ds he had many powerful
opponents, and the influence of the House of Lords then counted for
more than it does at present. In the House of Lords, too, Lord Grey
bitterly and pertinaciously opposed him. Grey was then one of the
leading advocates of Parliamentary reform, and Canning could not see
his way to ally himself with the Parliamentary reformers. Lord Grey,
moreover, seems to have distrusted the sincerity of Canning's support
of Catholic emancipation, a distrust for which no possible reason can
be suggested; and, indeed, Grey would appear to have had a feeling of
personal dislike to the great statesman. Accordingly he made several
attacks on Canning and Canning's policy in the House of Lords, and Grey
was an eloquent speaker, whose style as well as his character carried
command with it. Canning was a man of singularly sensitive nature.
Like many other brilliant humorists and satirists, he was somewhat
thin-skinned and very quick of temper. He could bear a brilliant and
even a splendid part in the Parliamentary battle, but it was a pain to
him to endure in silence when he had no chance of making a retort. The
attacks of Lord Grey exasperated him beyond measure, and it is believed
that he had at one time a strong inclination to accept a peerage and
take a seat in the House of Lords, thereby withdrawing forever from the
inspiriting battle-ground of the House of Commons for the mere sake of
having an opportunity of replying to the attacks of Lord Grey, and
measuring his strength against that of the great Whig leader. The
fates, however, denied to Canning any chance of making this curious
anticlimax in his great political career. His health had always been
more or less delicate, and he was {60} never very careful or sparing in
the use of his physical powers. He was intensely nervous by
constitution, and was liable to all manner of nervous seizures and
maladies. In the early days of 1827 he caught a severe cold while
attending the public funeral of the Duke of York in the Chapel Royal,
Windsor.

[Sidenote: 1827--Death of Canning]

The Duke of York was the second son of George the Third, and for some
time had been regarded as heir-presumptive to the crown. The Duke's
public career was in almost every way ignoble. He had proved himself
an utterly incapable commander, although a good War Office
administrator, and his personal character was about on a level with his
military capacity. His death in January, 182