The life and letters of James Wolfe . an incident butwas heroic and affecting.^ On the 14th of November Parliament met, and a week later theHouse of Commons resolved to address the King, praying that hisMajesty would order a monument to be erected in WestminsterAbbey to the memory of Wolfe. At the same time, the thanks ofthe House were given to the Admirals and Generals employed in the glorious and successful expedition against Quebec. Pitt pro-posed the address, and in a low and plaintive voice, pronounced anelaborate panegyric on the dead warrior. It was perhaps, accord-ing to Walpole, the w
The life and letters of James Wolfe . an incident butwas heroic and affecting.^ On the 14th of November Parliament met, and a week later theHouse of Commons resolved to address the King, praying that hisMajesty would order a monument to be erected in WestminsterAbbey to the memory of Wolfe. At the same time, the thanks ofthe House were given to the Admirals and Generals employed in the glorious and successful expedition against Quebec. Pitt pro-posed the address, and in a low and plaintive voice, pronounced anelaborate panegyric on the dead warrior. It was perhaps, accord-ing to Walpole, the worst harangue he ever uttered. Hiseloquence was too native not to suffer by being crowded into aready mould. The parallels which he drew from Greek and Romanstory did but flatten the pathetic of the topic. . The horror ofthe night, the precipice scaled by Wolfe, the empire he with ahandful of men added to England, and the glorious catastrophe of 1 Annual Register, 1759, p. 43. 2 Memoirs of the Reign of George II, vol. ii. p. .SIR JOHN (EAKL OF ST. VINCENT)From the paintiiKj hy Hoppacr HIS MOTHERS GRIEF 501 contentedly terminating his life when his fame began,—ancientstory may be ransacked, and ostentatious philosophy thrown intothe account, before an episode can be found to rank with Wolfes. ^The Prime Ministers motion was seconded by Alderman Beck ford,who remarked, that in the appointment of Wolfe neither parlia-mentary interest, family influence, nor aristocratic views had beenconsulted, and that the General and the Minister seemed to havebeen made for each other. Nor did Great Britain alone exult. Her transatlantic colonies,where the shadow of the French had lontr been laid across NewEngland and the northern settlements, exulted also. The colonyof Massachusetts, in the exuberance of the moment, voted a marblestatue to the hero, to be erected in Boston, a monument was actuallyerected in New York, and a hundred ])ulpits resounded withpanegyric and con
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