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Next day, April 9, continues the narrative: "Lord Chatham has again appeared in the House of Lords, and probably for the last time. He was there on Tuesday (April 7) against the earnest remonstrance of his physician; and, I think, only to make confusion worse confounded. He had intended to be very hostile to the Ministers, and yet to force himself into all their places by maintaining the sovereignty of America, to which none of the Opposition but his own few followers adhere; and they cannot, like a strolling company in a barn, fill all the parts of a drama with four or five individuals. It appeared early in the speech that he had lost himself: he did not utter half he intended, and sat down; but rising to reply to the Duke of Richmond, he fell down in an apoplectic fit, and was thought dead. They transported him into the Jerusalem Chamber,* and laid him on a table. In twenty minutes he recovered his senses, and was conveyed to a messenger's house adjoining, where he still remains. The scene was very affecting; his two sons, and son-in-law, Lord Mahon, were round him. The House paid a proper mark of respect by adjourning instantly."

Walpole, in his Last Journals, gives this further account of the sad scene: "Lord Chatham appeared in the House; he had told his particular friends that he laboured under great anxieties, yet must adhere to maintain the sovereignty over America. He complained that the Court had been tampering with his physicians and everybody about him, but had made no direct offers to himself, (which probably was the cause of his anger); he declared he would protest against ever compounding with the Ministers that had ruined this country, yet would not consent to the Independence of America, and would say that, before that could be done, the Prince of Wales ought to be brought to the House and give his consent to it -he did afterwards hint at that-and it looked a little as if his anger made him wish to spirit up the Prince. It soon appeared that Lord Chatham was exceedingly weak, and his

*This is evidently a mistake for the Painted Chamber; the Jerusalem Chamber being in the west front of Westminster Abbey.

head not clear. He repeated his own words several times, and could not recollect the name of the Princess Sophia. He asserted the sovereignty, and bade the Lords not fear a French invasion; we had resisted Danish invasions, Norman usurpations, and Scottish inroads (the two first instances were directly contrary to his purpose); he said he wished for no place, nor was any man's enemy; but he knew so little what he said, and was so weak, that he sat down. The Duke of Richmond answered Lord Weymouth and Lord Chatham, but with great tenderness and respect to the latter, who was going to reply, but fell down in a second fit of apoplexy. In about twenty minutes, he recovered his speech. The first thing he said was, 'I was going to recommend Prince Ferdinand for general.' That was very likely, both from his regard for the Prince and from his aversion to Lord George Germaine." He was carried to a messenger's house adjoining, and next day was conveyed to Hayes.

DEATH OF LORD CHATHAM.

However much the attention of Dr. Addington might alleviate the sufferings of his patient, no human powers could restore Lord Chatham. He lingered until the 11th of May, when, says the Rev. Mr. Thackeray, "he breathed his last with that fortitude which had ever distinguished him as a man, and with that resignation which is the peculiar characteristic of a Christian."

"His bed," says Macaulay, "was watched to the last with anxious tenderness by his wife and children; and he well deserved their care. Too often haughty and wayward to others, to them he had been almost effeminately kind. He had through life been dreaded by his political opponents, and regarded with more awe than love even by his political associates. But no fear seems to have mingled with the affection which his fondness, constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing forms, had inspired in the little circle at Hayes."

The evening was far advanced before the sorrowful intelligence was communicated to Colonel Barré, who then repaired

to the House of Commons, and announced the death of Lord Chatham. After a solemn pause, Colonel Barré moved an address to the Throne, requesting His Majesty to give directions for a Public Funeral; to which was added, by amendment, a public monument in Westminster Abbey: to these requests, His Majesty acceded. An annuity of 4000l. was subsequently settled upon the heir of Lord Chatham, to whom the title should descend; and a grant of 20,000l. was voted for the payment of his Lordship's debts. In the Debate in the House of Lords on the second reading of the Bill for settling the annuity, among the Peers who protested against the Act was Markham, Archbishop of York. "This," says Walpole," was mean revenge in Markham for Lord Chatham having censured his sermon, which the Archbishop had not the spirit to take notice of in the House while Lord Chatham lived."

Walpole's announcement of this sad event, his comments and those of his correspondents, will be read with interest. To Sir Horace Mann he writes: 66 May 11th. Lord Chatham died this morning. Well! with all his defects, Lord Chatham will be a capital historic figure. France dreaded his crutch to this very moment; but I doubt she does not think that it has left a stick of the wood!-no offence to Mrs. Anne (Pitt), who, I allow, has great parts, and not less ambition: but Fortune did not treat her as a twin."

On May 15, Walpole writes to the Rev. William Mason: "The first thing I heard on landing in Arlington-street was Lord Chatham's death, which in truth I thought of no great consequence, but to himself; for either he would have remained where he was, or been fetched out to do what he could not do,-replace us once more on the throne of Neptune. The House of Commons has chosen to make his death an epoch which is to draw the line between our prosperity and adversity. They bury him, and father his children. In this fit of gratitude two men chose not to be involved, but voted against attending his funeral: one was the Archbishop

of Canterbury (Cornwallis), who owed the tiara to him; the other Lord Onslow, who formerly used to wait in the lobby to help him on with his great-coat."

To this Mr. Mason coarsely replies: "Pray give me an account of the funeral, and if you have time, order your gardener to pluck a bouquet of onions, and send it with my compliments to Lord John (Cavendish), that he may put them in his handkerchief to weep with greater facility."

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Voltaire had died lately, (May 30,) which assists Masonto point another irreverent joke. He writes to Walpole, July 1, that he had been attending at Hornby Castle, and saying dust to dust over his patron, Lord Holdernesse's remains; but," he adds, "when I consider that you did not seem to interest yourself much in the funeral of Lord Chatham, I suspect my poor Earl's would not be thought of much consequence by you. Indeed, nobody of any rank ever seems to have stolen out of life in a more incog. manner than he has done; for, all Frenchman as he was, Voltaire would hinder his being talked about, even on his darling continent. So that, what with Lord Chatham's death here, and Voltaire's death there, his memory seems to have slipped between two stools; and so rest his soul, if Dr. Priestley chooses to let him have one, whether material or not is not in his case much material: excuse the pun for the sake of the sense, if you be candid enough so to do."

In Walpole's reply to this letter he says: "If your Mecænas's fame (Lord Holdernesse) is overwhelmed in Lord Chatham's and Voltaire's, it is already revenged on the latter's. Madame du Deffand's letter of to-day says, he is already forgotten. La belle poule has obliterated him, but probably will have a contrary effect on Lord Chatham. All my old friend has told me of Voltaire's death is, that the excessive fatigues he underwent by his journey to Paris, and by the bustle he made with reading his play to the actors and hearing them repeat it, and by going to it, and by the crowds that flocked. to him; in a word, the agitation of so much applause at

eighty-four threw him into a strangury, for which he took so much laudanum that his frame could not resist all, and he fell a martyr to his vanity. Nay, Garrick, who is above twenty years younger, and full as vain, would have been choked with such doses of flattery, though he would like to die the death."

COPLEY'S PICTURE OF THE FALL OF LORD CHATHAM IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

This melancholy scene has been painted by John Singleton Copley, and is his best-known work. The size of picture is 7 ft. 6 in. high by 10 ft. 1 in. wide; it was painted in 1779-80, and was presented to the National Gallery in 1828, by the Earl of Liverpool. The heads in the picture, of which there are 55, are all portraits; the peers are in their staterobes; the prominent figure to the right is the Duke of Richmond. The picture was engraved on a large scale by Bartolozzi; and the painter sent an impression to General Washington, and another to John Adams. Allan Cunningham says: "Perhaps, in his choice of subject, the painter's thoughts wandered to his own native America; at all events, he obtained the praise of the illustrious Washington. This work,' said he, 'highly valuable in itself, is rendered more estimable in my eye when I remember that America gave birth to the celebrated artist that produced it.'" The painter refused fifteen hundred guineas for the picture; it was purchased, we know not at what price, by Lord Liverpool, who used to say that such a work ought not to be in his possession, but in that of the public; these words were not heard in vain by the Earl's successor, who munificently presented the picture to the Nation.

It is strangely misnamed in the official Catalogue of the National Gallery, which is also in error in stating, "the scene represented took place in the Old House of Lords (the Painted Chamber);" whereas the old House of Lords was the old Parliament Chamber, which then occupied the site of the Royal Gallery, built by Soane; the old Court of Requests,

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