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acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon, and the just absolution of Somers; the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a moment melted and awed a victorious party inflamed with just resentment; the hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half redeemed his name.

Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers; the streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter-King-atArms. The judges, in their vestments of state, attended to give evidence on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper House, as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal.

The junior baron present led the way, George Elliott, Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the Realm, and by the brothers and sons of the king. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing.

The long

The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. galleries were crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art.

There were seated around the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the House of Brunswick. There the ambassadors of great kings and commonwealths gazed in admiration on a spectacle which no other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the historian of the Roman empire thought of the days when Cicero

pleaded the cause of Sicily against Varres, and when before a senate, which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has preserved to us the thoughtful forehead of so many writers and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons; it had also induced Parr to suspend his labours in that profound mine from which he had extracted a vast treasure of erudition—a treasure too often buried in the earth, too often paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but still precious, massive, and splendid.

There appeared the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of the throne had in secret plighted his faith. There too was she, the beautiful mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose delicate features, lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the common decay. There were the members of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised, and exchanged repartees under the rich peacock-hangings of Mr. Montague; and there the ladies, whose lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried the Westminster election against the palace and the treasury, shone round Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire.

The Sergeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar, and bent his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place he had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man.

A person, small and emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and selfrespect; a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive

but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale and worn, but yet serene, on which was written as legibly as under the picture in the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mens æqua in arduis: such was the aspect with which the great proconsul presented himself to his judges.

But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much notice as the accusers. In the midst of a blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke at their head, were in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to remark that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid to the illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of the impeachment, and his commanding, copious, and sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster of talents. Age and blindness had unfitted Lord North for the duties of a public prosecutor, and his friends were left without the help of his excellent sense, his tact, and his urbanity.

But in spite of their absence, the box in which the managers stood contained an array of speakers such as, perhaps, had not appeared since the great age of Athenian eloquence. There were Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. There was Burke, ignorant indeed, or negligent, of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension, and richness of imagination, superior to every orator, ancient or modern.

There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age, his form developed by every manly exercise, his face beaming with intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-minded Wyndham. Nor, though surrounded by such men, did the youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age when most of those who have distinguished themselves in life, are still contending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a conspicuous place in Parliament.

At twenty-three he had been thought worthy to be ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared as the delegates of the British Commons at the bar of the British nobility.

All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone: culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation which is now in the vigour of life, he is the sole representative of a great age which has passed away. But those who, within the last ten years, have listened with delight till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of statesmen, among whom he was not the foremost.

HENRY BROUGHAM.

HENRY BROUGHAM, created Lord Brougham and Vaux when raised to the Lord Chancellorship of England, is the author of Memoirs of the Statesmen of the Reign of George III., Lives of Men of Letters and Science, in the same period; numerous political treatises and speeches, and contributions to the Edinburgh Review. He was born A.D. 1778, died 1868.

LORD BYRON'S HOURS OF IDLENESS.

THE poesy of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods nor men are said to permit. Indeed, we do not recollect to have seen a quantity of verse with so few deviations, in either direction, from that exact standard. His effusions are spread over a dead flat, and can no more get above or below the level, than if they were so much stagnant water. As an extenuation of this offence, the noble author is peculiarly forward in pleading minority. We have it in the title page, and on the back of the volume; it follows his name like a favourite part of his style. Much stress is laid upon it in the preface, and the poems are connected with this general statement of the case, by particular dates substantiating the age at which each was written.

Now, the law upon the point of minority we hold to be perfectly clear. It is a plea available only to the defendant; no plaintiff can offer it as a supplementary ground of action. Thus, if any suit could be brought against Lord Byron, for the purpose of compelling him to put into court a certain quantity of poetry; and if judgment were given against him, it is highly probable that an exception would be taken were he to deliver for poetry the contents of this volume. To this he might plead minority; but as he now makes voluntary tender of the article, he hath no right to sue on that ground for the price in current praise, should the goods be unmarketable. This is our view of the law on the point, and we daresay it will be so ruled.

Perhaps, however, he tells us about his youth rather with a view to increase our wonder, than to soften our censures. He possibly means to say, "See how a minor can write. This poem was composed by a young man of eighteen, and this by one of only sixteen." But, alas! we all remember the poetry of Cowley at ten, and Pope at twelve; and so far from hearing with any degree of surprise that very poor verses were written by a youth from his leaving school to his leaving college, inclusive, we believe this to be the most common of all occurrence, that it happens in the life of nine men in ten educated in England, and that the tenth man writes better verses than Lord Byron.

His other plea of privilege our author brings forward in order to waive it. He certainly, however, does allude frequently to his family and ancestors, sometimes in poetry, sometimes in notes; and while giving up his claim on the score of rank, he takes care to remind us of Dr. Johnson's saying, that when a nobleman appears as an author, his merit should be handsomely acknowledged. In truth, it is this consideration that induces us to give Lord Byron's poems a place in our review; and our desire to counsel him, that he do forthwith abandon poetry, and turn his talents, which are considerable, and his oppor、 tunities which are great, to better account.

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