his country induced him to exert himself in the great theatre of political transactions, his own conviction led him to place real happiness in the enjoyment of domestic life. By the death of his father, on the 23d of March, 1794, he became possessed of a very considerable fortune, together with the family estate of Lambton, beautifully situated on the banks of the Dear, about nine miles from Durham.

Mr Lambton had just completed his thirty-first year when his friends were alarmed by the symptoms of a consumption, a complaint which nearly at the same age had carried off his mother. Retiring to the north, from the bustle of parliamentary exertion, in December, 1795, he was unable to resume his seat after the winter recess. In the spring of 1796 he returned towards the south, for the advice of some distinguished physicians. Being advised to try the effects of a warmer cli mate, he embarked with his wife and family at Woolwich, on board a Swedish vessel, on the 29th of August, and after a two months' voyage landed at Naples, fortunately escaping the dangers and inconveniences to which even neutral vessels are exposed from the conflicts of contending nations. On his arrival in Italy, his health was so apparently recovered, that little doubt was entertained of his perfect restoration. From Naples Mr Lambton proceeded to Rome; but the return of his complaint put a period to his further prospects, and declining health convinced him of the approach of an early dissolution. In Rome his health was visibly impairing, and he departed thence to try the effects. of a more congenial air in Tuscany. After being detained some days by illness at Sienna, he at length reached Pisa, where his life was closed on the 30th of November, at the early age of thirty-three years.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald.

BORN A. D. 1763.—died a. D. 1798.

THIS amiable nobleman was the fifth son of the first duke of Leinster, and of Lady Emilia Maria Lennox, daughter of Charles, second duke of Richmond. He was born on the 15th October, 1763. His father died in 1773; and his mother, not long after, married a Scottish gentleman of the name of Ogilvie, who treated his step-son with great affection, and was at pains to educate him for the military profession, to which the boy's taste strongly inclined.

He entered the army in his eighteenth year: a lieutenancy was procured for him in the 96th regiment of foot, from which he soon exchanged into the 19th, and sailed for America. In this his first active service he manifested great intrepidity combined with gentleness of character. Sir John Doyle, his superior officer, says of him at this period: "I never knew so loveable a person, and every man in the army, from the general to the drummer, would cheer the expression." He does not seem to have entertained any suspicion of the unjust nature of the contest with America; the germs of the future patriot were certainly not very clearly discernible in him at this period.

In 1783 he returned to Ireland, and was brought into the Irish parliament by his brother the duke of Leinster. Even in this situation he gave no indication of the latent energy of his temper, although his

name was always found in the small but liberal minority of the day. In 1786 he entered himself at Woolwich, with the view of studying more clearly the principles of his profession. In 1787 he visited Spain; and in 1788 he joined his regiment, the 54th, in Nova Scotia. His letters from this country to his mother are exceedingly interesting, and strikingly exhibit the gradual formation of that independence of character, and abhorrence of every species of restraint, which afterwards so remarkably distinguished him: "You may guess," he says in one of his letters to his mother, "how eager I am to try if I like the woods in winter as well as in summer. I believe I shall never again be prevailed on to live in a house. I long to teach you all how to make a good spruce bed. Three of the coldest nights we have had yet, I slept in the woods with only one blanket, and was just as comfortable as in a room. It was in a party with General Carleton; we went about twenty miles from this to look at a fine tract of land that had been passed over in winter. You may guess how I enjoyed this expedition, being where, in all probability, there had never been but one person before; we struck the land the first night and lay there; we spent three days afterwards in going over it. It will be now soon settled. I cannot describe all the feelings one has in these excursions, when one wakens, perhaps in the middle of the night, in a fine open forest, all your companions snoring about you, the moon shining through the trees, the burning of the fire,-in short, every thing strikes you. Dearest, dearest mother, how I have thought of you at those times, and of all at dear Frescati! and after being tired of thinking, lying down like a dog, and falling asleep till day-break; then getting up, no dressing, or clothing, or trouble, but just giving oneself a shake, and away to the spring to wash one's face. I have had two parties with the savages, which are still pleasanter,-you may guess the reason,-there are des dames, who are the most comical creatures in the world.”

Mr Moore thus traces the origin of Lord Edward's republican notions to his residence in New Brunswick: "Disappointment in-what, to youth, is everything-the first strong affection of the heart, had given a check to that flow of spirits which had before borne him so buoyantly along; while his abstraction from society left him more leisure to look inquiringly into his own mind, and there gather those thoughts that are ever the fruit of long solitude and sadness. The repulse which his suit had met with from the father of his fair relative had, for its chief grounds, he knew, the inadequacy of his own means and prospects to the support of a wife and family in that style of elegant competence to which the station of the young lady herself had hitherto accustomed her; and the view, therefore, he had been disposed naturally to take of the pomps and luxuries of high life, as standing in the way of all simple and real happiness, was thus but too painfully borne out by his own bitter experience of their influence. The conclusion drawn by Lord Edward in favour of savage life, from the premises thus, half truly, half fancifully, assumed by him,-much of the colouring which he gave to the picture being itself borrowed from civilization,-had been already, it is well known, arrived at, through all the mazes of ingenious reasoning, by Rousseau; and it is not a little curious to observe how to the very same paradox which the philosopher adopted in the mere spirit of defiauce and vanity, a heart overflowing with affection and disappointment

conducted the young lover. Nor is Rousseau the only authority by which Lord Edward is kept in countenance in this opinion. From a far graver and more authentic source we find the same startling notion promulgated. The philosopher and statesman, Jefferson, who, from being brought up in the neighbourhood of Indian communities, had the best means of forming an acquaintance with the interior of savage life, declares himself convinced that such societies (as the Indians), which live without government, enjoy, in their general mass, an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European government; and in another place, after discussing the merits of various forms of polity, he does not hesitate to pronounce that it is a problem not clear in his mind that the condition of the Indians, without any government, is not yet the best of all. Thus, where the American president ended his course of political speculation, Lord Edward began,-adopting his opinions, not like Jefferson, after long and fastidious inquiry, but through the medium of a susceptible and wounded heart, nor having a thought of applying the principle of equality implied in them to any other relations or institutions of society than those in which his feelings were, at the moment, interested. This romance, indeed, of savage happiness was, in him, but one of the various forms which the passion now predominant over all his thoughts assumed. But the principle, thus admitted, retained its footing in his mind after the reveries through which it had first found its way thither had vanished; and though it was some time before politics,-beyond the range, at least, of mere party tactics,-began to claim his attention, all he had meditated and felt among the solitudes of Nova Scotia could not fail to render his mind a more ready recipient for such doctrines as he found prevalent on his return to Europe;-doctrines which, in their pure and genuine form, contained all the spirit, without the extravagance, of his own solitary dreams, and while they would leave man in full possession of those blessings of civilization he had acquired, but sought to restore to him some of those natural rights of equality and freedom which he had lost." Soon after his return to Europe, his uncle, the duke of Richmond, introduced him to Mr Pitt, but the minister failed to secure the young politician for his side, or, perhaps deemed it not worth his trouble; he joined the party of Fox and Sheridan, and in their society "found those political principles to which he now, for the first time, gave any serious attention, recommended at once to his reason and imagination by all the splendid sanctions with which genius, wit, eloquence, and the most refined good-fellowship could invest them." In the autumn of 1792, Lord Edward went to Paris, where he soon fraternized with the leading 'citoyens,' and at a dinner given by the English in Paris, in honour of the success of the French armies, formally renounced his title, and adopted that of Le citoyen Edouard Fitzgerald:' of course, the immediate result was his dismissal, without inquiry, from the English service. During his brief sojourn at Paris he saw, at one of the theatres, Pamela, the reputed daughter of Madame de Genlis by the duke of Orleans, and in somewhat less than a month he married her, and immediately brought her over to England, where her beauty and accomplishments reconciled his family to the match. From this period may be dated the commencement of his lordship's political carcer.

1 Moore.

In 1791 was organized, chiefly by the energies of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the famous society of United Irishmen,' the growth and objects of which will be detailed in our notice of its founder. Lord Edward did not join this association till 1794, when he allowed himself to become deeply implicated in the conspiracy in which that society was engaged. "In order," says Mr Moore, “to settle all the details of their late agreement with France, and, in fact, enter into a formal treaty with the French Directory, it was thought of importance, by the United Irishmen, to send some agent, whose station and character should, in the eyes of their new allies, lend weight to his mission; and to Lord Edward Fitzgerald the no less delicate than daring task was assigned. It being thought desirable, too, that he should have the aid, in his negotiations, of the brilliant talents and popular name of Mr Arthur O'Connor, they requested likewise the services of that gentleman, who consented readily to act in concert with his friend. About the latter end of May, accompanied only by his lady, who was then not far from the period of her confinement, Lord Edward set out from Dublin on his perilous embassy,-passing a day or two in London, on his way, and, as I have been informed by a gentleman who was of the party, dining on one of those days at the house of Lord * * * *, where the company consisted of Mr Fox, Mr Sheridan, and several other distinguished whigs, all persons who had been known to concur warmly in every step of the popular cause in Ireland, and to whom, if Lord Edward did not give some intimation of the object of his present journey, such an effort of reserve and secrecy was, I must say, very unusual in his character. From London his lordship proceeded to Hamburgh, and had already begun to treat with Rheynhart, the French agent at that place, when he was joined there by Mr O'Connor. Seeing reason, however, to have some doubts of the trust-worthiness of this person, they discontinued their negotiation with him, and leaving Lady Edward at Hamburgh, proceeded together to Basle, where, through the medium of the agent Barthelomeu, they opened their negotiation with the French Directory. It was now known that General Hoche, the late conqueror and pacificator of La Vendée, was the officer appointed to take the command of the expedition to Ireland; and the great advantage of holding personal communication on the subject with an individual on whom the destinies of their country so much depended, was fully appreciated by both friends. After a month's stay at Basle, however, it was signified to them that to Mr O'Connor alone would it be permitted to meet Hoche as a negotiator, the French government having objected to receive Lord Edward, lest the idea should get abroad, from his being married to Pamela, that his mission had some reference to the Orleans family.' Independently of this curious objection, it appears to have been strongly impressed upon Lord Edward, by some of his warmest friends, that he should, on no account, suffer his zeal in the cause to induce him to pass the borders of the French territory. Leaving to Mr O'Connor, therefore, the management of their treaty with Hoche, whom the French Directory had invested with full powers for the purpose, Lord Edward returned to Hamburgh,— having, unluckily, for a travelling companion, during the greater part of the journey, a foreign lady who had been once the mistress of an old friend and official colleague of Mr Pitt, and who was still in the habit

of corresponding with her former protector. Wholly ignorant of these circumstances, Lord Edward, with the habitual frankness of his nature, not only expressed freely his opinions on all political subjects, but afforded some clues, it is said, to the secret of his present journey, which his fellow-traveller was, of course, not slow in transmitting to her official friend."

The projected invasion was attempted in the following December, and signally failed; yet the conspiracy went on, and it appears, by the returns made to Lord Edward, as head of the military committee of the association, that, in February, 1798, a body of 300,000 men were armed and ready to rise at a moment's notice, although the government was not aware who the chief conspirators were. "It is indeed," says Mr Moore, "not the least singular feature of this singular piece of history, that with a government strongly intrenched both in power and will, resolved to crush its opponents, and not scrupulous as to the means, there should now have elapsed two whole years of all but open rebellion, under their very eyes, without their being able, either by force or money, to obtain sufficient information to place a single one of the many chiefs of the confederacy in their power. Even now, so far from their vigilance being instrumental in the discovery, it was but to the mere accidental circumstance of a worthless member of the conspiracy being pressed for a sum of money to discharge some debts, that the government was indebted for the treachery that at once laid the whole plot at their feet, delivered up to them at one seizure almost all its leaders, and thus, disorganizing by rendering it headless the entire body of the union, was the means, it is not too much to say, of saving the country to Great Britain. The name of this informer-a name in one country at least never to be forgotten-was Thomas Reynolds." Before the warrants were issued an opportunity of escape, through the connivance of government, was offered to Lord Edward; but on Mr Ogilvie urging him to avail himself of it, he replied: "It is now out of the question: I am too deeply pledged to these men to be able to withdraw with honour." He fled, however, into the country, and continued for some time engaged in concocting a general rising, but was at length apprehended at a friend's house in Dublin. In his resistance to the party which seized him he was severely wounded; he lingered in a hopeless way from the 18th of May to the 4th of June, when he expired in prison.

Lord Edward was a brave and an amiable man; but sanguine and uncalculating as a child, and ill-fitted to head such an enterprise as that which cost him his life. Whatever may be thought of the general merits of the cause to which he sacrificed himself, no one can attach to his memory the stain of interested or personal motives. The reader will be gratified to know that his late majesty George IV. ordered the reversal of Lord Edward Fitzgerald's attainder.

Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont.

BORN A. D. 1728.-DIED A. D. 1799.

THIS nobleman, son of Viscount Charlemont Baron Caulfield, was born in Dublin on the 18th of August, 1728. He succeeded to his