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turned home, not to waste the remainder of his life in ignoble sloth, or that useless ease which has been falsely termed otium cum dignitate, but which is undoubtedly the reverse of it, so long as the mind and faculties retain their full powers. Lord Auckland saw that a domesticated senator in the House of Lords might employ his time and his talents with great advantage to his fellow-subjects; that various matters of state policy bearing relation to transactions with foreign powers, and that much of internal regulation involving questions of the first importance, must in a free country present themselves to parliament, and call for the exercise of legislative wisdom : hence we find him, since the year 1794, not only sedulous in attending his parliamentary duties, but actively engaged in a great variety of debates. Nor has he confined himself to mere public oratory, though his lordship is acknowledged to be a correct, fluent, and intelligent speaker: whenever the occasion seemed to justify it, he has appealed to his fellow-subjects through the medium of the press. October 1795 he published "Remarks on the apparent Circumstances of the War;" and he has more than once stood forward as a writer on the popular topics which the pregnant times have of late years so frequently produced.

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In September 1796, on the death of the Earl of Mansfield, Lord Auckland was chosen Chancellor of the Marischal college of Aberdeen; and in February 1798 he was appointed to the office of Postmastergeneral,

In the session of 1798-9 he brought forward a bill for the better prevention of adultery and divorce, the principle of which was to prevent the intermarriage of the adulterer and adultress. A bill on a similar principle had been proposed about thirty years before by the Duke of Athol, and passed the House of Lords, but was rejected in the House of Commons; and it was again tried by the present Bishop of Durham in 1779, when it also met with similar fate, having been negatived by a division of 51 to 40. The frequency of divorce bills of late years, and the evident shameful collusion practised respecting them by the parties interested, had called forth a degree of public disgust and abhorrence, and the more especially as there are upon record, within a very few years, six or eight marriages which have taken place between the adulterer and adulteress. This might induce Lord Auckland, when he found that the public mind felt a virtuous alarm at the rapid progress of an offence which strikes at the root of domestic happiness, and endangers the stability of society itself, to imagine that parliament would receive a bill founded. in such sound morality, with chastised feelings and a corrected wisdom. The event, however, proved, that if such were his lordship's expectations, he deceived himself. The bill was warmly opposed, and among the foremost of its professed adversaries were two married peers, not only of the most unexceptionable, but of distinguished character, worthy men in private life, and known to be excellent husbands. The subject certainly will admit of a difference of opi

nion, and that difference prevailed to defeat the bill, which, although strengthened by some additional salutary clauses, by the present Lord Chancellor, for the more effectual punishment of adultery, was lost in the House of Lords. The merit of those who made the attempt to interpose this barrier to the strong current of a most dangerous and destructive evil, will not be forgotten by such of their fellowsubjects as deplore the progress of it, and lament that legislative wisdom has not yet been able to devise the means to check it effectually; to put an end to it altogether is perhaps not within the reach of human foresight or ability.

In 1799 Lord Auckland supported the measure of the income tax, and published the substance of his speech on that occasion. He also published his speech in support of the union with Ireland; and in the course of it stated, that he had been particularly employed with others in preparing the details of that business to be submitted to parliament.

Thus we have accompanied Lord Auckland from his infancy to the period of the most important of the many services which, in the course of his long and useful public life, he has, by his talents, and the most indefatigable application and industry, been enabled to render his country. He still continues to act for the promotion of her political, religious, and moral interests with unabated zeal and equal ability, by a due discharge of his public duties as a peer of parliament; and, as no member of either house has had more practice as a statesman, whatever falls from

his lordship has great weight and authority, because his speeches are known and felt to be the lessons of experience and wisdom.

DR. JENNER.

"Te mater omnis, te lachrymabilis
Accurret uxor, ne caducum

Orba virum, puerosque ploret.

Sen confluentes forte timet notas
Decora virgo, tu faciem eripis
Periclitantem, protegisque

Delicias juvenum futuras."

OF all public characters, he justly claims the first honours, and the first rank, in biography, who by the diligent and successful exertion of his talents, most effectually promotes the public good. We are therefore secure of the approbation of our readers, in assigning a place in this volume to Dr. Jenner.

It is with peculiar pleasure the mind, satiated and disgusted with the contemplation of the political world, with the continual revolutions of empires, the inordinate ambition of potentates, the sanguinary deeds of heroes, and the artful machinations of statesmen, turns to an object where it can find repose. On such a theme, the pen of panegyric dwells with delight. Saul slew his thousands, and David his ten thousands. Let others celebrate their triumphs: while we offer the humble tribute of our applause at the shrine of Jenner,-a shrine not polluted with blood!

1802-3.

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The discovery we celebrate, is the pride of Britain, the boast of science, and the glory of the healing art. The victory we commemorate, is a victory of man,-not over man,—but over a cruel and unrelenting disease. It is a victory, over which humanity will never mourn.

Vaccine Inoculation is, beyond all comparison, the most valuable, and the most important discovery, ever made. It is a discovery, to which even that of Harvey must yield the palm. It strikes one out of the catalogue of human evils: it annihilates a disease, which has ever been considered as the most dreadful scourge of mankind.

A Roman who preserved the life of one citizen, was rewarded with a civic crown. What crown shall be presented to him, who preserves the lives of millions? Divine honours were paid to Hippocrates, for exterminating the plague from Athens for a season. What honours shall be paid to him, who exterminates a more destructive pestilence for ever, from the face of the whole carth?

Wealth and titles are the recompense for desert in arms; for the desolation of provinces, and the destruction of human kind. In a more enlightened age, and a more advanced state of civilization, similar encouragement will be held forth, for those who excel in peaceful pursuits, and meliorate the condition of man:

Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes,
Quique sui memores alios fuere merendo..

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