EDWARD MONTAGU,

EARL OF SANDWICH,

A WELL-KNOWN character in our history, and one of the most beautiful in any history. He shone from the age of nineteen, and united the qualifications of general, admiral, and statesman. All parties, at a time when there was nothing but parties, have agreed that his virtues were equal to his valour and abilities. His few blemishes are not mentioned here, but as a proof that this eulogium is not a phantom of the imagination. His advising the Dutch war was a fatal error to himself, and might have been so to his country and to the liberty of Europe. His persuading Cromwell to take the crown was an unaccountable infatuation, especially as his lordship was so zealous afterwards for the Restoration. It seems he had a fond and inexplicable passion for royalty, though he had early acted against Charles the first. The earl admired Cromwell; yet could he imagine that in any light a diadem would raise the Protector's character? Or how could a man who thought Cromwell deserved a crown, think that Charles the second deserved one? If his lordship sup

posed English minds so framed to monarchy that they must recoil to it, was Cromwell a man to be tender of a constitution which Charles the first had handled too roughly 2? The earl's zeal for restoring Charles the second3 could not flow from any principle of hereditary right; for he had contributed to dethrone the father, and had offered the son's crown to the usurper. Lord Sandwich was sacrificed by another man having as weak a partiality for royal blood; his

• It is often urged with great emphasis, that when a nation has been accustomed for ages to some particular form of government, it will (though that form of government may be changed for a time) always revert to it. No argument seems to me to have less solidity; for unless the climate, the air, and the soil of the country, can imbibe habits of government, or infuse them, no country can in reality have been accustomed to any sort of government, but during the lives of its actual inhabitants. Were men, born late in the reign of Charles the first, bred to entertain irradicable prejudices in favour of royalty? It is supposed that no country is so naturally propense to liberty, as England.-It is naturally propense to monarchy too. —Is monarchy the natural vehicle of liberty?

9 [Flecknoe has an epigram which thus applauds the duke of Albemarle and earl of Sandwich for bringing in the king:

"That present and all future times may know
How much to Monk and Montague they owe,
By them that great and mighty work was done,
O' th' king's most happie restauration:

A happiness so general, we may call

It well-the restauration of us all!"

Euterpe revived, 1675.]

vice-admiral, sir Joseph Jordan, thought the duke of York's life better worth preserving, and abandoned the earl to the Dutch fire-ships *!

It is remarkable, that admiral Montague was the last commoner who was honoured with the garter, except one man, to whose virtues and merit may some impartial pen do as much justice, as I have satisfaction in rendering to this great person!

We have of his lordship's writings,

"A Letter to Secretary Thurloe 5."

"Several Letters during his Embassy to Spain;"

published with Arlington's letters. A great character of these dispatches is given in the Lives of the Admirals ❝.

Original Letters and Negotiations of Sir Richard Fanshaw, the Earl of Sandwich, the Earl of Sunderland, and Sir William Godol

[This lamentable event is thus noticed in Flecknoe's second book of Epigrams:

"Never was greater sacrifice than this,
Where sea 's the temple, fireship altar is,
And Sandwich victime offer'd up, to save
His country's honour by a death more brave

Than ever heroe died, though we should sum

All Greece ere boasted of, or ancient Rome." P. 42.] s Vide Thurloe's State Papers, vol. i. p. 726.

Vol. ii. p. 402.