The Sun.
London, England, 1848-11-25 00:00:00

ebienias eQvit

LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1848.

Another conspicuous politician has disappeared
from amongst us—Viscount MELBOURNE having de-
parted life yesterday, in the seventieth year of his
age, and amidst the seclusion of his ancestral residence
at Brocket Hall, Hertfordshire. A statesman of
honourable reputation; a politician of severely-
tested consistency ; a publicist whose urbanity re-
mained unruffled during the bitterest recriminations ;
an administrator of constitutional indolence, but of
conscientious honesty ; a debater remarkable rather
for the tartness of his felicitous repartees, than for the
ornate splendours of eloquence,—WiralAst LIMB has
left for the remembrance of posterity the souvenirs of a
life brilliant if not extraordinary, tarnished by many
blemishes but adorned also by many virtues, and
those virtues creditable to himself and advantageous
to his contemporaries.
From the period of his birth, on the 15th of March,
1779, until that of his death on the 24th of Novem-
ber, 1848, the deceased nobleman lived in the midst
of political contentions and of national anxieties
which, for a considerable time, affected himself in-
vidually. Nor is it consolatory to reflect that the
invidious misconstruction recently placed upon what
is called, in the slang of party, the " T. Y. Corre-
spondence," is understood to have imbittered the last
hours of the departed statesman, and to have has-
tened, in some measure, the moments of his dis-
solution.

Under the tutorship of Professor AIII,Lait at Glas-
gow, whither he had proceeded from Trinity College,
Cambridge, WILLIAM LAMB first imbibed those prin-
ciples in jurisprudence, and that familiarity with
political occurrences, which
. were afterwards his qua-1
iglifigcanatt lauf;TreCO:ftdcrueting the . Government of the
reat Britain. Those qualifica-
tions, it may be
observed,an were more strictly of an
exoteric than of
rather from the unsystematic
essoteteric. character--derived
his intellect than frYornmatic development of
professional dapirteictutde.purHsuiist
of the advantages of
been
enteraredeearttofa
nominal adoption, therefore, of
Lincoln'sjllrihe bar, 23d
consult—(LAMß having
Inn, 21st July, 1797, and been called to
November, 1804)—exercised no perceptible or appre-
ciable influence over the calling forth of his energies
A negligent participation in the legislative responsi-
bilities of the House of Commons during a period of
nearly twenty years, dating from 1805, prepared the
young aspirant for the enormous labours, the exalted
dignities, and the distracting uncertainties of
administration. And during that long appren-
ticeship as one of the popular representatives,
he was returned at successive elections by the consti-
tuencies of Leominster, of the Haddington district of
burghs, of Portarli n gt on, of Peterborough, and of Hert-
fordshire ; his model as a politician being the illus-
trious orator CHARLES Fox. Under the Government
of GEORGE CANNING, the future Premier was
further drilled into the habits of administration
by his nomination to the Chief Secretaryship
under the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, an ap-
pointment which he continued to preserve on
Lord GODERICH'S accession to office, and even
during the Ministry of bis Grace the Duke of
WELLINGTON. Immediately before the agitation for
Parliamentary Reform a variety of events transpired
which tended to exercise a remarkable influence over ,
the destinies of the Hon. WILLIAM LAMB. In 1828 ,

he was dismissed from the Chief•Secrets.ryship for

Ireland, in consequence of his participatiog in the
endeavour to compass the disfranchisement of East
Retford. In 1828, on the 25th of January, his wife,
Lady CA.aordziE PONSONDY, to whom he had been i
united on the 3d of June, 1805, and From whom be