With the same want of sagacity which was driving Ministers and Parliament to the loss of America, they were still persecuting Wilkes into popularity. On the 14th of November, 1768, Sir Joseph Mawby, member for Southwark, presented a petition from Wilkes, reciting all the proceedings of Government against him, and praying for his being heard at the bar of the House. Wilkes appeared before the House on the 31st of January, where he took exception to the word "blasphemous" as applied to the "Essay on Woman." Thurlow, afterwards Lord Chancellor, a most swearing, blaspheming man, protested that if the House did not declare it blasphemous, it would be a disgrace to it. However, the words "impious" and "obscene" were substituted. On the 1st of February the House determined that his petition was frivolous. The next day the House went into another charge against Wilkes. In the preceding April Lord Weymouth, previous to the riots in St. George's Fields, had issued a letter, as Secretary of State, to the magistrates of Lambeth, warning them of the danger of riots taking place in the endeavour to free Wilkes from prison, and offering them the aid of the military. Wilkes, while in the King's Bench, had obtained a copy of this letter, and sent it to the St. James's Chronicle with his own comments, styling it a "hellish project," and as the direct cause of that "horrid massacre." Weymouth complained to the House of Lords that this was a breach of privilege. A conference was had with the Commons; Wilkes was brought to the Bar, where Baldwin, the printer, had acknowledged the letter to be his, and then, so far from denying it, claimed the thanks of the country for having exposed that "bloody scroll." The Commons decided that he was guilty of an insolent and seditious libel, and on the following day, February 3rd, on the motion of Lord Barrington, he was expelled the House, by a majority of two hundred and nineteen to one hundred and thirty-seven. The king had directly asked for such a verdict by a letter to Lord North, declaring that Wilkes's expulsion was "highly expedient and must be effected."
ONE:Only a week after Sir Robert Peel delivered his memorable speech on the foreign policy of the country, his career was suddenly terminated. On the 22nd of June her Majesty's third son, Arthur William Patrick Albert, had been baptised with the usual ceremonial pomp at Buckingham Palace, and on the 29th Sir Robert Peel had called there and entered his name in her Majesty's visiting-book. Proceeding thence up Constitution Hill, he had arrived nearly opposite the wicket gate leading into the Green Park, when he met Miss Ellis, one of Lady Dover's daughters, on horseback, attended by a groom. Sir Robert had scarcely exchanged salutes with this young lady when his horse became restive, swerved towards the railing of the Green Park, and threw him sideways on his left shoulder. He became unconscious, and remained so till he was placed in a carriage, when he revived and said, "I feel better." On being lifted out of the carriage at Whitehall Gardens, he walked with assistance into the house. The effect of meeting his family, however, caused a reaction. He swooned in the arms of Dr. Foucart, and was placed upon a sofa in the nearest apartment, the dining-room, from which he was never removed till his death. Sir Benjamin Brodie, Mr. C?sar Hawkins, Dr. Seymour, and Mr. Hodgson held a consultation, and attempted to reduce the visible injury, but this caused such agony that, at the patient's earnest request, the attempt was abandoned. He passed a restless night on Saturday, and continued in a very precarious state on Sunday and Monday. On Tuesday morning he fell into a sound sleep, after which he felt easier, his mind being quite composed. But at two o'clock on that day symptoms appeared which caused the physicians to abandon all hope. The last rites of the Church were administered by the Bishop of Gibraltar, Dr. Tomlinson, a very old friend. Lady Peel and the members of the family joined in this melancholy communion, Sir Robert being scarcely able to recognise them. Lord Hardinge and Sir James Graham also joined the group of mourners; but the painfully excited feelings of Lady Peel rendered it absolutely necessary to remove her from the apartment. He ceased to breathe about midnight, his great spirit departing peacefully from the earthly tabernacle that had been so suddenly crushed (July 2, 1850). A post-mortem examination showed that the cause of death was a broken rib on the left side pressing upon the lung.
THREE:The new spring in poetry broke forth as brilliantly in this reign as that in prose. In the earlier portion of it, indeed, this was not so visible. The school of Pope seemed still to retain its influence. This school had produced a host of imitators, but little real genius since Pope's time. Almost the only exception to this mediocrity was Collins, whose odes were full of fire and genius. He died just before this period, and Gray,[182] Shenstone, and Goldsmith opened it with many of the exterior characteristics of that school. But, in truth, notwithstanding the mere fashion of their compositions, there were in them unmistakable evidences of new life. Shenstone was the least vigorous and original of the three, but his "Schoolmistress" possessed a natural charm that still gains it admirers. He belongs, however, rather to the past period than this, for he died but three years after the accession of George III., and had ceased to write some time before. Gray's "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" showed that he had deep feeling and a nice observation of nature; and his "Long Story" that he possessed real humoura quality abounding in his prose, but, except in this piece, little visible in his poetry. His odes are extremely vigorous, but somewhat formal. His "Bard," his "Ode on Eton College," and his "Fatal Sisters," are all full of beauty, but somewhat stilted. In the "Fatal Sisters" he introduced a subject from the "Scandinavian Edda" to the English reader, but in a most un-Scandinavian dress.
[46]Immediately after the termination of the armistice the Russians and Prussians joined the great army of the Austrians, which had been concentrated at Prague. Their plan was to fall upon Buonaparte's rear. Full of activity, that unresting man had been busy, during the whole armistice, in defending his headquarters at Dresden by fortifications. He had cut down all the trees which adorned the public gardens and walks, and used them in a chain of redoubts and field-works, secured by fosses and palisades. He was in possession of the strong mountain fortresses of the vicinity, as well as those of Torgau, Wittenberg, Magdeburg, and others, so that the valley of the Elbe was in his hands; and he had a bridge of boats at K?nigstein, extending his communications to Stolpe: thus guarding against an attack on the side of Bohemia. In the beginning of August he assembled two hundred and fifty thousand men in Saxony and Silesia. Of these, sixty thousand lay at Leipsic under Oudinot, and one hundred thousand in different towns on the borders of Silesia, under Macdonald; he himself lay at Dresden with his Imperial Guard. Eugene Beauharnais he had dispatched to Italy, where he had forty thousand men. Besides these, he had a reserve of Bavarians, under General Wrede, of twenty-five thousand men.Such were the circumstances of France in every quarter of the globe, except on the Continent of Europe; and there already, notwithstanding the vast space over which Buonaparte ruled by the terror of his arms, there were many symptoms of the coming disruption of this empire of arms, which sprang up like a tempest and dispersed like one. Spain and Portugal, at one end of the Continent, were draining the very life's blood from France, and turning all eyes in liveliest interest to the spectacle of a successful resistance, by a small British army, to this Power so long deemed invincible. In the North lowered a dark storm, the force and fate of which were yet unsuspected, but which was gathering into its mass the elements of a ruin to the Napoleonic ambition as sublime as it was to be decisive. In France itself never had the despotic power and glory of Buonaparte appeared more transcendent. Everything seemed to live but at his beck: a magnificent Court, Parliament the slave of his will, made up of the sham representatives of subjected nations, the country literally covered with armies, and nearly all surrounding nations governed by kings and princes who were but his satraps. Such was the outward aspect of things; and now came the long-desired event, which was to cement his throne with the blood of kindred kings, and link it fast to posteritythe birth of a son. On the 20th of March it was announced that the Empress Maria Louisa was delivered of a son, who was named Napoleon Francis Charles Joseph, Prince of the French Empire, and King of Rome.Having, for the third time, expelled the French from Portugal, with the exception of the single fortress of Almeida, Wellington proceeded to reconnoitre the situation of affairs in Spain. Whilst on his march after Massena he had sent word to General Menacho to maintain possession of Badajoz, promising him early assistance. Unfortunately, Menacho was killed, and was succeeded in his command by General Imaz, who appears to have been a regular traitor. Wellington, on the 9th of March, had managed to convey to him the intelligence that Massena was in full retreat, and that he should himself very soon be able to send or bring him ample assistance. Imaz had a force of nine thousand Spaniards, and the place was strong. He was besieged by about the same number of French infantry and two thousand cavalry, yet the very next day he informed Soult of Wellington's news, and offered to capitulate. Soult must have been astonished at this proceeding, if he had not himself prepaid it in French moneythe surrender of Badajoz, under the imminent approach of Wellington, being of the very highest importance. On the 11th the Spaniards were allowed to march out with what were called the "honours of war," but which, in this case, were the infamies of treachery, and Soult marched in. He then gave up the command of the garrison to Mortier, and himself marched towards Seville.Sheridan introduced the subject on the 18th of April, and Fox ably supported him; but the motion was negatived. But this defeat only appeared to stimulate the reformers to higher exertions. On the 28th of April a new Reform society, entitled the Society of the Friends of the People, was formally inaugurated by the issue of an address, which was signed by no less than twenty-eight members of the House of Commons, and a considerable number of Lords, amongst them the Lords Lauderdale, John Russell, Stanhope, and Fitzgerald. Their title was unfortunate, for, though they were united only for Parliamentary reform, this cognomen was so much in the French style as to create suspicion and alarm. Many of the members were known to be admirers of the French Revolution, and about the same time another and decidedly French-admiring society was started, calling itself the Corresponding Society, and prosecuting a zealous intercourse with the Girondists and Jacobins. The admiration of French political principles rendered the conservative portion of the population quite determined to resist all innovations; and as this Society of the Friends of the People was regarded as a direct imitation of the Jacobin Club, it was violently opposed and stigmatised. On the 30th of April Mr. Grey, as representative of this Society, rose to announce that in the next Session he meant to introduce a regular measure for the reform of Parliament; that it was necessary, he said, had long been asserted by the two leading men of the HousePitt and Fox. Pitt rose on this, and declared himself still the friend of Reform; but he contended that this was not the time to attempt it. He had only, he said, to point to[392] the state of things in France, and to the effervescence which those principles of anarchy had produced in Britain, to show the necessity of remaining quiet for the present; neither did he believe that the mass of the English people would support any change in our Constitution. Fox upbraided Pitt with the abandonment of his former sentiments, and contended that we had only to look at the money spent lately in the armament against Russia, money thus spent without any consent of the people, to perceive the necessity of reform in our representation. He referred to Pitt's remarks on revolutionary books and pamphlets recently published, and declared that he had read very few of them. He had only read one of the two books of Thomas Paine, the "Rights of Man," and did not like it. Burke replied to him, and drew a most dismal picture of the condition of France under her Revolutionists. He said that the French Assembly was composed of seven hundred persons, of whom four hundred were lawyers, and three hundred of no description; that he could not name a dozen out of the whole, he believed, with one hundred pounds a-year; and he asked whether we should like a Parliament in Great Britain resembling it. In this debate, the further dissolution of the Whig party became obvious when Windham and others took the side of Burke.
