The subject of this sketch was born in London in 1770. When he was only
one year old, the death of his father threw the responsibility of his
training and education upon his mother. Dependent upon her own energies
for the support of herself and her child, she at first established
a small school in London, and a little later fitted herself for the
stage, where she achieved considerable success.
As soon as George entered school, he began to show remarkable
proficiency in the study of Latin and Greek, as well as in English
literature. Mr. Stapleton, his biographer, tells us that when still
a child, young Canning was incidentally called upon to recite some
verses, when he began with one of the poems of Gray, and did not stop
or falter till he repeated the contents of the entire volume. At the
age of fifteen he went to Eton, where he was at once recognized as a
boy of surpassing abilities and attainments. In the following year
some of his school-fellows joined him in starting a weekly paper,
called the _Microcosm_, to which he acted the part of editor and
chief contributor. The brilliancy and wit of the paper were such as
to attract even the attention of the leading reviews. He also paid
great attention to the art of extemporaneous speaking. A society had
been established in the school in which all the forms and methods of
the House of Commons were rigidly observed. The Speaker, the Cabinet,
and the Opposition played their mimic parts with all the energy and
interest so many of the members afterward displayed in Parliament
itself. George became “Captain” of the school, and, when in 1788 he
went up to Oxford, he carried with him a reputation for accuracy and
maturity of scholarship which at once drew the eyes of the whole
university upon him. Even in his first year he entered the list of
competitors for the Chancellor’s Prize offered for the best Latin
poem, and was successful over all the upper classmen. Throughout his
course his attention was absorbed with the study of literature and the
practice of writing and speaking.
He left the University at the age of twenty-two, and at once began the
study of law. His great reputation, however, had already attracted the
attention of Pitt, who now invited him to take a seat in the House of
Commons from one of the Government boroughs. With this request Canning
complied; and, accordingly, he became a member of the House in 1793 in
the twenty-fourth year of his age.
His maiden speech, delivered some two months after he entered the
House, was brilliant, but was generally thought to be somewhat lacking
in the qualities of solidity and good judgment. His tastes were so
eminently rhetorical in their nature, that, for some years to come, he
was inclined to excess of ornamentation. Joined to this peculiarity
was an irresistible inclination to indulge in wit and badinage at
the expense of his fellow-members. This tendency was so predominant
that for a long time it was said that he never made what he called a
successful speech without making an enemy for life.
In 1797, in connection with a few friends, Canning projected the
journal known as the _Anti-Jacobin Review_. Its object was to
counteract those peculiar doctrines of the French Revolution which
its contributors thought dangerous. Many of Canning’s articles were
satires, and were so admirable in their way as to be worthy of a place
among the most noted extravaganzas of English literature. The “Knife
Grinder,” and the drama entitled “The Rovers,” are perhaps the most
successful. “The Rovers” was written to ridicule the German drama then
prevailing, and it was regarded as of so much consequence that Niebuhr
in one of his gravest works has devoted nearly a page to a refutation
of it.[A] A good impression of Canning’s peculiar wit will be conveyed
by “Rogers’ Song,” taken from “The Rovers.” Mr. Hayward[B] informs us
that Canning had written the first five stanzas of the song, when Pitt,
coming into his room and accidentally seeing it, was so amused that he
took up a pen and added the fifth stanza on the spot. The following is
the song entire:—
[A] “Geschichte des Zeitalters der Revolution,” ii., 242.
[B] “Biographical Essays,” i., 211.