Note (return) — DEATH OF MR. CANNING.

But, in other respects, the loss of Mr. Canning is a national bereavement. He was one of the master-spirits of the age. His very name was distinguished—for he has added to the literature of his country—by his writings and his eloquence he has stimulated the march of mind; he has seconded the exertions of liberal friends to the improvements of the uneducated, and he has patronized the useful as well as the fine arts, philosophy and science, of his country. To expatiate at greater length would be superfluous, as we have in another place recorded our humble tribute to his general character.2 We have now, therefore, merely to put together the melancholy facts connected with his death, and which will convey to another generation a just sense of the value, in our time, attached to a noble and exalted genius. The just and elegant laconism of Byron, by substituting the past for the present tense, may now be adopted as a faithful and brief summary of what was George Canning.