north of Ireland, who had read law, but failed to get clients,
and had succeeded at nothing, from pamphleteering to selling
wine. He died on his babe's first birthday. The widow married an
actor and essayed a stage career. What would have become of
little George had he remained in his mother's company is an
interesting speculation. An actor called the attention of his
uncle, a London banker, to the probability that the lad was on
the high road to the gallows--to which in those days more than
one road led. This uncle, Stratford Canning, assumed the
responsibility of the child's education, sent him to Eton and
later to Oxford. At the former he distinguished himself by his
witty contributions to "The Microcosm'--most famous of school-boy
periodicals--and at the University where he was graduated, B.A.,
in 1791 he won some distinction in literature and oratory, taking
the University prize with his Latin poem. At Oxford he passed
through the "blissful dawn" of which Wordsworth sang, and was an
enthusiastic admirer of the French Revolution of 1789 and of the
British Whigs who supported it--Fox, Sheridan, and their sort. He
came up to London as the tide was turning, and his own opinion
was among the first to change. Pitt, the Prime Minister, had been
apprised of his talent, sent for him, and had him "chosen" to the
House of Commons, a simple matter in those unregenerate days,
when the Tory chieftains had their pockets full of boroughs.

Pitt gave Canning a minor government office--he was not yet
thirty years of age--and treated him almost as a son, the young
man reciprocating the regard with a really filial devotion. He
was ambitious for advancement, and discontented with his slow
promotion. In 1797, in company with other choice spirits, he
began the publication of The Anti-Jacobin, a weekly periodical