confusion of a debate without the least distrust of his own abilities; fights boldly in the dark; never gives up the cause; nor is he ever at a loss either for words or argument. His professions and promises are not to be depended on, though, at the time they are made, he oftcu means to perform them; but is unwilling to displease any man by a plain negative, and frequently does not recollect that he is under the same engagements to at least ten competitors. If he cannot be esteemed a steady friend, he has never shown himself a bitter enemy; and his forgiveness of injuries proceeds as much from good nature as it does from policy. Pride is not to be numbered amongst his faults; on the contrary, he deviates into the opposite extreme, and courts popularity with such extravagant eagerness, that he frequently descends to an undistinguishing and illiberal familiarity. Neither can he be accused of avarice, or of rapaciousness; for though he will give bribes, he is above accepting them; and, instead of having enriched himself at the expense of his master, or of the public, he has greatly impaired a very considerable estate by electioneering, and keeping up a good parliamentary interest, which is commonly, though perhaps improperly, called the service of the crown. His extraordinary care of his health is a jest even amongst his flatterers. As to his jealousy, it could not be carried to a higher pitch if every political friend was a favourite mistress. He is in his sixty-fourth or sixty-fifth year, yet thirsts for power in a future reign with the greatest solicitude; and hereafter, should he live to see a prince of Wales of a year old, he will still look forward, not without expectation that in due course of time he may be his minister also."

Arthur Onslow.

BORN A. D. 1691.-died a. D. 1768.

ARTHUR ONSLow was born in the year 1691. He represented the borough of Guildford in the house of commons from 1719 till 1726, in which latter year he was returned for the county of Surrey. He represented that county, and also filled the speaker's chair, during the session of 1726-7, and four succeeding parliaments.

In 1728 he was made a privy-councillor. Queen Caroline appointed him her chancellor in May, 1729; and in 1734 he was appointed treasurer of the navy. He resigned the latter office in 1743; but he continued speaker of the house of ccmmons until his age and infirmities compelled him to retire in 1761. He received the thanks of the house for his long and excellent services, and a grant of £3000 a-year during his own life, and that of his son, afterwards Earl of Onslow. The citizens of London also presented him with the freedom of the city, "as a grateful testimony of the respectful love and veneration which they entertained for his person and distinguished virtues." He died on the 17th of February, 1768.

Few persons have filled the chair of the house of commons with so much fairness and general acceptability as Onslow. His integrity was proverbial. It is said that when gently reminded by the minister, that his influence had placed him in that chair, he replied, "that although he considered himself under obligation to Sir Robert Walpole, yet he

had always a certain feeling about him when he occupied the speaker's chair, that prevented him from being of any party whatever." Browne Willis, however, says that Onslow needed no such patronage; for he was elected speaker "by as unanimous a concurrence of all the members in general, as any of them had been by their constituents in general." Onslow was a man of considerable learning, and some scientific knowledge. He was the patron of Bowyer, Richardson, and several authors of the day.

George, Lord Lyttelton.

BORN A. D. 1708.-DIED A. D. 1773.

THIS nobleman claimed descent from one of the most ancient faini

lies in the kingdom. His ancestors had possessions in the vale of Evesham, Worcestershire, in the reign of Henry III., particularly at South Lyttelton, from which place some antiquarians have asserted they took their name. The great Judge Lyttelton, in the reign of Henry IV., was one of this family; and from him descended Sir Thomas Lyttelton, who was appointed a lord of the admiralty in the year 1727. This gentleman married Christian, daughter of Sir Richard Temple, and maid of honour to Queen Anne, by whom he had six sons and six daughters, the eldest of whom, George, afterwards created Lord Lyttelton, was born at Hagley, in Worcestershire, in the year 1708.

He received the elements of his education at Eton school, where he showed an early inclination to poetry. His pastorals, and some other light pieces, were originally written in that seminary of learning, whence he was removed to the university of Oxford, where he pursued his classical studies with uncommon avidity, and sketched the plan of his Persian Letters,' a work which afterwards procured him great reputation, not only from the elegance of the language in which they were composed, but from the ingenious observations they contained on men and manners.

In the year 1728 he set out on the tour of Europe. On his arrival at Paris he accidentally became acquainted with the honourable Mr Poyntz, then our minister at the court of Versailles, who was so struck with the extraordinary capacity he displayed, that he invited him to his house, and employed him in many political negotiations, which he executed with great judgment and fidelity. During his continuance abroad, he constantly corresponded with Sir Thomas, his father; several of his letters are yet remaining, which place his filial affection in a very pleasing light. He soon after returned to his native country, and was elected representative for the borough of Okehampton in Devonshire, and behaved so much to the satisfaction of his constituents, that they several times re-elected him for the same place, without putting him to the least expense.

About this period he received many marks of friendship from Frederick, prince of Wales, who, in the year 1737, appointed him his principal secretary, and continued in the strictest intimacy with him till the time of his death. In the year 1742, he married Lucy, daughter of

Hugh Fortescue of Filleigh, Esq. in the county of Devon, a lady whose exemplary conduct, and uniform practice of religion and virtue, established his conjugal happiness upon the most solid basis. In 1744 he was appointed one of the lord-commissioners of the treasury, and during his continuance in that station constantly exerted his influence in rewarding merit and ability. He was the friend and patron of Fielding, Thomson, author of the Seasons;' Mallet, Young, Hammond, West, and Pope. On the death of Thomson, who left his affairs in a very embarrassed condition, Mr Lyttelton took the poet's sister under his protection. He revised the tragedy of Coriolanus,' which Thomson had not put the last hand to, and brought it out at the theatre royal in Covent-garden, with a prologue of his own writing, in which he so affectingly lamented the loss of that delightful bard, that not only Quin, who spoke the lines, but almost the whole audience, spontaneously burst into tears.

In the beginning of the year 1746 his felicity was interrupted by the loss of his wife, who died in the 29th year of her age, leaving him one son, Thomas, and a daughter, Lucy, who married Lord Viscount Valentia.

His masterly observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St Paul' were written at the desire of Gilbert West, Esq. in consequence of Mr Lyttelton asserting, that, beside all the proofs of the Christian religion, which might be drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, from the necessary connection it has with the whole system of the Jewish religion, from the miracles of Christ, and from the evidence given of his resurrection by all the other apostles, he thought the conversion of St Paul alone, duly considered, was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a divine revelation. Mr West was struck with the thought, and assured his friend, that so compendious a proof would be of great use. Time has shown he was not wrong in his conjecture, as the tract is esteemed one of the best defences of Christianity which has hitherto been published.

In 1754 he resigned his office of lord of the treasury, and was made cofferer to his majesty's household, and sworn of the privy-council: previous to which he married a second time, Elizabeth, daughter of Field-marshal Sir Robert Rich, whose indiscreet conduct gave him great uneasiness, and from whom he was separated, by mutual consent, a few years after his marriage. After filling the offices of chancellor and under-treasurer of the court of exchequer, he was, by letters-patent, dated 19th November, 1757, created a peer of Great Britain, by the style and title of Lord Lyttelton, Baron of Frankley, in the county of Worcester.

His speeches in both houses of parliament, upon sundry occasions, exhibit strong marks of genius, sound judgment, and incorruptible integrity. His oration in the house of commons on the motion for the repeal of the Jew bill, in the session of parliament of 1753, is a modeł of composition. The last speech which added to his reputation, as a senator and orator, was delivered in the session of 1763, upon a debate concerning the privileges of parliament, in which he supported the dignity of the peerage with a depth of knowledge that surprised the oldest peers present. From about this period to that of his death his lordship courted retirement; and, in the enjoyment of a select society

of friends, he had an opportunity of exercising those literary talents for which he was so eminent: he now found leisure to correspond with many of his learned friends, and to finish his 'Dialogues of the Dead.'

In the month of July, 1773, this accomplished nobleman was suddenly seized with an inflammation in his bowels, which in a few days deprived the world of one of its most exalted characters. His last moments exhibited a pleasing, though an affecting scene; it was such as the exit of the great and good man alone can present. A complete collection of all his lordship's miscellaneous works was published after his death, in three volumes 8vo., by his nephew, George Ayscough, Esq. His History of Henry the Second' is a very impartial and valuable work. anxiety with regard to the correctness of this production appears to have been remarkable. The whole work was printed twice over; many parts of it were passed three times, and some sheets four or five times, through the press. Three volumes of the history appeared in 1764; a second edition of them in 1767; a third in 1768; and the conclusion was published in 1771.

His

Lord Lyttelton's son and successor, a man of some talent but profligate manners, asserted, shortly before his death, that an apparition had not only warned him of his approaching decease, but had indicated the precise time when it would take place. It is said that he expired within a few minutes of the hour which he had mentioned as having been indicated by his unearthly visitant; and, for a considerable period, this was considered the best authenticated ghost story extant. But it has lately been stated, that Lord Lyttelton having resolved to take poison, there was no miracle in the tolerably accurate fulfilment of the prediction he had promulgated. "It was no doubt singular," says Sir Walter Scott, in one of his amusing letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, "that a man, who meditated his exit from the world, should have chosen to play such tricks upon his friends: but it is still more credible that a whimsical man should do so wild a thing, than that a messenger should be sent from the dead to tell a libertine at what precise hour he should expire."

Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield.

BORN A. D. 1694.-died A. D. 1773.

THIS celebrated nobleman, of whom Dr Johnson once remarked, "that he was a wit among lords, but a lord among wits," was the eldest son of Philip, third earl of Chesterfield, by Lady Elizabeth Saville, daughter of the celebrated marquess of Halifax. He was born in London, on the 22d of September, 1694, and prosecuted his studies under private tutors until the eighteenth year of his age, when he was sent to Trinity college, Cambridge. Prior to attaining majority, he quitted the university, and made the tour of Europe without a gov

ernor.

In 1715 he became a gentleman of the bed-chamber to the prince of Wales, and about the same time, took his seat in the house of commons as member for St Germains, in Cornwall. He tells us, "that he spoke in parliament the first month he was in it, and from the day

he was elected to the day he spoke, thought and dreamed of nothing but speaking." By a few months' residence at the Hague, in the interval between his leaving the university and the meeting of parliament, he had worn off the rust of his college pedantry. Frequenting the court, introducing himself into the best company, attentively studying and imitating the free, unaffected air, manners, and conversation of people of the first distinction; and, amongst these, of such especially as were remarkable for their politeness, were the means he made use of to familiarize himself to the great world. To a strong desire of pleasing, he added a fund of good humour, and great vivacity. With these qualifications he entered the senate, where it was soon discovered that he possessed talents to render him conspicuous.

On patriotic principles he espoused the cause of George I., and stood foremost in the ranks of those who tendered their lives and fortunes in support of his person and government, against the designs of the pretender and his adherents. In 1726 he succeeded to the title and peerage of earl of Chesterfield, on the demise of his father; and, in the course of the following year, soon after the accession of George II., he was sworn in one of his majesty's privy-council.

In the year 1728 his lordship was appointed ambassador-extraordinary to the states-general, which high station he supported with great dignity. Upon his return to England in 1730, he was elected a knightcompanion of the garter, and appointed steward of the household; and the same year he went back to the Hague with his former character. The following winter, in consequence of some misrepresentation of his conduct as lord-steward of the household, soon after his return from the Hague, a misunderstanding arose between his lordship and the king, which ended in his resignation of office. He now retired to his country-seat in Derbyshire. About the same time, his lordship married Lady Melosina de Schulenberg, countess of Walsingham, the natural daughter of George I. by the duchess of Kendal and Munster.

In the session of parliament in 1733, his lordship distinguished himself by the active part he took in all the important business of that period. In a warm debate he opposed the reduction of the army,—he strenuously opposed the excise-bill,-he supported the motion for ordering the directors of the South sea company to deliver in an account of the disposal of the forfeited estates of the directors in 1720,—and, upon the failure of another motion to appoint a committee to examine into the affairs of that company ever since the year 1720, he drew up and entered a spirited protest, which was signed by several other lords. In the spring of the year 1734, the duke of Marlborough brought a bill into the house of peers to prevent officers of the army being deprived of their commissions otherwise than by sentence of a court-martial; at the same time, the duke moved for an address to his majesty, to know who advised him to deprive the duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham of their regiments, for having voted in parliament against the measures of the ministry. Lord Chesterfield warmly seconded the motion and supported the bill; but they were both rejected by a great majority. In the following session he took the part of the six Scotch noblemen who presented a petition to the house of peers, complaining of an undue election of the sixteen peers to sit in parliament, and maintained their claim with uncommon spirit.