During the whole of the long and glorious career in which these two illustrious friends were constantly associated, the latter seems invariably to have regarded all subjects, which either required the exertion, or were calculated for a display, of the powers of oratory, as the peculiar province of his eloquent colleague, and to have restricted himself to other and less imposing sources of political greatness and distinction. Nor had the country cause to regret that such was his election. His ascent, indeed, to the Temple of Fame was slow and laborious, such as few minds of equal endowments have patience and perseverance to pursue; but he acquired, during his long progress, the most perfect knowledge of Finance, and the most intimate acquaintance with all the various bearings of our Commercial Interests which were, perhaps, ever possessed by any one man. It made him, in short,-to sum up all in the comprehensive phrase of Mr. Canning," the best practical man of business in England."

The weight and importance of the duties which pressed particularly upon his department, and engrossed all his time, made him often look with something like regret towards those pleasures of private life, which he was compelled to relinquish, but to the enjoyment of which he was through life warmly attached. In 1798, he says, "We are placed in an awful crisis, and this Office has certainly far more than its share of the labours

and responsibility that attend such a state of things. I am resolved to do my utmost; but I feel most sensibly that, whilst the duties of public life cannot be adjourned, they compel me to neglect many of the duties, and nearly all the enjoyments, of private life." And again, in the same year, when recovering from the effects of a long illness, brought on by over fatigue and application, he repeats, "I cannot reconcile to myself to hold a public situation and not to do the duties of it. I must discharge them or quit it altogether."

On the retirement of Mr. Pitt in 1801, Mr. Huskisson, as well as Mr. Canning, resigned his situation. At the request of Lord Hobart, however, who succeeded to the War and Colonial Department, seconded by the urgent solicitations of Mr. Dundas, who was particularly anxious that the following up of certain measures, then in progress, should have the advantage of being conducted to a termination by a person who had been acquainted with his views and intentions, he consented to continue to exercise the functions of Under Secretary for a short time, until Lord Hobart should have made himself conversant with the nature and management of his new office.

In this arrangement he acquiesced very reluctantly, and on a distinct understanding, that it should be considered as merely temporary.

On intelligence being received of the glorious Battle of Alexandria, and of the unfortunate death of the gallant Sir Ralph Abercrombie, it became necessary for the Government at home to select his successor; and it has been supposed that some difference of opinion arose on this subject. However that may have been, Mr. Huskisson then claimed, that the time for his retirement was arrived, and he accordingly withdrew into private life.

Though living in constant and familiar intimacy with, and forming one of that brilliant circle, whose combined wit and genius gave birth to the "Anti-Jacobin," there is no entire article in that publication, to which even conjecture has ever affixed the name of Mr. Huskisson. Nor were any of the various lampoons, or lighter satirical effusions, in which the period of Mr. Addington's Administration was so prolific, ever attributed to his pen. This is the more remarkable, because, in the unrestrained intercourse of his domestic life, few people surpassed him in the charms of a natural playfulness of manner and conversation, and still fewer could equal him in acuteness, and in a quick perception of whatever was ridiculous.

The year before he quitted office Mr. Huskisson lost his Uncle, who died at Paris in 1800; and the following letter, in which he mentions the death of this venerable relation, proves how lively was the sense which the nephew always enter

tained of the benefits which he owed to the care and kindness which had superintended his youthful education.

66

"Downing-street, 2d May, 1800.

I have just received from Paris the account of the sudden death of my good uncle; who has terminated a career of eighty-three years, undisturbed by any of the infirmities which so generally embitter the last years of protracted life. His loss, however, is not the less painful to me, as no circumstance can ever weaken my recollection of the obligations I owe to his kindness and care of my education. It is a matter of great additional regret to me that he did not revisit England; not only that I might have assured him personally, that the many busy and interesting scenes which have marked my life, since our separation, had in no respect impaired my sentiments towards him; but also from the idea, that he would have found in my present situation much that would have been gratifying to his affection.

The death of Dr. Gem proved the immediate cause of Mr. Huskisson's becoming the proprietor of Eartham, in the county of Sussex, for many years the favourite residence of his old friend Mr. Hayley, and better known from the frequent mention made of it in the Life of Cowper. Dr. Gem bequeathed to Mr. Huskisson his estate in Worcestershire, to which he was much attached, and appointed him residuary legatee. Among other property which thus devolved to him, was

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a mortgage upon Eartham; and as Mr. Hayley had lately removed to a villa which he had built at Felpham, in the hopes of finding the proximity to the sea more congenial to the declining health of his son, and was desirous to part with Eartham, it was agreed that, upon the payment of a small additional sum, Mr. Huskisson should become the purchaser.

In 1799, he had married the youngest daughter of Admiral Milbanke;-an union, in every respect, most gratifying to his friends, and which proved to himself a source of unchequered and increasing happiness, till it was torn asunder by the dreadful catastrophe which has left her no other worldly consolation, than the remembrance of the virtues which adorned him, and that which may be gathered from the universal sympathy of the world, which deplores, and participates in, her loss.

There are some persons who are recorded never to have gone into action without being wounded. Mr. Huskisson seems to have laboured under a similar fatality in regard to accidents, from his earliest infancy to that fatal one which closed his As a child, he fractured his arm;-a few days before his marriage, his horse fell with him, and he was severely hurt ;-soon after, he was knocked down by the pole of a carriage, just at the entrance to the Horse Guards ;—in the autumn of 1801, being then in Scotland at the Duke of

career.