defects, of which Shelburne in his Autobiography has left too unsparing a record. "You should have been under the wand of the charmer yourself," is said to have been the observation of the younger Pitt, in reply to those who expressed wonder at the enormous power exercised by the eloquence of Fox over the House of Commons. The same observation suggests itself to the student of the career of Chatham. His personality, which his contemporaries alone could properly appreciate, was his strength. Owing to it, from the moment when in the full force of his genius he first rose to speak in the House of Commons, to the day when a weary and broken old man he sank on the floor of the House of Lords, the public confidence never for any considerable period deserted him. He may have talked unhistorical nonsense about Androgeus and Julius Cæsar, but there is no doubt that he delivered the speech about Magna Charta, which remains an eternal monument of the highest eloquence employed on the noblest subjects.[1] He possessed the rare quality of transfusing others with his own enthusiasm, and making himself the incarnation of the public hopes and fears. He believed that he alone could save the nation, and the nation thought so too. No man could so readily grasp the chief features of a difficult situation, or so easily lay down the main lines of the necessary measures. Possessed of these qualities and partly in consequence of them, he looked down from the lofty height of his own contempt on the politicians of the day. They were the vile instruments whom he might require to use, but he would throw them aside whenever he chose, for there were plenty of others as good as they. His statue in Westminster Abbey seems to denounce the vain attempts of the effigy of one of the Dukes of Newcastle, who lies opposite, to rise to heaven. The attitude of the lifeless statue represents that of the living statesman to the Newcastle of his own time and to all the followers and successors of the Pelhams. He did not sufficiently
- ↑ Speech of January 9th, 1770, on the case of Wilkes, in reply to Lord Mansfield.
