Be to their virtues ever kind,
Let all their ways be unconfined,
And clap the padlock on their mind!’
and for these reasons, thanking the gentlemen who had done him the honour to drink his health, he should propose ‘Merlin, the late Minister of Justice, under the Directory, and Trial by Jury.’”
I refer those who wish to know more of the literary merits of Mr. Canning to an article, July, 1858, in the “Edinburgh Review,” in which article the accomplished writer has exhausted the subject he undertook to treat.
Nor was Mr. Canning’s reputation for wit, at this time, gained solely by his pen. Living with few, though much the fashion, who could be more charming in his own accomplished circle—when, the pleasant thought lighting up his eye, playing about his mouth, and giving an indescribable charm to his handsome countenance, he abandoned himself to the inspiration of some happy moment, and planned a practical joke, or quizzed an incorrigible bore, or related some humorous anecdote? No one’s society was so much prized by associates; no one’s talents so highly estimated by friends; and his fame in the drawing-room, or at the dining-table, was at least as brilliant as that which he subsequently acquired in the senate.
This, indeed, was the epoch in his life at which perhaps he had the most real enjoyment; for though he felt conscious that his success in Parliament had not yet been complete, the feeling of certainty that it would become so, now began to dawn upon him, and the triumphs that his ardent nature anticipated went probably even beyond those which his maturer career accomplished.
VIII.
On the 11th of December, 1798, Mr. Tierney made a motion respecting peace with the French Republic. The negotiations at Lille, never cordially entered into, were at this time broken off. We had formed an alliance with Russia and the Porte, and were about to carry on the struggle with new energies, though certainly not under very encouraging auspices. The coalition of 1792-3 was completely broken up. Prussia had for three years been at peace with France; nor had the Cabinet of Vienna seen any objection to signing a treaty which, disgracefully to all parties, sacrificed the remains of Venetian liberty.