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abroad, we can not be otherwise than faithful to their interests at home. If we hate the injustice that is offered to black men in Africa or the West Indies, it is also incumbent on us to reprobate all the oppressions that are done under the sun to white men in European countries. If the cruelty of slavetrading is the cause of enormous suffering which we deplore, and use all our efforts to put an end to, the wickedness of legislation which admits of dreadful wrong and suffering being inflicted in the shape of evictions, dispossessions, and destitution of thousands of our fellow-creatures at our own doorswhich leaves a million and a half of the people of a Christian land in a state of beggary for six months in the year, and in permanent pauperism one million of its inhabitants-is an evil that is the occasion of tremendous calamities, which we are surely called on to devote a large portion of our philanthropy to remove and alleviate. But if, instead of doing this, we share in the guilt of sustaining and supporting a system which suffers such evils to exist, what is to be said of our philanthropy? Why, either that we are mistaken enthusiasts-like Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, who united the advocacy of the abolition of slavery in Africa with that of the maintenance in Ireland of the sanguinary atrocities of the penal code-or sanctimonious hypocrites, who speculate in theoretical benevolence, and exercise practical inhumanity in all our political conduct with respect to millions of our fellow-subjects, guilty only of a creed not fashioned like their own. Oh! it is time to put away these unfounded pretensions to philanthropy. The basis for all true philanthropy must be large and deep, capable of sustaining tolerance in affairs of religion, in matters that affect political opinions, in all things that concern national distinctions, and differences of class and clime, capable of enabling charity to deal with all in a Christian spirit.

No. XXIV.

A correspondent of Lady Blessington, one of England's foremost men, and of the master-spirits of his time, in a letter to her ladyship, thus estimates the labors of Monsieur Eugene Sue, the author of "The Wandering Jew:"

"Sue's Wandering Jew' seems to me a failure, and I don't like the attack on the Jesuits, whom I have always honored for their immense services to science, letters, and humanity. Here, I dare say, you do not agree with me.

"But though I shall never, I suppose, turn Catholic, I feel, if I had been a Catholic, I should never have been any thing else. I love the grand enthusiasm of its earnest believers, and the child-like faith of its simple flocks. I love its ascent into faith above reason."

No. XXV.

SEPARATE NOTICES OF SOME OF THE EMINENT OR REMARKABLE PERSONS WHO WERE CORRESPONDENTS, FRIENDS, OR ACQUAINTANCES OF LADY BLESSINGTON.

In the following notices I have endeavored to set before my readers some of the leading features in the, character or career of persons intimately acquainted with Lady Blessington, of whom mention has not been made in connection with the correspondence. The object held in view in giving these slight sketches was to represent the persons referred to as they were known to Lady Blessington and her immediate friends, and to recall such traits of character, or traces of events in their career, as might bring them to the reader's recollection, and renew the acquaintance that many of those readers, who were visitors at Seamore Place or Gore House, may have had with them.

The society had some undoubted claims to pre-eminent excellence that could boast of such habitués as the elder D'Israeli and his son, Landor, Dickens, the Bulwers, the Smiths, Luttrell, Spencer, Moore, Galt, Ritchie, Reynolds, General Phipps, Landseer, Lawrence, Maclise, Ainsworth, Thackeray, James, and so many others of the celebritics of various countries, and such occasional guests as Grey, Canning, Russell, Wellington, Wellesley, Durham, Burdett, Abinger, Lyndhurst, Auckland, Brougham, and their fellow-magnates of the aristocracy, intellectually gifted, or patrons of intellectual pursuits connected with art or literature.

Of many of these celebrities some outlines have been prefixed to their correspondence.

LORD LYNDHURST.

It has been my object, in those notices I have given of eminent persons intimately acquainted with Lady Blessington, and peculiarly regarded by her with favor and confidence, and an implicit reliance on their friendship, to give expression to her opinions of their merits as I find them scattered over her correspondence, or noted down in detached memoranda among her papers, or treasured up in the remembrance of her gifted niece, Miss M. Power.

Lady Blessington felt a pride as well as a pleasure in the friendship of persons of exalted intellect, and probably she felt more pride in the position in which she apparently stood in the estimation of Lord Lyndhurst, with two or three exceptions, than on account of the intimacy of her relations with any other intellectual celebrity, for she entertained an opinion of his lordship's mental powers so exalted that it would be difficult to exaggerate its elevation. On the other hand, it is obvious that his lordship's friendship was based on an appreciation of Lady Blessington's talents, generous nature, and noble disposition, that did justice to them. Indeed, when we find men of such exalted intellectual powers among the celebrities most highly favored who were to be found in the salons of Seamore Place and Gore House, we have evidence that

the attractions of the fair lady who presided over those reunions were of a high order.*

The son of John Singleton Copley, Esq., the painter and Royal Academician, might have made an indifferent artist had he been brought up to his father's profession. Happily for him, he was brought up for the bar, and became one of the first lawyers, perhaps the first lawyer, of his time. Of upquestionable talents and great powers of mind, an excellent scholar, of sober judgment, clear and sound, active, serious, and earnest in business, in society no one is more agreeable, animated in conversation, and evidently conversant with the literature of the day, as well as with the lore of ancient times. He has the art of inspiring confidence and winning regard by his simplicity of manner, playful humor, and warm interest in the concerns of those with whom he associates. This eminent man was born on the other side of the Atlantic, in Boston, in 1772, and is now, in his 83d year, in the full possession of all his great faculties. He was called to the bar in 1804, and after attaining signal success in his profession, and passing through its several gradations and preferments, he was appointed Master of the Rolls in 1826, and the following year the successor of Lord Eldon, when he was raised to the peerage. Having resigned the seals in 1830, he filled the office of Chief Baron of the Exchequer till 1834, when he resumed the seals for another year, again resigned, and in 1841, for a third time, was appointed Lord High Chancellor of England, which office he retained till 1846. He married, first, a daughter of C. Brunsden, Esq., widow of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas, who died in 1834; secondly, a daughter of Lewis Goldsmith, Esq., in 1837, and has issue by his first marriage four children, and by the second one daughter.

LORD ERSKINE.

The name of Lord Erskine often occurs in the journals and letters of Lady Blessington. At the early period of her London career, Lord Erskine was an intimate friend of her ladyship, and one of the peculiarly favored and most highly honored of the visitors at her mansion in St. James's Square.

* The attractions which such persons found in Lady Blessington were assuredly of a higher order than those of the reigning beauties of any of the salons which Grammont has so graphically described, and Sir Peter Lely depicted. Those of Sir Peter's beauties of "the sleepy eye, that spoke the melting soul"-of Grammont's enchantresses-"the languishing Boynton," "the lovely Jennings," "the serious Lyttleton," "the fair Stewart," pretty Miss Blague," "the beautiful Hamilton," "the agreeable Miss Price," though "short and thick," "the susceptible Miss Hobart," and no less so "the unlucky Miss Warmestre," "the irresistible damsel

"With her young wild boar's eyes;"

the fascinating Lady Chesterfield, Lady Shrewsbury, Lady Carnegie, Mrs. Roberts, and Mrs. Middleton, so sprightly and spirituelle, so very piquante in conversation-these needed all the graces of the style of Anthony Hamilton to make us understand the power of their agremens even over such modish men as the Earl of Ranelagh," that mad fellow Crofts," "the beau Sidney," "Little Jermyn," "the incomparable Villiers," and other adepts in gallantry, who had grown gray in the service of the sovereign beauties of the salons.

The Honorable Thomas Erskine, born in 1750, third son of the Earl of Buchan, having served both in the army and navy, turned to the legal profession, and was called to the bar in 1778. He rose to the summit of his profession as an advocate, in which capacity he continued till 1806, when he was elevated to the office of Lord High Chancellor, and to the peerage in the same year. He married, first, in 1770, a daughter of Daniel Moon, Esq., M.P.; and secondly, Miss Sarah Buck, and died at Almondell, near Edinburgh, the 17th of November, 1823, in his seventy-fourth year.

....

Lord Byron spoke to Lady Blessington of Erskine as "the most brilliant person imaginable, quick, vivacious, and sparkling; he spoke so well that one never felt tired of listening to him, even when he abandoned himself to that subject of which all his other friends and acquaintances expressed themselves so fatigued-self. . . . . Erskine had been a great man, and he knew it; and, talking so continually of self, imagined that he was but the echo of fame.” He was deceived in this (continued Byron), as are all who have a favorable opinion of their fellow-men; in society, all and each are occupied with self, and can hardly pardon any one who presumes to draw their attention to other subjects for any length of time.

Lord Erskine is thus spoken of by Lord Brougham:

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The disposition and manners of the man were hardly less attractive than his genius and his professional skill were admirable. He was, like almost all great men, simple, natural, and amiable; full of humane feelings and kindly affections. Of wit he had little or none in conversation, and he was too gay to take any delight in discussion; but his humor was playful to buoyancy, and wild even to extravagance; and he indulged his roaming, and devious, and abrupt imagination as much in society, as in public he kept it under rigorous control. . . . .

"The striking and imposing appearance of this great man's person has been mentioned. His Herculean strength of constitution may also be noted. During the eight-and-twenty years that he practiced at the bar, he never was prevented for one hour from attending to his professional duties. At the famous State Trials in 1794, he lost his voice on the evening before he was to address the jury. It returned to him just in time, and this, like other felicities of his career, he always ascribed to a special Providence, with the habitually religious disposition of mind which was hereditary in the godly families that he sprung from."*

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The ministry of Mr. Pitt did not derive more solid service from the bar in the person of Mr. Dundas, than the opposition party did ornament and popularity in that of Mr. Erskine. His Parliamentary talents, although they certainly have been underrated, were as clearly not the prominent portion of his character....

"He never appears to have given his whole mind to the practice of debating; he had a very scanty provision of political information; his time was al* Historical Sketches of Statesmen in the Time of George III., p. 130.

ways occupied with the laborious pursuits of his profession; he came into the House of Commons, where he stood among several equals, and behind some superiors, from a stage where he shone alone, and without a rival; above all, he was accustomed to address a select and friendly audience, bound to lend him their patient attention, and to address them by the compulsion of their retainer, and as a volunteer coming forward in his own person, a position from which the transition is violent and extreme, to that of having to gain and to keep a promiscuous, and, in great part, hostile audience, not under any obligation to listen one instant beyond the time during which the speaker can flatter, or interest, or amuse them."*

"It remains that we commemorate the deeds that he (Mr. Erskine) did, and which cast the fame of his oratory into the shade. He was an undaunted man-he was an undaunted advocate. To no court did he ever truckle; neither to the court of the king, neither to the court of the king's judges. Their smiles and their frowns he disregarded alike in the fearless discharge of his duty. He upheld the liberty of the press against the one, he defended the rights of the people against both combined to destroy them. If there be yet among us the power of freely discussing the acts of our rulers; if there be yet the privilege of meeting for the promotion of needful reforms; if he who desires whelesome changes in our Constitution be still recognized as a patriot, and not doomed to die the death of a traitor, let us acknowledge with gratitude that to this great man, under Heaven, we owe this felicity of the times. In 1794, his dauntless energy, his indomitable courage, kindling his eloquence, inspiring his conduct, giving direction and lending firmness to his matchless skill, resisted the combination of statesmen, and princes, and lawyers, the league of cruelty and craft, formed to destroy our liberties, and triumphantly scattered to the winds the half-accomplished scheme of an unsparing proscription."+

HENRY ERSKINE.

The brother of Lord Erskine, the Honorable Henry Erskine, for many years the leader of the Scotch bar, died in 1817, the same year which deprived Ireland of the great leaders of its bar, Curran and Ponsonby. Henry Erskine was a man of distinguished talents and brilliant wit. He was appointed Lord Advocate of Scotland at the same time his brother was made Lord Chancellor of England. He was an ardent and able advocate of civil and religious liberty. The conversational powers of Henry Erskine were of the highest order; his epigrams and witticisms, his clever impromptus, in verse as well as prose, were hardly inferior, it is said, to those of any of his brilliant contemporaries of the bar or the senate.

THE EARL OF DUDLEY.

This nobleman (born in 1782) acquired distinction in the House of Com* Historical Sketches of Statesmen in the Time of George III., p. 131. + Ibid., p. 135.

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