His maiden speech, delivered some two months after he entered the House, was brilliant, but was generally thought to be somewhat lacking in the qualities of solidity and good judgment. His tastes were so eminently rhetorical in their nature, that, for some years to come, he was inclined to excess of ornamentation. Joined to this peculiarity was an irresistible inclination to indulge in wit and badinage at the expense of his fellow-members. This tendency was so predominant that for a long time it was said that he never made what he called a successful speech without making an enemy for life.
In 1797, in connection with a few friends, Canning projected the journal known as the Anti-Jacobin Review. Its object was to counteract those peculiar doctrines of the French Revolution which its contributors thought dangerous. Many of Canning’s articles were satires, and were so admirable in their way as to be worthy of a place among the most noted extravaganzas of English literature. The “Knife Grinder,” and the drama entitled “The Rovers,” are perhaps the most successful. “The Rovers” was written to ridicule the German drama then prevailing, and it was regarded as of so much consequence that Niebuhr in one of his gravest works has devoted nearly a page to a refutation of it.[A] A good impression of Canning’s peculiar wit will be conveyed by “Rogers’ Song,” taken from “The Rovers.” Mr. Hayward[B] informs us that Canning had written the first five stanzas of the song, when Pitt, coming into his room and accidentally seeing it, was so amused that he took up a pen and added the fifth stanza on the spot. The following is the song entire:—
[A] “Geschichte des Zeitalters der Revolution,” ii., 242.
[B] “Biographical Essays,” i., 211.
I.
“When’er with haggard eyes I view
This dungeon that I’m rotting in,
I think of those companions true
Who studied with me at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
II.
“Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue,
Which once my love sat knotting in!
Alas! Matilda then was true,
At least I thought so at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen,
—niversity of Gottingen.
III.
“Barbs! Barbs! alas! how swift you flew,
Her neat post-wagon trotting in;
Ye bore Matilda from my view;
Forlorn I languished at the U—
—niversity of Gottingen—
—niversity of Gottingen.