and was disowned by his family.
He came to London and led a struggling life, partly in trade and partly
in literature. In May 1768 he married Mary Annie Costello, and he died
on the 11th of April 1771, exactly one year after the birth of his son.
Mrs Canning, who was left destitute, received no help from her husband's
family, and went on the stage, where she was not successful. She married
a dissolute and brutal actor of the name of Reddish. Her son owed his
escape from the miseries of her household to another member of the
company, Moody, who wrote to Mr Stratford Canning, a merchant in London
and younger brother of the elder George Canning. Moody represented to Mr
Stratford Canning that the boy, although full of promise, was on the
high road to the gallows under the evil influence of Reddish. Mr
Stratford Canning exerted himself on behalf of his nephew. An estate of
the value of L200 a year was settled on the boy, and he was sent in
succession to a private school at Hyde Abbey near Winchester, to Eton in
1781, and to Christchurch, Oxford, in 1787. After leaving Eton and
before going to Oxford, he was entered as a student at Lincoln's Inn. At
Eton he edited the school magazine, _The Microcosm_, and at Oxford he
took the leading part in the formation of a debating society. He made
many friends, and his reputation was already so high that Sheridan
referred to him in the House of Commons as a rising hope of the Whigs.
According to Lord Holland, he had been noted at Oxford as a furious
Jacobin and hater of the aristocracy. In 1792 he came to London to read
for the bar. He had taken his B.A. in 1791 and proceeded M.A. on the 6th
of July 1794.

Soon after coming to London he became acquainted with Pitt in some
uncertain way. The hatred of the aristocracy, for which Lord Holland
says he was noted at Oxford, would naturally deter an ambitious young
man with his way to make in the world, and with no fixed principles,
from attaching his fortune to the Whigs. Canning had the glaring
examples of Burke and Sheridan himself to show him that the great
"revolution families"--Cavendishes, Russells, Bentincks--who controlled
the Whig party, would never allow any man, however able, who did not
belong to their connexion, to rise to the first rank. He therefore took
his place among the followers of Pitt. It is, however, only fair to note
that he always regarded Pitt with strong personal affection, and that he
may very naturally have been i