While Mr. Canning pursued a foreign policy, boldly independent in regard to the powers and common interests of Europe, he remained preoccupied and sad. He had reached the summit of grandeur; admired and respected by all, still young and powerful, by reason of his personal merit, he nevertheless stood alone, having parted from all the friends who had fought at his side at the outset of his career, separated from them by the attitude he had taken at the head of the liberals; and also separated from the liberals, that he commanded by the resistance that he opposed to parliamentary reform. His health was good, but the nervous state into which the trials and vexations of political life had thrown him, slowly undermined the forces that he sought in vain to repair by the pleasures and charms of society. He died on the 8th of August, 1827, at Chiswick, in the beautiful villa of the Duke of Devonshire, and in the same chamber where Mr. Fox breathed his last. One after the other, young and old, death gathered the great actors of the long struggle sustained by England against the anarchical passions and absolute ambition from without and the contagion of fatal evils within. But few months after the death of Mr. Canning, Lord Liverpool, in his turn, old and worn out, already withdrawn from the world by an attack of paralysis, also died. It was necessary to provide for the needs of government. A cabinet of coalition slipped through the hands of Lord Goderich. {456} The Duke of Wellington had directed victoriously the affairs of England in war, and the king now demanded of the great general that he should take charge of the political affairs of the government. The Duke, accustomed to obey the call of duty wherever it led, did not hesitate, confiding simply in the power of good sense and honest authority. The Whigs retired; the liberal Tories, Mr. Peel at their head, closed their ranks around the new chief whom fortune had sent them. The young Lord Aberdeen, already distinguished, with Lord Castlereagh, in the most important diplomatic negotiations, now, for the first time, took part in the internal government of his country. He had the good fortune to be loved and honored by all, both at home and abroad, during his entire career. The ministry had, from the beginning, to confront a difficult and long contested question. It found itself constrained to support and defend a measure that it had previously ardently combatted. The situation in Ireland occupied all minds; the emancipation of the Catholics became, more than ever, in the eyes of some, the evident remedy for all evils; but to others, the object of lively inquietude and profound repugnance.