Life of Mr. Perceval. MR. PERCEVAL. IT has been an inflexible rule with us, in the Military Chronicle, to abstain from every thing which has the slightest air of party or politics; or which, even in its secondary consequences, might have a tendency to excite a political spirit in the army. A soldier has absolutely nothing to say to what is termed politics. His civil duty is the simplest possible, to fight for his geographical country and soil. Admiral Drake commanded the navy when Cromwell assumed the supreme power. The Protector wrote to him to demand what side he proposed taking." To fight for the country," said Drake; "to keep every foreigner from approaching it except with due honour and reverence, and to leave you to' settle your differences amongst yourselves." Having always acted upon this principle in the conduct of the Military Chronicle, we are entirely without any apprehension of being suspected of party purposes, whilst we are thus expressing our deepest and most profound sorrow in the event which has saddened the face and heart of a nation, an event, which, even perpetrated by an individual, has sullied a Christian and honourable country, by shewing that even one amongst us can be an assasin. There is one way, indeed, of redeeming our national honour, and the nation has happily adopted it, in the universal voice of abhorrence which it has raised upon the occasion. Our duty, however, does not stop at this point. It is at once a debt of gratitude and an obligation of prudence,-and this not only of the nation, but of every individual in it, to commemorate, and, as far as in us lies, to perpetuate the image and memory of the virtuous man we have lost. It is a debt of gratitude, inasmuch as it is in the very nature of virtue to do and to contribute good to its fellow-men; and the only possible repayment, on the part of those who have received these benefits, is to confer that honest reputation, and posthumous acknowledgement, which are the best human rewards of virtue. And it is an obligation of prudence, inasmuch as the homage and commemoration of the virtuous are the best and most sacred incentives to virtue. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. The commemoration of the departed great and good extends the effect of their living example, and giving them, as it were, a voice from the tombs, recommends the practice of virtue, by shewing the immortality of its memory. We conceive it unnecessary to excuse ourselves further for subjoining the following memoir. His best eulogy is the simplest narrative of his life. Almost his whole life, indeed, was one course of virtue. His integrity, his disinterestedness, his comity,-have united all parties in the acknowledgment that the country has never sustained a loss which it will longer feel. Life of Mr. Perceval. He was born in London in 1762. He was the second son of the late Lord Egmont. He was sent at an early age to Harrow school. It usually happens, that the boy gives some indications of what will be the future man; and this is said to have been remarkably conspicuous in the late Mr. Perceval. He was a school-fellow with Sir Robert Wigram; and Sir Robert, as may be seen in the public papers, in a recent testi- . mony to his departed friend, mentioned, with the most affectionate sorrow, that the boyhood of Mr. Perceval was almost as amiable as his riper life, and that the same gentleness, the same benevolence, the same goodness, were conspicuous in him from his earliest years. His meekness, indeed, which was one of his marked characteristics, seems to have been the concurrent fruit of his natnre and principle; in early life he had it from nature, and therefore was gentle and benevolent without reflection; in his riper years the discipline of Christianity improved his natural sweetness, and he became still more gentle, and still more benevolent, because he belonged to a religion whose end and origin are universal love. It is of great advantage to a young man to have the example of goodness, and, in some degree, of greatness, before his attention from early life. Mr. Perceval had this advantage even whilst at Harrow. He was cotemporary, I believe, with Sir William Jones; a name which it is impossible for any Christian or scholar to mention without veneration. I know not who was at the head of Harrow school at that time; but if the venerable man be now living, his sorrow, which must be great, will still be softened with the consideration that he has given two such men to his country as Mr. Perceval and Sir William Jones. It is no part of our present purpose to speak in detail of the value and importance of the education given to our public men; but let it be permitted to me, even upon this melancholy occasion, cursorily to remark, that this education can no where be in such safe hands as in the clergy of the established church. The whole course of Mr. Perceval's life is a strong instance of this remark. Indeed, if any one of the greater interests of the state has been more eminently indebted to him than another, it is the established religion of the country, and the vital interest of the Protestant Church; and let me be allowed to ask, from what more probable source did he derive these principles than from his early education at Harrow and the University. In schools under lay-schoolmasters, the master may indeed be a man of sound principles of religion, and of a correct morality; but he may, on the other hand, be very defective in these essentials; and they are essentials of so much value, not merely to the temporal and eternal * By permission of the Editor of the Chronicle, this brief memoir of Mr. Perceval, having been shown to a very estimable friend, was enlarged and incorporated by him into "A Funeral Discourse."-It was necessary to mention this, that the Military Chronicle may not seem to have borrowed where it has in fact lent. Life of Mr. Perceval. interest of the man himself, but to society at large, tha I feel myself justified in strenuously recemmending every parent and guardian to prefer the clergy as the tutors of their children. After having passed the usual time at Harrow, he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr. Perceval was cotemporary, in this college, with many of the dearest connections of his future life; and from the manner in which he appears to have been beloved by them, it is a natural, and indeed a necessary inference, that the amiable qualities of his youth became strengthened with his years. He took the degree of Master of Arts whilst he was at Trinity, and was afterwards appointed one of the two counsel of the university. It may not be amiss here to mention, that he ever afterwards proved a grateful friend to the university; with the interests of which those of the church establishment, and those of religion in general, are so closely counected. It is in the universities, and in the education which they give, and in the affections, and feelings, and reverence, which they inspire, that are to be found the best securities of our religion; and the decrease of true religion and piety, and the rapid contagion of irreligion and sectarism, are then near at hand, when the reforming spirit and daring tongue of the day shall assail the dignity and utility of our universities. Upon the conclusion of his collegiate studies, he entered himself a member of Lincoln's Inn, and pursued the study of law as a professsion. He carried into this profession what it is to be wished could be oftener found there. I know not how it happens, but it has been observed of the law, that the profession are somewhat lax both in their religious notions and in their moral practice. It is therefore to the high praise of Mr. Perceval, that, instead of finding and adopting an example of laxity, where so many were lax around him, he became himself an example of piety and goodness; and like another eminent man, whom I deem it a matter of justice to mention, like the Attorney-General, I say, stood forth as the advocate of the best interests of mankind, and recognized and avowed Christianity to be the common law of the land. In ordinary times, perhaps, there would have been the less merit in such advocacy; but unhappily the inconstancy and fashion of the day had reached even our religion and morality, and it required courage, as well as virtue, to stand against number and example. But number, nor example, with him wrought To swerve from truth, and shake his constant mind. He commenced his course as a Barrister by accompanying the judges through the Midland circuit. Mr. Perceval buckled to the conflict of talent and industry with all the animation which made part of his character. But his emulation impaired not the sweetness of his temper nor the evenness of his mind. It is in human nature that our passions should be heated, and that our language should be edged in the course of conflict; but the warm retort, or the biting sarcasm, was no sooner off the tongue, than the heart, as it were, came forward to heal and to soften, and there was more grace in the atonement than there was pain or mischief in the error. There was something most delightful to the feelings in this spectacle of the contest of the heart and of the passions, of the man, and of his virtue. It is not, perhaps, too much to say, that his virtue helped him forward in his profession as much as his talents; it very shortly procured him attention and esteem, and the immediate fruit of such attention was, that his talents became known, and thereby duly appreciated. He was accordingly considered as one who must eventually become eminent. He was appointed counsel to the Admiralty at an early age, and in 1799 was honoured with a silk gown. It was about the same period that the university of Cambridge expressed their respect for him, by nominating bim one of their counsel. It is equally to the praise of the university, and to the distinction of the man it so honoured, that the best men are usually selected for these honorary offices; and it is not too much to say, that the very choice of the university, from the manner in which it has been usually exercised, is current as a stamp and seal of the value of the members so chosen. Mr. Perceval married very early in life, and the exemplary manner in which he fulfilled all the domestic duties, is not the least pleasing part of his character. A great part of his youth was passsed at Carleton in Kent, and from the family of Sir Thomas Spencer Wilson, Bart. in the same parish, he selected his lady. With her did he live more than twenty years, in that state of happiness which virtue and affection at all times He has left a large family behind him, and has left them the rich inheritance of paternal virtue and the public love. secure. It would be unpardonable not to dwell upon the simplicity in which he lived in the midst of his numerous family; many of those who shall read this are no doubt good husbands and affectionate fathers; yet none of them, though they may be in private life, can pass a greater portion of their time with their family than did this first minister of the first kingdom in the world. If any of his brother ministers made him an ordinary visit, they found him at a simple family meal, or, perhaps, writing in the midst of his children playing round him. No one, indeed, dispatched the most important public business with more ease, more simplicity, and less ostentation. One of his young boys accompanied him to the House of Commons on the fatal day which proved his last; and his final meeting of his children was at a simple family dinner, taken in the midst of them, about half part two o'clock in the afternoon, on that ever-to-be lamented day. Mr. Perceval was not much given either to public amusements or fashionable visiting, and when he did frequent them, he was usually accompanied by the greater part of his children. No man, indeed, Life of Mr. Perceval. passed so much of his time in this endearing society. If, in any unexpected emergency in public business, there was a sudden call for him, no one had any difficulty in finding him; every one knew where to seek him; it was not in the midnight rout, the gaming-house, or in the revels of the tavern, but in the society of his own hearth and family. Mr. Perceval entered into parliamentary life in consequence of the decease of his mother's brother. A vacancy was hereby created in the borough of Northampton; Mr. Perceval was elected member, and thereby entered the House of Commons. He entered upon action almost as soon as he entered upon duty; he supported the measures of Mr. Pitt, and apparently adopted that system of policy upon which he ever afterwards acted. Mr. Pitt had two leading principles; the support of the establishment in church and state, and the maintenance of the glory and interest and independence of England amongst the continental powers. He resolutely set his face against that pernicious toleration, which, under the specious name of religious liberty, but being in fact nothing but religious indifference, assailed the very roots of our ecclesiastical establishment; insinuating 'such an establishment to be nothing but a usurpation on the religious rights of the people. Mr. Perceval adopted the zeal of Mr. Pitt in his resolute opposition to these specious innovatious. He considered the established church as part of the constitution of the country, and that it was no more a mere matter of course affair to make any change in such establishment, and to depart from the ecclesiastical institutution of our ancestors, than it would be to alter the succession of the crown, and to convert a monarchial into a republican system. . Mr. Perceval had likewise another praise-worthy resemblance of Mr. Pitt. It was a feature of Mr. Pitt's character, that he never consulted popularity at the expence of the public good; and, what is still more extraordinary, it was a distinction in Mr. Pitt's fortune, that no one sought popularity less, yet no one had it more. Both of these propositions may likewise be affirmed of Mr. Perceval. He never weakened the necessary authority of government by any unworthy compromise with popular clamour. He understood the interest of the nation, and he pursued it by its proper meaus. If popularity followed upon his measures, it was welcome; he hailed it as an additional means of assisting and supporting him. He thus frequently proposed and carried measures against a strong popular opposition. In a man of this mild character, and so totally averse from any spirit of haughtiness and contempt, this could only be the result of a sense of duty. All his inclinations led him to peace and conciliation; it was the stern voice of duty only which carried him into conflict and opposition. It was another character in Mr. Perceval's political life, that he carried into it his private virtues; there was a stream of candour running through the whole of his conduct, not very usual in political dealing. VOL. IV. No. 20. |