DEATHS OF EMINENT PERSONS.
It is always a subject of deep interest to a nation when its most eminent citizens are called away from the duties and honours of their citizenship. How frequently has the decease of a great person turned the scale of party, baffled armies or states, restored a country from peril, or placed it in the imminency of danger? Such was not the case with England in 1849, yet many very remarkable persons were that year numbered with the dead; the most notable person whose removal took place in this way, was the queen dowager.
On the 1st of January the Earl of Auckland died. This nobleman had attracted for some years previously a large share of public attention. He was not remarkable in youth for any special gift. In the House of Commons, which he entered in early life, he made no figure. The public were therefore amazed when, in November, 1830, he was appointed by Earl Grey a member of the cabinet, with the important post of president of the board of trade, and also the office of master of the Mint. In 1834, he was made first lord of the Admiralty. In 1835 he was appointed governor-general of India. In 1841 he was displaced, a conservative government coming into office. In 1846 he again appeared at the head of the Admiralty board. His business habits and good sense qualified him for office, and at the Admiralty he rendered some service, but had he not been a peer and a friend of Lord Grey, he would never have occupied so prominent a place in the government.—On the 7th Earl Talbot died. His career was remarkable only for his having proved himself very unfit to govern Ireland, having exemplified, when lord-lieutenant, how little the conservative party at that time considered the importance of placing a man in the important situation because of his aptitudes.—On the 20th Mr. Cadell, the eminent Scotch publisher, and, in great degree, founder of cheap literature in Great Britain. He was identified with Sir Walter Scott in the cheap issue of his immortal volumes.
Feb. 1st. Lieut.-general Sir Thomas Arbuthnot, a very distinguished officer. He was born in the county of Mayo, in Ireland, and died at Salford, Manchester, while in military command of the northern district.—19th. Bernard Barton, the quaker poet, the amiable and useful author of so many pious and instructive compositions. He was born near London, and died at Woodbridge, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.
May 9th. General Sir Robert Thomas Wilson, Bart. This officer had distinguished himself through a long series of years in the most active and daring military services, especially in Germany, Poland, and Russia. He was particularly known as having, in conjunction with two other British officers, effected the escape of Count Lavalette, after the battle of Waterloo. He was a native of London, and died at an hotel there in the seventy-third year of his age.—13th. General the Hon. Sir Edward Paget, the last surviving brother of the Marquis of Anglesea. Sir Edward’s services in the Peninsular war are matters of pride and honour in British history.—19th. Sir Nesbit Josiah Willoughby, Rear-admiral of the White. This gallant officer served both by land and sea, having, when not engaged by the British Admiralty, joined the Russian army, in which, as a colonel, he greatly distinguished himself. He was born in Warwickshire, at the family seat, and died in London, in the seventy-third year, of his age.—21st. At Edgeworthstown, county of Longford, Ireland, in her eighty-fifth year, Miss Edgeworth, so celebrated as a novelist, and deserving equal celebrity as a metaphysician, for her novels abound with the most accurate and acute speculations in mental philosophy, incidentally occurring in the course of her narratives. She was small in stature, lively in disposition, vivacious in thought, a good correspondent, and an affectionate friend. The opinion has gained currency since her death, that the more intellectual portions of her writings were the products of her father’s genius, whose hand appeared in nearly all her novels.—22nd. At his house in Pall Mall, aged seventy-five, William Vernon, Esq., an artist and a tasteful collector of pictures. He had been a successful man of business, and left a large fortune to the nation in works of art, the productions of native artists, which reveal the talent prevailing among native painters, whom it was the fashion to undervalue.
June 4th. The Countess of Blessington. This beautiful and accomplished lady, so well known as the friend of Byron, was born at Curragheen, county Waterford, Ireland, and she was distinguished through life for literary eminence as well as personal beauty. She possessed a noble generosity, especially to obscure men of talent. Her house at Kensington Gore, near London, was for many years the resort of the most eminent literary men. She died at Paris.
July 8th. Mr. Wilson, the celebrated Scotch vocalist, at the early age of forty-nine. He was born in Edinburgh, and died at Quebec.—12th. Horace Smith, the author, known in connection with “The Pic-nic Papers,” “The Rejected Addresses,” &c. He was born in London, and died at Tunbridge Wells, at the age of seventy.
Sept. 12. William Cooke Taylor, LL.D. This learned and gifted man was born in Youghall, county of Cork, Ireland. He fell a victim to cholera, in Dublin, in the fiftieth year of his age.
Nov. 3rd. Mr. Duncan, the African traveller, on board her majesty’s ship Kingfisher. He was a native of Wigtonshire, in Scotland.
Dec. 1. Ebenezer Elliott, “the Corn-law Rhymer.” He was born and died in Yorkshire. He was the author of several pleasing poems, of a somewhat epigrammatic character.
The year 1849 was remarkable for the death of eminent general officers and military men of inferior rank. Naval heroes, of a reputation extensive as the world, were also called away. The numbers of persons of great mark in the nation who died during the year were too great to receive notice within the limits of this history. To point out a few in whom the public of the present day take most interest is all which space will allow in this volume.