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FRENCH AFFAIRS.

about to deliver a grand oration, and exclaiming with equal pathos, simply, "Yes," sat down, while the whole House rang with laughter. There was then a great sight: nearly all the former Opposition sat behind the Minister, among them the valiant Russell, the indefatigable Brougham, the learned Mackintosh, Cam Hobhouse of the storm-worn countenance, the noble Wilson with the pointed nose, and even Francis Burdett, the inspired, tall, Don Quixote form, whose good heart is a never-fading garden of liberal thoughts, and whose lean knees, as Cobbett said, touched Canning's back. That time will ever live in my memory, and never can I forget the hour when I heard George Canning speak regarding the rights of nations, and listened to the words of liberation which rolled like sacred thunder over the whole earth, and left behind them a consoling echo in the hut of the Mexican as well as of the Hindoo. "That is my thunder!" Canning could well say in those days. His fine, full, deep voice came sadly, yet with energy, from his suffering breast in the clear unveiled parting words of a dying man. His mother had died a few days before, and the mourning apparel which he wore increased the solemnity of his appearance. I can still recall him in his black overcoat and the black gloves, at which he often looked while he spoke, and when he seemed to regard them with special attention, then I