minister, to the astonishment of all wise men, never transacted one rash thing; and, what is more marvellous, left as much money in the treasury as he found in it." In 1749, Lord Granville received the order of the Garter from his sovereign; and when the Pelhams got rid of the duke of Bedford and Lord Sandwich, they took back into the ministry their old rival, who was content for the rest of his life with the dignified but unimportant post of president of the council. When congratulated on his reconciliation with his old opponents, he pettedly replied: "I am the king's president; I know nothing of the Pelhams; I have nothing to do with thein." When, in October, 1761, Mr Pitt was urging in the council an immediate declaration of war against Spain, with more perhaps than becoming energy, and threatening to resign if his advice should not be adopted, Lord Granville is said to have spoken as follows: "I find that the gentleman is determined to leave us; nor can I say that I am sorry for it, for, otherwise, he would have compelled us to leave him. If he be resolved to assume the right of advising his majesty, and directing the operations of the war, for what purpose are we called in council? When he talks of being responsible to the people, he talks the language of the house of commons, and forgets that at this board he is only responsible to the king. However, although he may possibly have convinced himself of his infallibility, it remains that we also should be equally convinced, before we resign our understanding to his direction, or join with him in the measure he proposes."

Lord Granville died on the 2d of January, 1763. Wood, in the preface to his Essay on the Original Genius and Writings of Homer, informs us, that being directed to wait on his lordship, a few days before he died, with the preliminary articles of the treaty of Paris, he found him so languid, that he proposed postponing his business for another time; but the earl insisted that he should stay, saying, it could not prolong his life to neglect his duty; and repeating a passage out of Sarpedon's speech, in which an allusion occurs which his lordship applied to the part he had himself taken in public affairs. After a pause, he desired the articles to be read to him, when he expressed himself satisfied with them, and declared, that "as a dying statesman, he would pronounce it the most glorious war, and the most honourable peace, the nation ever saw."

"Lord Granville," says the earl of Chesterfield, "had great parts, and a most uncommon share of learning for a man of quality. He was one of the best speakers in the house of lords, both in the declamatory and the argumentative way. He had a wonderful quickness and precision in seizing the stress of a question, which no art, no sophistry, could disguise in him. In business he was bold, enterprising, and overbearing. He had been bred up in high monarchical, that is, tyrannical principles of government, which his ardent and impetuous temper made him think were the only rational and practicable ones. He would have been a great first minister in France,-little inferior perhaps to Richelieu; in this government, which is yet free, he would have been a dangerous one, little less so perhaps than Strafford. He was neither ill-natured nor vindictive; and had a great contempt for money,-his ideas were all above it. In social life, he was an agreeable, goodhumoured, and instructive companion,-a great but entertaining talker. He degraded himself by the vice of drinking, which, together with a

great stock of Greek and Latin, he brought away with him from Oxford, and retained and practised ever afterwards. By his own industry he had made himself master of all the modern languages, and had acquired a great knowledge of the law. His political knowledge of the interest of princes and of commerce was extensive, and his notions were just and great. His character may be summed up in nice precision, quick decision, and unbounded presumption." The duke of Newcastle used to say, Granville was a man who never doubted. He was notorious for the non-performance of his promises. A contemporary poem has the following lines:

But first to Carteret fain you'd sing-
Indeed he's nearest to the king,

Yet careless how you use him:
Give him, I pray, no laboured lays;
He will but promise, if you praise,
And laugh if you abuse him.

Lord-chief-justice Willes being complimented on his friend Lord Granville's return to office, replied, "He my friend! He is nobody's friend. When he was in power, I asked a place for an acquaintance. He replied, 'What is it to me who is a judge, or who is a bishop? It is my business to make kings and emperors, and to maintain the balance of Europe.'"

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He was a munificent patron of learning. Dr Lye, the editor of Junius's Etymologicon,' Dr Taylor the celebrated Grecian, and Dr Bentley, all acknowledge their obligations to him in different matters connected with their publications. There is an amusing anecdote told of Dr Bentley and his lordship. The doctor, when he came to town, was accustomed to spend his evenings with Lord Carteret. On one occasion, the old countess reproached her son with having kept the country-parson too long over the bottle. His lordship stoutly affirmed, that the doctor had risen from table with a clear head, and on his own legs. Her ladyship said that was impossible, for the clergyman could not have sung in so ridiculous a manner if he had not been in liquor. His lordship laughed heartily at his mother's suspicion; for it appears what she mistook for abortive attempts at singing on the part of the erudite clergyman, were his efforts to edify his noble host by reciting Terence, in what he conceived to be the genuine cantilena of the ancients.

Philip, Earl of Hardwicke.

BORN A. D. 1691.-died A. D. 1764.

THIS able lawyer and statesman was born at London in the year 1691. His family was not opulent. Mr Yorke was originally designed for an attorney, and served his clerkship with a very eminent gentleman of that profession; but his genius not permitting him to rest contented with the mere drudgery of the law, he entered himself of the society of Lincoln's-inn, and commenced barrister. It is not ascertained at what time he was called to the bar; but in a few years, and

while he was yet a very young man, he acquired great reputation as a pleader. In the year 1720, his merit raised him to the office of solicitor-general. In 1723 he was promoted to that of attorney-general. In 1733, being then only in the 42d year of his age, he was constituted chief-justice of the court of king's bench; and, in 1737, he attained the highest honours of the law, being made lord-high-chancellor of England, and, of course, speaker of the house of lords. At the same time, he was created a peer of the realm, by the title of Baron Hardwicke.

In this high station, his assiduity, his steady, even temper, his great sagacity, and his impartial administration of justice, were acknowledged by all parties. In 1746 he was constituted lord-high-steward of England for the trial of the rebel lords. His speech, delivered upon passing sentence against Lord Lovat, is reckoned one of the finest specimens of modern oratory extant in the English language. In 1749 he was elected high-steward of the university of Cambridge, on the resignation of the duke of Newcastle. His lordship held the seals till the year 1756, when he found himself obliged to resign upon Pitt's coming into administration. Before he retired, however, he obtained an accession of dignity, being created Earl of Hardwicke in 1754. He died in 1764, leaving behind him the character of an eloquent speaker, an able lawyer, and at least a good-intentioned man.

In his political capacity, the earl of Hardwicke was unfortunate and unpopular. His eagerness to provide for his own family, to which he was stimulated by the selfish disposition of his lady, made him a continual petitioner to the throne for partial favours, instead of employing his interest with the king for patriotic and benevolent purposes. George II. is reported to have once addressed him, when soliciting a place on behalf of some distant relative:-" My lord, you have been a frequent solicitor; but I have observed that it has always been for some one of your own family, or within the circle of your relations." Dr King— whose bitterness towards the whigs should be borne in mind, however —says, "Lord Hardwicke, who is said to be worth £800,000, sets the same value on half-a-crown now, as he did when he was only worth £100." His political principles were highly aristocratical. He opposed the militia-bill, representing the great danger that might arise from putting arms into the hands of the people, and disciplining them for And when he found he could not prevent the bill passing into a law, he introduced several clauses which threw the establishment more into the hands of the crown than was intended by the framers of the bill. With the same views, he exerted his abilities and influence in the house of peers to throw out a new habeas corpus act which had passed through the lower house, and was framed to increase and secure this great privilege to the people.

war.

Horace Walpole bitterly assails the chancellor throughout his Memoirs.' He says of him, certainly with more severity than justice, that, "in the house of lords he was laughed at; in the cabinet, despised." 1 He calls him " a little lawyer, who had raised himself from the very lees of the people." Yet, in the course of these same Memoirs, as their editor himself remarks, the author laments Lord Hardwicke's

influence in cabinets, and acknowledges that he exercised great dominion in his place in parliament. "The truth is," he adds, "that wherever that great magistrate is mentioned, Lord Orford's resentments blind his judgment, and disfigure his narrative." The two points upon which the chancellor is most frequently attacked by Walpole, are the marriage act and Admiral Byng's case. We refer our readers for information as to Lord Hardwicke's share in these measures to our notices of Lord Bath, and the unfortunate admiral himself.

Pulteney, Earl of Bath.

BORN A. D. 1682.-DIED a. D. 1764.

THIS distinguished, and at one time eminently popular, statesman, was descended from an ancient family who took their surname from an estate in Leicestershire. His grandfather, Sir Willian Pulteney, was member for Westminster, and distinguished in the house of commons for his liberal sentiments and spirited eloquence. Little is known of his father. The subject of our notice was born in 1682.

He was educated at Westminster school, and Christ-church, Oxford While at the university, Dean Aldrick selected him to deliver the congratulatory address to Queen Anne, on the occasion of her majesty's visit to Oxford. After quitting the university, he spent some time abroad. On his return to England, he entered into public life as member for Heydon in Yorkshire.

During the whole reign of Queen Anne, Pulteney advocated the whig principles of his family, and opposed the measures of the tories. His first brilliant display was in Sacheverell's prosecution, when he declaimed in a very eloquent manner against the high-church doctrines of passive obedience and nonresistance. He of course zealously espoused the cause of the house of Hanover; and, on the commitment of Walpole, was among the first of his friends to visit him in the Tower. At this period he wrote several pamphlets in support of the whigs. Amid the cabals and tumults of this stormy period, Walpole, Stanhope, and Pulteney, kept close together, and formed a most powerful opposition; but their alliance was dissolved soon after the accession of the new sovereign Pulteney retired from office with Walpole, on the dismissal of Townshend. But Walpole imprudently disgusted his friend soon after, by entering into negotiations with Sunderland and the prince of Wales, without communicating with him.

Walpole on regaining office made various attempts to conciliate Pulteney, but failed. The latter rejected every overture that was made to him with contempt, and declared that he would never act in concert with the treacherous minister. Walpole, on the other hand, now denounced Pulteney as a furious demagogue; and their mutual recriminations occupied no small portion of the debates in the house of commons. Pulteney now headed the discontented whigs, and even united with his ancient opponent. Bolingbroke, in assailing Walpole through the pages of the Craftsman.' Sir William Yonge, the secretary-at-war, defended Walpole, and assaulted Pulteney in a very abusive pamphlet, entitled, 'Sedition and Defamation displayed' while Pulteney replied

in terms of equal abuse, in a pamphlet signed Caleb D'Anvers.' With more imprudence, Pulteney proceeded in the course of his pamphleteering to disclose the substance of various private conversations he had had with Walpole, before their breach, under the implied seal of confidence. Walpole revenged himself by causing Pulteney's name to be struck out of the list of privy-councillors, and out of all commissions of the peace. These marks of royal displeasure had the effect, however, of vastly increasing Pulteney's popularity. His speeches were printed in broadsheets, and circulated all over England; he was hailed with acclamations whenever he appeared in public; and his enemies were burnt in effigy in several towns. About this time he made his celebrated speech in the house of commons, in which he compared the minister to a quackdoctor, and the constitution to his patient.

On the accession of his party to office, Pulteney took no share in the administration; but, to the surprise of all, and the ruin of his former popularity, he accepted a peerage by the title of Earl of Bath. In quitting the house of commons, he bid adieu for ever to his political influence. He died in 1764.

"His writings," says Horace Walpole, "will be better known by his name, than his name by his writings, although his prose had much effect, and his verses were easy and graceful; both were occasional, and not dedicated to the love of fame. Good humour and the spirit of society dictated his poetry; ambition and acrimony his political writings: the latter made Pope say,

'How many Martials were in Pult'ney lost !'"

Sir John Barnard.

BORN A. D. 1685.-died A. D. 1767.

THIS patriotic citizen was born at Reading, in Berkshire, in the year 1685. His parents, who were quakers, put him to a school at Wandsworth, in Surrey, which was solely appropriated to the education of the youth of that religious persuasion. At this school he is said to have derived very little advantage in point of classical and polite literature. His father was a wine-merchant, and he was brought up to the same business, in which he engaged very successfully on his own account. Before he was nineteen years of age, he quitted the society of quakers, and, being baptized by Compton, bishop of London, continued a member of the established church till his death. Being distinguished among his fellow-citizens for his abilities, knowledge, and integrity, in 1722 he was chosen one of the representatives in parliament for the city of London; and this important trust was confided to him in seven successive parliaments, his name always appearing at the head of the candidates upon every general election.

In 1725, our worthy citizen distinguished himself in the house of commons by opposing a bill, intituled 'A bill for regulating elections within the city of London, and for preserving the peace, good order, and government of the said city.' The grounds on which Sir John Barnard opposed it were: that it made an alteration in the city-charter, by repealing a part of the ancient rights and privileges contained