The Works of John Hookham Frere In Verse and Prose ::

While sister arts in rivalry combine
For Canning's honour,—Sculpture and Design,
Verse claims her portion; a memorial line
Such as he lov'd; and fittest to rehearse
His merit and his praises—Truth in verse.
The pride of Honor, and the love of Truth,
Adorn'd his age, and dignified his youth.
Approv'd thro' life, and tried with every test,
In power, in favour, in disgrace, confest
The first of his coevals, and the best.
Unchanged thro' life, from Childhood's early day,
Playfully wise, and innocently gay,
Ever the same; with wit correctly pure,
Reason miraculously premature,
Vivid imagination ever new,
Decision instantaneously true,
A fervid and precipitated power

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Of hasty thought, atchieving in an hour
What tardier wits, with toil of many a day,
Polish'd to less perfection by delay.
By nature gifted with a power and skill
To charm the heart, and subjugate the will:
Born with an ancient name of little worth,
And disinherited before his birth;
A landless Orphan—rank and wealth and pride
Were freely rang'd around him; nor denied
His clear precedence, and the warrant given
Of nobler rank; stamp'd by the hand of Heav'n
In every form of genius and of grace,
In loftiness of thought, figure and face.
Such Canning was: and, half a century past,
Such all the world beheld him to the last:
Admir'd of all, and by the best approv'd,
By those, who best had known him, best belov'd;
His Sovereign's support and the people's choice,
When Europe's balance trembled on the poise,
Call'd to command by their united voice;
Fate snatch'd him from the applauding world; the first
Omen of Europe's danger, and the worst.

University of Virginia Library

EPITAPHS ON MR. CANNING.