was, Lord Mornington's government reduced and crippled the Mahrattas to such an extent, that in 1817 Lord Hastings found it possible to crush them for ever. Three services of a profounder nature Lord Wellesley was enabled to do for India: first, to pave the way for the propagation of Christianity-mighty service, stretching to the clouds, and which, in the hour of death, must have given him consolation; secondly, to enter upon the abolition of such Hindoo superstitions as are most shocking to humanity, particularly the practice of Suttee, and the barbarous exposure of dying persons or of first-born infants at Saugor on the Ganges; finally, to promote an enlarged system of education, which (if his splendid scheme had been adopted) would have diffused its benefits all over India. It ought also to be mentioned, that the expedition by way of the Red Sea, against the French in Egypt, was so entirely of his suggestion and his preparation, that, to the great dishonour of Messrs Pitt and Dundas, whose administration, great by its general policy, was the worst, as a war administration, that ever feebly misapplied or lazily nonapplied the resources of a mighty empire, it languished for eighteen months purely through their neglect.

In 1805, having staid about seven years in India, Lord Mornington was recalled; was created Marquess Wellesley; was sent, in 1821, as Viceroy to Ireland, where there was little to do; having previously, in 1809, been sent ambassador to the Spanish Cortes, where there was an infinity to do, but no means of doing it. The last great political act of Lord Wellesley was the smashing of the Peel ministry in 1834-viz., by the famous resolution (which he personally drew up) for appropriating to the great purpose of general education in Ireland whatever surplus might arise from the remodelled revenues of the Irish Church. Full

of honours, he retired from public affairs at the age of seventy-five; and, for seven years more of life, dedicated his time to such literary pursuits as he had found most interesting in early youth.

Mr Pearce, who is so capable of writing vigorously and sagaciously, has too much allowed himself to rely upon public journals. For example, he reprints the whole of the attorney-general's official information against eleven obscure persons, who, from the gallery of the Dublin theatre, did "wickedly, riotously, and routously" hiss, groan, insult, and assault (to say nothing of their having caused and procured to be hissed, groaned, &c.) the Marquess Wellesley, Lord-Lieutenant General, and General Governor of Ireland. This document covers more than nine pages; and, after all, omits the only fact of the least consequence -viz., that several missiles were thrown by the rioters into the viceregal box, and amongst them a quart-bottle, which barely missed his excellency's temples. Considering the impetus acquired by the descent from the gallery, there is little doubt that such a weapon would have killed Lord Wellesley on the spot. In default, however, of this weighty fact, the attorney-general favours us with memorialising the very best piece of doggerel that I remember to have read-viz., that upon divers (to wit, three thousand) papers the rioters had wickedly and maliciously written and printed, besides, observe, causing to be written and printed, "No Popery," as also the following traitorous couplet:"The Protestants want Talbot,

As the Papists have got all but;"

meaning "all but" that which they got some years later

* Routously:-This is not altogether lawyers' surplusage: for, let the hot-blooded reader understand, that to be routous is nothing like so criminal in law as to be riotous. I never go beyond the routous point.

by means of the Clare election, in favour of Dan O'Connell. Yet if, in some instances like this, Mr Pearce has too largely drawn upon official papers, which he should rather have abstracted and condensed, on the other hand, his work has a special value in bringing forward private documents, to which his opportunities have gained him a confidential access. We are indebted to Mr Pearce also for two portraits of Lord Wellesley, one in middle life, and one in old age, from a sketch by the Comte d'Orsay, felicitously executed.

Something remains to be said of Lord Wellesley as a literary man; and towards such a judgment Mr Pearce has contributed some very pleasing materials. As a public speaker, Lord Wellesley had that degree of brilliancy and effectual vigour, which might have been expected in a man of great talents, possessing much native sensibility to the charms of style, but not led by any personal accidents of life into a separate cultivation of oratory, or into any profound investigation of its duties and its powers on the arena of a British senate. There is less call for speaking of Lord Wellesley in this character, where he did not seek for any eminent distinction, than in the more general character of an elegant litterateur, which furnished to him much of his recreation in all stages of his life, and much of his consolation in the last. It is interesting to see this accomplished nobleman, in advanced age, when other resources were one by one decaying, and the lights of life were successively fading into darkness, still cheering his languid hours by the culture of classical literature, and in his eighty-second year drawing solace from those same pursuits which had given grace and distinction to his twentieth.

One or two remarks I will make upon Lord Wellesley's

verses—Greek as well as Latin. The Latin lines upon Chantrey's success at Holkham in killing two woodcocks at the first shot, which subsequently he sculptured in marble, and presented to Lord Leicester, are perhaps the most felicitous amongst the whole. Masquerading, in Lord Wellesley's verses, as Praxiteles, who could not well be represented with a Manton having a percussion lock, Chantrey is armed with a bow and arrows:

"En! trajecit aves una sagitta duas."

In the Greek translation of "Parthenopous" there are as few faults as could reasonably be expected. But, first, one word as to the original Latin poem: to whom does it belong? It is traced first to Lord Grenville, who received it from his tutor (afterwards Bishop of London), who had taken it as an anonymous poem from the " Censor's book;" and with very little probability, it is doubtfully assigned to "Lewis of the War Office," meaning, no doubt, the father of Monk Lewis. By this anxiety in tracing its pedigree, the reader is led to exaggerate the pretensions of the little poem; these are inconsiderable: and there is a conspicuous fault, which it is worth while noticing, because it is one peculiarly besetting those who write Latin verses with the help of a gradus-viz., that the Pentameter is often a mere reverberation of the preceding Hexameter. Thus, for instance:—

"Parthenios inter saltus non amplius erro,

Non repeto Dryadum pascua læta choris;"

and so of others, where the second line is but a variation of the first. Even Ovid, with all his fertility, and partly in consequence of his fertility, too often commits this fault. Where, indeed, the thought is effectually varied, so that the second line acts as a musical minor, succeeding to the

major in the first, there may happen to arise a peculiar beauty. But I speak of the ordinary case, where the second is merely the rebound of the first, presenting the same thought in a diluted form. This is the commonest resource of feeble thinking, and is also a standing temptation or snare for feeble thinking. Lord Wellesley, however, is not answerable for these faults in the original, which, indeed, he notices indulgently as "repetitions;" and his own Greek version is spirited and good. There are, however, some mistakes. The second line is altogether faulty.

Χωρια Μαιναλίῳ παντ' έρατεινα θεῳ *Αχνυμενος λειπων

does not express the sense intended. Construed correctly, this clause of the sentence would mean "I sorrowfully leaving all places gracious to the Manalian god;" but that is not what Lord Wellesley designed: "I leaving the woods of Cylene, and the snowy summits of Pholoe, places that are all of them dear to Pan"-that is what was meant; that is to say, not leaving all places dear to Pan-far from it-but leaving a few places, every one of which is dear to Pan. In the line beginning

Καν εθ ἐφ' ἡλικίας,

where the meaning is-and if as yet, by reason of my immature age, there is a metrical error; and a will not express immaturity of age. I doubt whether, in the next line, Μηδ' άλκη θαλλοι γουνασιν ἠιθεός,

youvaow could convey the meaning without the preposition ¿v. And in

Σπερχομαι οὐ καλεουσι θεοι

-I hasten whither the gods summon me-où is not the right word: iv is where, or in what place; but the call is for whither, or to what place. It is, however, difficult to write Greek verses which shall be liable to no verbal objections; and