Canning and Wellesley, when
in retirement, occupied themselves in translating the odes and
satires of Horace. Canning's passion for literature entered into
all his pursuits, and gave a colour to his whole life. His
biographer says of him, that after a dinner at Pitt's, while the
rest of the company were dispersed in conversation, he and Pitt
would be observed poring over some old Grecian in a corner of the
drawing-room. Fox also was a diligent student of the Greek
authors, and, like Pitt, read Lycophron. He was also the author
of a History of James II., though the book is only a fragment,
and, it must be confessed, is rather a disappointing work.
One of the most able and laborious of our recent statesmen--with
whom literature was a hobby as well as a pursuit--was the late
Sir George Cornewall Lewis. He was an excellent man of business--
diligent, exact, and painstaking. He filled by turns the offices
of President of the Poor Law Board--the machinery of which he
created,--Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary, and
Secretary at War; and in each he achieved the reputation of a
thoroughly successful administrator. In the intervals of his
official labours, he occupied himself with inquiries into a wide
range of subjects--history, politics, philology, anthropology,
and antiquarianism. His works on 'The Astronomy of the Ancients,'
and 'Essays on the Formation of the Romanic Languages,' might have
been written by the profoundest of German SAVANS.
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