salutary and so wise, therefore we will reject all the instruction, which the same mistress may bestow upon us in future.

Thus much for the vulgar prejudice about consistency. Holding these doctrines, we shall not be expected to side with those, who condemn the inconsistency of Mr Windham, even if that inconsistency be proved. For we contend, that, if ever there was an event, which could confound the wisdom of man, and give the lie to all the theories of political philosophy, it was that awful visitation, which came upon France and the civilized world, at the conclusion of the eighteenth century. But we are prepared to go still farther; and though we think, that under such circumstances, inconsistency would not have been disgraceful, we hesitate not to state it as our conviction, that Mr Windham was guilty of none. He had set out in life with a disclaimer of the principles of revolution, whether under that specific name, or under the more insinuating title of reform. He had resisted from the beginning, all attempts to accomplish small benefits by violent remedies. He had professed and proved, that he was willing to be the friend, but not the servant of the people. He was anxious to protect them from tyranny, but he never meant that they should rise to be tyrants themselves.

If, then, he is not to be reproached for having, on the explosion of the French revolution, taken an active and decided part in the maintenance of social order, and the charities of the human heart, and the religion of a gracious God, shall we condemn him for adopting the most direct measures for giving efficiency to his principles, by accepting a place in the government of his country? That he might not be able to effect all the good he wished, he undoubtedly foresaw. But he was

not one of those overbearing politicians, who, because they cannot do all, will do nothing. He felt, that, agreeing, as he did, in the main policy of the ministers, he might, by associating himself in their councils, interpose a check upon those measures which he should disapprove, in a more effectual manner than would have been possible for him, unconnected with the cabinet. He was alarmingly convinced, that the state was diseased, and needed a more than ordinary combination of caution and skill," to purge her to her sound and pristine health;" and, under circumstances so urgent, he would justly have considered himself criminal, if, continuing to concur with government in the main points, he had withheld his assistance from the country upon the pretext of trivial disagreements. These appear to be the opinions, to which he was brought by the reasonings of his friend Mr Burke, and which now induced him to coalesce with Mr Pitt, and defend the party he had before opposed.

The Duke of York had been for some time at the head of the English forces in Flanders, when it was deemed adviseable, in the cabinet, to make some new arrangements, which would involve the recall of his royal highness. The reasons for these arrangements were of such a nature, that they seemed to require a fuller communication, than could conveniently be made through the ordinary medium of a dispatch; and it was therefore agreed, that Mr Windham, in his official capacity, should himself proceed to the continent, and make a confidential explanation to the duke. This mission he is said to have executed with great address, and with all the high-bred delicacy for which he was so eminently distinguished. The following extract from a letter to his sisterin-law, Mrs Lukin, gives a natural

and agreeable picture of the state of his mind during this expedition.

"Berlikom, near Bois le Duc, Sept. 12, 1794.

"We are, as you will have learned from one of my former letters, near Bois le Duc, which is rather a large town, and a strong fortress, belonging to the Dutch. About three miles from this place, are the duke's head quarters, and at four or five miles further is the camp. The immediate place of my residence is the village where head-quarters are, and I am lodged in the house of a Dutch attorney. The country about is light and sandy, affording very pleasant rides, which are not the less so from your occasionally meeting bodies of troops, of different dresses, establishments, and countries. The variety in this respect is not so great as it was last year, nor, from a number of circumstances, is the scene so interesting, after allowing even for the difference of its not being seen, as that was, for the first time. The relief which all this gives, after confinement, during the summer, to London, and to such business as that of the War-office, is more than conceive. It has given me a new stock of health; and the beauty of the autumn mornings, joined to the general idleness in which one lives, by necessity, and therefore without self-reproach, has given me a feeling of youthful enjoyment, such as I now but rarely know. You cannot conceive how you would like a ride here, with the idea that if you wandered too far, and went beyond the outposts, you might be carried off by a French patrole. It is the enjoyment that George Faulknor was supposed to describe, of a scene near Dublin, where "the delighted spectator expects every moment to be crushed by the impending rocks."

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Mr Windham, on his return to England, continued to support, by his eloquence in parliament, the cause which he was promoting by his counsels in the cabinet; and on some occasions it appears that the warmth of his feeling betrayed him into expressions of violence which his cooler reason would scarcely have justified. The politics of the day ran high, and there was hardly a middle course. On both sides, all was irritation, jealousy, and invective. The enemies of Mr Windham did not fail to take every advantage which the ardour of his temperament afforded them; and there was no ambiguous or hasty phrase which dropped from his lips, that was not immedi ately converted to his injury. Sometimes, when facts furnished no handle for attack, the aid of invention was called in to supply pretences of abuse. The most remarkable of all the offensive phrases ascribed to him, the exclamation of "Perish commerce, let the constitution live," was uttered, not by him, but avowedly by Mr Har dinge. The odium of this sentiment was first charged upon Mr Windham, in a pamphlet bearing the signature (we believe a fictitious one) of Jasper Wilson; and, when Mr Windham was taxed with the offence, he very manfully affirmed, that, although he had not in fact employed the obnoxious expression, yet, if it merely meant, that of the two, the constitution of the country was a more valuable possession than her mere traffic, it conveyed a sentiment which he had no hesitation in adopting, avowing, and defending.

The attention of Mr. Windham had been carefully bent upon the war which the French royalists were maintaining in La Vendeé against the powers of the new republic. Upon the effectual support of those brave soldiers he deemed it the policy of this country

to bestow every possible exertion. He conceived that they had been unwisely and cruelly neglected; and he describes them, in a pamphlet which he published after the peace of Amiens, as a body "who, with an army of immense force in point of numbers, perfect in the mode of its composition, animated by the most heroic courage, headed by officers of great ability and experience, but still weak to a great degree by the extreme deficiency and total want of all the ordinary means of war, were left to prosecute, as well as they could, the desperate and unequal contest in which they were engaged, disowned and abandoned by all the world. Yet in this situation they did not despair; it was not in their nature to do

The extent of the powers which the royalists possessed, seems to have come too late to the knowledge of the Bri. tish government. Mr Windham was firmly of opinion, that, if the tide had been taken at the flood, the family of Bourbon might have been restored to the throne of their ancestors; and he was in hopes that, even on his accession to the ministry, the time was not quite gone by, for a useful and energetic effort in behalf of the gallant insurgents. By his advice, in July, 1795, an expedition, composed of emigrants, set sail for the bay of Quiberon; but the plan was wholly unsuccessful, The responsibility of this failure he uniformly took upon himself; and it was, no doubt, a responsibility of oppressive magnitude.

Parliament was again dissolved in 1796; and Mr Windham, after a severe contest against Mr Bartlett Gurney, was re-elected for the city of Norwich. The lecturer Thelwall, a person of considerable energy and egregious conceit, but of little talent, made himself extremely conspicuous throughout this contest, in his opposi

tion to Mr Windham. It was his custom to harangue the populace in the market-place, in a course of violent invective against the secretary at war, and the ministry in general; and notwithstanding the precise and affected sententiousness of his style, and the impurity and vulgarity of his propunciation, he obtained, by the mere intemperance of his zeal, some attention, even from persons, whose knowledge and education ought to have deterred them from lending their countenance to so low and ignorant a strain of declamation.

The following year inflicted a heavy blow upon Mr Windham, in closing the life of his illustrious and beloved friend Mr Burke. This loss he deeply deplored. "I do not reckon it," (says he to his nephew, Captain Lukin, in a letter, dated 16th November, 1797) "among the least calamities of the times, certainly not among those, that affect me the least, that the world has now lost Mr Burke. Oh how much may we rue that his counsels were not followed! Oh how exactly do we see verified all that he has predicted!"

On the 10th of July, in the following year, Mr Windham married Cecilia, daughter of the late Admiral Arthur Forrest, an officer of distinguished gallantry and high reputation. We have related one event of his life, in which his affections were lamentably blighted; and we ought not to omit, that, some years before his marriage with Miss Forrest, he had had a second attachment. A lady residing in or near the county of Oxford, had attracted his attention, and, after ascertaining her worth, he made her an offer. She was greatly agitated by the proposal; for she was herself attached to a gentleman intended for the church, whose small fortune gave her reason to appre hend, that, if Mr Windham's offer

should be communicated to her parents, their whole authority would be exerted in forcing her to relinquish her lover. Under these circumstances, she resolved to throw herself upon Mr Windham's generosity, by entrusting him with the secret of her heart. She judged most wisely; Mr Windham not only forbore to urge his suit, but promised his interest in procuring some preferment for the more fortunate lover. The lady was happily united to him, and Mr Windham, we believe, had already taken measures to procure him a living, when an illness, contracted in a charitable visit to a parishioner, carried off this excellent and pious man, within a few months after his marriage. We have heard it reported, that Mr Windham now renewed his offer to the widow; but that she, feeling her heart to be for ever buried in the grave of her husband, found it necessary once more to decline the honour of his hand. Mr Windham, how ever, did not relax his exertions in her behalf. The presentation which he had solicited for her late husband, he now transferred to another clergyman, on the condition of his paying a portion of the revenue to the amiable and unfortunate widow.

Such a man deserved to be made happy in marriage, and this happiness he seems to have uninterruptedly enjoyed, in his union with Miss Forrest. The amiable qualities and fascinating manners of Mrs Windham, the cultivation of her mind, the gentleness of her demeanour, and the affectionate warmth of her heart, could scarcely have failed to conciliate and attach ́a husband of a much less generous and open temper. It will therefore be readily conceived how tenderly her worth was appreciated by Mr Windham, a man himself endowed with taste to approve, with affection to cherish, and with almost chivalrous gallantry to love.

His domestic comforts, however, did not withdraw him from his public duty. He laboured diligently in his office, as well as in parliament, and effected many regulations, by which the army was essentially benefited. He afforded additional facilities to the families of soldiers serving abroad for the acquisition of intelligence respecting them; and abolished the fee which had been customary upon such enquiries. He increased the of subalpay terns, non-commissioned officers, and privates; and was a principal contri butor, both by his suggestions and by his exertions, to the establishment of the Royal Military Asylum.

In these and similar pursuits he continued to employ himself; till, in the beginning of the year 1801, the differences upon the measure of Catholic Emancipation occasioned the dissolu tion of the ministry. He then resigned his office, and was accompanied, in his retirement, by Mr Pitt, Lord Grenville, and Lord Spencer, the Chancellor, and Mr Dundas. "I was only reconciled to the union with Ireland,' says he in one of his speeches, " upon the idea that all disabilities attaching on the catholics of Ireland were to be removed, and that the whole population would be united in interests and affections. Believing this to be the case, and finding that impediments were stated to this measure much stronger than I was prepared to ap prehend, I relinquished the administration, because I thought the measure indispensable to the safety of this empire."

It had happened, in some instances that the opinion of Mr Windham had varied from that of his colleagues in the cabinet; and it has been frequently made a ground of accusation against him, that he nevertheless continued to co-operate with them in these instances, and to support in the House of Commons what he had

The opinions of Mr Burke and Mr Windham ever were, that the legitimate object of the war was the restoration of the house of Bourbon; and that this object could be accomplished only by a liberal encouragement to the exertions of the royalists upon the continent. The accuracy of these opinions we shall not controvert, although they are not exactly our own; but it is at least quite manifest, that, with such sentiments, Mr Windham was pledged against every step which should tend to an acknowledgement of the new dynasty in France. The war might not seem to him to be carried on with sufficient attention to those points; he might and did consider it to be a war of shifts and expedients; a contest for petty and remote objects, rather than for near and vital ones; but, upon his principles, any war whatever was better than a peace, which, whatever should be its terms, must irrevocably preclude the possibility of restoring the Bourbons, and might deluge this country with a flood of French principles, to stagnate on the healthy soil, and propagate putrefaction and disease. He had no choice of parties, but either to adhere to those with whom he was now acting, and whose ends in some degree coincided with his own, or to return to men whose whole aim was to negociate a peace, almost on any terms, and almost any hazard.

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Still, say his enemies, it was unnesessary for him to lend, to the specific measures which he disapproved, the

sanction of his individual voice and vote in parliament. When he heard the opposition declaiming against plans, which he, in common with them, disliked and distrusted, he might at least have maintained a dignified neutrality. We are not of that opinion: for it will be remembered, that his ground of difference from his colleagues was not so much a hostility to their measures as a preference for others of his own; not that he disapproved what they did, but that he thought they did not do enough: while the opposition, on the contrary, conceived, that every thing was too much, and that the fault of government consisted, not in doing too little, but in doing any thing at all. Neutrality, therefore, in a man professing Mr Windham's opinions, would have been in manifest violation of that clear and salutary maxim in ethics, "Of two evils chuse the less."

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But we will venture to go further. We will venture to say, that a statesman, with perfect purity of conscience, often may and ought to lend his active support to a measure, which his party pronounce to be requisite, even though he himself entirely disapprove the principle on which it is grounded; just as a soldier may execute the order of his officer against his own private judgement and conviction. Whena manenters into public life, if he has the intention of ever being officially useful to his country, he must make up his mind to enlist himself regularly under the banner of some acknowledged party. It is of no avail to object, that party is "the madness of many for the gain of a few:" nor to urge that party is another term for mischievous faction: nor to utter any other of those moral, satirical, or epigrammatical aphorisms, with which we have been deluged, for these dozen years, at public meetings and in Sunday newspapers While each house of parliament contains several hundred members, a single vote