untitled population of the kingdom. It would require only the recollection that there existed no constitutional means by which this spirit could be overcome, to suggest that where these had been found wanting, force had, heretofore, efficiently supplied the defect. A revolution, favoured by the great majority of the landholders, and the whole mercantile interest of a commercial country, could not fail of success. There can be little doubt that, had the Peerage bill succeeded, the popular indignation would ere long have swept away the house of lords.

Walpole, who was out of office, defeated the measure, although Mr. Cooke is inclined to question his motives, and to set them down to jealousy and vindictiveness.

When speaking of Marlborough's death, our author takes occasion, as is usual with other historians, to review in outline the great man's life-presumed motives of action-feelings under disappointment-and prospects as to the future. There is discriminative point in the estimate of the Duke's political principles, and by keeping it in view, one may arrive at a satisfactory solution of certain contrarieties in his public conduct. But when licence is given to the imagination, and delightful conjectures are sported concerning the delights and happiness which sentimental prognostications might afford the retired and neglected hero, we can only say that we fondly hope they were realized at Blenheim. The summary and the speculation, however, which we now quote, do honour to Mr. Cooke's head and heart.

"Since the accession of George I., Marlborough had been treated with great outward courtesy, and real neglect. While levelling the colossal power of Louis XIV., and scattering and pursuing his armies, Marlborough had been so unreasonable as to postpone to the interests of Europe, the peculiar interests of the electorate of Hanover. This want of deference to the elector the King of England never could forgive. It was necessary to respect the national admiration, and to retain him in public employment; but he was allowed no particle of influence. So little was he consulted, even upon subjects supposed to be immediately under his control, that he was unable to nominate to a vacant lieutenancy. If he wished to obtain for another a favour from the crown, he was compelled to make the application through a private friend having less distinction and more influence; but 'Don't say it is for me, or you are sure to be refused,' was his invariable and necessary injunction.

"Disgusted by such unworthy treatment, and unable, after having ruled so absolu e'y in the court and cabinet, to recommence the arts of an expectant courtier, Marlborough retired entirely from public life. In the magnificent domain of Blenheim, the splendid testimonial of his country's gratitude, he could fly from the present to the future; he could anticipate the time when his name would still be familiar, and his deeds still fresh in the memory of all, when the acts of his contemporaries had ceased to interest, and their names were with difficulty remembered. Neither the neglect of a court, nor the more tormenting tyranny of an ignoble vice, could render unhappy a man who had such a refuge. If, during the

declining days of Marlborough, the present was dim and cheerless, he could, while reason yet remained, look back upon acts whose brightness even the treachery and meanness of Lord Churchill could not destroy, and forward into fields of time, where his glories should only be more widely diffused, as the deeds whence they radiated became more distant.

"As a political chief, we have seen Marlborough the leader and mainstay of each party alternately. In this character we must record his acts, but it would be vain to attempt to trace them to any principles of government. The early part of his life was spent in working out the fortune of a courtier; so long as he strove only to attain this object, or to preserve it when attained, he continued a Tory. His manhood was spent in building up the fame of a soldier. War-the prostration of France-was his object, and, as the Whigs alone were heartily inclined to second him in this, Marlborough became a Whig. I believe it was the bitter hatred he conceived for Oxford, the persecution he suffered from the Tories, and the controlling influence of the masculine mind of his duchess, strong, even when yoked with that of a hero, that preserved his party consistency. I can remember no proof that he was ever governed by any theoretical preference for a peculiar principle of government."

Of one among the last of Walpole's battles, the following presents a graphic sketch. It also affords a striking picture of the stratagies sometimes resorted to by parties, when the floor of the House of Commons becomes the theatre of their explosion.

"On the 21st the government members were startled upon entering the house of commons to find the opposition benches crowded with the whole strength of the party. It was evident that no effort had been spared to bring up every vote at their command; cripples had been brought in upon their crutches, and sick men, enveloped in bandages and nightcaps, proclaimed the importance of an occasion which had drawn them from their beds. Meanwhile so well had the secret been kept that the government benches were empty, and no business of importance had been expected. The appearance of the house was explained, when Pulteney rose and in a speech of great power arraigned the conduct of the minister in the prosecution of the war. He conclued with a motion, to refer those papers relating to the subject which had been produced, to a secret committee. Upon this demonstration messengers were, of course, despatched in all directions. As the debate was industriously drawn out, the ministerial retainers gradually arrived, and, although so completely outmanoeuvred in the first instance, Walpole compensated by his diligence for his want of preparation.

"When each party had ready every vote they could hope to muster the debate was concluded, and the most extraordinary artifices were adopted to influence the division. The Prince of Wales, who was present, astonished at the number of invalids who were being carried into the house, exclaimed to General Churchill, who sat near him, 'They have got together the lame, the halt, and the blind, '- Yes, the lame on our side, the blinds on yours,' was the reply. Two of these invalids and a gentleman who had recently lost a relation, and could not appear with decency for want of a suit of mourning, had been impressed by Lord Walpole,

·

and kept in a room opening into the house, which he held as auditor of the exchequer; some opposition members getting information of this stuffed the keyhole of the door with sand. At the critical moment the key was found useless, and three votes were thus lost. Upon the division the defection of two Tory members turned the scale, giving Walpole the majority of two, which would otherwise have been against him.

We go forward to a period when a man, whose patrimonial fortune was small, whose birth was far from being of the first rank, and whose family could not command extensive influence, came to the helm of affairs, and let the people know something of their rightful powers-we mean the elder Pitt-he, who when first he got into Parliament, though only a subaltern in the army, drew from Walpole while admiring and trembling, these words, "we must muzzle that terrible cornet of horse!" When he became minister, with the confidence of a master mind, he proceeded to fulfil the prophecy which he had uttered in the former year to the Duke of Devonshire -viz. that "he was sure he could save the country, and he was equally sure no man else could.”

"From the moment that he assumed the reins of government the panic which had paralyzed our efforts disappeared; instead of mourning over former disgraces, and dreading future defeats, the nation assumed, in a moment, an air of confidence, and awaited with impatience for tidings of victory. The narrator of party-struggles has nothing to do with this era; party was extinct; the mastery of Pitt's genius was felt in every bosom; dazzled by his genius, born onward by a tide of success, the nation followed his counsels as the dictates of a superior being, and rose, as one man, to do his bidding. France, lately so insolent, felt his power and bled from every limb; that people, who lately revelled in the anticipation of invading and plundering Britain, now fled the seas at our approach, and trembled, even upon their own shores. In each of the four quarters of the globe were our arms at the same time triumphant ; in each our alliance was deemed the best assurance of safety.

"It was not the Whig or the Tory party which did all this-it was William Pitt. The plan of operations was his, his colleagues heard and obeyed. It will be impossible to have so many ships prepared so soon,' objected Lord Anson, when Pitt had projected the expedition to Rochfort. If,' was the reply, these ships are not ready at the time specified I shall impeach your Lordship in the house of commons.'-The ships were ready.

Pitt was one of those few men who have been able to serve their country without submitting to the bondage of a party. He was a Whig in the best and purest sense of that term. He was such as Russell would have been had nature bestowed upon him genius, and fortune the government of an empire. When was the voice of the first Pitt ever raised against the rights of the people? who has ever been so constant and so eloquent in their defence? He was foremost among those who sought to promote the happiness of the many, by recovering the usurpations of the few; and whenever the all-engrossing subject of the war allowed him

a moment for domestic legislation, his measures testified the colour of the principles whence they sprung. Let his militia bill show that he was not afraid to trust even the power of the sword in the hands of the people."

This is a lofty character, but not more lofty than deserved. is delightful and refreshing to alight upon such a noble instance of prodigious genius, which made the nation bend in something like an attitude of adoration to it, so deeply imbued with public virtue and private worth, as shone in the character of the immortal Chatham. On the comparison between Russell and Pitt, our author afterwards remarks, that it is not to be supposed that they held precisely the same sentiments upon the principles of governmentthat the former sought only for the people an exemption from tyranny, while the latter demanded for them a large share of political power, The distinction is good; but then we ought to consider the different circumstances and periods in which each flourished, and then the enlightened and unflinching policy of each may claim. a closer resemblance.

The last extract that we have room for, describes the character of George the Third, at the time he ascended the throne. We are not going to canvass its accuracy, nor indeed, was it our intention, in taking up the volume, to do more than to speak generally of its merits, and afford an opportunity to our readers to judge of it for themselves; the topics handled being of a nature, which every one will pronounce upon, probably, according to some former bias. We may add a single sentence, however, regarding Mr. Cooke's merits. as a writer, and say, that with few exceptions he composes correctly, forcibly, and easily; but on some occasions there are symptoms of labour and false ornament.

"George III. was in his twenty-third year when he ascended the throne. His education had not been that which is calculated to form a wise or a popular monarch. His tutors, the Bishop of Salisbury, Mr. Stone, and Mr. Scott, were men of sense, learning, and good intentions; but they had little to do with the moulding of the mind of their pupil. This prince's early youth had been passed in the nursery, amid the adulation of weak women and ignorant pages; and he emerged from this tutelage only to become an instrument in the hands of his mother to work a petty opposition to his grandfather. Being thus continually in the hands of persons whose interest it was to flatter and deceive, we cannot expect to find him possessed of any knowledge of mankind, or evincing any powers of self-control. His character is, nevertheless, a most singular consequence of such an education; and we are rather inclined to wonder at finding him what he was, than disappointed at not finding him what we could wish him to have been. We expect to see in a youth accustomed from infancy to unvaried indulgence, never subjected to control, and living at a period when morality was so little esteemed that vice dispensed with a disguise, strong passions which discover themselves in headlong vices and glittering virtues. But George

was destitute of both. The Earl of Waldegrave, who enjoyed such peculiar opportunities of knowing him, has sketched his character when he was entering on his twenty-first year, and his sketch bears internal evidence of faithful resemblance. According to this authority, he possessed abilities which, although not excellent, wanted only a proper cultivation to be tole rable he was honest, but not generous; religious, but not charitable; willing to act justly, but not active to discover what was just; indifferent to pleasure, but averse to business; not violent in his resentments, but moody, sullen, and unforgiving towards those who provoked or incurred his displeasure."

NOTICES.

ART. XI.-Impressions of Italy, and other Poems. By the LADY E. STUART WORTLEY. London: Saunders and Otley. 1837. THIS lady's feelings are amiable and tender, and she occasionally expresses herself naturally and happily. But why does she write so much, or why does she not bestow more pains upon that which she publishes? Here we have poems about Italy, miscellaneous poems, and songs, almost innumerable-filling an octavo volume of more than three hundred pages. We have looked over the whole in search of some superior bit, that will occupy little space. But really there is so much sameness throughout, that, open anywhere at random, we cannot do our poetess injustice. The following from "Songs, &c., from unpublished poems," is certainly not an unfavourable specimen. It is called, Alone ! I love to be alone."

"Alone! I love to be alone,

Wandering in silence, fancy-free,

By none addressed-approached by none-
For then, then, I am most with thee!

Thy voice of music fills the air,

Thy smile of beauty fills the sky,
And though thyself thou art not there,
The world is all thy memory!
Thy memory doth enchant-illume
The world within me and around;
Without that they were one blank gloom,
But with that they're as Eden found!

Alone! I would be oft alone,

And shapes unseen by others see;

And hear sweet voices heard by none

Shapes-voices ?-nay! but thine-but thee."

By far the longest poem in the volume is meant to be satirical, under the title, "Reform-Liberty-March of Intellect-Equality." Let Liberals, Reformers of all classes, and Radicals, look to themselves; otherwise her ladyship will be the death of them. But many of the pieces are pathetic. Yet whether sad, gay, or sarcastic, the instances of feeble thoughts and faulty rhymes are constantly occurring. We heartily counsel the authoress to strive to avoid these defects and errors when she next comes before the public with any of her still" unpublished poems."