SPECTATOR'S LIBRART.

BIOGRAPHY.

The Life of the Right Honourable George Canning. By Robert Bell, Author of "The History of Russia," " Lives of English Poets," &c. &c. • Chapman and Hail.

MIBGEL.LAREOUS LITERATI:GM

The People. By J. Michelct. Translated, with the Author's especial approbation, by C. Cocks, B.L., Translator of" Priests, Women, and Families," Stc. TazoLoor, Longtnan and Co. The Life Everlasting: in which are considered the Intermediate Life, the New Body and the New World, the Man in Heaven, Angels, the Final Consummate Life. By John Whitley, D.D., Rector of Ballymacky and Chancellor of Kaiak*. Seaman', Longman and Co. Lectures Illustrative of various Subjects in Pathology and Surgery. By Sir Benja- min C. Brodie, Bart., F.R.S., Sergeant-Surgeon to the Queen ; &c. &e.

Longman and Co.

BELL'S LIFE OF CANNING.

NOTWITHSTANDING our pride in human genius, it requires fortune or favourable circumstances for its full development and success ; and this is true not merely of practical callings, but of what men are inclined to consider the more independent pursuits of poetry or abstract science. The dramatic genius of Shakspere himself could not have been so ad- vantageously displayed in any other age than his own, and a century or two later or earlier it could hardly have found a field for its exercise. In other times than those they fell upon, Newton and Watt could scarcely have made the great discoveries they did, however eminent they might have become in their respective lines of life. A few generations earlier, Columbus would have wanted data for his speculations, means for his voyage, and persons of any description to listen to him, if he had even escaped burning for blasphemy. The military commander must have 199X—a long peace in their prime of life would have doomed to obscurity Nelson and Wellington. The pertarbers of states, combining political arts with military genius, are nothing without circumstances : Cromwell and Napoleon would have died in private life had they lived in any other period ; and Caesar been only the active and eloquent partisan, or perhaps have sunk into forgetfulness beneath his debts and debauch- eries. Even the prophet must bide "the fulness of time "—the cor- ruption of idolatry in Arabia, of Christianity in Asia and Eastern Europe, with the unsubstantial speculations of both Christians and Jews, were necessary to Mahomet, the apostle of Theism, who came but to declare a principle the most consonant of any to mere human reason, the unity of God.

If those who occupy the first places among the human race are thus dependent upon circumstances, those who merely rise in the world, and distinguish themselves rather as satellites than as planets, must be still more indebted to them. Putting aside the regular professions of human necessity in civilized life—law, physic, and divinity—it will be found that peat success in public life is dependant upon two elements, sometimes ope- rating singly, but more generally in c,onjunction,—change, and despotism, or the power of will rising superior to convention and settled custom. -Such circumstances produced the eminence of Becket and Wolsey, and of Carr and Villiers. Chatham headed a social tide, and rose by dint of his 'own genius, which saw the latent power of the middle class, whose leader be became ; but he wanted the favour of power to sustain him, or prudence to sustain himself; and, except as the War lifinister for a few years, he was only an orator. The younger Pitt had more decided support from George the Third; but it was the changes wroughtby the French Revolution, and the sudden rise of our manufactures, that enabled him to vitiate the baronial constitution of the Peerage, trample on the combination of great 'families, and form by his loans and war expenditure the monied interest Cf modem Britain.

The despotism of Pitt, and the necessity which change imposed upon Um and his party—" ubi periculum adveuit, invidia, atque snperbia poet &ere "—were the circumstances that favoured George Canning. At *ay other period he might have risen no higher than a second-rate ;barrister, more distinguished for his wit and literary tastes than his mimeos in law ; or perhaps have subsided into a littbateur, for he

wanted patience either for drudgery or waiting. His scholarship, though

_elegant, was not profound; and though the tone of his compositions in rim Microcosm was wonderfully mature for an Eton boy, yet, as Mr. Bell observes, their matter was borrowed from the elder essayists, and they described a mode of life that existed no longer. Many men have been remarkable for precocious writing at public schools, and for " elo- vent " speeches at university debating-clubs, without getting anything, much less a Premier's patronage and a seat in Parliament. And the car- .cumstances of Canning's childhood and education were anything but re- commendatory. Mr. Bell, after Mr. Burke's book of the Landed Gentry, iella an heraldic story of the Canynges, or Canninges, beginning in 1360, .1 century before the "William Canynge " of Bristol, who is known ,ca figuring in Chatterton's forgery of the Rowley Poems. But, passing these absurdities, the family of Canning was of the rank of Irish gentry of the last century. The father of the orator was the eldest son and heir, but was discarded, with an allowance of 1501. a year, for some discredit- able amour. In 1757 the elder George Canning was in London ; where he entered the Middle Temple. But he seems to have had all the defects of his celebrated son without his genius or his private virtues. The law was too dry a study, so he took to literature—published pamphlets and poems, advocating the side of Wilkes and Liberty; and among other things, an epistle "from William Lord Russell to William Lord Caven- dish," which preserved a sort of glimmering existence to our generatim, and has often been read on the supposition that it was the son's. The politics and writings of the elder Canning introduced him to the Wilkite party, and they most probably to the profligate living then in vogue, and certainly to debt. After some years of life in London, this embarrassment became so pressing that he consented to disinherit himself, by joining his father in cutting off the entail, on condition that his debts were paid. He was soon, however, involved again ; and in 1768 crowned his em- barrassments by marriage with a Miss Costello; whose family, says Mr. Bell, from particulars furnished from " an authentic quarter," were settled " long before the Conquest, [of England, or of Ireland ?] in the barony of Costello, parish of Aughamore, county of Mayo ; from which possession they were styled Lords or Barons of Costello." Time, the eater-up of all things, had consumed the property of the Costellos. The lady, a minor, was portionless ; the husband's efforts to mend his fortune as a wine-merchant, and by other speculations," failed ; and, three years after his marriage, on the first birthday of his son, 11th April 1771, George Canning the elder died, in London, and was buried in the church- yard of St. Mary-le-bonne. The allowance of 1501.a year was discontinued on Mr. Canning's death, and his widow was left penniless. How she at first supported herself is not known. In 1773 she appeared on the stage of Drury Lane, playing Jane Shore to Garrick's Hastings ; and for a little time took similar leading characters. But she wanted genius as well as experience ; and, after the attraction of novelty and her personal beauty passed away, Mrs. Canning sank into the position of a subordinate actress. She also be- came connected with a profligate player of the name of Reddish, and passed under his name. Mr. Bell says there is no doubt that they were married : but he offers no proof of any ceremony having taken place; nor if any was performed might it have been very valid, since Mr. Red- dish, in the country, and even on the London boards, was in the habit of introducing a succession of Mrs. Redclishes to the public ; and we think the first or "lawful" wife might have been living. He was also a drunkard ; and finally became a lunatic. Mrs. Canning, or Reddish, sub- sequently married a Mr. Hunn, a stage-smitten silk-mercer of Plymouth ; who failed in business, and then attempted the drama, without success. It was long reported, and may still be believed, that Canning was the legal son of Hann, and born after his marriage : but Mr. Bell has satis- factorily refuted that Whig scandal. Under the auspices of this worthy couple, the infancy and childhood of George Canning, the future Minister of England, were passed : and he seemed fairly enough launched on the road to ruin, when, it is said, old Moody the actor interfered. The boy's paternal uncle was a merchant of London, the father of Sir Stratford Canning. To him Moody went, and so forcibly represented the state of young George, that Mr. Stratford Canning undertook the care of him, sent him to school to Mr. Richards at Win- chester, and afterwards placed him at Eton ; where his precocious parts procured for him a high reputation. Just before George Canning went to Oxford, in 1788, his uncle died; and there is a story told of 2001. a year being removed from the entail when it was cat off. This, it is said, sup- ported him during his university studies, and subsequently, when he went to London as a law student, and mixed in the society, chiefly Whig, to which his uncle and his literary and college reputation introduced him.

All this is not very intelligible. It seems inconsistent with the Irish manners of the last century to discard an heir for some amour, and still less to allow the discarded 150/. a year. The manner in which Mrs. Can- ning contrived to live for the two years between her husband's death and her appearance on the stage, is a greater mystery, further heightened by the story of the 2001. a year to which George Canning was heir. If it is a fact, the conduct of the family is inconceivable iii leaving him to the moral and convivial example of Mr. Reddish : if he had no allowance, the question rises, how did he live for the five years he was at Oxford and in London. But if all this be unresolvable, it is equally an enigma, in what way a youth with no other recommendation than that of "a smart fifth-form boy, the little hero of a little world," and a clever collegian, whose opinions, so far as they were known, were Whiggish, and whose con- nexions were all among the extreme Opposition, should suddenly become the friend of the Minister and a Member of Parliament. Various con- tradictory stories are told of the mode in which it was brought about; but the only thing certainly known is, that George Canning was elected in 1793 as Member for the borough of Newport, Isle of Wight; Sir Richard Wonky, the sitting Member, having "obligingly" retired.

His career henceforward is matter ofpolitical history. In December 1794, Mr. Canning seconded the address; in the following year, he was appointed Under Secretary of State in the Foreign Office; in 1797, he started 77w Antijacobin; in 1801, he resigned with Pitt, and, contrary to the ex- ample if not to the secret wishes of his patron, assailed the Addington Ministry with sarcastic attacks in the House, with virulent scurrility through the press, and endeavoured to trip it up by a series of underhand intrigues ; as we now know through the Malmesbury Papers. In 1804, he returned to office with Pitt, as Treasurer of the

Navy ; and retired on the accession of "All the Talents" ; whom he assailed as he had done the Addington Ministry, and commemorated

their downfal in a dirge, where the venom is at least as conspicuous as the wit. Under the Portland Ministry he was rewarded with the high- est office he attained till the Premiership, that of Foreign Secretary. In 1809, the duel with Castlereagh took place, which compelled both

Ministers to retire. Canning remained out of place till 1814; when he accepted that Embassy to Lisbon, which, after all that has

been voted and said, can only be described as a discreditable job : what renders it more degrading to Canning personally, is the fact that be

had refused the Foreign Secretaryship in 1812 because he would have to be under Caetlereagh's leadership in the Commons ; and, to crown the in- consistency of the whole, he accepted the subordinate office of President

of the Board of Control, in 1816, to be at once Castlereagh's inferior in

the House and out of it. In 1820, he resigned on Queen Caroline's busi- ness. In 1822, he was appointed Governor-General of India ; which he

gave up on Castlereagh% death, for the Foreign Office ; and (to complete the chronological summary) in April 1827 he attained the highest object of his ambition—the Premiership ; to die in the following August.

It was during these last five years that Canning attained his character for Liberalism ; which seems chiefly to have arisen from his diplomatic

opposition to the Holy Alliance, and his subsequent patronage of the convenient Whigs. To the foreign policy of Castlereagh lie was un- doubtedly opposed; and he is fully entitled to all the merit that may be claimed for him on that score. His junction with the Whig party was matter of necessity; without them he could not have taken office : but, if report may be trusted, both he and the Liberals had agreed that George the Fourth should not be "annoyed" by the Catholic question. That after Castlereagh's death the tone of our Government became much im- proved, there is no question. But this may be ascribed to the reaction of the spy prosecutions, the growth of opinion, the character of Huskis- son, Robinson, and Peel, as much as to any single influence of Can- ning. Those who were Reformers "when George the Third was King," and remember how Canning went through his Gagging Bills work, may reasonably doubt the extent of his innate love of popular liberty.

When we consider the character of the age, and of our Government, which not only excludes mere caprice in the appointments to the higher offices, but is very adverse to anything like an adventurer, the early rise of Canning is a remarkable incident, and may stand with the instances of Wolsey and Beckett. The latter part of his career, at least till Castlereagh's demise, was a failure, for which he had to blame him- self. Ms irritable temper, his insolent demeanour, his mocking per- sonalities, and his almost scurrilous invectives, rendered him one of the most unpopular men with Whigs and Radicals, without gaining him much estimation in his own party. According to Malmesbury, his rapid rise excited envy in others, and too much presumption in Canning himself. But this was not the whole: his imperious mode of pronouncing and deciding, coupled with his equivocal connexions, naturally offended men of old families and hereditary fortune; and his wit, though used against the enemy, was less employed for the common cause than for the praise and purposes of Mr. Canning. Nor could his followers feel safe with him. It was Tierney yesterday, "the Doctor" today, and anybody else tomorrow; who might commit the unpardonable offence of crossing his path. Neither was the early taunt of the Whigs untrue—Canning was an "adventurer " ; not so much as regards fortune—for the 100,000/. he received with General Scott's daughter, on his marriage in 1800, would have given him, at that time, some 5,000/. a year—but in his mind. The want of early family or domestic training operated unfa- vourably upon him throughout his career : the taint of Mr. and Mrs. Reddish stuck to him through life ; not, strange to say, in his private, but in his public character. He never could be satisfied with going openly and straightforwardly to his objects ; less from want of courage, than because his modes of operation would not bear the light. In every crisis of his career there was something of under-work. We know too little of his early days to speak with certainty, but all opinion seems to agree that he was a Whig of the purest water; yet on his first appearance in public he came out a rampant Pittite. When he retired with Pitt in 1801, he had a perfect right to oppose the Addington Ministry publicly; but his successive schemes to overthrow the Government, by intrigues among their own supporters, smacked of anything but hononrabledealing. In the quarrel that led to his duel with Castlereagh, he permitted the double-dealing to go on, and was thus far committed to it. If Castle- reagh was so incompetent as Secretary at War that he injured the public service, Canning should not have listened to Ministerial pleadings for delay, but have resigned if the requisite change was not made. We have already spoken of the meanness and discredit of the Lisbon Embassy, and the return to a subordinate office under his antagonist : his accession to the Premiership itself was distinguished by something very like an in- trigue. It was this continual dabbling in matters that would not bear the light which even made him averse to collect his fugitive verses. His vanity would have been gratified by an authorized edition ; but, though some things are perhaps wrongfully ascribed to him, (and seem rather allied to the ferocity of Gifford,) there might have been more personality and scurrility than he would have cared to own.

As a mere orator—a speaker to satisfy his own side, to puzzle or 'Renee his opponents, and to persuade or please the indifferent—Canning MB perhaps without a rival in modern times, and only second to Cicero. Burke had always too much of the philosopher and lecturer for the House of Commons ; as his richness of illustration, the profundity of his thoughts, and his accumulations of matter, over-informed him for a mixed audience. With Pitt and Fox, (as in later days with Peel,) speaking was rather a means to an end, a mode by which they justified or produced an action; so that the statesman overtopped the orator. As a statesman Canning's sphere of action was limited ; and it is to be suspected that he had the Whig taint of ascribing too much to orations and despatches—to words in lieu of deeds. The principal thing he did was "to call a new world into existence, to redress the balance of the old " : but time has shown that the call was premature, and the bantling unequal to the functions of existence; whilst the intrigue he carried on upon this occa- sion with Rush and the United States against the Holy Alliance, pro- duced the declaration from the President that the American continent was no longer open to settlement, which is at the bottom of the present Oregon difficulties. But his speaking was masterly : complete and finished in a remarkable degree. He had a comprehensive logic, to see the true pinch of the case—the right view of the whole question. He had the cri- tical acumen to evolve the subordinate members that supported the main view, and the rhetorical art to marshal them in order. He had also rhe- torical invention—the genius by which the inherent reasons are ex- panded and enforced by illustrations, and vivified by images, which give life to logic, seeming to prove his position though in reality assuming it. The matter thus skilfully chosen was clothed in a style habitually elegant, and animated by an agreeable pleasantry. A vital power reigned throughout, and there was no verboseness. It cannot, however, be denied that the habitual workman was too visible, and the elegance pushed to an artificial extent. His oratory MU deficient in the natural; it would have been improved by touches of homeliness. His refinement was overdone ; it was that of the actor or the artist, rather than of the true gentleman. Moreover, the praise of his oratory rarely applies to his personal attacks ; and on reading the frequent "laughter "—" much laughter," one feels a desire to have the joke ex-

plained. The very personality, and the evident allusions to the by-play of the debate, may contribute to this flatness in report—it is like an effervescing beverage when the fixed air has escaped.

We have already intimated our opinion of Canning's character as a statesman. His greatest act was sending some consuls and diplomatic agents to Mexico and South America—with what wisdom the result shows. The Catholic question was no more indebted to him than to any other advocate, except to the extent of his superior powers of advocacy, which were no doubt very great. He detached England from the Holy Alliance; but it may be questioned whether Castlereagh himself would have given countenance to the French invasion of Spain. In conjunction or contemporaneously with Huskisson—and with Peel, Canning no doubt dealt some heavy blows and great disconragements to the sturdy, Eng- lish, but stolid, narrow, insolent, ignorant, and corrupt old Tory party. A stern criticism, however, might decide that Canning smote them for objects of his own—for vengeance, and the Premiership. It is difficult to see anything except the public good that Huskisson in his commercial relaxations, and Peel in his Currency Bill and legal reforms, (so horrible to poor old Eldon,) could have had in view : for, to say nothing of Ca- tholic Emancipation and later measures, these movements in a philoso- phico-liberal direction made Peel and Huskisson unpopular with their own party, without gaining them a countervailing support from the other side.

But, though not a statesman, Canning seems to have been a goocl administrative minister; and he had a larger view than any of his contemporaries, Burke excepted. Literature had not only refined but expanded his mind. With the ready ability, he had the deep percep- tion of the philosophical litt4rateur, and went to the marrow of his sub- jects. The power of independent action—the power of Pitt or of Peel— he never had, so we cannot tell how he might have acted as an absolute Minister. But general principles, in the shape of leading arguments, are met with in his speeches. His views of Slavery had a large philo- sophy, which put to shame the schemes of the miserable dabblers who settled or rather unsettled the question ; and a future age may feel the truth of his views on Parliamentary Reform—that the existing constitution of the Peerage must be defended in the Commons by the outwork of rotten bo- roughs. Even the Reform Bill, short as it was of radical in the original conception and artfully curtailed in its effects by the " Chandos clause" and by Whig favours towards Whig boroughs, would have brought this principle to something like a test, had the Melbourne Ministry stood to their guns upon the Appropriation-clause; and if the Peers reject the pending Corn Bill, we may shortly see the effect which Canning pre- dicted as a result of Reform, though the full consequences are not likely to be developed till the present generation is in its grave.

His private character appears to have been a theme for panegyric. His domestic life was without stain ; his friendships were firm and un- flinching. Had his intimates been only persons of inferior ability, this might have been accounted for on a principle of submission ; but it could not apply to men like Huskisson, Ward, and Ellis ; and those qua- lities must have been indeed attractive which subdued the pride of Fat, and induced him to bear with the troublesome and marplot interferences of Canning with Pitt's policy during the long interregnum of the Ad- dington Ministry.

The book which has occasioned this review of the life and character of George Canning is a clever piece of literary handicraft ; exhibiting a good deal of painstaking and research in the early period, though in- clining towards a too ready credence to favourable interpretations and apocryphal anecdotes. The public and political part of Canning's career is of a more mingled yarn • interspersed with sketches of society, "clubs,' and characters under George the Third, done rather too artificially ; and with many political disquisitions that partake of the "Liberal article," rehashing the exploded Whiggery of the Revolutionary days and of the Regency, upon Pitt and the war —which is now exploded, not merely because the minds of men have reached a less feverish and angry state, but because new information shows the incorrectness of many of the supposed facts and assumed premises. It is a "flashy" and res4- able volume, presenting a complete narrative of Canning's life, on ibe favourable side : but Mr. Bell is scarcely equal to his main subject, and somewhat below the collateral history.