the congenial pursuits thus entered upon, we shall for

the present leave Dr. Chalmers, and resume our notice of his life in our next number.

LORD GEORGE BENTINCK. EVEN by those who regard him as the exponent of an obsolete policy,—the champion of a defeated and hopeless party,-George Bentinck will ever be held in esteem as an earnest, honest man, true to his convictions, however mistaken; and constant to his purposes amid every discouragement. That he was animated by the spark of genius, or endowed with the rare qualities that make a great statesman, cannot be said; and his friends do ill to his memory to ask his trial by so lofty a standard. But he was undoubtedly an honourable man, and an able man,one who held his opinions firmly, and made energetic efforts to give effect to them; and, in an age when these elements of character are all too scarce, history must not pass by such an one unnoticed.

Until the debates incident upon Sir Robert Peel's proposal to repeal the Corn-laws, in the session of '46, he was almost unknown in the political world. In early life he had been the private secretary of Mr. Canning, who married a sister of the Duchess of Portland; but, with the death of that eminent statesman, his taste for public business appears to have passed away, and the native energy of his character became engrossed in other pursuits. He was passionately fond of the sports of the field, and entered with ardour into the pleasures and excitement of the turf, which he pursued on a scale that has seldom been equalled. Retaining his seat for King's Lynn,-a small borough in the representation of which he had succeeded his uncle,-Lord George was a very irregular attendant in the House of Commons, and never took any important part in its proceedings, with the exception of giving his vote for the support of his party. It is related that he often appeared for this purpose at a late hour of the night, the scarlet costume of the field imperfectly concealed by a white over-coat. His leading friends and associates were chosen from among the followers of similar sports, and every hunting member of St. Stephen's viewed him with peculiar interest and regard. In connection with

this period of the life of Lord George Bentinck, it must be recorded to his honour, that he made great efforts to introduce a high and honourable tone of feeling into sporting circles, and resolutely set himself against a class of persons and practices which have brought "the turf" into much disrepute. When circumstances led him to devote himself to an arduous Parliamentary career, and take a conspicuous and responsible part in a series of exciting debates, one of his first steps was to part with his valuable stud, which he sold hastily and at a nominal price, in order at once and for ever to disconnect himself with associations that might be deemed incompatible with more serious pursuits. Although it involved great sacrifice, it was a judicious act. The antecedents of public men are remembered with sufficient vividness by their enemies and rivals; and, after the old habits of Lord George had been wholly laid aside, they continued to furnish materials for small jokes to the writings of the day. Even in the House of Commons, ungenerous reference was sometimes made to the associations of his past life. During the celebrated colonial debate in 1848, when Ministers were charged with suppressing an important despatch from the Governor of Jamaica, Mr. Hawes, the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, seized the opportunity of making a severe personal attack on Lord George Bentinck. He said: "The frauds and tricks imputed to the noble lord were not the faults and characteristics of men high in public office in this country; they were the characteristics of the men who were engaged in the pursuits which Lord George Bentinck had himself followed for so many years." The insinuation elicited a burst of disapprobation from all parts of the House; and though the Minister endeavoured to explain his meaning so as to divest it of all offence, it was several minutes before the general agitation had subsided.

At the election of 1841, a large majority of Protectionists were sent to Parliament to support Sir Robert Peel's Ministry against a threatened alteration in the Corn-laws. The views of the great Conservative leader, however, gradually underwent a change; and when, in the year 1845, a famine impended in Ireland, owing to the failure of the potato crop, instead of

F

George successively defended what he deemed the interests of the various protected classes of the community, whether engaged in agricultural pursuits or in the manufacture of various staple productions, exhibiting, on every subject he successively treated, a mastery of its details, and a skill in using the varied information he had collected, which afforded striking evidence both of his application and his ability.

The Ministerial resolutions being carried, a bill founded on them was introduced, and the 23d of March fixed for its second reading. The debate lasted four nights; and, on the third, Lord George Bentinck delivered an animated speech. The majority in favour of the second reading was 88.

The Easter holidays were now not far distant, and every effort continued to be made to prevent the new Corn Bill being sent up to the House of Lords before the recess. It was with this end that the Protectionists determined to support the Irish Coercion Bill, provided Government would evince their sense of the real need of that measure by giving it precedence over all other business. The object of this condition was, of course, to impede the remaining stages of the obnoxious Corn Bill. In his speech in support of the introduction of the measure, Lord Grey, however, insisted on the necessity of accompanying it with some system of remedial legislation, forcibly contending that there was an intimate "connection between agrarian outrage and the poverty of the people."

The House adjourned for the holidays before the discussion could be brought to a close; and when it again met, on the 17th of April, the progress of the Coercion Bill was resisted by the Irish members, but the Government eventually carried their point, on the morning of Saturday, the 2d of May, by 274 votes to 125. The Whig and Protectionist leaders were in the majority. Monday, the 4th, was appointed for the House to go into committee on the Corn Bill.

It was confessed by Sir Robert Peel that his views had undergone a material change during the course of the recent debates. He had before deemed the restrictions on the importation of corn "impolitic;" he now believed them "unjust." This acknowledgment was eagerly seized by Lord George Ben

tinck, and made the subject of a powerful invective against the Minister. Commenting with much severity upon the repeated declarations that there was no matter for shame in a change of political opinions, he said :-" It may not be humiliating in a private gentleman to acknowledge that for thirty years of Parliamentary life he has been entirely in error in his opinions on a great branch of public policy. But I cannot agree that it is not humiliating to a great Minister, to one who aspires to be a great statesman, to be obliged to confess that the whole course of his public career has been one continued series of errors. Why, what advantage is there in having men at the helm of affairs if not to direct the public judgment? And if he direct it entirely in a wrong course, surely it is humiliating, and surely it cannot be otherwise than a humiliating avowal, that he has governed the country erroneously for a long series of years. Sir, it is the privilege of girls to change their opinions; but even they cannot do so without the risk of a damaged reputation."

Amid a scene of great excitement, the House divided at four o'clock in the morning, of Saturday, the 15th of May; and the third reading of the bill for the repeal of the Corn-laws, was carried by a majority of 98.

The avowed object of pursuit, in the Protectionist section, was sure retribution on the Minister who had abandoned their cause. "Vengeance," says the historian of the party, "had succeeded in most breasts to the more sanguine sentiment, as soon as the large majority, on the first division in the Lords, had extinguished the lingering hope that the Ministerial scheme might yet be defeated." The field was lost; but, at any rate, there should be retribution for those who had betrayed it. Proud in their numbers, confident in their discipline, and elated with their memorable resistance, the Protectionist party, as a body, had always assumed that, when the occasion was ripe, the career of the Minister might be terminated.

How was Sir Robert Peel to be turned out? Here was a question which might well occupy the musing hours of a Whitsun recess.

It was whilst this question was under discussion, that the possibility of

an alliance between Lord George Bentinck and the Whigs, on the formation of a new Cabinet, suggested itself to many minds. The Protectionist leader was the scion of an ancient Whig house, and himself professed to be a Whig of the era of 1688. The leading principles of the party he had long adopted without reservation. He had been foremost in support of the Reform Bill, and, as a disciple of the doctrine of religious liberty, advocated equality between Catholic and Protestant, and the political emancipation of the Jews. On behalf of the farmers of England he was willing to accept a fixed duty; a settlement urged by Lord John Russell, in 1841, and defended by Lord Palmerston in the recent debates. Negociations were pending to effect a junction; but it was found impossible for the Whig leader to recede from the terms of his celebrated Edinburgh letter, written during the Ministerial crisis of 1845, and in which he stigmatised his old proposal of a fixed duty as a compromise no longer worth contending for. The new project for putting an end to the balanced state of parties, and reconstructing a strong Government, was, therefore, reluctantly abandoned.

The only hope of overthrowing the Ministry lay in the prospect of a coalition with the Whigs, or an adverse vote on the Irish Coercion Bill; and to secure this required skilful management, as it was understood that the Liberal party were not prepared to strike until the passage of the Corn Bill was finally secured. The second reading of the Coercion Bill was fixed for the 8th of June, but the division was successfully deferred till the 22d. Bentinck avowed his intention of voting against the measure.

In adopting this course, he defended his consistency, on the ground that the Ministers had not shown themselves in earnest, but allowed it to be inferred that a measure of such an exceptional character was not fully demanded by the exigencies of the case. The bill had been introduced five months before to meet an emergency, now passed away. "Besides," he continued, "I, and the gentlemen around me, refuse to trust her Majesty's Ministers. We have, for good reasons, refused to place any confidence in them. We are of opinion that we cannot, with safety,

entrust them with the charge of so unconstitutional a power as this bill contains. I will not stay to discuss this measure. Is there any one who thinks that the Government mean to carry it through? After such postponements, such obstructions, such delays, with five months suffered to elapse between the first and second reading, we think the session must be over before this bill is dragged through the House of Commons.'

The

During the continuance of the debate, every effort was made to break up the Protectionist party; and an analysis of the division-list will show with some amount of success. most elaborate calculations of the impending chances were entered into by those who felt that the question really at issue was the continuance or dissolution of the Peel Ministry. The issue was awaited with almost unexampled suspense. The probable fall of a Government in the very hour of its most signal triumph, was a spectacle the most careless politician anticipated with interest and wonder. Thursday, the 25th of June, was come at last. The decision could be averted no longer. Indeed, the occasion for the delay had passed away. The Corn Bill was secured. In the midst of a speech against the Coercion Bill by the late Charles Buller, he was interrupted by messengers from the Lords. Two Masters in Chancery were introduced, bringing bills from the Upper House. The Speaker received their message, and immediately announced, amidst loud cheers, that the House of Lords had agreed to the Corn Importation Bill without any amendment. The Free-trade Premier had triumphed; but the vengeance of his foes was near. At half-past one the galleries were cleared. No one could eonjecture the result of the division; and the direction which members took as they advanced to the lobbies was watched with intense interest. More than one hundred Protectionists followed the Ministry; upwards of eighty avoided the division-lobby; and about the same number voted with Lord George. The majority against the Government was ; and the immediate result was the resignation of Sir Robert Peel, and the accession of the Whigs to office.

With this episode of Parliamentary history, the repeal of the Corn-laws