242 
« But hark, the portals sound, and pacing 
forth 
With solemn steps and slow, 
High potentates, and dames of royal birth, 
And mitred fathers in long order go: 
Great Kdward, with the lilies on his brow 
From haughty Gallia torn, 
And sad Chatillon, on her bridal morn 
That wept her bleeding love, and princely 
Clare, 
And Anjou’s heroine, and the paler rose, 
The rivals of her crown, and of her woes, 
And either Henry there. : 
The murder’d saint, and the majestic lord, 
That broke the bands of Rome: 
(Their tears, their little triumphs o'er 
|. Their human passions now no more, 
Save charity ,that glows beyond the tomb]) 
All that on Granta’s fruitful plain 
Rich streams of regal bounty pour’d, 
And bade these awful fanes and turrets 
rise, ‘ 
To hailtheir Fitzroy’s festal morning come, 
And thus they speak in soft accord, 
The liquid language of the skies, &c.” 
*¢¢ 40! Granta waits to lead her blooming 
band, 
Not obvious, not obtrusive, she 
No vulgar praise, no venal incense flings ; 
Wor dares with courtly tongue refin’d, 
~ Profane thy inborn royalty of mind: 
She‘ reveres herself and thee. 
With modest pride, to grace thy youthful 
brow, 
The laureate wreath that Cecil wore, she 
brings, 
And to thy just, thy gentle, hand 
Submits the fasces of her sway ; 
While spirits blest above, and men below, 
Join with glad voice, the loud symphonious 
lay.” 
His Grace was a bold, energetic, and 
decided, enemy to the former and present 
war with France. He uniformly disap- 
proved of the principles in which they 
originated, and deemed them both preg- 
nant with the most serious mischiefs to 
the constitution, and prosperity of the 
empire, When the late duke of Bed- 
ford, in 1797, proposed a motion for. re~ 
moving the administration of that day, 
he was supported by the then venerable 
duke of Grafton, in a long, able, and most 
impressive, speech. On that occasion he 
contrasted the situation of Britain before 
and after the contest with France; he 
described her, in respect to foreign 
relations, ‘ as stript of or deserted by 
every ally on the continent, that could 
bring any essential aid;” while, in regard 
to our interior economy, he asserted, 
“ that the Bank of England had received 
® wound, in spite of the repeated repre. 
Memoirs of the late Duke of Grafton. 
[April 1, | 7 
sentations of the directors, on, the mise 
chief which must arise from the immense 
quantity of bullion exported by, and the 
large sums advanced to, government; to= 
gether with a blot which all the waters 
of Lethe will never be able to expunge, 
in consequence of the Order of Council 
for stopping money-payments.” 
After lamenting the millions of money, 
and the streams of blood, lavished in St, 
Domingo, his Grace called attention toe 
wards Ireland, aud declared that king- 
dom to be in so critical a state, “* that 
unless a reform, a temperate reform, in 
. parliament, avd a full emancipation of 
the Catholics, together with a total change 
of men took place, some fatal catastrophe 
was likely to ensue:” a prognostication 
which has been since amply verified by 
fact. ‘* To prevent these greatest of 
evils” (the subjugation by France), “* ex 
tending hither,” says the duke, ‘* it will 
be wise to oppose the only effective re- 
medy, which I earnestly recommend to 
the cool and dispassionate consideration 
of all your lordships: I mean a tempe- 
rate parliamentary reform in this country, 
without which the constitution will slip 
from under us; and the great and saga 
cious statesman, who delivered in another 
place that inimitable arguement in favour 
subject to that decay and corruption 
which lapse of time would necessarily 
produce, 
‘« Thus bave these ministers, who have 
hitherto been controlled in. nothing, 
brought the nation from the upper step 
of its greatness, down, by rapid degrees, 
to the lowest, where we now stand, and 
are looking,up with doubts, whether we 
shall possess virtue public and. private 
sufficient to. carry us up the. steep 
and rugged hill we have in view, and 
which must be climbed, Is there any 
one to whom it need be said, that this 
chain of disasters can no more hare fal« 
Jen out by chance, and the common fate 
_of war, than the beautiful globe we walk 
on could have been produced under an 
epicurean system, by a fortuitoys concur- 
rence of an infinity of atoms? No, my 
lords, let us not condemn chance for our 
situation, or for our sufferings: the mi- 
nisters 
