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Thus died in the 62d year of his age, on the 2d of November, 1818, Sir Samuel Romilly, a man inferior to no one in modern, and who might indeed, challenge a comparison, with most of the celebrated names of ancient times.

Eminently gifted by nature with all those qualities which lay the foundation of intellectual superiority, and of moral excellence, few persons have so much improved those gifts by constant and studied cultivation, as the illustrious subject of this memoir; and never, perhaps, have efforts thus directed attained more complete success in every pursuit to which he applied the gigantic powers of his mind. The variety of great and important objects in which he was engaged, throughout the whole course of his public life, sufficiently attest the astonishing extent of his activity, his prodigious facility in the dispatch of business, the immense range of his inquiries, and the comprehensive nature of his views. There has scarcely ever been an individual in whom zeal to promote the liberties, the moral improvement, and happiness of society was habitual and so deep rooted a passion. It was the spring of all his public exertions; and to this, perhaps, more than to his great talents and attainments, was the peculiarly impressive character of his eloquence to be attributed.

His oratory was keen, powerful, and discriminating; it was by turns bold, animated, and sarcastic. He scorned to make an appeal to the passions; a sacred regard to truth formed the ground-work of his oratory, accordingly doubt, ambiguity, and equivocation, were never resorted to by him; and all his arguments were so plain, simple, and perspicuous, as to carry uniform conviction along with them. So mildly were his great and comprehensive powers exercised, that the whole body of the profession mourned his loss, as if it had been a common calamity. On that melancholy occasion, the solicitors suspended their practice; the counsel abandoned the courts; while the judge forsook the bench, after he had shed a torrent of tears !

In the House of Coinmons, Sir Samuel Romilly displayed a lofty independence of character, and an exalted love of liber

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ty, duly tempered and chastened with a love of order, and an implicit obedience to the laws. In what manner, with what ability, and with what uniformity, he conducted himself as a legislator, has been already seen ; and although he always addressed an unwilling audience, when pleading for reforms, either parliamentary or juridical, yet it must be allowed, that he at the same time experienced a degree of attention, and even of personal respect, that has seldom fallen to the lot of those who stood in the same predicament.

Modest, humane, temperate, Sir Samuel appeared to strangers, to be imbued only with the severer virtues; but his bosom burned with the love of his fellow-creatures, and when he became animated with indignation, against religious persecution the slave trade of Africa or any occasional effort of despotism in Europe - his voice assumed a loftier tone, and his eyes flashed indignation around him.

In one point of view, he was eminently felicitous; for he had never made any unmanly concessions either to power or to interest; he never once capitulated either with his conscience or his duties. The effect of such a virtuous uniformity soon became so conspicuous, that it is scarcely possible either duly to describe, or fully to appreciate it. It seemed to irradiate his head with a new species of glory, while it produced a moral force and energy of character, that carried terror and dismay among his opponents.

In the ages of classic simplicity, a whole nation would have assisted in entwining the well merited garland of civic oak, around his honoured tomb. To such a distinguished citizen, Rome would have erected altars, Greece statues; by both he would have been enrolled among their worthies their patriots, their legislators, their heroes. Indeed, there was something original in his form, features, and complexion. His bust seemed to have been cast in an ancient mould; and his face, like his character, had nothing of the modern about it!

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES.

No. XVI.

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE HILEY ADDINGTON.

LATE M.P. FOR DEVIZES, A MEMBER OF HIS MAJESTY'S MOST HONOUR.

ABLE THE PRIVY COUNCIL, AND UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT.

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HE Addingtons have been educated in, and are members of the Pitt school. They inherited, indeed, considerable wealth; but they were first noticed and brought into power by that celebrated statesman, who, in consequence of the effects produced by powerful eloquence, united with very considerable talents, and an utter disregard of all personal and selfish considerations, contrived to illustrate himself, and enrich · his friends.

Dr. Addington, the father of the subject of the present memoir, by the fortune he acquired, and the friendships he formed during a long and extensive practice, may be justly considered as the founder of a family, one of which has occupied some of the highest offices in the state, and attained the peerage for himself and his descendants. He was educated at Trinity College, Oxford, where he took the degree of M.D., in 1744, and in 1756 was admitted of the college of Physicians. Soon after this, he retired to Reading in Berkshire, and for many years kept a private madhouse there. 'On mara rying Miss Hiley, however, with whom he obtained an accession of about 15,0001. as her dower, he returned to the capital, and was soon distinguished by an extensive practice. He and the late Dr. Heberden, indeed, appear to have been two of the most eminent, as well as successful physicians, then in the metropolis; and what was thus honourably obtained, was not in his case improvidently wasted. On the contrary, he husbanded his acquisitions with such care as to be able to retire to Berkshire, where he purchased a considerable estate ; and there he spent the remainder of his life, which was varied, not altered, by occasional visits to town.

But it was not wealth alone that the late Dr. Addington obtained for his family, as it was his peculiar good fortune to rcquire a certain degree of intimacy with the great William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, and, in some measure, to entail this friendship on his descendants. His political tenets, superadded to his medical skill, had so much endeared him to a man who had obtained the appellation of the “heaven-born minister,” that he was nominated on his part to negociate with Sir James Wright, a friend of the old Earl of Bute, about his return to power.

But with a sturdiness of principle that might appear singular in the present age, Lord Chatham protested from the very first, “ that he would not enter into any coalition;" on which the plenipotentiaries immediately retired. After this, Dr. Addington returned to the country, where he died March 21, 1790, leaving a very considerable fortune behind him. *

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* During His Majesty's unfortunate illness in 1789, the opinions of Dr. Addington produced considerable effect on the decision of parliament. When examined before the House of Lords he drew a favourable augury from the non-existence “ of any previous melancholy.” He also held out the cheering prospect of a speedy convalescence ; and thus enabled Mr. Pitt to obtain a suspense of the Regency bill until that circumstance had actually occurred. It was he, also, who suggested the idea of a pillow stuffed with hops, which procured the first refreshing sleep for the Royal patient.

Dr. A. had two sons and four daughters. One of the latter, who died a few years ago, was married to Dr. Goodenough, a physician of Oxford; a second to the late Mr. Sutton, formerly a merchant, who had retired to an estate in Somersetshire ; a third to Mr. Hoskins, of North Perrot in Wiltshire, originally a clothier ; and a fourth to Mr. Bragge, a barrister, now the Right Honourable Charles Bragge Bathurst, &c.

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Mr. John Hiley Addington was born about the year 1759, or 1760. He was a younger son, the present Lord Sidmouth being three or four years older. His Christian names were conferred on him out of respect to his maternal * grandfather, and while an infant in the cradle he was left a considerable fortune by the will of a relation. His education was not neglected; he was sent at a proper age to Cheam school, where he remained for a considerable time, under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Gilpin ; thence he was transferred to Winchester, where Dr. Wharton at that time presided, with considerable dignity; thence he repaired to Dr. Goodenough's at Eling; and finally to Oxford. On all these occasions, he accompanied his elder brother Henry; and what is not a little singular, afterwards became his political satellite, as he had formerly been his scholastic one, until unexpectedly extinguished by a sudden and premature death. .

Neither our means nor recollection permit us at this moment to decide, whether Mr. J. H. Addington was entered of Lincoln's Inn. Certain it is, that the present Lord Sidmouth was a student there, and eat his way to the bar in conjunction with the late Mr. Pitt, with whom he now renewed and strengthened his former acquaintance. That aspiring young man, founding his hopes on the brilliant administration, and illustrious qualities of a sire, from whom he inherited little but his name and ambition, already languished to distinguish himself. He felt “ the mighty spirit of his father move within him,” but was for some time unable to afford a display of his talents. At length, the late Duke of Rutland prevailed on Sir James Lowther to nominate him; and he was accordingly returned for one of his northern + boroughs: the vice-royalty of Ireland for the one, and an earldom in England for the other, were afterwards conferred as marks of his gratitude !

Meanwhile, the elder Mr. Addington having become first Recorder, and then M.P. for Devizes in Wiltshire, warmly

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