[ 276 ] [SEPT. 



NOTES FOB THE MONTH. 



THE whole of the circumstances connected with the recent regretted 

 death of Mr. Canning, have been already so fully canvassed, that we shall 

 detain our readers a very few moments only in referring to them. The 

 disease of the right honourable premier was one for which there is no 

 cure. It was premature old age ; an early but rapid breaking-up of the 

 system, brought on by over bodily exertion and incessant mental fatigue. 

 It was the same complaint that killed Pitt and Fox, and which overthrew 

 Lord Liverpool; and we may add the names of Romilly and Londonderry ; 

 for whether the inflammatory action does its work upon the brain, and 

 produces, first, nervous irritability, and then insanity ; or whether it attacks 

 the viscera, and ends in the horrible form of general mortification, the 

 originating cause is the same. 



For Mr. Canning's political character, with much to praise, one word 

 is no less necessary in extenuation of some parts of it. Throughout his 

 career he laboured under those disadvantages which inevitably attend 

 every man who has his fortune to make by politics. Such a man can 

 seldom have the power a power, without which no statesman can 

 escape occasional compromise of withdrawing himself from the arena 

 of public life, when he can no longer appear on it with perfect consist- 

 ency and dignity. He has no stake in the country no station no 

 ground to fall back upon ; he may support government, or he may 

 oppose it; but he must be in action, or he is nothing. To a man so 

 circumstanced, politics can hardly be a pleasurable trade ; and, certainly, 

 in Mr. Canning's case beyond whatever may be the enjoyment of 

 gratified ambition it was by no means a very profitable one. If he 

 had gone to the bar, as he purposed to do in early life, he would have 

 made a large fortune ; probably have become Lord Chancellor : certainly, 

 if it be true (which we believe) that his exertions have cost him his life, he 

 has purchased dearly, by a death at fifty-seven, more than all the honours 

 and emoluments that the state has bestowed upon him. The personal 

 habits of the late Premier were not lavish ; and the fortune of which he 

 died possessed is considerably less than that which he acquired by his 

 marriage. As the country has been told five hundred thousand times over 

 of " pensions" and " annuities" granted to his " mother and sisters," it 

 may be as well to observe, that no stateman's relatives or connexions ever 

 received less from the purse of the public. His eldest son, Captain Can- 

 ning, is captain of a man-of-war, and, at the time of his death, was sta- 

 tioned in the Black Sea. This is not a very unreasonable provision for 

 the eldest son of a prime minister. 



The ministerial arrangements consequent upon Mr. Canning's death 

 have been made with great rapidity ; and the King's immediate choice of 

 Lord Goderich, as the right honourable gentleman's successor, assured the 

 country as to one main object of the anxiety connected with his decease 

 to wit, that the Liberal party was to continue in office. This decision is 

 a triumph to reasonableness and common sense. What the Whig ministry 

 will do, is not certain ; but to have the mere principle recognized, that 

 the men who will march on with the changing state of society, instead of 

 attempting to hang back and retard it, are the men to be employed 

 and entrusted, is of itself an acquisition of great value. One circum- 

 stance in favour perhaps of fair measures is, that the strength of the 

 ministry will lie chiefly in its principles. In shewy talent, and especially 



