Saturday, the 11th, after an illness of a few days.
‘3. We enclose a copy of the notification by which we yesterday
communicated the mournful intelligence to the public. The
funeral took place at the time mentioned in the notification;
and the great respect in which our lamented colleague was
held was evinced by a very large attendance of the general
community, in addition to the public officers, civil and
military.
‘4. We are unable adequately to express our sense of the great
loss which the public interests have sustained in Mr. Wilson’s
death. We do not doubt, however, that this will be as fully
appreciated by Her Majesty’s Government, as it is by ourselves,
and as we have every reason to believe it will be by the
community generally throughout India.
‘5. But we should not satisfy our feelings in communicating
this sad occurrence to Her Majesty’s Government, if we did not
state our belief that the fatal disease which has removed Mr.
Wilson from amongst us was in a great degree the consequence of
his laborious application to the duties of his high position,
and of his conscientious determination not to cease from the
prosecution of the important measures of which he had charge,
until their success was ensured. Actuated by a self-denying
devotion to the objects for which he came out to this country,
Mr. Wilson continued to labour indefatigably long after the
general state of his health had become such as to cause anxiety
to the physician who attended him, and it was within a few
days only after the Income Tax had become law, and when, at
the earnest request of his medical adviser, he was preparing
to remove from Calcutta for the remainder of the rainy season,
that he was seized with the illness that has carried him off.
‘6. It is our sincere conviction that this eminent public
servant sacrificed his life in the discharge of his duty.—We
have, &c.,
‘CANNING.
‘H. B. E. FRERE.
‘C. BEADON.
‘FORT WILLIAM, _August 13._’
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
FOOTNOTES
[1] This essay appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_ for October 1877,
and is now republished, with slight alterations, by the kind permission
of the editor and proprietors of that Review. In most of the alterations
now made, as well as in a great part of the original essay, I have been
greatly assisted by the help of Mrs. Walter Bagehot.
[2] _Prospective Review_, No. 31, for August 1852, a paper too strictly
temporary and practical in its aim for republication now.
[3] See volume ii., page 232, of this work.
[4] See Appendix to this volume, page 335.
[5] See vol. i. p. 43.
[6] See vol. ii. p. 66.
[7] See vol. ii. p. 67.
[8] _Physics and Politics_, p. 10.
[9] Volume ii. p. 71.
[10] _Poems and Prose Remains of Arthur Hugh Clough_, vol. i. p. 175.
[11] See Appendix to this volume, page 329.
[12] Since the first edition of this work was published, the Oxford Board
of Studies have made a text-book of Mr. Bagehot’s _English Constitution_
for that University.
[13] See vol. i. p. 28.
[14] This essay I hope to republish with others on English Statesmen in a
future volume of Studies in Political Biography.
[15] _Physics and Politics_, p. 57.
[16] _The Postulates of Political Economy._
[17] _A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith._ By his Daughter, Lady Holland.
With a Selection from his Letters. Edited by Mrs. Austin. 2 vols.
Longmans.
_Lord Jeffrey’s Contributions to the Edinburgh Review._ A new Edition in
one volume. Longmans.
_Lord Brougham’s Collected Works._ Vols. I. II. III. _Lives of
Philosophers of the Reign of George III._ _Lives of Men of Letters of
the Reign of George III._ _Historical Sketches of the Statesmen who
flourished in the Reign of George III._ Griffin.
_The Rev. Sydney Smith’s Miscellaneous Works. Including his Contributions
to the Edinburgh Review._ Longmans.
[18] Sydney Smith, Memoirs, vol. i. p. 489.
[19] This was published in October, 1855.
[20] ‘Horner is ill. He was desired to read amusing books: upon searching
his library, it appeared he had no amusing books; the nearest approach
to a work of that description being the _Indian Trader’s Complete
Guide_.’—_Sydney Smith’s Letter to Lady Holland._
[21] Letter from Lord Murray.
[22] The first words of Jeffrey’s review of The Excursion are, ‘This will
never do.’
[23] _Hartley Coleridge’s Lives of the Northern Worthies._ A new Edition.
3 vols. Moxon.
[24] This essay was published immediately after the death of the Duke of
Wellington.
[25] Keats in the Preface to Endymion.
[26] _The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ Edited by Mrs.
Shelley. 1853.
_Essays, Letters from Abroad, Translations, and Fragments._ By Percy
Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Mrs. Shelley. 1854.
_The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley._ By Captain Thomas Medwin. 1847.
[27] _Shakespeare et son Temps: Étude Littéraire_. Par M. Guizot. Paris.
1852.
_Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare’s Plays from early
Manuscript Corrections in a Copy of the Folio, 1632, in the possession of
R. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A._ London. 1853.
[28] The only antiquarian thing which can be fairly called an anecdote
of Shakespeare is, that Mrs. Alleyne, a shrewd woman in those times, and
married to Mr. Alleyne, the founder of Dulwich Hospital, was one day,
in the absence of her husband, applied to on some matter by a player
who gave a reference to Mr. Hemmings (the ‘notorious’ Mr. Hemmings, the
commentators say) and to Mr. Shakespeare of the Globe, and that the
latter, when referred to, said, ‘Yes, certainly, he knew him, and he was
a rascal and good-for-nothing.’ The proper speech of a substantial man,
such as it is worth while to give a reference to.
[29] _The Life of John Milton, narrated in connection with the Political,
Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of his time._ By David Masson, M.A.,
Professor of English Literature in University College, London. Cambridge:
Macmillan.
_An Account of the Life, Opinions, and Writings of John Milton._ By
Thomas Keightley; with an Introduction to Paradise Lost. London: Chapman
and Hall.
_The Poems of Milton_, with Notes by Thomas Keightley. London: Chapman
and Hall.
[30] _The Letters and Works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu._ Edited by
her Great-grandson, Lord Wharncliffe. Third edition, with Additions and
Corrections derived from the original Manuscripts, illustrative Notes,
and a New Memoir. By W. Moy Thomas. In two volumes. London: Henry Bohn.
[31] _Poetical Works of William Cowper._ Edited by Robert Bell. J. W.
Parker and Son.
_The Life of William Cowper, with Selections from his Correspondence._
Being Volume I. of the Library of Christian Biography, superintended by
the Rev. Robert Bickersteth. Seeley, Jackson, and Co.
[32] This was the second article in the first number of the _National
Review_.
[33] The general reader may not before have read, that the Rue du
Coq l’Honoré is an old and well-known street in Paris, and that
notwithstanding the substitution of the eagle for cock as a military
emblem, there is no thought of changing its name.
[34] [As a curious illustration of Mr. Bagehot’s estimate of the
character of the third Empire, I may mention that all the earlier part
of this paper, all that which dwelt on the good side of the imperial
_régime_ in relation to matters of material prosperity, was reproduced
in the French official journals, while all the equally true and
even more useful criticism on its moral deficiencies, was carefully
omitted.—EDITOR.]
[35] This was published as a supplement to the _Economist_, soon after
Mr. Wilson’s death in 1860.
[36] He was married on January 5, 1832, to Miss Elizabeth Preston, of
Newcastle, and this has given rise to a statement that he was once in
business at Newcastle. This is, however, an entire mistake. He was never
in business anywhere except at Hawick and London. It may be added, that
on the occasion of his marriage he voluntarily ceased to be a member of
the Society of Friends, for whom he always, however, retained a high
respect. During the rest of his life he was a member of the Church of
England.
[37] Among his friends of this period should be especially mentioned Mr.
G. R. Porter, of the Board of Trade, the author of _The Progress of the
Nation_, whose mind he described twenty years later as the most accurate
he had ever known.
[38] _Economist_ of Sept. 8, 1860, p. 977.
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