The character of this illustrious statesman early passed its ordeal. Scarcely had he attained the age at which reflection commences, than Europe with astonishment beheld him filling the first place in the councils of his country, and manage the vast mass of its concerns with all the vigour and steadiness of the most matured wisdom. Dignity, strength, discretion, these were among the masterly qualities of his mind at its first dawn. He had been nurtured a statesman, and his knowledge was of that kind which always lies ready for practical application. Not dealing in the subtleties of abstract politics, but moving in the slow, steady procession of reason, his conceptions were reflective, and his views correct. Habitually attentive to the concerns of government, he spared no pains to acquaint himself with whatever was connected, however minutely, with its prosperity. He was devoted to the state: its interests engrossed all his study, and engaged all his care: it was the element alone in which he seemed to live and move. He allowed himself but little recreation from his labours; his mind was always on its station, and his activity was unremitted. He did not hastily adopt a measure, nor hastily abandon it. The plan struck out by him for the preservation of Europe was the result of prophetic wisdom and profound policy. But though defeated in many respects by the selfish ambition and short-sighted imbecility of foreign powers, whose rulers were too venal or too weak to follow the flight of that mind which would have taught them to outwing the storm, the policy involved in it was still a secret operation on the conduct of surrounding states. His plans were full of energy, and the principles which inspired them looked beyond the consequences of the hour. In a period of change and convulsion, the most perilous in the history of Great Britain, when sedition stalked abroad, and when the emissaries of France and the abettors of her regicide factions formed a league powerful from their number, and formidable by their talent, in that awful crisis the promptitude of his measures saved his country. He knew nothing of that timid and wavering cast of mind which dares not abide by its own decision. He never suffered popular prejudice or party clamour to turn him aside from any measure which his deliberate judgment had adopted; he had a proud reliance on himself, and it was justified. Like the sturdy warrior leaning on his own battle, axe, conscious where his strength lay, he did not readily look beyond it.