ART. III. 1. The Journal and Correspondence of William Lord Auckland: with a Preface and Introduction. By the Right Honourable and Right Reverend the Bishop of BATH and WELLS. 2 vols.

2. The Diary and Correspondence of Charles Abbot, Lord Colchester, Speaker of the House of Commons, 1802-1817. Edited by his son, CHARLES LORD COLCHESTER. 3 vols.

FOR

'OR some readers every memoir and every letter which illustrates the reign of George III. possesses an unfailing interest. The pursuit of a favourite inquiry always suggests doubts and theories which may be partially solved or illustrated by any new fragment of evidence. Curiosity growing with increase of knowledge welcomes the reappearance of familiar names and topics as they are regarded from a peculiar point of view by each fresh informant. Every period of history has its inconsistent narratives, its disputed reputations, and its recognised controversies; and the interval which separates the American war from the Regency is both crowded with events and actors, and fertile in standing puzzles. The rise and fall of the Coalition, the disputes during the King's first illness, the Whig schism of 1792, the resignation of Pitt, and his subsequent return to office, still present questions as attractive to initiated students as they are probably stale and repulsive to the majority of readers. Those who publish the diaries of secondary politicians of the age of Pitt and Fox must content themselves with the same kind of limited and scientific appreciation which might attend a description of a new fern, or a monogram on the Crustacea of Heligoland. The facts and opinions which are added to the previous store of knowledge fit into vacant spaces, and their relative importance can only be understood by the aid of a familiar acquaintance with the existing fabric. Yet it must be admitted that memoirs and correspondence possess elements of popularity which can scarcely be found in a zoological treatise. Biography is human, even when it is trivial or dull, and it may be read without preparatory study or mental exertion. Something also of the natural love of gossip attaches to reminiscences of seventy or eighty years ago. The affairs of recent generations can never be wholly indifferent to their neighbours in time.

The curiosity of political inquirers has been largely gratified through the activity of modern biographical editors. Two or three professed histories may be collated with the experiences

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of almost every conspicuous person who flourished towards the end of the eighteenth century. The accumulation of memoirs proceeds with increasing rapidity as the demand for further information might seem to be exhausted. Moore's Life of 'Sheridan' appeared more than thirty years ago, and half that interval has passed since the publication of Wilberforce's 'Diary.', The Life of Lord Eldon,' The Memoirs of Romilly,' The Diary and Letters of Lord Malmesbury,' and 'The Life ' of Lord Sidmouth' were followed by The Letters,' The Me'morials,' and the incomplete Life of Fox,' and by the ample 'Correspondence of the Grenville Family.' Within two or three years Mr. Macknight has produced a meritorious and voluminous Life of Burke. Lord Cornwallis's Correspondence' and Mr. Rose's Diary' are of equally recent date; and now the well-known road is twice more to be traversed in the company of Lord Auckland, and again in that of Lord Colchester. A skilful writer might condense the vast mass of materials into a valuable collection of political biographies which would form an almost complete history of the time. Lord Macaulay's 'Life of Pitt' may serve as a model of treatment and composition, and his generous impartiality is only disturbed by the antithetic turn of mind which displays itself in an overstrained contrast between the earlier and later portions of the minister's career. Unfortunately little is known of Pitt except as he appeared in public, although Lady Hester Stanhope, Mr. Wilberforce, and Mr. Rose supply in some degree the uncommunicative dulness of Bishop Tomline. had no time to write familiar letters, and his friends have preserved few fragments of his private conversation. Lord Macaulay seems to have forgotten that Lord Wellesley describes the austere man of business as the gayest and most sanguine companion whom he had ever known. The editor of Lord Auckland's Letters' excites and baffles curiosity by confirming the report that Pitt was at one time deeply attached to Miss Eleanor Eden. He was perhaps not inferior, even in social qualities, to the great rival with whom he must share the central place in the biographical group. The judicious historian of Pitt and of Fox would make a sparing use of the ample details which illustrate the lives and characters of their followers and contemporaries. We hope, however, that these abundant materials for biography will at length be reduced to a more complete and connected form by Lord Stanhope, who has already announced for publication the first portion of his long-expectedLife of Mr. Pitt;' and we shall suspend our remarks on this subject until this important work is before us.

He

Lord Colchester was one of those prudent and prosperous men who attain the highest elevation of which they are capable, and aspire to nothing beyond it. His character and his position as Speaker gave him abundant opportunities of observation, and the results are recorded in his Diary with trustworthy brevity and dryness. The good fortune of his career may be attributed principally to his own industry and merit, although many rivals of far higher capacity must have envied his easy success. Born in 1757, he was educated at Westminster and at Oxford, and at the age of thirty-nine he had attained considerable practice at the bar. The death of his elder brother in 1794 opened to him a lucrative office in the King's Bench, and in 1795 Mr. Abbot was returned by the Duke of Leeds as member for Helston. The patron, who had sat for many years in Mr. Pitt's Cabinet, had finally quarrelled with his leader, and his inclinations were sufficiently indicated by the selection of Mr. Fox to move for the writ. No more direct communication was made to the new member, and Mr. Abbot entered the House with the odd determination to support any government which might be in office. The Duke of Leeds, though he once or twice remonstrated against the votes of his nominee, ultimately acquiesced with commendable liberality in his steady adherence to the Minister. Politics occupied only a secondary place in Mr. Abbot's attention. From his first entrance into the House he rested his hopes of personal advancement on the steady pursuit of definite objects of public utility. Both parties possessed abundant oratorical power, and several effective men of business were engaged in the service of the Government. There was ample room for the services of an independent member who would devote indefatigable labour to minor legislative improvements, to administrative reforms, and to Parliamentary details. Within a few months from his first election Mr. Abbot obtained a Committee on the mode of dealing with Expiring Laws, and he afterwards carried a measure for the Promulgation of Acts of Parliament, which had previously been found only in private collections. His diligence and good sense soon attracted the notice of Pitt, who placed him in the chair of the Finance Committee of 1797 and 1798. In this capacity he drew up, in numerous reports, a complete body of statistics on revenue, expenditure, public establishments, and official incomes. He took a leading part in Committees on waste lands, on harbours and docks, and on metropolitan improvements; and he was the first to provide for the careful preservation of the public records, and for the census which has since been decennially taken. His as probably directed at any early period to the

Chair; for, with a provident attention to details, he records in his Diary the ceremonies and the bill of fare at the first Speaker's dinner which he attended. His taste for practical reforms may perhaps have afterwards induced him to modify the ponderous solidity of his predecessor's establishment; two roast joints, a ham and chicken, a pig, a capon, a turkey, and a larded guineafowl, were perhaps regarded as part of a visible protest against French innovations. The line which Mr. Abbot selected for himself in the House of Commons, led directly to his object by recommending him to the friendship of Addington, who then occupied the Chair with the success which seems always to attend the incumbent of that high office. Congeniality of opinion and character cemented their intimacy, and on Pitt's resignation in 1801, Mr. Abbot received one of the earliest communications from the new Minister. In the first instance Addington attempted to buy his friend too cheaply by the offer of a Lordship of the Treasury. The judicious and conventional reply, that he would prefer a zealous support of the Government without accepting office, produced a second and sufficient bid in the form of the Chief Secretaryship of Ireland. His energy and ability in the conduct of his department during the ensuing year fully justified the Minister's choice. The Chief Secretary collected returns of establishments, improved the management of the revenue, and grappled not unsuccessfully with some of the colossal systems of jobbery which had survived the Union. He encouraged projects for a bridge over the Menai Straits, and for the improvement of harbours at Holyhead and Dublin, and he investigated the difficulties of assimilating the Irish and English currency. As the first holder of his office, he was compelled to organise its business; and he had to resist his superior, Lord Pelham, in his attempt to transfer all Irish patronage and party business to the Secretary of State. After twelve months of active occupation, the appointment of Sir John Milford as Chancellor of Ireland, enabled Addington to transfer his useful adherent to the Chair of the House of Commons. From 1802 to 1817, Mr. Abbot retained the office of Speaker, having wisely declined the offer of the place of Secretary of State in Percival's Ministry in 1809. On his retirement in consequence of illness he was raised to the peerage as Lord Colchester, and he continued till his death in 1829, a zealous Tory of the school of Eldon and Sidmouth. His discharge of his duties of Speaker was in general meritorious and successful in conformity with the previous and subsequent traditions of the office; but in 1813 he was led, by his zealous hostility to the Catholic claims, into a grave and culpable irre

gularity. After defeating Grattan's Relief Bill by an amendment which he moved in Committee, he took credit to the House in his speech to the Throne at the end of the Session, for the policy which he had himself induced the majority to adopt. The support of the Government saved him from a merited vote of censure, but only the blindest partisans can have seriously approved of his conduct. His own bigoted opposition to the Catholic claims was explained both by his general character and by his personal experience. By principle and habit he was opposed to corruption, to disorder, and to waste; but his solicitude was confined to administrative reforms, and to practical regulations for the efficient conduct of affairs. Men of business, as distinguished from statesmen, generally entertain an antipathy to change, and they deprecate the agitation of organic questions, which tend to disturb existing political systems. Mr. Abbot declared when he entered Parliament, that he regarded the predominance of Pitt or of Fox no more than the rivalry between Pompey and Cæsar. In other words, he cared little how the machine of Government was constructed in comparison with his anxiety for the smoothness of its working. When it became necessary to choose a side, he was naturally repelled by the apparent alliance between the Opposition and the supporters of the French Revolution; and when the Catholic claims acquired practical importance, he had in all respects identified himself with the party of indiscriminate resistance. In Ireland he trod on the recent embers of the rebellion, and he perceived that the Catholics, under the influence of their priests, were universally disaffected. In his limited though practical judgment, it seemed easier to govern them than to win them, by a slow process of conciliation, to assist in governing themselves. Some religious prejudice in favour of Anglican orthodoxy may probably have confirmed his anti-Catholic bias, and when he became member for the University of Oxford in 1806, he was irrevocably pledged to the tenacious narrowness which characterised his clerical constituency. There is fortunately room in the world for assiduous Speakers as well as for philosophic statesmen; but the busy handicraftsmen who employ themselves exclusively in political and administrative details, are scarcely justified in the contempt which they entertain for enthusiasts and reformers. The followers of Lord Sidmouth, with all their resolute adherence to expediency and routine, were as obstinate in their devotion to an empty theory as the youngest and hottest philanthropic zealot. Lord Colchester was perhaps the most useful and respectable of the Tory seceders from their allegiance to Pitt.