at Hayes.

Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, in both Houses of
Parliament, ten personal adherents. Half the public men of the age had
been estranged from him by his errors, and the other half by the
exertions which he had made to repair his errors. His last speech had
been an attack at once on the policy pursued by the government, and on
the policy recommended by the opposition. But death restored him to his
old place in the affection of his country. Who could hear unmoved of
the fall of that which had been so great, and which had stood so long?
The circumstances, too, seemed rather to belong to the tragic stage than
to real life. A great statesman, full of years and honors, led forth to
the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in full
council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of
his country, could not but be remembered with peculiar veneration and
tenderness. The few detractors who ventured to murmur were silenced by
the indignant clamors of a nation which remembered only the lofty
genius, the unsullied probity, the undisputed services, of him who was
no more. For once, the chiefs of all parties were agreed. A public
funeral, a public monument, were eagerly voted. The debts of the
deceased were paid. A provision was made for his family. The City of
London requested that the remains of the great man whom she had so long
loved and honored might rest under the dome of her magnificent
cathedral. But the petition came too late. Everything was already
prepared for the interment in Westminster Abbey.

Though men of all parties had concurred in decreeing posthumous honors
to Chatham, his corpse was attended to the grave almost exclusively by
opponents of the government. The banner of the lordship of Chatham was
borne by Colonel Barre, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Lord
Rockingham. Burke, Savile, and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden was
conspicuous in the procession. The chief mourner was young William Pitt.
After the lapse of more than twenty-seven years, in a season as dark and
perilous, his own shattered frame and broken heart were laid, with the
same pomp, in the same consecrated mould.

Chatham sleeps near the northern door of the Church, in a spot which has
ever since been appropriated to statesmen, as the other end of the same
transept has long been to poets; Mansfield rests there, and the second
William Pitt, and Fox, and Grattan, and Canning, and Wi