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HALIBURTON, THOMAS CHANDLER. 



HALIFAX, GEORGE MONTAGU, EARL OP. 



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at Oxford in 1794, and was elected a Fellow of the College of 

 Physicians in the same year. Having been well introduced into 

 London society, and being distinguished for the elegance of his man- 

 ners, and having early married a daughter of Lord St. John, it was not 

 long before his practice became considerable. He was appointed by 

 George III. one of his physicians, and in 1809 he became possessed of 

 a large fortune by the death of his mother's cousin, Sir Charles 

 Halford, and changed his name from Vaughan to Halford. He was 

 made a baronet in the same yea?. Sir Henry continued to hold the 

 office of physician to George III. till the king's death, and subsequently 

 held the same appointment under George IV., William IV., and 

 Victoria. He was appointed president of the College of Physicians in 

 1S24, and delivered the oration on the occasion of that body removing 

 from their old building in the city to the new one ill Pall Mall. 



During his professional career, Sir Henry was too much occupied 

 with the kind of practice to which his early connections in life intro- 

 duced him, to contribute much valuable information to the literature 

 of his profession. His publications consist of essays and orations. 

 The Orations were delivered before the college, and are written in 

 Latin, and exhibit a purity of style beyond the average of such pro- 

 ductions at the present day. Hia Essays are as follows : 1, ' On the 

 Climacteric Disease;' 2, ' On the Necessity of Caution in the Estimation 

 of Symptoms in the last Stages of some Diseases ;' 3, ' On the Tic 

 Douloureux ;' 4, ' On Shakspere's Test of Insanity ;' 5, ' On the Influ- 

 ence of some Diseases "of the Body on the Mind ;' 6, ' On the Kavtros 

 of Areteus ;' 7, ' On the Treatment of Gout ;' 8, ' On Phlegmaaia 

 Dolens;' 9, 'On the Treatment of Insanity;' 10, 'On the Death of 

 some Illustrious Persons of Antiquity ;' 11, ' On the Education of a 

 Physician;' 12, 'On the Effects of Cold.' These essays and papers 

 display the elegant scholar and observant physician, and are mostly 

 written in an easy graceful style, but they are marked by no depth 

 or originality of thought. In 1813 Sir Henry Halford descended with 

 the Prince- Regent into the royal vaults of St George's Chapel, Windsor, 

 where amongst other curiosities they discovered the head of Charles I. 

 Of this visit and discovery Sir Henry has given an account, which is 

 deposited in the British Museum, and is authenticated by the signature 

 of the Prince-Regent. He died on the 9th of March 1844. He had 

 been for more than twenty years president of the College of Physicians, 

 and was mainly instrumental in establishing the evening meetings of 

 that body. His urbanity of manners, and devotion to the interests of 

 the college, have left a grateful recollection amongst the members of 

 that corporation. 



(Pettigrew, Portraitt and Memoirs of Medical Men ; Transactions of 

 Medical and Surgical Auocialion, vol. L) 



* HALIBURTON, THOMAS CHANDLER, is a native of the 

 British colony of Nova Scotia, where he practised as an advocate, 

 and since 1842 baa been a judge. Speaking of himself in 1853, 

 he states that he had resided there more than half a century. In 

 1829 he published at Halifax ' An Historical and Statistical Account 

 of Nova Scotia,' 2 vols. Svo. A series of communications to one of 

 the journals of Halifax, under the pseudonym of Samuel Slick, having 

 attracted much attention, he collected and published them in 1837, 

 with alterations and additions, under the title of 'The Clockmaker, or 

 Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville ; ' the success of the 

 work was such as to induce him to continue it, and he produced in 1838 

 and 1840 two additional volumes. In Samuel Slick he exhibits the pecu- 

 liarities of character and dialect of the travelling tradesman of the New 

 England States, speculating, cunning, self-conceited, and audacious, 

 practising all kinds of inventive shifts, and sagaciously observant of 

 everything which passes before and around him. The minute accuracy of 

 description, the practical good sense combined with sly humour and 

 droll comparisons, all conveyed in the Yankee dialect, rendered the 

 work extremely popular iu England as well as in America. A visit 

 which Mr. Haliburton afterwards paid to this country afforded him an 

 opportunity of combining his own observations and remarks as a 

 Nova Scotian with those of the imaginary American clockmaker; 

 and that high life in England might be described as well as the life of 

 the lower grades of society, the author attached Sam Slick to the 

 American embassy in London, and published in 1843 ' The Attache 1 , 

 or Sam Slick in England, by the author of the Clockmaker,' 2 vols., 

 to which he afterwards added a second series in 2 vols. ' The Old 

 Judge, or Life in a Colony,' 2 vols. Svo, 1849, removes the scene to 

 Nova Scotia, and exhibits the manners, customs, and dialectic pecu- 

 liarities of that colony with the same racy humour as before. Judge 

 Haliburton's next work was of a different kind, and much less satis- 

 factory : 'The English in America,' 2 vols. Svo, 1851, is an account of 

 the first settlers in the New England States, especially Massachusetts ; 

 and is rather a violent political dissertation, abusive of the democratic 

 and puritanical principles of the settlers, than an impartial narrative 

 of the progress of the settlements. The ' Traits of American 

 Humour,' 3 vols. STO, 1852, consist of a collection of fugitive pro- 

 ductions of various writers, some known, but mostly unknown, which 

 appeared in 1829 and subsequent years in the journals of Baltimore, 

 New York, and elsewhere. In ' Sam Slick's Wise Saws and Modern 

 Instances, or what he said, did, or invented,' 2 vols. Svo, 1853, and in 

 ' Nature and Human Nature,' 2 vols. Svo, 1855, we have the same 

 shrewd observation, peculiar humour, and Yankee dialect, as in the 

 preceding works ; but the most amusing things long continued are apt 

 BIOO. mv. vou lit. 



to induce a sense of weariness and a wish for change. In none of 

 these series of humorous narratives is there any attempt at the con- 

 struction of a regular tale. There are indeed occurrences, characters, 

 sketches, dialogues, always spirited, and mostly humorous ; but there 

 is a want of that interest which is excited by a story formed with 

 dramatic skill. 



HALIFAX, GEORGE MONTAGU, EARL OF, was the fourth 

 sou of George Montagu, Esq., of Horton in Northamptonshire, who 

 was the fifth son (the eldest by his third wife) of Henry, first earl of 

 Manchester. He was born at Horton, on the 16th of April 1661. His 

 education was begun in the country, but he was eventually sent to 

 Westminster School, where he was chosen a king's scholar in 1677, 

 and whence in 1682 he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge. 

 He had distinguished himself, while a pupil of Busby's at Westminster, 

 by his extemporaneous epigrams; and the same liveliness of talent 

 showed itself in a way to attract wider attention in an effusion of 

 Engliah verse which he produced on the death of Charles II., iu 

 February 1635, beginning (not at all in jest or satire) 



Farewell, great Charles, monarch of blest renown, 

 The best good man that ever filled a throne ; 



and proceeding in the same strain till at last the poet exclaims 



In Charles, so good a man and king, we see 

 A double image of the Deity. 



This performance, we are told, so charmed the Earl of Dorset that he 

 induced the young poet to come up to town, where he was introduced 

 by his lordship to all the wits of his acquaintance. In 1687 he and 

 Prior brought out in conjunction their burlesque upon Dryden's 

 ' Hind and Panther,' entitled ' The Hind and the Panther trausversed 

 to the Story of the Country Mouse and the City Mouse.' It is for the 

 greater part a dialogue in prose, apparently iu imitation of Bucking- 

 ham's 'Rehearsal,' with the parody in verse of portions of Dryden's 

 poem interspersed. The best parts of it are said to be Prior's, as may 

 be very well believed ; it is not however printed in the common 

 collections of his poetry, but it is preserved in the ' Supplement to the 

 Works of the Minor Poets,' 1750, vol. i. pp. 47-82, under the head of 

 'Additions to the Works of tho Earl of Halifax." 



Montagu appears to have some time before this entered upon his 

 career as a politician, Johnson, in his ' Lives of the Poets," merely 

 says that " he signed the invitation to the Prince of Orange, and sat in 

 the convention ; " but his signing the invitation to the prince would 

 seem to imply that he had occupied some public post, and he is there- 

 fore, we suppose, the Charles Montagu who is set down as one of the 

 members for the city of Durham in James II.'s parliament which 

 assembled on the 19th of May 16S5. In the convention parliament 

 he sat for Maiden; and he was returned for the same place to the next 

 parliament, which met in March. 1690. It is stated to have been 

 about the time of the revolution that he married the Countess 

 Dowager of Manchester ; she was Anne, widow of Robert, third earl 

 of Manchester, and daughter of Sir Christopher Yelverton, Bart. 



According to Johnson, it was his intention when he formed this 

 connection to take orders; but afterwards altering his purpose he 

 purchased for 15002. the place of one of the clerks of the council. 

 He was also fortunate in his next poetical performance, ' An Epistle to 

 Charles, earl of Dorset, occasioned by his Majesty's Victory in Ireland," 

 being a celebration of the battle of the Boyne, for which King William, 

 to whom he was introduced upon the occasion by Dorset, is said to 

 have bestowed upon him a pension of 5001. A repartee of his 

 Majesty's, who when Dorset presented the poet as a mouse is said to 

 have replied that he would make a man of him, is upon good grounds 

 discredited by Johnson. His ' Epistle on the Victory of the Boyne,' 

 which extends to above 200 lines, is Montagu's greatest effort iu 

 verse. 



The rest of his history is that of a political character, and only a 

 patron of poets. Johnson relates a well-known anecdote of a speech 

 he made in one of the debates on the Trials for Treason Bill, in 1691, 

 in the midst of which he is said to have fallen into confusion, and 

 then, when he recovered, himself, to have ingeniously turned the 

 circumstance into an argument for what he was urging the allowance 

 of counsel to the prisoner. There is no notice of this speech in the 

 ' Parliamentary History." He had already however raised himself by 

 his speaking to great distinction; and on the 21st of March in this 

 year he was taken into office as one of the lords of the Treasury. He 

 became chancellor of the Exchequer on the 1st of November 1695, 

 and to this office on the 1st of May 1697 he conjoined that of first 

 lord of the Treasury. In 1695 and 1696 he obtained great credit by 

 his management of the operation of the general recoinage of the silver 

 money. It was in the latter of these years that, to supply a temporary 

 circulating medium, he contrived what are called Exchequer Bills, the 

 convenience of which species of paper, both for the government and 

 the public, has kept it iu use ever since. Many of Montagu's 

 Exchequer bills however were for sums much lower than any for 

 which such bills are now issued. After he became first lord of the 

 Treasury he was appointed one of the lords justices on the king going 

 abroad, both in July 1698, and again in May 1699. " In the House of 

 Commons," says Burnet under tho year 1698, "Mr. Montagu had 

 gained such a visible ascendant over all that were zealous for the 



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