capacity and vigour equal to the conduct of the greatest affairs, united all the little vanities and affectations of provincial blue-stockings. These great examples may console the admirers of Hastings for 5 the affliction of seeing him reduced to the level of the Hayleys and Sewards.2

1

When Hastings has passed many years in retirement, and had long outlived the common age of men, he again became for a short time an object of general Io attention. In 1813 the charter of the East India Company was renewed; and much discussion about Indian affairs took place in Parliament. It was determined to examine witnesses at the bar of the Commons; and Hastings was ordered to attend. He

15

had appeared at that bar once before. It was when he read his answer to the charges which Burke had laid on the table. Since that time twenty-seven years had elapsed; public feeling had undergone a complete change; the nation had now forgotten his faults, and 20 remembered only his services. The reappearance, too, of a man who had been among the most distinguished of a generation that had passed away, who now belonged to history, and who seemed to have risen from the dead, could not but produce a solemn 25 and pathetic effect. The Commons received him. with acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for him,

1 Hayley.-A poet and dramatist, now forgotten.

2 Seward.--Anna Seward, a poetess, who was called the Swan of Lichfield. Sir Walter Scott wrote a biographical sketch of her.

and, when he retired, rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a few who did not sympathise with the general feeling. One or two of the managers of the impeachment were present. They sat in the same seats which they had occupied when they had been 5 thanked for the services which they had rendered in Westminster Hall: for, by the courtesy of the House, a member who has been thanked in his place is considered as having a right always to occupy that place. These gentlemen were not disposed to admit that 10 they had employed several of the best years of their lives in persecuting an innocent man. They accordingly kept their seats, and pulled their hats over their brows; but the exceptions only made the prevailing enthusiasm more remarkable. The Lords received 15 the old man with similar tokens of respect. The University of Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws; and in the Sheldonian Theatre' the undergraduates welcomed him with tumultuous cheering.

1

esteem were soon followed

Hastings was sworn of the

20

These marks of public by marks of royal favour. Privy Council, and was admitted to a long private audience of the Prince Regent, who treated him very graciously. When the Emperor of Russia and the 25

3

1 Hats.-Members of the House of Commons wear their hats in the House.

2 Sheldonian Theatre.-A large hall in Oxford, where degrees are conferred.

3 Emperor of Russia.-Alexander I. visited England in 1814.

King of Prussia1 visited England, Hastings appeared in their train both at Oxford and in the Guildhall2 of London, and, though surrounded by a crowd of princes and great warriors, was everywhere received with marks 5 of respect and admiration. He was presented by the Prince Regent both to Alexander and to Frederic William ; and his Royal Highness went so far as to declare in public that honours far higher than a seat in the Privy Council were due, and would soon be 10 paid, to the man who had saved the British dominions in Asia. Hastings now confidently expected a peerage; but from some unexplained cause, he was again disappointed.

He lived about four years longer, in the enjoy15 ment of good spirits, of faculties not impaired to

any painful or degrading extent, and of health such as is rarely enjoyed by those who attain such an age. At length, on the 22nd of August, 1818, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, he met death with the 20 same tranquil and decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all the trials of his varied and eventful life.

With all his faults—and they were neither few nor small-only one cemetery was worthy to contain his 25 remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie

1 King of Prussia.-Frederick William III.

2 Guildhall.-A' fine hall in London belonging to the City

Council.

buried, in the Great Abbey1 which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the 5 illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hastings, was laid the coffin of the 10 greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very spot probably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughmen. Even then his young mind had re- 15 volved plans which might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased the old lands, and rebuilt 20 the old dwelling. He had preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He had patronised learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had 25

2

1 Great Abbey.-Westminster Abbey, the burying-place of some of the greatest Englishmen.

2 Richelieu (1585-1642).—A famous French Cardinal, and chief Minister of France.

3 Cosmo I.-Grand Duke of Tuscany, a great encourager of science, literature and art. He lived in the sixteenth century.

been attacked by the most formidable combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had 5 at length gone down to his grave in the fulness of age, in peace, after so many troubles, in honour, after so much obloquy.

Those who look on his character without favour or malevolence will pronounce that, in the two great 10 elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with truth describe him either 15 as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command, for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless courage, his honourable poverty, his fervent zeal for 20 the interests of the State, his noble equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either.