at that time have ruined all his influence in the cabinet. The duke of Grafton had always been an enemy to the hopeful project of resorting to coercion, in respect to America. He opposed the Stamp Act in 1765, with great energy, and was one of those who declared warmly in favour of its repeal. No sooner did lord North attempt to gull the country gentlemen, by proposing to throw part of the burthen of the land-tax off their shoulders, and load the unrepresented colonies with it, than His Grace revolted at the idea, and demanded parliamentary documents. His motion for that purpose was negatived by his colleagues, and it was officially signified to him next day, that it was the wish of a great personage he should retire. Accordingly, after having presided as lord privy seal about three years and a half, the duke once more betook himself to a private station, happy in being thus able to confute those writers who had so long accused him as the tool of the earl of Bute; doubly happy in being exempt from the disgrace and remorse of acting as an accessory to the most impolitic, most unjust, and most disastrous, war, that had ever been waged by the most besotted administration of either ancient or modern times. From this memorable epoch, the duke of Grafton, resuming the principles which had distinguished his first outset in life, became, in the true and best sense of the word, a patriot. He was seen sometines speaking, and always voting, against the unhappy and unjust contest with our colonies. On that occasion he once more acted with lord Chatham, the earls of Rockingham and Shelburne; in fine, with all who were most dear to, and most respectable, in the nation; and these formed such a compact, formidable, and upright, phalanx, that it was evident they must finally succeed. Unlike the opposition of the present day, they courted the city of London; they conciliated the great body of the nation; they united all in favour of alt. Unlike them too, there were no private interests to be gratified, no unpopular claims to be maintained: the country was to be saved from a most extravagant expenditure, as well as a most odious conflict, and the government itself was to be reformed, so as to prevent the recurrence of similar calamities. The critical and untimely death of one great man,* alone prevented the com. The marquis of Rockingham. MONTHLY MAC. No. 211. pletion of such desirable results. At length, on the overthrow of lord North, and the ministers who supported him, a total change was effected, and the minority, as usual, became the majority. On this occasion, the duke of Grafton was restored to his former office of lord privy seal; but he was again obliged to resign, and that very suddenly. As the duke of Grafton now retreated from public strife to the bosom of his family, we shall follow him thither, His Grace was twice married, first in 1756, to the honourable Miss Liddell,* the only daughter of the late lord Ravensworth, by whom he had three sons, and a daughter. From this lady he was divorced in March 1769, by act of par liament, and she immediately after became countess of Upper Ossory. In a very short time, His Grace chose for a second consort Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Sir Richard Worsley, bart, dean of Windsor, and niece both to the late duchess of Bedford, and earl Gower, father of the marquis of Stafford, by whom also he had issue, to the amount of no less than thirteen children, making in all seventeen, and exhibiting such a family as is rarely to be met with. Amidst the evils that afflicted either the state or himself, the duke found a refuge in domestic comforts, while in the society of those dear to him, and in the education of his daughters, as well as the cares incident to a numerous offspring, he found a constant and most grateful employment. Other objects also occupied his attention, and occasionally employed his time and his talents. His Grace, in 1768, succeeded Thomas Holles, duke of Newcastle, who had been educated at Clare Hall, as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. On his installation, Gray, a name not second to any of our day in the list of English poets, impressed with gratitude for the professorship of modern history, just conferred upon him, celebrated the event in an ode, which was set to music, and performed on that occasion. From this we shall extract one or two passages: With the first duchess of Grafton, who was mother to the present duke, the subject of this memoir travelled for some time on the continent. About the year 1762, they repaired to the court of Turin, where they re mained during eight weeks. On this occa sion, the duke was much noticed by the king of Sardinia, and the duke of Savoy, hota of whom acknowledged him as their cousin. 2 H "But With solemn steps and slow, And sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn And Anjou's heroine, and the paler rose, The rivals of her crown, and of her woes, And either Henry there. The murder'd saint, and the majestic lord, That broke the bands of Rome : Rich streams of regal bounty pour'd, And bade these awful fanes and turrets To hail their Fitzroy's festal morning come, The liquid language of the skies, &c." "Lo! Granta waits to lead her blooming band, Not obvious, not obtrusive, she No vulgar praise, no venal incense Alings; Nor dares with courtly tongue refin'd, Profane thy inborn royalty of inind: She reveres herself and thee. With modest pride, to grace thy youthful brow, The laureate wreath that Cecil wore, she brings, And to thy just, thy gentle, hand Submits the fasces of her sway; His Grace was a bold, energetic, and decided, enemy to the former and present war with France. He uniformly disapproved of the principles in which they originated, and deemed them both pregnant with the most serious mischiefs to the, constitution, and prosperity of the empire. When the late duke of Bedford, in 1797, proposed a motion for removing the administration of that day, he was supported by the then venerable duke of Grafton, in a long, able, and most impressive, speech. On that occasion he contrasted the situation of Britain before and after the contest with France; he described her, in respect to foreign relations," as stript of or deserted by every ally on the continent, that could bring any essential aid;" while, in regard to our interior economy, he asserted, "that the Bank of England had received a wound, in spite of the repeated repre. sentations of the directors, on the mis. chief which must arise from the immense quantity of bullion exported by, and the large sums advanced to, government; to gether with a blot which all the waters of Lethe will never be able to expunge, in consequence of the Order of Council for stopping money-payments." After lamenting the millions of money, and the streams of blood, lavished in St, Domingo, his Grace called attention towards Ireland, and declared that king dom to be in so critical a state, " that unless a reform, a temperate reform, in parliament, and a full emancipation of the Catholics, together with a total change of men took place, some fatal catastrophe was likely to ensue:" a prognostication which has been since amply verified by fact. "To prevent these greatest of evils" (the subjugation by France), " extending hither," says the duke, "it will medy, which I earnestly recommend to be wise to oppose the only effective rethe cool and dispassionate consideration of all your lordships: I mean a tempe rate parliamentary reform in this country, from under us; and the great and saga. without which the constitution will ship cious statesinan, who delivered in another place that inimitable argument in favour of parliamentary reform, might have added to the names of Montesquieu and Machiavel, that still more revered for wisdom, the name of our lord Bacon, than whom there was not a more stre nuous advocate for the frequent revisal and correction of all national institu tions, maintaining always that every human fabric or establishment was subject to that decay and corruption which lapse of time would necessarily produce. "Thus bave these ministers, who have hitherto been controlled in nothing, brought the nation from the upper step of its greatness, down, by rapid degrees, to the lowest, where we now stand, and are looking up with doubts, whether we shall possess virtue public and private sufficient to carry us up the steep and rugged hill we have in view, and which must be climbed. Is there any one to whom it need be said, that this chain of disasters can no more have fal- . len out by chance, and the common fate of war, than the beautiful globe we walk on could have been produced under an epicurean system, by a fortuitous concurrence of an infinity of atoms? No, my lords, let us not condemn chance for our situation, or for our sufferings: the mi nisters nisters are before you who brought you hither. Some of your lordships may have given your support from laudable motives; but this confidence has proved fatal, and all support given to the same ministers, from this moment, the public will consider as afforded with open eyes, and therefore calculated to involve them equally with the administration, in the guilt of every future fatal project. "As for myself, I solemnly protest, that no consideration the world can offer would stand in competition with the comfort I feel, that so far from having abetted the pernicious counsels which have brought on the downfall of the empire, I have, to the best of my little ability, endeavoured by every constitutional means to prevent them." The following were the concluding words of the last speech delivered by him in parliament: Before I retire to fortify my own mind against the calamities which are fast approaching, and to prepare my family for those which they will have probably to undergo, I shall think it a duty incumbent on me to lay before my Sovereign the reasons for my conduct; flattering myself that I shall be allowed that gracious hearing which His Majesty has so frequently given to one, from whose tongue he never heard but the dictates of the heart as sincerely as they are now delivered to your lordships. I shall then withdraw to my country-seat, to instruct my children, and await in awful silence the eventful period which I see approaching!" Having thus viewed the duke of Grafton both as a father and a politician, we shall next survey him in another point of view. Of late years, the subject of this memoir has been very assiduous in collecting books, and the library left behind him contains the three grand desi derata, being copious, splendid, and select. He obtained possession of many of the scarcest, best, and most esteemed, copies of the classics; these were not locked up with a narrow spirit, and rendered accessible to the noble owner, his family, and his friends alone; but they might have been viewed and consulted by any student, or man of letters, to whom they were likely to prove serviceable. His Grace also reprinted an edition of Griesbach's Greek Testament, under the inspection of the editor, to accommodate whom, paper for this purpose was sent abroad to the continent, at the duke's expense. When the work was completed, he distributed a great number of the copies, in the most liberal manner; and, to render the circulation still more extensive, consented to sell the remainder at a low price. He himself also appears to have been an author; at least two wellwritten pamphlets have been attributed to him, which assuredly had his assent, and perhaps his corrections, as well as his approbation. The first of these, pub lished about twenty years ago, is intitled "Hints submitted to the serious Attention of the Clergy, Nobility, and Gentry, newly associated; by a Layman." The sub ject includes the church liturgy, and subscription; and, as His Grace frequented the Unitarian Chapel in Essex-street, during the ministry of Mr. Lindsey, as well as of Dr. Disney, and Mr. Belsham, his opinions on this subject may be easily guessed at. The second is entitled Apeleutherus. The dedication is inscribed D. O. M. and the preface is an eloquent and able address, in praise of the desire of knowledge, when cherished with a view to the improvement of moral practice, and the increase of human felicity. No doctrine we are told must be so unquestionable, no authority so sacred, as to bar inquiry. He who is persuaded that every upright man must be happy in every stage of his existence, is no further desirous of the prevalence of any opinion, than as it appears calculated to affect moral practice; and, as to the liberal enquirer, he cannot persuade himself to indulge any deep distress about the faith of any man, who knows what it is "to fear God, and depart from evil.” As an apology for withholding his name, the author observes, that he honours the bold spirit of a Luther and a Wakefield; the fearless integrity of a Price and a Priestley: but he confesses himself unequal to the imitation of these illustrious characters, he is uuambitious of reputation-he courts obscurity-he is desirous alone of exhibiting a faithful sketch of genuine christianity. Part 1. is occupied on the subject of public worship, and here he begins by observing, that prayer naturally follows the belief of a God; and to suppose a finite creature living under a sense of di vine providence, and yet abstaining wholly from any sort of address to him, seems contrary to all experience, and absurd in itself. "But beyond this, beyond the secret, silent, aspiration of the heart towards the source of all good, a * ATENEUOgos-libertus-a freed man. pra practice has obtained, and that very extensively, and for a length of time, of forming congregations or assemblies, unlimited with respect to numbers, for the purpose of offering public addresses at stated seasons, to this greatest and best of Beings. These addresses usually em brace a great variety of subjects and ideas, and are expressed either in extempore or pre-composed language; either in words enjoined by authority, or agreed on by the congregation, or used at the discretion of the minister: and public prayer, regularly and statedly performed, has been, and continues to be, strongly recommended as an universally important duty, from the press, and from the pulpit. "To reject without reason, a custom sanctioned by venerable authority, would -be the extreme of rashness; to continue it without enquiry concerning its reasonableness, would be stupid servility. It is my design, in the present essay, to attempt this enquiry with seriousness and candour, and in as short a compass as the magnitude of the subject will admit. "In the first place, it will be acknow ledged to be the most important and essential character of every verbal address to the Deity, that it be, as nearly as possible, a perfect expression of the real state of mind of those who use it. But if it can be shewn, that public prayer, from its very nature, is unsuitable to this purpose, it will follow, that it is not reasonable. fully performed, cannot be considered as a reasonable service, or as acceptable prayer. Again. Prayer may be supposed to express the real feelings of the heart, when it is the consequence of a disposi tion to pray; a frame of mind suitable to prayer, arising from previous meditation, or peculiar circumstances. Public prayer, however, demands a fixed time, a certain day, or hour, for offering up addresses to heaven. But surely it cannot be supposed, that religious affections are like bodily appetites, returning at stated seasons, or that piety, or devotion, can be regulated by the figures of a dial, or the tolling of a bell! If the repetition of certain words without meaning be prayer, this indeed may be performed at all times, and by all sorts of persons; but if true worship, be what it is said to be in the writings commonly esteemned sacred, the pouring out of the heart before God, the praying to him who seeth in secret, the benefits to be derived from it must be connected with solitude and retirement, and cannot belong to promiscuous and heterogeneous assemblies. "Once more. If prayer be the expression of inward feelings, it must en gage the whole attention and employ the whole mind. Now public worship must either be performed according to a precomposed form, or in the extempore lan guage of one of the assembly. If a perpetually recurring form be made use of, "Prayer, indeed, may well be sup- let the experience of those who have posed to possess this character, when it assisted at our liturge worship for is the language of a single person, who, any length of time, determine, whether feeling his heart happily disposed for by frequent repetition it does not become communion with God, has entered into a mere simulacrum inane, an empty form, his closet, and shut the door.* But devoid of spirit and of truth. Let the when we consider how various are the yawning and lolling attendants on the 'conditions, characters, views, senti-written or unwritten forms of our disments, and feelings, of the several individuals of a public assembly, it seems hardly posible that any prayer, much less any long prayer, can at the same time express the real feelings of the minister, and of the majority, or even of any considerable number of his congregation. If I make use of words which are put into my mouth by another, or attend to words uttered by him, which express his feelings, but not mine, or those of neither of us, but of him who originally composed them; this exercise, however ingeniously contrived, or grace * Matthew vi. 6. fully -senters testify, whether they have not found the long prayer, "more tedious than a tale twice told, Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man." "If the latter method, extempore prayer, be adopted, the ability of that man must be very extraordinary, who, while his own mind is directed to hea the selection and arrangement of his ven, is able to pay so much attention to words, throughout a long service, as to calm and dispassionate heaters. avoid giving pain and disgust to his more that though public prayer may in some Psalm lxii. 8. So instances instances occupy the mind of the person officiating, it can hardly in any case engage the whole attention of the audience, or be properly-said to be the prayer of the congregation. Secondly. Public prayer cannot be reasonable, because the consequence to be expected from it, in a moral view, and in a certain degree, the actual effects of it are pernicious, of which I think it unnecessary at present to mention more than two instances. The one is, that the house of prayer ever has been, and from its nature must be, while it exists, the nursery of hypocrisy, and the theatre of ostentation. "In the retirement of the closet, there can be no dissembling. No man can be so foolish as to hope that he can deceive the Being, who is "acquainted with all his ways, and who understands his thoughts afar off; and from every other eye he is secluded.” Part II. is entitled, "On Religious Instruction," and it is there maintained, that the best way of securing the opening mind from false impressions, "is to preoccupy it with just views and virtuous habits." He condemns almost all governments, for having hitherto interfered with the sacred right of education; and parents are supposed to be most proper, and host fitted to instil precepts of morality into the youthful minds of their own offspring. After remarking that, to the "tyranny of priests we are indebted for the slow progress of truth in religion, in philosophy, and in civil government, we find a fine eulogium on the invention of printing, which is considered the noblest of the mechanic arts;" and, from its extension, much good, both in a religious and moral point of view, is predicted. In Part III. The author treats of "christianity as a supernatural communication," and seems to think, that it is not the miracles which are most wonder. ful, but that the perfection of the doc trine is "the grand miracle of all." We confess it is with some pleasure we have beheld a descendant of the house of Stuart, who might be addressed with out flattery, as “Mæcenas atavis edite regibus;" and a man who also united in his own person, together with the highest tiles and the largest fortune, the blood of the Beauforts and the Tudors, devoting the latter part of his life to liberal and candid inquiries concerning religion and politics. Let it be recollected also to his honour, that notwithstanding the many high offices filled by him, and the extensive patronage he more than once possessed, yet the duke of Grafton never secured to himself, his children; or re latives, any place, pension, or reversion whatsoever. In person, he was somewhat less than the middle size, but lean, slender, and active. His countenance greatly re sembled that of his royal ancestor; and amidst the delirium of youth, of honours, and of fortune, he at one period might have been thought to resemble him in some other respects. His manners were agreeable, his conversation replete with information; and, as a parliamentary orator, he possessed a most solemn and impressive tone, voice, and gesticulation. In point of dress he was remarkable. His coat was of the colour and cut of those usually appropriated to the Quakers; and he was accustomed to wear a cocked hat, which gave an air of ancient and obsolete gentility to his whole person. Of late years, he addicted himself greatly to agriculture, and that too on an extensive scale; and, if we are to give credit to Mr. Arthur Young, was a most excellent farmer. This is no small praise; but he possessed a title to something far superior-that of being an honest man. His Grace, who died March 14, 1811, is succeeded in his honours and entailed estates, by George Henry Fitzroy, earl of Luston, and now duke of Grafton, &c. &c. This nobleman was born in 1760, and educated at Trinity-college, Cambridge, where he obtained the degree of M.A. His lordship afterwards represented the university in parliament, having been returned with Mr. Pitt, for his colleague, in 1781. In the course of the same year, he married Charlotte Maria, the daughter of the late earl of Waldegrave, by her royal highness the late duchess of Gloucester, by whom he has a numerous issue. SCARCE |