(1770-1827)
he political history of this famous British statesman is told by Robert Bell (1846), by F.H. Hill (English Worthies Series), and in detail by Stapleton (his private secretary) in 'Political Life of Canning.' He became a friend of Pitt in 1793, entered the House of Commons in 1794, was made Under-Secretary of State in 1796, was Treasurer of the Navy from 1804 to 1806, Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1807 till 1809, Ambassador to Lisbon from 1814 to 1816, again at the head of foreign affairs in 1822, and was made Premier in 1827, dying under the labor of forming his Cabinet.
George Canning
Soon after his birth in London, April 11th, 1770, his disinherited father died in poverty, and his mother became an unsuccessful actress. An Irish actor, Moody, took young Canning to his uncle, Stratford Canning, in London, who adopted him and sent him to Eton, where he distinguished himself for his wit and literary talent. With his friends John and Robert Smith, John Hookham Frere, and Charles Ellis, he published a school magazine called The Microcosm, which attracted so much attention that Knight the publisher paid Canning £50 for the copyright. It was modeled on the Spectator, ridiculed modes and customs, and was a unique specimen of juvenile essay-writing. A fifth edition of the Microcosm was published in 1825. Subsequently Canning studied at Oxford. He died August 8th, 1827, at Chiswick (the residence of the Duke of Devonshire), in the same room and at the same age as Fox, and under similar circumstances; and he was buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of William Pitt.
It was not until 1798 that he obtained his great reputation as a statesman and orator. Every one agrees that his literary eloquence, wit, beauty of imagery, taste, and clearness of reasoning, were extraordinary. Byron calls him "a genius—almost a universal one; an orator, a wit, a poet, and a statesman." As a public speaker, we may picture him from Lord Dalling's description:—
"Every day, indeed, leaves us fewer of those who remember the clearly chiseled countenance, which the slouched hat only slightly concealed; the lip satirically curled; the penetrating eye, peering along the Opposition benches, of the old Parliamentary leader in the House of Commons. It is but here and there that we find a survivor of the old days to speak to us of the singularly mellifluous and sonorous voice, the classical language,—now pointed with epigram, now elevated into poetry, now burning with passion, now rich with humor,—which curbed into still attention a willing and long-broken audience."
As a statesman his place is more dubious. Like every English politician not born to a title, however,—Burke is an instance,—he was ferociously abused as a mere mercenary adventurer because his livelihood came from serving the public. The following lampoon is a specimen; the chief sting lies not in Canning's insolent mockery,—"Every time he made a speech he made a new and permanent enemy," it was said of him,—but in his not being a rich nobleman.