FRANCIS PLACE.

[FROM A CORRFSrowoRsr.]

Another man of mark has passed from amongst us. Francis Place has de- parted from the world in which he was so long a stirring mover. Few men have done more of the world's work with so little external sign. Ile was ever ready with pen and person to aid the uplifting of humanity, ever ready to fill full of his own knowledge any other men willing to work and to get the credit of it. Ile was essentially a public man, but his work usually lay behind the curtain as a prompter. He was no orator, but much oratory was of his prompting. He was a man of the last age and of the present, before the French Revolution and since. Born to no inheritance

but a clear brain, an iron will, and an indomitable love of freedom, he was one of the few London tradesmen who achieved an ample com- petence, not merely without truckling, but in spite of the odium and dis- couragement cast on all Reformers under the old oppressive Tory rule. But more remarkable than all this was the fact, that in the days when " books, plate, and pictures," were important items in all rich men's wills, he was the almost solitary tradesman who possessed a library, earned, collected, and paid for by himself, which many public men envied him the possession of, and to which many public men of less energy and purpose were glad to have recourse. The room which held that library was for many years a well-known meeting-place for Members of Parliament to discuss popular questions.

An early member of the London Corresponding Society—an intimate acquaintance of Hardy, Tooke, Richter, and others, in the days when opinion was crime,—never losing any opportunity of promoting free- dom—he one day stood in Covent Garden with a friend watching a West- minster Election contested between Whigs and Tories. The brewer can- didate brought a dray to the front of the hustings to propitiate "sweet voices." The beer was staved and ran into the kennels, and the misera- ble mob 'threw themselves on their faces and wallowed like swine.

Francis Place and his friend left the spot, vowing never to cease their labours till the elections of Westminster were reformed. Just as Cobden and Bright with their friends brought about Corn-law abolition, so did Francis Place and his friend gather round them a nucleus with the motto "Purity of Election." About that time, Sir Francis Burdett made a speech in public such as a young Greek might have made in

Athens. "The man for the People !" said Francis Place ; and Burdett was applied to. He returned for answer, that he had spent twenty

thousand pounds in contested elections, and would spend no more. This was precisely what the Westminster electors meant. He was elected triumphantly, and the very shilling was found for him on taking the oath at the bar of the House—so runs the tradition ; and from that elec- tion dates Reform in Parliament.

There was scarcely any public man on the Liberal or professed Liberal side that was not acquainted with Francis Place. He was the intimate friend of James Mill the historian of India, and of Jeremy Bentham.

He was one of the original promoters of and contributors to the Westmin- ster .Revisto. Godwin often came to him. Sir Samuel Romilly and Henry

Brougham held him in respect. Campbell the poet would talk to him by

the hour of "what was to be done for the Poles." John Cam Hobhouse was there indoctrinated in popular lore' and Edward Lytton Bulwer ma-

triculated for his first election. Neither Burdett nor Hobhouse nor Bul- wer were more than imaginations to Francis Place,—they said they were Reformers and he took them at their word, and they travelled by his side. When they left the path, he went onwards just the same. People of all classes and conditions who had imirposes to serve' sought him out. The engineers—the elder Maudslay, the elder Brunel, Galloway, John Hague, and others—would all come to tell him of their new plans, and ask for his council and influence. Mulready the artist used to visit him. Joseph Hume was a constant conferrer ; and people from the new Re-

publics ever found him out. He was an authority of much weight amongst working people whose condition he ever strove to raise ; and the unions always sought his help; but he was too sound a political economist ever to give them hopes of success by strikes, He Was one of the few men whom Cobbett held in respect when he quer- - relied with the Westminster Committees. He was essentially a man of business, the very opposite of Cobbett; and therefore it was not possible for them to,a&*ree. If perchance a journal of his life his been preserved and it falls into fitting hands, it will be a remarkable book—a record of the old changing into the new. His industry was extraordinary ; his perceptive

faculties qn the direction of his sympathies, acute ; and his reasoning powers strong. In the poetical theulty, which was so stiong in Cobbett, he was entirely lacking: he was for the utter exclusion of poetry from

the pages of the Westminster Review! This will account for much that

appeared hard in his character; though there never existed a man more ready to assist others to rise. Many now , holding prominent positions can trace their first move to the help of Francis Place. Great faculties and abilities were ever ,warrnly,greeted by Jijmajs4 he was wholly devoid of either envy or jealousy. , hocimoosiderable Mechanical aptitude, and would have been a skilful engineer if educated to it. His spirit was ever fresh and buoyant, and at all that spoke of the new or the progressive he seemed to leap alive. Like most self-educated framers of their own fortunes, he had a dislike of hereditary aristocracy, bdt withal no want of "handsome acknowledgment for merit in a lord." But he had on the other hand not the slightest taint of the servility not un- common in the newly-risen. As in similarly-edueated men, the spirit of self-assertion was strong in him ; a quality traceable chiefly to the ungenerous class spirit which refuses to acknowledge risinement till the acknowledgment is superfluous—an ordeal that most authors have to un-

dergo to the great risk of their philosophy and manysidedness. He held the manly conviction that he had earned his fellowship in the republic of let-

ters, and thereby was every man's equal in the nobility of nature. Such men are more common now, and the woild thinks less of them. He had the higher merit of working his own way out Of the slough, of achieving property hardly, and education Mill more hardly, at the time

when books were a costly luxury, not to be borrowed, but bought at high prices. He was generous with his money, and generous with his

books ; letting all who would drink of his fountain of knowledge, think-

ing it ample payment that he was thus contributing to build up the world's progress. The faculties that he possessed, had they been worked in a worldly fashion, would have lifted him into what is called a higher posi- tion—a greater " success " : but be did not covet it. He loved quiet

power for the purpose of promoting good ends, but never sought to attain it by rubbing shoulders with the influential. It is true that he would at times seek out and besiege the influential; but ever for a public purpose. It is to be doubted if he ever asked or received a personal favour in his life. He was the kind of man who in the United States would have be- come a member of the Legislature ; but being in England, he acted only as consulting politician and economist to others.

Francis Place has died, at the ripe age of eighty-two' as he lived, in the full possession of his faculties to the last. Statues have been erected to and honours conferred on many less deserving. His honours will be in the respectful memories of the worthy of all ranks, amidst the large crowd of those who knew him.