Part 8 (1/2)

His acute research, and his peculiar sources of information, roused the vigilance of all the public offices of the country. Since his time, there has been more care in preparing official returns, and in arranging the public correspondence placed on the table of the House of Commons.

When one remembered that in this room, not three years ago, he was trying to find a lawyer who would make a speech for him in Parliament, it was curious to remember that no one in the period had probably addressed the House of Commons oftener. Though his manner, which was daily improving, was not felicitous in the House, the authority of his intellect, his knowledge, and his character, made him one of the great personages of debate; but with the country who only read his speeches he ranked high as an orator. It is only those who have had occasion critically to read and examine the long series of his speeches who can be conscious of their considerable merits. The information is always full and often fresh, the scope large, the argument close, and the style, though simple, never bald, but vigorous, idiomatic, and often picturesque. He had not credit for this in his day, but the pa.s.sages which have been quoted in this sketch will prove the justness of this criticism. As a speaker and writer, his princ.i.p.al need was condensation.

He could not bear that anything should remain untold. He was deficient in taste, but he had fervour of feeling, and was by no means void of imagination.

The writer, in his frequent communications with him of faithful and unbounded confidence, was often reminded of the character by Mr. Burke of my Lord Keppell.

The labours of Lord George Bentinck had been supernatural, and one ought perhaps to have felt then that it was impossible they could be continued on such a scale of exhaustion; but no friend could control his eager life in this respect; he obeyed the law of his vehement and fiery nature, being one of those men who in whatever they undertake know no medium, but will 'succeed or die.'

But why talk here and now of death! He goes to his native county and his father's proud domain, to breathe the air of his boyhood and move amid the parks and meads of his youth. Every breeze will bear health, and the sight of every hallowed haunt will stimulate his pulse. He is scarcely older than Julius Caesar when he commenced his public career, he looks as high and brave, and he springs from a long-lived race.

He stood upon the _perron_ of Harcourt House, the last of the great hotels of an age of stately dwellings with its wings, and court-yard, and carriage portal, and huge outward walls. He put forth his hand to bid farewell, and his last words were characteristic of the man--of his warm feelings and of his ruling pa.s.sion: 'G.o.d bless you; we must work, and the country will come round us.'

CHAPTER XIII.

_The Curtain Falls_

THE heavens darken; a new character enters upon the scene.

They say that when great men arise they have a mission to accomplish and do not disappear until it is fulfilled. Yet this is not always true.

After all his deep study and his daring action Mr. Hampden died on an obscure field, almost before the commencement of that mighty struggle which he seemed born to direct. In the great contention between the patriotic and the cosmopolitan principle which has hardly begun, and on the issue of which the fate of this island as a powerful community depends, Lord George Ben-tinck appeared to be produced to represent the traditionary influences of our country in their most captivating form.

Born a natural leader of the people, he was equal to the post. Free from prejudices, his large mind sympathized with all cla.s.ses of the realm.

His courage and his constancy were never surpa.s.sed by man. He valued life only as a means of fulfilling duty, and truly it may be said of him, that he feared none but G.o.d.