xtent. Charles saw that the
person to whom he was bound by the strongest ties was, in the highest
degree, odious to the nation; and the effect was what might have been
expected from the strong passions and constitutional boldness of so
high-spirited a youth. He cast in his lot with his father, and took,
while still a boy, a deep part in the most unjustifiable and unpopular
measures that had been adopted since the reign of James the Second. In
the debates on the Middlesex election, he distinguished himself, not
only by his precocious powers of eloquence, but by the vehement and
scornful manner in which he bade defiance to public opinion. He was at
that time regarded as a man likely to be the most formidable champion of
arbitrary government that had appeared since the Revolution, to be a
Bute with far greater powers, a Mansfield with far greater courage.
Happily his father's death liberated him early from the pernicious
influence by which he had been misled. His mind expanded. His range of
observation became wider. His genius broke through early prejudices.
His natural benevolence and magnanimity had fair play. In a very short
time he appeared in a situation worthy of his understanding and of his
heart. From a family whose name was associated in the public mind with
tyranny and corruption, from a party of which the theory and the
practice were equally servile, from the midst of the Luttrells, the
Dysons, the Barringtons, came forth the greatest parliamentary defender
of civil and religious liberty.

The late Lord Holland succeeded to the talents and to the fine natural
dispositions of his house. But his situation was very different from
that of the two eminent men of whom we have spoken. In some important
respects it was better, in some it was worse than theirs. He had one
great advantage over them. He received a good political education. The
first lord was educated by Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Fox was educated by
his father. The late lord was educated by Mr. Fox. The pernicious maxims
early imbibed by the first Lord Holland made his great talents useless,
and worse than useless, to the state. The pernicious maxims early
imbibed by Mr. Fox led him, at the commencement of his public life, into
great faults which, though afterwards nobly expiated, were never
forgotten. To the very end of his career, small men, when they had
nothing else to say in defence of their own tyranny, bigotry, and
imbecility, could always raise a chee