since we were all favored with an opportunity of hearing how the boy,
afterwards to be famous as Alfred Tennyson, was thrilled by the news of
Byron's death, and how it seemed to him to be like the ending of the
world. The passion of partisanship for and against Byron as a poet and
as a man has long since died away, and indeed it might perhaps be said
that the reaction which, for a time, followed the outburst of his fame
has spent itself as well. It may be taken now as the common judgment
of the world that Byron was one of the great forces of modern poetry,
and that his political sympathies sometimes had, as well as his poetic
efforts, the inspiration of genius to guide them.

We must now return to the career of Canning as we left it at the time
when he had made his great declaration of policy with regard to the
revolted colonies of Spain on the American shores, and when he was as
yet engaged in shaping the policy which was destined to end in the
emancipation of Greece. There were questions of home government coming
more and more to the front every day, which much disturbed the mind of
King George, and made the business of keeping an Administration
together more and more difficult for his advisers. The financial
policy of the country had been gradually undergoing a change, owing to
the foresight and enlightenment of some few among English statesmen.
Lord Liverpool, to do him justice, was always a man of somewhat
advanced views on questions of finance, although an inveterate Tory in
all that related to popular representation and freedom of speech.
Canning and his {52} friend William Huskisson were leading the way in
the movement towards an enlightened financial system. Huskisson had
done more than any other man, with the exception of Canning himself, to
improve the systems of taxation. What may perhaps be called the
scientific principle in the raising of revenue was only in process of
development, and to many statesmen no better idea of increasing
supplies seemed to have occurred than the simple plan of increasing the
rate of custom or excise duty on the first article of general
consumption which came under notice. Huskisson represented the new
ideas, and put them into action whenever he was allowed a fair chance
of making such an experiment. He had often held administrative office,
had been Secretary of the Treasury, President of the Board of Trade,
and Secretary for the Colonies, and had accomplished the removal