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. HaywardB 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:—

Unfortunately for his influence, Canning could not limit his wit or his pasquinades to the Germans and French. The Anti-Jacobin contained many ludicrous satires on the personal peculiarities of men like Erskine, Mackintosh, and Coleridge. Some of these made bitter complaints that the Government should lend its influence to and should reward the authors of these atrocious calumnies. There is evidence that the publication was discontinued at the suggestion of the Prime-Minister in consequence of these complaints, and it is very probable that Canning’s advancement was retarded by his utter lack of self-restraint.

On the accession of the Duke of Portland, in 1807, Canning became Secretary of Foreign Affairs, an office which he held for two years, till he had a quarrel with Lord Castlereagh, which resulted in a duel, and not only drove them both out of office, but overthrew the Portland Ministry. During the next seven years he was out of power, though he was regular in his parliamentary duties, and it was to him especially that Lord Wellington was indebted for the firm and even enthusiastic support of England during his military career.

Canning always regarded himself as the political disciple of Pitt. To his constituents at Liverpool he said: “In the grave of Mr. Pitt my political allegiance lies buried.” He owned no other master, and all his energies were devoted to carrying out Pitt’s policy of foreign affairs. The part of England in the protection of the smaller nationalities against the larger ones,—that policy which has preserved Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Portugal, and Turkey,—was but a continuance of the policy of Pitt, though it took definite form under the influence of Canning, and is quite as often associated with his name. The doctrine was strongly put forward on three important occasions. The first was in his speech urging England to join her fortunes with those of Spain in driving Bonaparte from the Peninsula. This, as Mr. Seeley, in his “Life of Stein” has shown, was the turning point in Napoleon’s career, and it is the peculiar glory of Canning that England was brought into the alliance by his influence. With pardonable exultation he once said: “If there is any part of my political conduct in which I glory, it is that in the face of every difficulty, discouragement, and prophecy of failure, mine was the hand that committed England to an alliance with Spain.” The second occasion was when, in 1822, he was a second time Minister of Foreign Affairs, and when France was collecting troops to overthrow constitutional government in Spain, and urging the other foreign powers, assembled at Verona, to unite in the same purpose, he despatched Wellington to Verona with so energetic a protest that even France was dissuaded from the course she had intended to pursue. Again, in 1826, Canning took a similar course in giving aid to Portugal when invaded by Spain. His continental policy might be said to consist of two parts: England should insist that the small governments should not be disturbed by the larger, and that each nation should be allowed to regulate its own internal affairs.

On the death of Lord Liverpool, in 1827, Canning became Prime-Minister. The great question then before the country was the political emancipation of the Roman Catholics. The Test Act, adopted in the reign of Charles II., had excluded Catholics from political rights—from seats in Parliament and from the privilege of voting—and the act was still in force. With the agitation that was now endeavoring to secure the emancipation of the Catholics from political disabilities, Canning was in hearty sympathy. When he was called into supreme power, therefore, the inference was natural that Catholic emancipation was to be carried through. Wellington, Peel, and nearly all the Tories in the ministry threw up their places. Their purpose was to compel Canning to resign; for knowing his views on the question of emancipation, they were unwilling to hold office under him. Unfortunately, while the struggle involved in their resignation was going on, Canning’s health suddenly gave way, and sinking rapidly, he expired on the 8th of August, 1827, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. It is a singular and an interesting fact that the very men who, in 1827, refused to follow Canning in the work of emancipation, were driven two years later by public opinion to put themselves at the head of the movement.

By many excellent judges Canning is regarded as one of the foremost of English orators. Brougham speaks of him in terms of almost the highest praise, and so judicious a critic as Sir James Mackintosh says that “Mr. Canning seems to have been the best model among our orators of the adorned style. In some qualities,” he continues, “Mr. Canning surpassed Mr. Pitt. His diction was more various—sometimes more simple—more idiomatical, even in its more elevated parts. It sparkled with imagery, and was brightened by illustration, in both of which Mr. Pitt, for so great an orator, was defective. Had he been a dry and meagre speaker, Mr. Canning would have been universally allowed to have been one of the greatest masters of argument; but his hearers were so dazzled by the splendor of his diction that they did not perceive the acuteness and the occasional excessive refinement of his reasoning; a consequence which, as it shows the injurious effects of a seductive fault, can with the less justness be overlooked in the estimate of his understanding.”