firmness. For their sake he was equally ready in the first year to hazard popularity, and in the latter year to sacrifice power.

We cannot leave the subject of Ireland without doing justice to the character and conduct of the Duke of Rutland.* Throughout this correspondence he appears to very great advantage, combining a frank and cordial spirit, and a delicate sense of honour, with good judgment, prudence, and vigilant attention to his duties. In reference to the very subject which we touched upon just now the Irish Union-a prediction which he makes on the 16th of June, 1784, indicates surely no common degree of foresight and sagacity. He is speaking of the Irish volunteers:

'The volunteer corps were reviewed in the Phoenix Park about a fortnight since. Their numbers were much diminished from the former year, in spite of all the exertions made use of to alarm and irritate; so that I am in hopes this self-appointed army may fall to the ground without the interposition of government, which would prove a most fortunate circumstance. If some such event should not have effect, the period cannot be far distant when they must be spoken to in a peremptory and decisive manner. For the existence of a government is very precarious while an armed force, independent of and unconnected with the state, for the purpose of awing the legislature into all its wild and visionary schemes, is permitted to endure. The northern newspapers take notice of an intention in some of the corps to address the French king; and which they recommend as a very proper and spirited measure. No meeting for such a laudable purpose has yet taken place. I can scarcely believe it, though the madness of some of these armed legislators might go to anything. Were I to indulge a distant specution, I should say that, without an union, Ireland will not be connected with Great Britain in twenty years longer.'

Irish subjects are not the only ones treated in this correspondence there are also frequent and interesting touches of English politics. We will give from Mr. Pitt's letters three extracts referring to these at three very different periods. The first when he and the Duke of Rutland were battling together in opposition, but with the prospect of power close before them'; the second when Mr. Pitt, in power, had yet to struggle against an adverse and exasperated majority of the House of Commons; the third when Mr. Pitt, after appealing to the people, again met the House of Commons, and found himself as strong in parliamentary as in popular support.

The first is dated November 22, 1783:

'We are in the midst of contest, and, I think, approaching to a crisis.

*We may be pardoned for recalling to our readers the amiable impression of His Grace's private life and manners derived from the Memoirs of his venerated protégé, Mr. Crabbe, who, on Mr. Burke's recommendation, became domestic chaplain at Belvoir Castle in 1782, and owed all his subsequent preferments to the kindness of the House of Rutland.

The

The bill which Fox has brought in relative to India will be, one way or other, decisive for or against the coalition. It is, I really think, the boldest and most unconstitutional measure ever attempted, transferring at one stroke, in spite of all charters and compacts, the immense patronage and influence of the East to Charles For, in or out of office. I think it will with difficulty, if at all, find its way through our House, and can never succeed in yours. Ministry trust all on this one die, and will probably fail. They have hurried on the bill so fast that we are to have the second reading on Thursday next, Nov. 27th. I think we shall be strong on that day, but much stronger in the subsequent stages. If you have any member within fifty or a hundred miles of you, who cares for the constitution or the country, pray send him to the House of Commons as quick as you can. I trust you see that this bill will not easily reach the House of Lords; but I must tell you that Ministry flatter themselves with carrying it through before Christmas.'

The second is of March 23, 1784:

'The interesting circumstances of the present moment, though they are a double reason for my writing to you, hardly leave me the time to do it. Per tot discrimina rerum, we are at length arrived within sight of a dissolution. The bill to continue the powers of regulating the intercourse with America to the 20th of June will pass the House of Lords to-day. That, and the Mutiny Bill, will receive the Royal Assent tomorrow, and the King will then make a short speech and dissolve the Parliament. Our calculations for the new elections are very favourable, and the spirit of the people seems still progressive in our favour. The new Parliament may meet about the 15th or 16th of May, and I hope we may so employ the interval as to have all the necessary business rapidly brought on, and make the session a short one.'

The 24th of the following May is the date of our third ex

'I cannot let the messenger go without congratulating you on the prospect confirmed to us by the opening of the session. Our first battle was previous to the address, on the subject of the return for Westminster. The enemy chose to put themselves on bad ground, by moving that two Members ought to have been returned, without first hearing the HighBailiff to explain the reasons of his conduct. We beat them on this by 283 to 136. The High-Bailiff is to attend to-day, and it will depend upon the circumstances stated whether he will be ordered to proceed in the scrutiny, or immediately to make a double return, which will bring the question before a committee. In either case I have no doubt of Fox being thrown out, though in either there may be great delay, inconvenience, and expense, and the choice of the alternative is delicate. We afterwards proceeded to the address, in which nothing was objected to but the thanking the King expressly for the dissolution. Opposition argued everything weakly, and had the appearance of a vanquished party, which appeared still more in the division, when the numbers were 282 to 114. We can have little doubt that the progress of the session will furnish throughout a happy contrast to the last.

We have

indeed nothing to contend with but the heat of the weather and the delicacy of some of the subjects which must be brought forward.'

We close this volume with the earnest hope that it may not be the only one of its class to come before us. Every succeeding day, as it bears us further from the era of Pitt and Fox, removes more and more of the few who yet lingered amongst us, the contemporaries and friends of those illustrious men. Only last year we saw depart the sole surviving cabinet colleague of Pitt in his first administration; only last month the devoted widow of Fox. But Time should not all destroy; and while, on the one hand, it breaks the remaining links of living affection, so, on the other hand, it should cast aside the ties of official reserve-it should unlock the most secret scrutoire-it should draw forth the most hoarded papers. The words 'private' and 'most private' on the cover need be no longer spells to restrain us. We may now, without any breach of public duty-without any wound to personal feelings-explore the hidden thoughts, the inward workings of those two great minds which stood arrayed against each other during twenty-three stormy and eventful years. We may trace them in their boyhood, and inquire whether it was in part through careful training, or all by their endowments at birth, that each of them inherited his father's gift of genius-that rarest of all gifts to inherit from a parent—as if, according to the fine thought of Dante, the Great Giver had willed to show that it proceeds from himself alone:

'Rade volte risurge per li rami

L'umana probitade, e questo vuole

Quei che la da, perche da lui si chiami.’*

We may, perhaps, by the journal of some secretary or some trusted friend, pursue them in their country retirement, and their familiar conversation. We may walk by the side of Pitt along the avenue that he planted at Holwood, or sit with Fox beneath the wide-spreading cedar at St. Anne's. We may see the blotted notes from whence grew the elaborate oration still perused with delight; we may trace in some hasty sketch the germ of some great enactment by which we continue to be ruled. We may follow the rival statesmen in their far divergent paths through life, until their final resting-place, under the same stately roof, and within a few paces of each other: and thus, while such stores of information as the present volume supplies come gradually to light, both Pitt and Fox will no doubt become far better known to the present generation than they could be to the great mass of those amongst whom their own life was cast.

*Purgat., lib. vii., verse 121.

ART.

ART. II.—I. Aioxúnov Xongógo. The Choëphora of Eschylus, with Notes critical, explanatory, and philological. By the Rev. T. W. Peile, M.A., &c. London. 1840.

2. Bibliotheca Græca, curantibus F. Jacobs et V. C. F. Rost. Eschyli Tragædiarum, Vol. I. Orestea: Sectio 2, Choëphoræ. Edidit Dr. R. H. Klausen. Gothæ et Erfordiæ. 1835. 3. Dissertations on the Eumenides of Eschylus; with the Greek Text and Critical Remarks. From the German of C. O. Mueller. Cambridge. 1835.

4. Eschyli Tragœdiæ. Recensuit et illustravit Joannes Minckwitz. Vol. I. Eumenides. Lipsia. 1838.

5. Die Eschylische Trilogie Prometheus, u. s. w., nebst Winken ueber die Trilogie des Eschylus ueberhaupt. Von F. G. Welcker. Darmstadt. 1824.

6. Nachtrag zur Trilogie, u. s. w. Von F. G. Welcker. Frankfurt a. M. 1826.

WE E cannot resume the subject of Æschylus and his Trilogies

without adverting to the losses which this branch of scholarship has sustained since the publication of our 128th Number. Most of those whom we then alluded to have been already swept from the world. Bishop Butler of Lichfield has gone to his rest, after such severe and protracted sufferings as would have paralysed a less energetic mind. He has gone, full of labours and of honours, though not of years. And yet it is to be feared that he has gone with much of his merit unappreciated. If, however, it be reasonable to suppose that the education of the higher classes, and in particular of the clergy, is at least as important as that of the poor, and if the silent but most practical reformation which has been at work in our public schools for many years past ever attracts the notice which it deserves, then the time will come when men will feel an interest in tracing the steps of the improvement; and they will hardly fail to give honour due to that scholar who set the first example in remodelling our public education, and gave a stimulus which is now acting on almost all the public schools in the country.*

On the other hand, John Wordsworth has sunk in the prime of life, exhausted by his labours ere their fruits had been given to the public. Non res, sed spes erat:' but how well-grounded and sure a hope, all who know Cambridge can say. We will not add anything of our own to the following sketch from the hand

* It falls to our lot to speak of him only as the head of an important school: for his higher praise we must refer to his worthy pupil, chaplain, and friend, the Rev. R. W. Evans, in the preface to his Bishopric of Souls, a truly precious manual for the young clergyman.

of

of his brother, the distinguished master of Harrow School. (After the details of his childhood and boyhood, from his birth in 1805, the account proceeds :)

'He became a Scholar of Trinity College in 1826, and a Fellow in 1830. He usually resided there till 1833, when he made a tour in France, Switzerland, and Italy. He spent a considerable time at Florence in making an accurate collation of the Medicean MS. of Eschylus; having, before his departure from England, contributed to the Philological Museum a series of critical observations on an edition of that poet. On his return from the continent, in 1834, he was appointed a classical lecturer in his own college; and the lectures which he then delivered will be long remembered by those who heard them, for the remarkable erudition which they displayed. He spared no labour in his philological researches, and he seemed unable to satisfy himself in them before he had exhausted the subject on which he was engaged. To the pursuit of these studies he brought great vigilance of observation, singuÎar acuteness of discrimination, a sound judgment, a tenacious memory, and unwearied industry. He employed these faculties in his intellectual inquiries, and he recorded in his papers the results of his investigations with scrupulous and elaborate accuracy. . . . . He proposed to publish not only the correspondence, but also some of the inedited works of Dr. Bentley, especially his Homer. He was employed at the same time in compiling a Classical Dictionary, which, if an opinion may be formed from the materials which he had amassed for that work, as well as from the portion which he had already executed, and from the plan which he had drawn out of the whole, would have proved a very useful and honourable monument of his indefatigable labour and comprehensive learning. But the work which, as a scholar, he most desired to execute, was an edition of Eschylus. During a period of several years he had directed his attention to that object; and if his life had been prolonged to the present time (Dec. 1841), some of the results of his industry would now, in all probability, have been before the world. For at his death, his observations on the works of that tragedian had reached such a state of maturity, that one of the plays illustrated by him will, it is hoped, ere long appear, to be followed at short intervals by others in succession. He was well conversant with the principal productions of modern literature, especially with the works of the English poets, and was a warm and judicious lover of the fine arts, particularly of painting and engraving. These intellectual endowments were based upon moral qualities of a graver kind. Serious in aspect, tall in person, thoughtful in demeanour, gentle and unobtrusive in manners, he bore in his appearance an air of earnestness. He was one of those who love much rather than many. He wished and strove for the advancement of others rather than his own; he judged no one with severity but himself. He was devotedly attached to the academic institutions to which he belonged, and entertained a dutiful and reverent affection for the Church of England, of which he was a minister, and whose service, had his life been spared, he would have adorned by his learning

and