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arming the Jacobite clans, he attracted to national channels the martial enthusiasm of Scotland, which had been so often in the service of the Stuarts. It was thus that he proposed, and at last carried out, the scheme of a national militia, and but for the opposition of his colleagues he would have extended it to Scotland. It was thus that he supported, though without success, the measure which was brought forward by Pratt in 1758 to extend the operation of the Habeas Corpus Act, which applied only to those who were detained on some criminal charge, to all who were confined under any pretence whatever. In the following reign he was the first conspicuous statesman who raised the banner of parliamentary reform, and it was characteristic of him that he based his proposal not on the common ground of the irregularities or anomalies of the legislature, but on the ground that the strong patriotic spirit that animated the country was not adequately represented in it; that corrupt or personal motives had lowered its tone, and that an infusion of the popular element was necessary to reinvigorate it.

It was in the same spirit that he attempted in his latter days to break down the system of party government, under the belief that it diverted the energies of politicians from national objects; and to withdraw the government of India from the East India Company, under the belief that so great a territory should not remain in the hands of a mercantile company, or be governed on merely commercial principles, but should be thoroughly incorporated in the British Empire. No one who follows his career can doubt that, had he been in power at the time of the American troubles, he could have conciliated the colonies; and it was during the later ministry of Pitt that the first steps were taken towards the introduction of a better government into Ireland. He never could have conducted party government with the tact of Walpole; he never could have framed, like Burke, a great measure of economical reform, or have presided, like Peel, over a great revolution of the commercial system; but no minister had a greater power of making a sluggish people brave, or a slavish people free, or a discontented people loyal.

Although he cannot be said to have carried a single definite measure increasing the power of the people, or diminishing the corrupt influence of the crown or of the aristocracy, it may be said, without a paradox, that he did more for the popular cause than any statesman

since the generation that effected the Revolution. With very little parliamentary connection, and with no favour from royalty, he became, by the force of his abilities, and by the unbounded popularity which he enjoyed, the foremost man of the nation. In him the people for the first time felt their power. He was essentially their representative, and he gloried in avowing it. He declared, even before the privy council, that he had been called to office by the voice of the people, and that he considered himself accountable to them alone. The great towns, and especially London, constantly and warmly supported him; and though his popularity was sometimes for a short time eclipsed, it was incomparably greater than that of any previous statesman. In our day such popularity, united with such abilities, would have enabled a statesman to defy all opposition. In the days of Pitt it was not so, and he soon found himself incapable of conducting government without the assistance of the borough patronage of the aristocracy, or of resisting the hostility of the crown. But although he was not omnipotent in politics, the voice of the people at least made him so powerful that no government was stable when he opposed it, and that all parties sought to win him to their side. This was a new fact in parliamentary history, and it marks a great step in the progress of democracy.

His influence was also very great in raising the moral tone of public life. His transparent and somewhat ostentatious purity formed a striking contrast to the prevailing spirit of English politics, and the power and persistence with which he appealed on every occasion to the higher and unselfish motives infused a new moral energy into the nation. The political materialism of the school of Walpole perished under his influence, and his career was an important element in a great change which was passing over England. Under the influence of many adverse causes the standard of morals had been greatly depressed since the restoration; and in the early Hanoverian period the nation had sunk into a condition of moral apathy rarely paralleled in its history. But from about the middle of the eighteenth century a reforming spirit was once more abroad, and a steady movement of moral ascent may be detected. The influence of Pitt in politics and the influence of Wesley and his followers in religion, were the earliest and most important agencies in effecting it. It was assisted in another department by the

example of George III., who introduced an | Pitt. Each was in many respects immeasurimproved tone into fashionable life, and it was ably superior to the other, and in some respects reflected in the smaller sphere of public amuse- they will hardly admit of comparison. We ments in the Shaksperian revival of Garrick. can scarcely, for example, compare a speaker In most respects Pitt and Wesley were, it is who was simply a clear, shrewd, and forcible true, extremely unlike. The animating prin- debater without polish of manner or elevation ciples of the latter are to be found in doctrines of language, with an orator who surpassed that are most distinctively Christian, and espe- Chesterfield in grace, while he equalled Decially in that aspect of Christian teaching mosthenes in power. In his private life which is most fitted to humble men. Pitt Walpole, though a man of great kindness of was a man of pure morals, unchallenged or- nature, was notoriously lax and immoral, thodoxy, and of a certain lofty piety, but yet while Pitt was without reproach; but we his character was essentially of the Roman must remember that the first was full of contype, in which patriotism and magnanimity stitutional vigour, while the second was a and well-directed pride are the first of virtues; confirmed invalid. In public integrity there and the sentences of the Latin poets and the was, I think, less real difference between them examples of the age of the Scipios, which in than is usually imagined. There is no proof a letter to a bishop he once called "the apos- that Walpole ever dishonestly appropriated tolic age of patriotism," appear to have left public money. Both statesmen received large the deepest impression on his mind. But with rewards for their services, and these rewards all these differences there was a real analogy and in kind and in amount were nearly the same. an intimate relation between the work of these The factious conduct of Walpole during the two men. The religious and political notions administration of Stanhope may be fairly prevailing in the early Hanoverian period were balanced by the conduct of Pitt towards closely connected. The theological conception Walpole, and afterwards towards Newcastle. which looked upon religion as a kind of ad- Pitt, however, was entirely free from nepotism, junct to the police-force, which dwelt almost while Walpole bestowed vast public revenues exclusively on the prudence of embracing it upon his sons. Walpole hated everything and on the advantages it could confer, and theatrical and declamatory. He had too little which regarded all spirituality and all strong dignity for the position he occupied, and in emotions as fanaticism, corresponded very his best days he was more liked than refaithfully to that political system under which spected. Pitt was always in some degree an corruption was regarded as the natural instru- actor. His want of social freedom greatly ment, and the maintenance of material in- impaired his success as a party leader, and he terests as the supreme end of government; inspired more awe than any other English while the higher motives of political action politician. The ability of the one was shown were systematically ridiculed and discouraged. chiefly in averting, that of the other in meetBy Wesley in the sphere of religion, by Pitt ing, danger. A cautious wisdom predomiin the sphere of politics, the tone of thought nated in the first, an enterprising greatness and feeling was changed, and this is perhaps in the second. The first dealt almost excluthe aspect of the career of Pitt which pos- sively with material interests, and sought only sesses the most abiding interest and impor- to allay strong passions. The second delighted tance. The standard of political honour was in evoking, appealing to, and directing the perceptibly raised. It was felt that enthusi- most fiery enthusiasms. The first was incomasm, disinterestedness, and self-sacrifice had parably superior in his knowledge of finance; their place in politics; and although there was the second in his management of war. The afterwards, for short periods, extreme corrup- first loved peace, and made England very protion, public opinion never acquiesced in it sperous; the second loved war and surrounded again. his country with glory.

It was a singular fortune that produced, in so brief a period, from the ranks of the Whig party, one of the greatest peace ministers and the greatest war minister of England, and it would be difficult to find two nearly contemporary statesmen of the same party and of equal eminence, who in character and policy were more directly opposed than Walpole and

The influence of the two men on political morals was, as we have seen, directly opposite. With much quiet patriotism Walpole had none of the loftiness of character of Pitt, and was entirely incapable of the traits of splendid magnanimity and disinterestedness which were so conspicuous in the latter. Though he did not originate, he accepted, systematized,

and extended parliamentary corruption; his personal integrity, though probably very real, was never above suspicion, and his ridicule of all who professed high political principles contributed very much to lower the prevailing tone. It was reserved for Pitt to break the spell of corruption, and he did more than any other English statesman to ennoble public life and to raise the character of public men.

CHARACTER OF MARCUS AURELIUS.

66

(FROM HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.")

It was a saying of Plutarch that stoicism, which sometimes exercised a prejudicial and hardening influence upon characters that were by nature stern and unbending, proved peculiarly useful as a cordial to those which were naturally gentle and yielding. Of this truth we can have no better illustration than is furnished by the life and writings of Marcus Aurelius, the last and most perfect representative of Roman stoicism. A simple, childlike, and eminently affectionate disposition, with little strength of intellect or perhaps originally of will, much more inclined to meditation, speculation, solitude, or friendship, than to active and public life, with a profound aversion to the pomp of royalty and with a rather strong natural leaning to pedantry, he had embraced the fortifying philosophy of Zeno in its best form, and that philosophy made him perhaps as nearly a perfectly virtuous man as has ever appeared upon our world. Tried by the chequered events of a reign of nineteen years, presiding over a society that was profoundly corrupt, and over a city that was notorious for its license, the perfection of his character awed even calumny to silence, and the spontaneous sentiment of his people proclaimed him rather a god than a man. Very few men have ever lived concerning whose inner life we can speak so confidently. His Meditations, which form one of the most impressive, form also one of the truest books in the whole range of religious literature. They consist of rude fragmentary notes without literary skill or arrangement, written for the most part in hasty, broken, and sometimes almost unintelligible sentences amid the turmoil of a camp, and recording, in accents of the most penetrating sincerity, the struggles, doubts, and aims of a soul of which, to employ one of his own images, it may be truly said that it possessed the purity of a star which needs

no veil to hide its nakedness. The undisputed master of the whole civilized world, he set before him as models such men as Thrasea and Helvidius, as Cato and Brutus, and he made it his aim to realize the conception of a free state in which all citizens are equal, and of a royalty which makes it its first duty to respect the liberty of the citizens. His life was passed in unremitting activity. For nearly twelve. years he was absent with armies in the distant provinces of the empire; and although his political capacity has been much and perhaps justly questioned, it is impossible to deny the unwearied zeal with which he discharged the duties of his great position. Yet few men have ever carried farther the virtue of little things, the delicate moral tact and the minute scruples which, though often exhibited by women and by secluded religionists, very rarely survive much contact with active life. The solicitude with which he endeavoured to persuade two jealous rhetoricians to abstain during their debates from retorts that might destroy their friendship, the careful gratitude with which, in a camp in Hungary, he recalled every moral obligation he could trace even to the most obscure of his tutors, his anxiety to avoid all pedantry and mannerism in his conduct, and to repel every voluptuous imagination from his mind, his deep sense of the obligation of purity, his laborious efforts to correct a habit of drowsiness into which he had fallen, and his self-reproval when he had yielded to it, become all, I think, inexpressibly touching, when we remember that they were exhibited by one who was the supreme ruler of the civilized globe, and who was continually engaged in the direction of the most gigantic interests. But that which is especially remarkable in Marcus Aurelius is the complete absence of fanaticism in his philanthropy. Despotic monarchs sincerely anxious to improve mankind are naturally led to endeavour, by acts of legislation, to force society into the paths which they believe to be good, and such men, acting under such motives, have sometimes been the scourges of mankind. Philip II. and Isabella the Catholic inflicted more suffering in obedience to their consciences than Nero and Domitian in obedience to their lusts. But Marcus Aurelius steadily resisted the temptation. "Never hope," he once wrote, "to realize Plato's republic. Let it be sufficient that you have in some slight degree ameliorated mankind, and do not think that amelioration a matter of small importance. Who can change the opinions of men? and

without a change of sentiments what can you | Hebrew virtue, and which have given the make but reluctant slaves and hypocrites!" Jewish writers so great an ascendency over He promulgated many laws inspired by a the hearts of men. Though borne naturally spirit of the purest benevolence. He miti- and instinctively to goodness, his Meditations gated the gladiatorial shows. He treated do not display the keen æsthetical sense of the with invariable deference the senate, which beauty of virtue which was the leading motive was the last bulwark of political freedom. of Greek morals, and which the writings of He endowed many chairs of philosophy which Plotinus afterwards made very familiar to the were intended to diffuse knowledge and moral Roman world. Like most of the best Romans, teaching through the people. He endeavoured the principle of his virtue was the sense of by the example of his court to correct the ex- duty, the conviction of the existence of a law travagances of luxury that were prevalent, and of nature to which it is the aim and purpose he exhibited in his own career a perfect model of our being to conform. Of secondary moof an active and conscientious administrator; tives he appears to have been little sensible. but he made no rash efforts to force the people The belief in a superintending Providence by stringent laws out of the natural channel was the strongest of his religious convictions, of their lives. Of the corruption of his sub- but even that was occasionally overcast. On jects he was keenly sensible, and he bore it the subject of a future world his mind floated with a mournful but gentle patience. We in a desponding doubt. The desire for postmay trace in this respect the milder spirit of humous fame he deemed it his duty systemthose Greek teachers who had diverged from atically to mortify. While most writers of stoicism, but it was especially from the stoical his school regarded death chiefly as the end doctrine that all vice springs from ignorance of sorrows, and dwelt upon it in order to disthat he derived his rule of life, and this doc- pel its terrors, in Marcus Aurelius it is chiefly trine, to which he repeatedly recurred, im- represented as the last great demonstration of parted to all his judgments a sad but tender the vanity of earthly things. Seldom, indeed, charity. "Men were made for men; correct has such active and unrelaxing virtue been them, then, or support them." "If they do united with so little enthusiasm, and been ill, it is evidently in spite of themselves and cheered by so little illusion of success. "There through ignorance." "Correct them if you is but one thing," he wrote, "of real valuecan; if not, remember that patience was given to cultivate truth and justice, and to live you to exercise it in their behalf." "It would without anger in the midst of lying and unbe shameful for a physician to deem it strange just men." that a man was suffering from fever." "The immortal gods consent for countless ages to endure without anger, and even to surround with blessings, so many and such wicked men; but thou who hast so short a time to live, art thou already weary, and that when thou art thyself wicked?" "It is involuntarily that the soul is deprived of justice, and temperance, and goodness, and all other virtues. Continually remember this; the thought will make you more gentle to all mankind." "It is right that man should love those who have offended him. He will do so when he remembers that all men are his relations, and that it is through ignorance and involuntarily that they sinand then we all die so soon."

The character of the virtue of Marcus Aurelius, though exhibiting the softening influence of the Greek spirit which in his time pervaded the empire, was in its essentials strictly Roman. Though full of reverential gratitude to Providence, we do not find in him that intense humility and that deep and subtle religious feeling which were the principles of

His wife,

The command he had acquired over his feelings was so great that it was said of him that his countenance was never known to betray either elation or despondency. We, however, who have before us the records of his inner life, can have no difficulty in detecting the deep melancholy that overshadowed his mind, and his closing years were darkened by many and various sorrows. whom he dearly loved and deeply honoured, and who, if we may believe the court scandals that are reported by historians, was not worthy of his affection, had preceded him to the tomb. His only surviving son had already displayed the vicious tendencies that afterwards made him one of the worst of rulers. The philosophers who had instructed him in his youth, and to whom he had clung with an affectionate friendship, had one by one disappeared, and no new race had arisen to supply their place. After a long reign of self-denying virtue, he saw the decadence of the empire continually more apparent. The stoical school was rapidly fading before the passion for

oriental superstitions. The barbarians, repelled for a time, were again menacing the frontiers, and it was not difficult to foresee their future triumph. The mass of the people had become too inert and too corrupt for any efforts to regenerate them. A fearful pestilence, followed by many minor calamities, had fallen upon the land and spread misery and panic through many provinces. In the midst of these calamities the emperor was struck down with a mortal illness, which he bore with the placid courage he had always displayed, exhibiting in almost the last words he uttered his forgetfulness of self and his constant anxiety for the condition of his people. Shortly before his death he dismissed his attendants, and, after one last interview, his

son, and he died as he long had lived, alone. -Thus sank to rest in clouds and darkness the purest and gentlest spirit of all the pagan world, the most perfect model of the later Stoics. In him the hardness, asperity, and arrogance of the sect had altogether disappeared, while the affectation its paradoxes tended to produce was greatly mitigated. Without fanaticism, superstition, or illusion, his whole life was regulated by a simple and unwavering sense of duty. The contemplative and emotional virtues which stoicism had long depressed, had regained their place, but the active virtues had not yet declined. The virtues of the hero were still deeply honoured, but gentleness and tenderness had acquired a new prominence in the ideal type.

BARTHOLOMEW SIMMONS.

[Bartholomew Simmons was born in the earlier years of the century at Kilworth, co. Cork, the scenery of which is very faithfully and effectively described in his poems. He early obtained an appointment in the Excise Office, London, which he held until his death on July 21, 1850. For a considerable number of years he contributed poems to several of the leading magazines and annuals, which met with wide-spread approval. A writer in Blackwood's Magazine, where many of his effusions made their first appearance, speaks of him in the following terms:"Simmons, on the theme of Napoleon, excels all our great poets. Byron's lines on that subject are bad; Scott's poor; Wordsworth's weak; Lockhart and Simmons may be bracketed as equal; theirs are good, rich, and strong;" and the following poems from his pen will show that by his early death Ireland lost one of the most promising poets who were ever born on her soil.]

NAPOLEON'S LAST LOOK.

What of the night, ho! Watcher there
Upon the armed deck,

That holds within its thunderous lair
The last of empire's wreck-
E'en him whose capture now the chain
From captive earth shall smite;

Ho! rock'd upon the moaning main, Watcher, what of the night?

"The stars are waning fast-the curl Of morning's coming breeze, Far in the north begins to furl

Night's vapour from the seas. Her every shred of canvas spread,

The proud ship plunges free, While bears afar with stormy head

Cape Ushant on our lee."

At that last word, as trumpet-stirr'd,
Forth in the dawning gray

A silent man made to the deck
His solitary way.

And leaning o'er the poop, he gazed

Till on his straining view, That cloud-like speck of land, upraised, Distinct, but slowly grew.

Well may he look until his frame
Maddens to marble there;
He risked Renown's all-grasping game,
Dominion or despair-

And lost-and lo! in vapour furled,
The last of that loved France,
For which his prowess cursed the world,
Is dwindling from his glance.

He lives, perchance, the past again,
From the fierce hour when first
On the astounded hearts of men
His meteor-presence burst-

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