W^'^^ MACAULAY'S ESSAYS AND LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME 7 7 1 * 4 CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME BY LORD MACAULAY LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited Broadway, Ludgate Hill Do PR Al l_l BR ARV STATE NORMAL SCHO*"^ MANUAL ARTS AND HOME ECv' SANTA BARSARA, CALIFORNIA CONTENTS. ESSAYS FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. PAG! Milton c i Machiavelli 30 Hallam's Constitutional Histc^j' 55 SouTHEY's Colloquies on Society 105 Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems X31 Civil Disabilities of the Jews 143 Moore's Life of ,t-0RD_BYRQ:L. 151 Samuel Johnson 170 John Bunyan 196 John Hampden 204 burghley and his times ....*..,.. 235 War of THE Succession in Spain 251 Horace Walpole 281 History of the Earl of Chatham 303 History of the Revolution 329 Lord Bacon 368 Sir William Temple 439 (^Gladstone on Church and State 490 Lord Cli 'E 524 Von Ranke 571 Leigh Hunt 593 Lord Holland 621 Warren Hastings 627 Frederic the Great 692 ,, Madame D'Arblav 736 -C^The Life and Writings of Addison ...:... 769 C^HE Earl of Chatham 814 Lays of Ancibnt Roms 861 ESSAYS. MILTON. Joe nnis Miltoni, An^li, de Doctrine Christiana libri duo posthumi. A Trratisc jri Chns tiaii D ■ctriiie, compiled from liie Holy Scriptures alone. By JoHii Milton. Tray>slaltd from 'he original by Charles R. Sumner, M. A., &c., &c. 1S25. Towards the close of the year 1823 Mr. Lemon, Deputy Keeper of the State Papers, in the course of his researches among the presses of his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton, while he filled the office of Secre- tary, and several papers relating to the Popish Trials and the Rye House Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed " To Mr. Skinner, Merchant." On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the same political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is, therefore, probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he may have fallen under the suspicions of the Government during that persecution of the Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford Par- liament, and that, in consetjuence of a general seizure of his papers, this work may have been brought to the ofiice in which it has been found. But whatever the adventures of the manuscript may have been, no doubt can exist that it is a genuine relic of the great poet. Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his Majesty to edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted himself of his task in a manner honourable to his talents and to his character. His version is not, indeed, very easy or elegant ; but it is entitled to the praise of clearness and fidelity. His notes abound with interesting quotations, and have the rare merit of really elucidating the text. The preface is evidently the work of a sensible and candid man, firm in his own religious opinions, and tolerant towards those of others. The book itself will not add much to the fame of Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well written — though not exactly in the style of the Prize Essays of Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imitation of clas- sical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the cetemonial cleanness which characterizes the diction of our academical Pharisees. He does not attempt' to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not, in short, sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled him to use many words "That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp." But he writes wi'ih as much ease and freedom as if Latin were his mol!iel tongue ; and where he :s least happy, his failure seems to arise from the care- lessness of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner. WTiat Denharn with great felicity says of Cowley may be applied to him. Ke wears the garb, but not the clothes of the ancients. Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a powerful and inde- pendent mind, ema^'dpated from the influence of authority, and devoted to the search of trs^Iu He professes to form his system from the Bible slor.e | D 6 MILTON. «nd his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly among the best that have a p. pcarcd But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in his citations. Some of the heterodox opinions which he avows seem to have excited con- siderable amazement ; parlicidarly his Arianism, and his notions on the sub- ject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have A-ad the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the former ; nor do we .nink that any reader, acquainted with the history of his life, ought to bp much startled at the latter. The opinions which he has expressed respectintj tlic nature of the Deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation of the Sahbatii might, we think, have caused more just surprise. Bi't we will not go into the discussion of these points. The book, were i^ far more orthodox, or far more heretical than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our time are not to be con- verted or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Populi to the dust and silence of the upj)er shelf. The name of its author, and the remarkable circumstances attending its publication, will secure to it a certain degree of attention. For a month or two it will occupy s* few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in every magazine ; and it will then, to borrow the elegant language of the play-bills, be withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties. We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it may be, vv'iich this v/ork has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose to pi each on the life and miracles of a saint, till they have awakened the devo- tional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some relic of him — a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood. On the same prin- ^ijjle we intend to take advantage of the late interesting discovery, and while ihis memorial of a great and good man is still in the hands of all, to say some thing of his moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are convinced, will the severest of our readers blame us if, on an occasion like the present, ve turn for a short time from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all love ai>J reverence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philDso])her, the glory of English literature, the champion and the martyr of Ensjlish liberty. it is by his poetry that Milton is best known ; and it is of his poetry that we wi'^'.h first to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized world his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. II is dc- trncturs, lnjwever, though out-voted, have not hteen silenced. There are many critics, and some of great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and to decry the poet. The works, they acknowledge, con- sivlerco in themselves, may be classed among the noblest productions of the 1 uman mirid. But they will not allow the author to rank with those great men who, bom in the infancy of civilization, supplied, by their own powers, the uvint of instruction, and, though destitute of models themselves, be- qiieathvid to posterity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, in- herited what his predecessors created ; h« lived in an enlightened age ; he received a finished education ; and we must, therefore, if we would form a jusf" estimate of his powers, make large deductions for these advantages. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may appear, ♦hat no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavourable circumstances th;iii Mil, on. He doubted, as he has himself owned, whether be had not been born " an age too late." For this notion Johnson has thought fit to make him the butt of his clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius derived no fcdvautage from the civilization which surrourAed him, or from the learning MILTON. J which he had acquired ; and he looked back with something like regret to the ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions. We think that, as civilization advances, poetry almost necessarily declines. Therefore, though we admire those great works of imagination which have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more because they h»ve appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age. We cannot understand why those who believe in that most ouhodox article of literary faith, that the earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rale as if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding uniformity in the cause. The fact is that common observers reason from the procuress of the experi- mental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The improvement of the former IS gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages more in separating and combining them. Even when a system has been formed, there Is still something to add, to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits it, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first S|)eculators lie under great disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled to praise. Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual powers, speedily surpass them in actual attainments. Every girl who has read Mrs. RIarcet's' little Dialogues on Political Economy could teach Montague or Walpole many lessons in finance. Any intelligent man may now, by resolutely apply- ing himself for a few years to mathematics, learn more than the great Newton knew after half a century of study and meditation. But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with sculpture. Still less is It thus with poetry. The progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with bf.ter objects of imitation. It may, indeed, improve the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical operations of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive and then abslracTT] They advance from particular images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary^ of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilized people is poetical. This change in the language of men is partly the cause and partly the effect of a corresponding change in the nature of their intellectual operations, a change by which science gains and poe'ry loses. Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge, but particularly in the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and thin I.- more, they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theorie? and worse poems. They give us vague phrases instead of images, and per- sonified qualities instead of men. They may be better able to analyse human nature than their predecessors. But analysis is not the business of the poet. His office is to pourtray, not to dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, like Shaftesbury. He may refer all human actions to self-interest, like Helvetius, or he may never think about the matter at all. His creed on such subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly so called, than the notions which a painter may have conceived respecting the lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the blood, will affect the tears of his Niobe, or the blushes of his \urora. If Shakespeare had written a book on the motive.s of human actions, K is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely in probable that it would have contained half so much al>le reasonitig on the liu,' 'ect as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees. But could Mandevillc luvc created fin laro? Well as he knew how to resolve chaiaclers into thcu MILTON. elements, would he have been able to combine those elements in such a miinner OS to make up a man, — a real, livinj^, individual man? I'ciiiaps no person can be a ixjct, or can even enjoy poetry, m'ithout a cer- tain unsoundness of mind, if anything which yivcs so much pleasure oui;ht to be called unsoun'j poetry, we mean the art of einjiloying words in such a manner as to pro- duce an illusion on the iiiKiiMn.itioiiMhc art of doing by means of words what the painter docs by mi-aii'. of colours!^'l"hus the grcaicit of jiocls has described it, in lines universally admired for tHc vigour and felicity of llie:.' diction, and still more valualile on account of the just notion which ibcy convey of the art in wh'ch he excelled: — " At iina;;iiijiion bot>cc'» |irn Tiirni tlicm lo thapck, aiiU givct u> ^iry uoibiiiti A loc.ll ttabiution and a iiajne." These are the fruits of the "fine frenzy" which he ',— * fine frcD/y, doubtless, but still a fienzy. Truth, in are false. After the first suppositions have been made, evcryth; ■ l>c consistent ; but those first suppositions require a degree of l. , iicb almost amounts to a partial and temporary derangement of the intcilecL Hence, of all people, children are the most imaginative. They abandon them* selves without reserve to every illusion. Every image which is strongly pre- sented to their mental eye produces on them the effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibiUty may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear as a little girl is afTected by the story of poor Red Riding- 1 food. She knows that it is all false, that wolves cannot spc-ak, that there are no wolves in Kngiand. Yet, in spite of her knowledge, she believes ; she weeps, she trembles ; she dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated minds. In a rude st?te of society men are chlMren with a greater variety of ideas. It is, therefore, in such a state of society that we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its highest perfection. In an enlightenetl age there will l>e much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abundance of just classifi- cation and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, and even of good ones, — but little poetry. Men will judge and com- pare ; but they will not create. They will talk about the old poets, and com- ment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The Greek Rh.ipsodisls, according to Plato, could not recite Homer without almost falling into con- vulsions.* The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping knife while he shouts his death-song. The power which the ancient bards of Wales and Germany exercised over their auditors seems to modem readers almost miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a civilized community, and most rare among those who particinate most in its improvements. They linger longest among the peasantry. Poetiy produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, as a magic lantern pro- duces an illusion on the eye of the body. And, as the magic lantern acu best • S«« the Dialos'ue between Socrates and le. MILTO.V. % m a dark room, poetry effects its purpose most completely in a tiark age. As the light of knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions, as the outlines of cer- tainty become more and more definite, and the shades of ^roba'-ility more and more distinct, the hues and lineaments of the phantoms whic^i it calls up grow fainter and fainter. We cannot unite the incompatible advantnges of reality and deception, the clear discernment of truth and the exquisite enjc ment of fiction. He who, in an enlightenetl and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, must fiist become a little child. He must take to pieces the whi'le wb of his mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge which has ncrliai>s constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. His very talents will be a hinderance to him. Hise proportioneil to the vigour and activity of his mind. And it is well if, after all his sacrifices and exertions, his works do not resemble a lisping man, or a modem ruin. We have sten in our own time great talents, intense laUnir, and long meditation cniplt>\eil in tliis struggle against the spirit of the age, and employen cannot be comprehended or enjoyed unless the mind of the reader co-operate with that of the writer. He does not paint a finished picture or play for a mere passive listener. He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make out the melody. We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. The expression in general means nothing, but, applied to the writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words than in other words. But they are words of enchantment. No sooner are they pronounced than the past is present and the distant near. New forms of beauty start at once into existence, and all the burial places of the memory give up their dead. Change the structure of the sentence ; sub- stitute one synonym for another, and the whole effect is destroyed. The sjiell loses its power ; and he who should then hope to conjure with it would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the Arabian tale, when he stood crying " Open Wheat," " Open Barley," to the door which obeyed no sound but " Ojien Sesame ! " The miserable failure of Dryden in his attempt to re- write some parts of the Paradise Lost is a remarkable instance of this. In supi)ort of these observations, we may remark that scarcely any pas- sages in the poems of Milton are more generally known, or more frequent. y repeated, than those which are little more than muster-rolls of names. They are not aivvays more appropriate or more melotlious than other names. But they are charmed names. Every one of them is the first link in a lung chain of associated ideas. Like the dwelling-place of our infancy revisited in man- hood, like the song of our country heard in a strange land, they produce upun us an effect wholly independent of their intrinsic value. One trans]iorts us back to a remote period of history. Another places us among ihir moral scenery and manners of a distant country. A third evokes all the dear clas- sical recollections of childhood, the school-room, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, and the prize. A fourth brings before us the s]ilenfIio phamoms of chivalrous romance, the trophied lists, the embroidered housings, the quaint MILTON. 1 devices, the haunted forests, the enchanted gardens, the achievements of enamoured knights, and the smiles of rescued princesses. In none of the works of Milton is his peculiar manner more happliy dis- played than in the Allegro and the Pcnscroso. It is impossible to conceive that the mechanism of laiiguai^e can be brought to a more exquisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from others as ottar of roses differs from ordinary rose water, the close-packed essence from the thin diluted mixture. They are. indeed, not so much poems as collections of hints from each of which the reader is to make out a poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a canto. The Cornus and the Samson Agonistes are works which, though of very different merit, offer some marked points of resemblance. They are both lyric poems in the form of plays. There are, perhaps, no two kinds of compo- sition so essentially dissimilar as the drama and the ode. The business of the dramatist is to keep himself out of sight, and to let nothing appear but his cliaracters. A.s soon as he attracts notice to his personal feelings the illusion is broken. The effect is as unpleasant as that which is produced on the stage by the voice of a prompter, or the entrance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was that the tragedies of Byron were his least successful perfonnances. They resemble those pasteboard pictures invented by the friend of children, Mr. Newberry, in which a single movable head goes round twenty different bodies; so that the same face looks out upon us successively from the uniform of a hussar, the furs of a judge, and the rags of a beggar. In all the characters, patriots and tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown and sneer of Harold were discernible in an instant. But this species of egotism, though fatal to the drama, is the inspiration of the ode. It is the part of the lyric poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his own emotions. Between these hostile elements many great men have endeavoured to effect an amalgamation ; but never with complete success. The Greek drama, on the model of which the Samson was written, sprung from the ode. The dialogue was ingrafted on the chorits, and naturally partook of its character. The genius of the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co-operated with the circumstances under which tragedy made its first a]ipearance. ^schyius was, head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time the Greeks had far more inter- course with the East than in the days of Homer ; and they had not vet ac- ijuired that immense superiority in war, in science, and in the arts which, in the following generation, led them to treat the Asiatics with contempt. From Ihe narrative of Herodotus it should seem that they still looked up, with the veneration of disciples, to Egypt and Assyria. At this period, accordingly, it was natural that the literature of Greece should be tinctured with the Oriental style. And that style, we think, is clearly discernible in the works of Pindar and .^.schylus. The latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The book of Job, indeed, in conduct and diction, bears a considerable resem- blance to some of his dramas. Considered as plays, his works are absurd : :onsidered as chorases, they are above all praise. If, for instance, we ex- amine the address of Clytemnestra to Agamemnon on his n-.'jrn, or the de- scription of the seven Argive chiefs, by the principles of drj.T;j.tic writing, we shall instantly condemn them as monstrous. But if we forget the character* and think only of the poetry, v/e shall admit that it has never been surpassev. in energy and magnificence. Sophocles made the Greek drama as dramatic as was consistent with its original form. His portraits of men have a sort of similarity ; but it is the similarity not of a painting, but of a bas-relief. It suggests a resemblance ; but it does not produce an ilhi^icm. Euri]>icles aitemptcd (o carrj" the reform further. Eul ii »;ia a taik far beyond hi^i'i/vvcn^ 8 MILTO^. pcih?.ns heyond any powers. Instead of correcting what was had, he dc- siioye'd vvliai v>as excellc-i.t. He .substituted crutches for siilis, bad sermons for good odes. Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly; much more highly than, in our opinion, he deserved. Indeed the caresses which tliis partiality leads him to bestow on "sad Electra's poet," sometimes remind us of the beautiful Queen of Fairjdand kissing the long ears of Bottom. At all evenls, there can be no doubt that his veneration for the Athenian, whether just or not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes. Had he taken .(^schylus for his model, he would have given himself up to the lyric inspiiaiion, and poured out profusely all the treasures of his mind, without bestowing a thought on those dramatic proprieties which the nature of the work rendered it impossible to preserve. In the attempt to reconcile things in their own nature inconsis- tent he has failed, as every one else must have failed. We cannot identify ourselves with the characters, as in a good play. We cannot identify our- selves with the poet, as in a good ode. The conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an alkali mixed, neutralize each other. We are by no means in- sensible to the merits of this celebrated piece, to the severe dignity of the style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which gives so striking an effect to the choral passages. But we think it, we confess, the least successful effort of the genius of Milton. The Comus is framed on the model of the Italian masque, as the Samson is framed on the model of the Greek tragedy. It is certainly the noblest per- formance of the kind which exists in any language. It i.s as far superior to ihe Faithful Shepherdess as the Faithful Shepherdess is to Aminta, or the Aminta to the Pastor Fido. It was well for Milton that he had here no Euri- pides to mislead liim. He understood and loved the literature of modem Italy. But he did not feel for it the same veneration which he enlertainei)ring of their intellects. That Milton was mistaken in preferring this work, excellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we must readily admit. But we are sure that the superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Paradise Regained is not more decided thru'i the superiority of the Paradise Regained to every jjoem. which has since n'.ade its appearaiice. Rut our limits prevent us from discussing the point at length. We hasten on to that extraordinary proiluction wi;ii;h the general sulfrage of critics has placed in the highest class of human compositions. The only poem of modern times which can be conipared with the Paradise Lost is the Divine Comedy. The subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that of Dante ; but he has treated it in a widely different manner. We cannot, we think, better illustrate our opinion respecting our own great poet than by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan literature. The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as the Hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico. The images which Dante emjDloys speak for themselves ; they stand simply for what they are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often discernible only to the initiated. Their value dejjends less on what they directly represent than on what they remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque may be the appear- ance which Dante undertakes to describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, the smell, the taste ; he counts the numbers ; he measures the size. His similes are the illustrations of a traveller. Unlike those of other poets, and especially of Milton, they are in- troduced in a plain, business-like manner, not for the sake of any beauty in the objects from which they are drawn, not for the sake of any ornament which they may impart to the poem, but simply in order to make the meaning of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself. The ruins of the precipice which led from the sixth to the seventh circle of hell were like those of the rock which fell into the Adige on the south of Trent. The cataract of Phle- pt^thon was like t'.at of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Benedic'. The place wiiere t!:e r-'.reiics were confined in burning tom.bs resembled th,- v.ib; C--i!U tciy oi .A.r;t s ! ' "There eternal summer dwells, And west vviuds, with musky wing, Aboui the cedared alleys fling Iare with the exact details of Dante the dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few examples. The English poet has never 'bought of taking the measure of Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies stretched out, huge in length, floating many a rood, equal in size to the earth-born enemies of Jove, or to the sea- monster which the mariner mistakes for an island. When he addresses him- self to battle against the guardian angels, he stands like Icacrilfe or Atlas; Lis stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in which iJante has described the gij.'antic spectre of Nimrod. " His face seemed to me as long and as broad as the ball of St. Peter's at Rome ; and his other limbs were in proportion ; so that the bank, which concealea hirA from the waist downw;;nds, nevertheless showed so much of him that thicc tall Ger- mans would in vain Jiave attempted to reach to his hair." We are sensible that we do no justice to the admirable style of the Florentine poet. But Mr. Gary's translation is not at hand ; and our version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our meaning. Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh book of the Paradise Lost with tlie last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, and takes refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremendous imagery. Despair hurrying from couch to couch to mock the wretches with his attendance, Death shaking his dart over them, but in spite of supplications, delaying to strike. What says Dante? " There was such a moan there as there would be if all the sick who, between July and September, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, were in one pit to- gether ; and such a stench was issuing forth as is wont to issue from decayed limbs." We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office of settling precedency between two such writers. Each in his owti department is incomparable ^ and each, we may remark, has, wisely or fortunately, taken a subject adapted to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest advantage. The Divine Comedy is a personal narrative. Dante is the eye-witness and ear-witness of that which he relates. He is the very man who has heard the tormented spirits crying out for the second death, who has read the dusky characters on the portal within which there is no hope, who has hidden his face from the terrors of the Gorgon, who has fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of Barbariccia and Diaghignazzo. His own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His own feet have climbed the mountain of expiation. His own brow has been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would throw aside such a *s, as darkness itself, and where the light was as darkness !" The gloom of his character div colours all the passions of men and all the face of nature, a-d tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of Paradise and the glories of the Eternal Throne ! All the portraits of him are singularly characteristic. No person can look en the features, noble even to ruggedness, the dark furrows of the cheek, t'ric haggard and woful stare of the eye, the sullen and contemptuous curve of the lip, and doubt that they belonged to a man too proud and too sensitive to be iappy. Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover, and, like Dante, he had been unfortunate in aml)iiion and in love. He had survived his health and his sight, the comforts of his home, and the prosperity of his party. Of the groat men by whom he had been distinguished at his entrance into life, some had been taken away from the evil to come ; some had carried into foreign climates their unconquerable hatred of oppression ; some were pining in dun- geons ; atid some had poured forth their blood on scaffolds. That hateful proscription, facetiously termed the Act of Inices, the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The king cringed to his rival that he might trample on his people, sunk into a viceroy of France, and pocketed, with complacent infimy, her degrading insults and her more degrading gold. The caresses of harlots and the jests of buffoons regulated the measures of a government which had just ability enough to deceive and just religion enough to persecute. The princii)les of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every high place worship w,is paid to Charles and James — Belial and Moloch ; and luigland propitiated those obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgra'^c to disgrace, till the race accursed of God and man was a second time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a shaking of the head to the nations. Most of tie remarks which we have hitherto made on the public cliaracte-r 14 MILTON. of Milton apply to him only as one of a large body. We shall proceed to notice some of the peculiarities which distinguislied him from his contempt raries. And, for that purpose, it is necessary to take a short survey of the parties into which the political world was at that time divided. We must premise that our observations are intended to apply otdy to those who adhered, from a sin- cere preference, to one or to the other side. At a period of public commotion, every faction, like an oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp follower*, an useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope of picking up somethmg under its i)rotecti(m, but desert it in the day of battle, and often join to exterminate it after a defeat. England, at the time of which we are treating, abounded with such fickle and selfish politicians, who trans- ferred their su])port to every government as it rose ; who kissed the hand of the king in 1640, and spit in his face in 1649 ; who shouted with equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated in Westminster Hall, and when he was dug up to be hanged at Tyburn ; who dined on calves' liead or on broiled rumps, and cut down oak -brandies or stuck them up as cir<- jmstances altered, without the slightest shame or repugnance. These we leave out of the account. We take our estimate of parties from those who really deserved to be called partisans. We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on the surface. He that runs may read them ; nor have there been wanting attentive and malicious oljservers to point them out. For many years after the Restoration they were the theme of unmeasured in- vective and derision. They were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at the time when the press and stage were most licen- tious. They were not men of letters ; they were as a body unpopular ; they CO'-' ' not defend themselves ; and the public would not take them under its protection. They were, therefore, abandoned, without reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff ])osture, their long graces, their Hebrew names, the Scriptural plnases which they introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of polite amuse- ments were, indeed, fair game for the laughers. But it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he who approaches this sul'.ject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has already misled so many excellent writers. " Ecco U fonte del riso, ed ecco il no Che mortali perigli in se contiene ; Hor qui teiier a fren nostro desio, Ed esser cauti molio a coi coiiviene."* Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed, out of the most unpro- mising materials, the finest army that Europe had ever seen, who trampled down king, church, and aristocracy, — wlio, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation on the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges were not more attractive. We re- gret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind has owed inesti- mable obligations had not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents of Charles I., or the easy good- breeding for which the court cf • Geswsaleinjne Libcrau, xv. 57. MILTOT^. -IS Cliarles TI. w?.s celebrated. Btit, if we must make our choice, we s.!ia11, like lias^au'.o in tiie p'-.iy, turn from the specious caskets which cont:i'i> only the Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix our choice on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not con- tent with acknowledging, in general terms, an overrtling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute, i'o know him, to serve him, t^o enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt tlie ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worshi[) of the soul. Instead of catching occa- sional glimpses of the Ueity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed to vanish when com- pared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognved no title to superiorry hut his favour ; and, confident of that favour, they despised all the acconi] fis'iments and all the dignities of the world. If they vi-ere unacquainted with t! e works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not fouml in the rcgi'-terj of heralds, they felt a.ssured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angtls had charge over them. Their palaces were hou-^es not made with hands ; their diadems, crowns of glory which should never fade away ! On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests they looked d(_>wu with contempt ; for they csteemeil themselves rich in a more precious treasure and eloquent in a more suldime language; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests liy the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged — on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest, who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the Evan- gelist and the harp of the prophet. He bad been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransoined by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earllily sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that thrj dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expirinf> Go.1 ! " 1 iius the Puritan was made up of two different men, the one all sclf-abase- mrnt, peniter:ce, giatirude, passion ; the other proud, calm, inflexible, saga- cious. He prostrated himself in t!ie dust before his Maker: but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or tenible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fi;r.ds. He cmight a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming froi^ dreams of evei i;i,tiiig fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the Bceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of bis sou! that God had hid his face from him. But, when he took his seat in the council, or giil on "iis sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul 26 MILTON. had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothinj^ of the yoiliy but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but th^.r groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had L'*:le reaso". to laugh who encoiuuercd them in the hall of debate, or in the fielu of battle. These fanatics brought to civil and military alfairs a coolness of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers huvc thought inconsistent with iheir religious zeal, but which were, in fact, the neccessary eflects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and Tear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and tlieir tears, their rajotures and their sorrows, but ntit for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them Stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went through the world like Sir Artegale's iron man Talus with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, mingling with human beings, but having neitlicr yjarl nor lot in human infirmities ; insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, ano to pain ; not to be pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood by any barrier. Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by Straining after things too high for mortal reach : and we know that, in spite of their hatred of popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that bad system. Intolerance and extravagant austerity — that they had their anchorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominies and their Escobars. Yet, when ail circumstances are taken into considera*-ion, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest and an useful body. The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty mainly because it was \)\\. cause of religion. There was another party, by no means nuuieiuus, but dis- tinguished by learning and ability, wliich co-operated with them on very different principles. We speak of those whom Cromwell was accustomed to call the Heathens, men who were, in the phraseology of that time, doubting Thomases or careless Gallios vi'ith regard to religious subjects, but passionate worshippers of freedom. Heated by the study of ancient literatur*»., they set np their country as their idol, and proposed to themselves the heroes of Plu- tarch as their examples. They seem to have borne some resemblance to the Brissotines of the French Revolution. But it is not very easy to draw tlie line of distinction between them and their devout associates, whose tone and manner they sometimes found it convenient to affect, and sometimes, it is probable, imperceptibly adopted. We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt to speak of them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, with perfect candour. We shall not chrirge upon a whole party the profligacy and baseness of the horseboy^, gamuk-rs. and bravoes, whom the hope of licence and plunder attracted from all. the dens of Whitefriars to the standard of diaries, and who disgraced their asso- ciates by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the Parliamentaiy armies, were never tolerated. We will select a more fnvourable specimen. Thinking, as we do, that the cause of the king was the cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot refrain from looking with complacency on the character of the honest old Cavaliers. We feel a natinnal pricie m comjiariug them with the insliumcnts which the despots of other countries are ciimpellcd to MILTON. 27 employ, with the mutes who throng their antichnmbers, aiul the janissaries who mount guard at their gates. Our royalist countrymen were not heartless, dangling courtiers, bowing at every step and simpering at every word. They were not mere machines for destruction dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, intoxicated into valour, defending without love, destroying without hatred. There was a freedom in their subserviency, a nobleness in their very degradation. The sen'inient of individual independence was strong within them. They were, indeed, misled, but by no base or selfish motive. Cota- passion and romantic honour, the prejudices of childhood, and the venerable names of history, threw over them a spell potent as that of Duessa ; and, like the Red-Cross Knight, they thought that they were doing battle for an injured beauty, while they defeiided a false and loathsome sorceress. In truth, they scarcely entered at all into the merits of the political question. It was not for a treacherous king or an intolerant church that they fought ; but for the old banner which had waved in so many battles over the heads of their fathers, and for the altars at which they had received the hands of their brides. Though nothing could be more erroneous than their political opinions, they possessed, in a far greater degree than their adversaries, those qualities which are the grace of private life. With many of the vices of the Round Table, they had also many of its virtues, courtesy, generosity, veracity, tenderness and respect for women. They had far more both of profound and of polite learning than the Puritans. Their manners were more engaging, their tem- pers more amiable, their tastes more elegant, and their households more cheerful. Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes which we have described. He was not a Puritan. He was not a free-thinker. He was not a Cavalier. In his character the noblest qualities of every party were combined in har- monious union. From the Parliament and from the Court, from the con- venticle and from the Gothic cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles l>f the Roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of the hospitable Cavalier, his uature selected and drew to itself whatever was great and good, while it rejected all the base and pernicious ingredients by which those finer elements were tletiled. Like the Puritans, he lived " As ever in his great task-master's eye." Like them he kept his mind continually fixed on an Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. And hence he acquired their contempt of external cir- cumstances, their fortitude, their tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. But rot the coolest sceptic or the most profane scoffer was more perfectly free from the contagion of their frantic delusions, their savage manners, their ludicrous jargon, theii scorn of science, and their aversion to pleasure. H^ -pg tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had nevertheless all the estimable anti .rnanicntal qualities which were almost entirely monopolized by the party of the tyrant. There was none who had a stronger sense of the value of literature, a finer relish for every elegant amusement, or a mo]e chivaliou3 delicacy of hcnour and love. Though his opinions were democratic, his tastes and his associations were such as harmonize best with monarchy aiij aristocracy. He was under the influence of all the feelings by which th« gallant Cavaliers were misled. But of those feelings he was the master and not the slave. Like the hero of Homer, he enjoyed all the pleasure of fasci- nation ; but he was not fascinated. He listened to the song of the Syrens; yet he glided by without being seduced to their fatal shore. He tasted the cup of Circe ; but he bore about him a sure antidote against the effects of its bewitching sweetness. The illusions which captivated his imagination never aS MILTON. impaired his reasoning powers. The statesman was proof against the Eplendour, the solemnity, and the romance which enchanted the poet. Any person who v/ill contrast the sentiments expressed in his Treatises on Pitlacy with the exquisite lines on Ecclesiastical architecture and music in the Pen- fjeroso, which was published about the same time, will understand our meaning. This is an inconsistency which, more than anything else, raises his character in our estimation ; because it shows how many private tastes and feelings he sacrificed in order to do what he considered his duty to mankind. It is the very struggle of the noble Othello. His heart relents ; but his hand is firm. He does naught in hate, but all in honour. He kisses the beautiful deceivei before he destroys her. That from which the public character of Milton derives its great and peculiar splendour still remains to be mentioned. If he exerted himself 1o ovLrthrow a foresworn king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in conjunction with others." But the glory of the batlle wlach he fought for that species of freedom which is the most valuable, and which was then the least understood, the freedom of the human mind, is all his own. Thousands and tens of thou- sands among his contemporaries raised their voices against Ship-money and the Star Chamber. But there were few indeed who discerned the more fearful evils of moral and intellectual slavery, and the benefits which would result from the liberty of the press and the unfettered exercise of private judgment. These were the objects which Milton justly conceived to be the most important. He was desirous that the people should think for themselves as well as tax them- selves, and be emancipated from the dominion of prejudice as well as from that of Charles. He knew that those who, with the best intentions, over- looked these schemes of reform, and contented themselves with pulling down the king and imprisoning the malignants, acted like the heedless brothers in his own poem, who, in their eagerness to disperse the train of the sorcerer neglected the means of liberating the captive. They thought only of con- quering when they .should have thought of disenchanting. "Oh, ye mistook ! Ye should have snatched the wajad I Without the rod reversed. And backward mutters of dissevering power. We cannot free the lady that sits here Bound in strong fetters, fixed and motionless. To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, to break the ties which bound a stupefied people to the seat of enchantment was the noble aim of Milton. To this all his public conduct was directed. For this he joined the Presbyterians— for this he forsook them. He fought their perilous battle ; but he turned away with disi'ain from their insolent triumph. He saw that they, like those whom they had vanquished, were hostile to the Hberty of thought. He therefore joined the Independents, and called upon Cromwell to break the secular chain, and to save free conscience from the paw of the Presbyterian wolf.* With a view to the same great object, he attacked the licensing system, in that sublime treatise which every statesman should wear as a sign upon his hand, and as frontlets between his eyes. His .attacks were, in general, (Hrecled If^s against particular abuses than against those deeply seated errors on which almost all abuses are founded, the servile worship of eminent men, and the irrat'^onal dread of innovation. That he might shake the foundation of these debasing sentiments more effectually, he always selected for himself the boldest literary services. H« iiLv'j! came up in the rear when the outside works had been carried, and ih» * Sonnet to Cromwell. MIL TON. 09 breach entered. He pressed into the forlorn hope. At the beginning of the changes he wrote with incomparable energy and eloquence against the bishops. But when his opinion seemed likely to prevail, he passed on to other subjects, and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of writers who now hastened to insult a falling party. There is no more hazardous enterprise than that of bearing the torch of truth into those dark and infected recesses in which no light has ever thone. But it was the choice and the pleasure of Milton to penetrate the noi- some vapours and to brave the terrible explosion. Those who most disap- prove of his opinions must respect the hardihood with which he maintained them. He, in general, left to others the credit of expounding and defending the popular parts of his religious and political creed. He took his own stand upon those which the great body of his countrymen reprobated as criminal, or derided as paradoxical. He stood up for divorce and regicide. He ridiculed the Eikon. He attacked the prevailing systems of education. His radiant and beneficent career resembled that of the god of light and fertility. " Nitor in adversiim ; nee me, qui caetera, vincit Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi." It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to become acquainted with the full power of the English language. They abound with passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold. The style is stiff, with gorgeous embroidery. Not even in the earlier books of the Paradise Lost has he ever risen higher than in those parts of his contro- versial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is, to borrow his own majestic language, " a sevenfold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." * We had intended to look more closely at these performances, to analyze the peculiarities of the diction, to dwell at some length on the sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica, and the nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, and to point out some of those magnificent passages which occur in the Treatise of Reforma- tion, and the Animadversions on the Remonstrant. Est the length to which our remarks have already extended renders this impossible. We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear ourselves away from the subject The days immediately following the publication of this relic of Milton appear to be peculiarly set apart and consecrated to his memory. And we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his festival, we be found lingering near bis shrine, how worthless soever may be the offering which we bring to it. While !his book lies on our table, we seem to be contemporaries of the great poet. We are transported a hundred and fifty years back. We can almost fancy that we are visiting him in his small lodging ; that we see him sitting at the old organ beneath the faded green hangings ; that we can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling in vain to find the day ; that we are reading in the lines of his noble countenance the proud and mournful history of his glory and his affliction ! We image to ourselves the breathless silence in which we should listen to his slightest word ; 'he passionate veneration with which we should kneel to kiss his hand and weep upon it ; the earnestness with which we should endeavour to console him, if, indeed, such a spirit could need conso- lation for the neglect of an age unworthy of his talents and his virtues ; tl;e eagerness with which we should contest with his daughters, or with his Quaker friend Elwood, the privilege of reading Homer to him, or of taking dow/i the immortal accents which flowed from his lips. • The Reasun of Church Government urged against Prelatcy, Bock I ^ JO MACHIAVELLI. These are, perhaps, foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be ashamed of them ; nor shall we be sorry if what we have written shall in any degree excite them in other mindi. We are not much in the habit of idolizing either the living or the dead. And v/e think that there is no more certain indication of a weak and ill-regulated intellect than that propensity which, for want of a bettei name, we will venture to christen Poswdlism. But there are a few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny and the severest tests, which have been tried in the furnace and have proved pure, which have been weighed in the balance and have not been found wanting, which have been declared sterling by the general consent of mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image and superscription of the Most High. These great men we trust that we know how to prize ; and of these was Milton. The sight of his books, the sound of his name, are refreshing to us. His thoughts resemble those celes- tial fruits and flowers which the Virgin Martyr of Massinger sent down from the gardens of Paradise to the earth, distinguished from the productions of other soils, not only by their superior bloom aud sweetness, but l)y their miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy the man who can study either the life or the writings of the great poet and patriot without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the subhme works with which his genius has enriched our literature, but the zeal with which he laboured for the public good, the fortitude with which he endured every private calamity, the lofty disdain with which he looked down on temptations and dangers, the deadly hatred which he bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which he so sternly kept with his country and with his fame. MACHIAVELLI. (Euvres completes de Machiavei-, traduites par J. V. Phrier. Paris, i8»s. Those who have attended to the practice of our literary tribunal are well aware that, by means of certain legal fictions similar to those of Westminster Hall, we are frequently enabled to take cognizance of cases lying beyond the sphere of our original jurisdiction. We need hardly say, therefore, that, in the present instance, M. Perier is merely a Richard Roe — that his name is used for the sole purpose of bringing Machiavelli into court — and that he will not be mentioned in any subsequent stage of the proceedings. We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious as that of the man whose character and writings we now propose to coniiden The terms in which he is commonly described would seem to import that he was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the discoverer of ambition and revenge, the original inventor of perjury ; that, before the publication of his fatal Prince, there had never been a hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated virtue oi a convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that Maurice of Saxony learned all his fraudulent policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks th:U, since it was translated into Turkish, the sultans have been more addicted than formerly to the custom of strangling their brothers. Our own foolish Lord Lyltelton charges the poor Florentine with the manifold treasons of tb) Iff use of Guise and the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Several authors have hinted that the Gunpowder Plot is to be primarily attributed to his doctrines, and seem to think that his efFigy ought to be substituted for that of Guy Faux in those processions by which the ingenuous youth of England annually com- memorate the preservation of the Three Estates. The Church of Rome has pronounced his works accursed things. Nor have rujr own countrymen bten MA CKIA VELLI. 32 oackwaru in testifyirig their opinion of his merits. Out of his surname they have coined an epithet for a knave — and out of his Chriitian name c syno- nym for the Devil.* It is, indeed, scarcely possible for any person not well acquainted! with the history and literature of Italy to read, without horror and amazement, the celebrated treatise which has brought so much obloquy on the name of Machiavelli. Such a display of wickedness, naked, yet not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific atrocity seem rather to belong to a fiend than to the most depraved of men. Principles which the most hardened ruffian would scarcely hint to his most trusted accomplice, or avow, without the disguise of some palliating sophism, even to his own mind, are professed without the slightest circumlocution and assumed as the fundamental axioms of all political science. It is not strange that ordinary readers should regard the author of such a book as the most depraved and shameless of human beings. Wise men, however, have always been inclined to look wiih great suspicion on tlie angels and demons of the multitude : and in the present instance several circum- stances have led even superficial observers to question the justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous republi- can. In the same year in which he composed his manual of Iving-craft he suffered imprisonment and torture in the cause of public liberty. It seems inconceivable that the martyr of freedom should have designedly acted as the apostle of tyranny. Several eminent writers have, therefore, endeavoured to de'.ect, in this unfortunate performnnce, some concealed meaning, more con- sistent with the cliaracter and conduct of the author than that which appears at the first glance. One hypothesis is that Machiavelli intended to practise on the younc Lorenzo de Medici a fraud similar to that which Sunderland is said to have employed against our James the Second — that he urged his pupil to violent and perfidious measures, as the surest means of accelerating the moment of deliverance and revenge. Another supposition, which Lord Bacon seems to countenance, is that the treatise was merely a piece of grave irony, intended to vvani nations against the arts of ambitious men. It would be easy tosho\v tiiat neither of these solutions is consistent witii many passages in the Prince itsi-lf. Hut the most decisive refutation is that which is furnished by the othei works of Machiavelli. In all the writings which he gave to the public, and in all those which the research of editors has, in the course of three centuries discovered, in his comedies, designed for the entertainment of the multitude, in his Comments on Livy, intended for the peru';al of the most enthusiastic patriots of Florence, in his History, inscribed to one of the most amiable and estimable of the popes in his public despatches, in his private memoranda, the same obliquity of m.oral principle for which the Prince is so severely censured is more or less discernible. We doubt whether it would be possible to find, in all the many volumes of his compositions, a single expression indicating that dissimulation and treachery had ever struck him as dis- creditable. After tliisit may seem ridiculous to say that we are acquainted with few wri'ings which exhibit so much elevation of sentiment, so pure and warm a teal for the public good, or so just a view of the duties and rights of citizens RK these of Machiavelli. Yet so it is. And even from the Prince itself v»e • Nick Michiavel had ne'er a trick, Thu' he gave his name to our olj Nick. Hudibrns, Parr ni., cacto J But, we believe, there !•■» snhism on tb'5 subject among the as iquuriaus. MAcmAVELir. could select many passages in support of Oiis remark. To a reader of our z^e. and country this inconsistency is, at first, periectly bewildering. The whole man seems to be an enigma — a grotesque assemblage of incongruous qualities • — selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevolence, craft and simplicity, abject villany and romantic heroism. One sentence is such as a veteran diplo- matist would scarcely write in cipher for the direction of his most confidential spy ; the next seems to be extracted from a theme composed by an ardent schoolboy on the death of Leonidas. An act of dexterous perfidy, and an act of patriotic self-devotion, call forth the same kind and the same degree of respectful admiration. The moral sensibility of the writer seems at once to be morbidly obtuse and morbidly acute. Two characters altogether dis- similar are united in him. They are not merely joined, but interwoven. They are the warp and the woof of his mind ; and their combination, like that of the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to the whole texture a glanc- ing and ever-changing appearance. The explanation might have been easy if he had been a very weak or a very affected man. But he was evidently neither the one nor the other. His works prove, beyond all contradiction, that his understanding was strong, his taste pare, and his sense of the ridiculous exquisitely keen. This is strange — and yet the strangest is behind. There is no reason what- ever to think that those amongst whom lie lived saw anything shocking or incongruous in his writings. Abundant proofs remain of the high estimation in which both his works and his person v^ere held by the most respectable among his contemporaries. Clement the .Seventh patronized the publication of those very books which the Council of Trent, in the following generation, pronounced unfit for the perusal of Christians. Some members of the deino- cratical partv cen;,ured the secretary for dedicating the Prince to a patron who bore the unpopular name of Medici. But to those immoral doctrines which have since called forth such severe reprehensions no exception appears to have been taken. The ci"y against them was first raised beyond the Alps — and seems to have been heard with amazement in Italy, The earliest assailant, as far as we are aware, was a countryman of our own, Cardinal Pole. The author of the Anti-Machiavelli was a French Protestant. It is, therefore, in tlie state of moral feeling among the Italians of those times that we must seek for the real explanation of what seems most myste- rious in the life and writings of this remarkable man. As this is a subject which sug-,'ests many interesting considerations, both ])olitical and meta- physical, we shall make no apology for discussing it at some length. During the gloomy and disastrous centuries which followed tlie dowTifall of the Roman Enii)ire Italy had preserved, in a far greater degree than any other part of Western Europe, the trac(;s of ancient civilization. The night which (ifi-,ccnded upon her was the night of an Arctic summer : the dawn began to reappear before the last reflection of tlie precedingsunset had faded from llie liurizon. It was in the time of the French Morovingiaiis and of the Saxoa rifptarchy that ignorance and ferocity seemed to have done their worst. Yet even then the Neapolitan provinces, recognizing the authority of the Eastern empire, preserved something of Eastern knowledge and refinement. Rome, protected by the sacred character of its pontiffs, enjoyed at least comparative siccuiity and repose. Even in those regions where the sanguinary Lombards hjd fixed their monarchy there was incomparably more of wc.iith, of inform- al ion, ol physical comfort, and of sociaJ. order than could be found in Gaul, liritain, or Germany. That which most distinguished Italy from the neighbouring countries wn the importance which the population of the towns, from a very early perioci, MA CHI A VELLL ys began to acquire. Some cities, founded in wild and remote situations by fugi- tives who liad escaped from the rage of the barbarians, preserved their freedom by their obscurity, till they became able to preserve il by their power. Otliers seem to have retained, under all the changing dynasties of ir /adeis, under Odoacer and Theodoric, Narses and Alboin, the municipal in.Et.tutions whiuh had been conferred on them by the liberal policy of the Great Republic In provinces which the central government was too feeble either to protect or to oppress these institutions first acquired stability and vigour. The citizens, defended by their walls and governed by their own magistrates and their own by-laws, enjoyed a consideralile share of republican independence. Thus a strong democratic spirit was called into action. The Carlovingian sovereigns were too imbecile to subdue it. The generous policy of Otho encouraged it. It might, perhaps, have been suppressed by a close coalition between the Church and the empire. It was fostered and invigorated by their disputes. In the twelfth century it attained its full vigour, and, after a long and doubtful conflict, triumphed over the abilities and courage of the Swabian princes. The assistance of the ecclesiastical power had greatly contributed to the success of the Guelfs. That success would, however, have been a doubtful good, if its only effect had been to substitute a moral for a political servitude, to exalt the popes at the expense of the Cfesars. Happily the public mind of Italy had long contained the seeds of free opinions, which were now rapidly developed by the genial influence of free institutions. The people of that ;ountry had observed the whole machinery of the Church, its saints and its miracles, its lofty pretensions and its splendid ceremonial, its worthless bless- ings and its harmless curses too long and too closely to be duped. They stood behind the scenes on which others were gazing with childish awe and interest. They witnessed the arrangement of the puUies and the manufacture of the thunders. They saw the natural faces and heard the natural voices of the actors. Distant nations looked on the pope as the vicegerent of the Almighty, the Oracle of the All-wise, the umpire from whose decisions, in the disputes either of theologians or of kings, no Christian ought to appeal. The Italians were acquainted with all the follies of his youth, and with all the dis- honest arts by which he had attained power. They knew how often he had employed the keys of the Church to release himself from the most sacred en- gagements, and its wealth to pamper his mistresses and nephews. The doc- trines and rites of the established religion they treated with decent reverence. But though they still called themselves Catholics, they had ceased to be papists. Those spiritual arms which carried terror into the palaces and camps of the proudest sovereigns excited only their contempt. "When Alex- ander commanded our Henry II. to submit to the lash before the tomb of J rebellious subject, he was himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending that he entertained designs against their liberties, had driven him from their city ; and, though he solemnly promised to confine himself for the future to his spiritual functions, they still refused to readmit him. In every other part of Europe a large and powerful privileged class trampled on the people and defied the government. But, in the most flourishing parts of Italy the feudal nobles were reduced to comparative insignificance. In some districts they took shelter under the protection of the powerful common- wealths which they were unable to oppose, and gradually sank into the mass of burghers. In others they possessed great influence, but it was an influence widely different from that which was exercised by the chieftains of the Trans- alpine kingdoms. They were not petty princes, but eminent citizens. Instead of strengthening their fastnesses among the mountains, they embellished their palaces in the siarket-place. Thestate of society in the Neaj/oiitan domiiiioiia 34 MACHTA VELLL and in some parts of the Ecclesiastical State more nearly resembled that which existed in thci^reat monarchies of Europe. But the governments of Lombardy and Tuscany, throigh all their revolutions, preserved a different character. A people when assembled in a town is far more formidable to its rulers than when dispersed over a wide extent of country. The most arbitrary of the Caesars found it necessary to feed and divert the inhabitants of their unwieldy capital at the expense of the provinces. The citizens of Madrid have more thin once be- sieged their sovereign in his own palace, and extorted from him the most humiliating concessions. The sultans have often been compelled to propitiate the furious rabble of Constantinople with the head of an unpopular vizier. From the same cause there was a certain tinge of democracy in the monarchies and aristocracies of Northern Italy. Thus liberty, partially, indeed, and transiently, revisited Italy ; and with liberty came commerce and empire, science and taste, all the comforts and all the ornaments of life. The Crusades, from which the inhabitants of other countries gained nothing but relics and wounds, brought the rising common- wealth!! of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth, dominions, and knowledge. Their moral and their geographical position enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism of the West and by the civilization of the East. Their ships covered every sea. Their factories rose on every shore. Their money-changers set their tables in every city. Manufactures flourished. Banks were established. The operations of the commercial machine were facilitated by many useful and beautiful inventions. We doubt whether any country of Europe, our own, perhaps, excepted, have at the present time reached so high a point of wealth and civilization as some parts of Italy had attained four hundred years ago. Historians rarely descend to those details from which alone the real state of a community can be collected. Hence posterity is too often deceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and rheto- ricians, who mistake the splendour of a court for the happiness of a people. Fortunately, John Villani has given us an ample and precise account of the state of Florence in the earlier part of the fourteenth century. The revenue of the Republic amounted to three hundred thousand florins, a sum which, allowing for the depreciation of the precious metals, was at least equivalent to six hundred thousand pounds sterling ; a larger sum than England and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded annually to Elizabeth — a larger sum than, according to any computation which we have seen, the Grand Duke of Tuscany now derives from a territory of much greater extent. The manu- facture of wool alone employed two hundred factories and thirty thousand workmen. The cloth annually produced sold, at an average, for twelve hundred thousand florins ; a srm fairly equal, in exchangeable value, to two Diillions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand florins were annually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of Florence only, but of all Europe. The transactions of these estaliiishments wo's sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward III. of England u|)wards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when the mark contained more silver th.in fifty shillings of the present day, and when the value of silver was more than quadruple of what it now is. The city and its environs contained a hundred and seventy thousand mhabitants. In the various schools about ten thousand children were taught to read ; twelve hundred studied arithmetic ; six hundred received a learned education. 'Ihe progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to tl'at of the public prosperity. Under the despotic successors of Augustus all the fields of the intellect had been turned into arid wastes, still marked out MACHJAVELLL 35 by formal boundaries, still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but yielding neither flowers nor fniit. The deluge \ii barbarism came. It swept away all the landmarks. It obliterated all the signs of former tillage. But it fertilized while it devastated. When it receded, the wilderness was as the garden of God, rejoicing on every side, laughing, clapping its hands, poUi'.ng forth, in spontaneous abundance, everything brilliant, or fragrant, or nourishing. A new language, characterized by simple sweetness and simple ent-rf^y, had attained its perfection. No tongue ever furnished more gorgeous ant) vivid lints to poetry : nor was it long before a poet appeare<. wiio knew how to em- ploy them. Early, in the fourteenth century came forth the Divine Comedy, beyond comparison the greatest vvork of imagination, which had ajipeared since ths poems of Homer. The following generation produced, indeed, no second Dante ; but it was eminently distinguished by general intellectual activity. The study of the Latin writers had never been wholly neglected in Italy. But Petraich introduced a more profound, liberal, and elegant scholar- ship ; and communicated to his countrymen that enthusiasm for the literature, the history, and the antiquities of Rome which divided his own heart with a frigid mistress and a more frigid Muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to the more sublime and graceful models of Greece. From this time the admiration of learning and genius became almost ar idolatry among the people of Italy. Kings and republics, cardinals and doges, vied with each other in honouring and flattering Petrarch. Embassies from rival states solicited the honour of his instructions. His coronation agitated the Court of Naples and the people of Rome as much as the most important political transactif^n could have done. To collect books and antiques, to found professorships, to patronize men of learning, became almost universal fashions among the great. The spirit of literary research allied itself to that of cnnmiercial enterprise. Every place to which the merchant princes of Florence extended their gigantic traffic, from the bazaars of the Tigris to the monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked for medals and manuscrijits. Architecture, painting, and sculpture were munificently encouraged. Indeed, it would be difficult to name an Italian of eminence, during the period of which we speak, who, whatever may have been his general character, did not at least affect a love of letters and of the arts. Knowledge and public prosperity continued to advance together. Both attained their meridian in the age of Lorenzo the Magnifr-ent. We cannot refrain from quoting the splendid passage, in which the Tusc.m Thucydides describes the state of Italy a! that period : — " Ridotta tutta in sonmia pace e tranquiilita, coltivata non raeno ne' luoghi piii montuosi e piii slerili che nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili, ne sottoposta ad altro imperio chede' suoi medesimi, non solo era abbondantissima d'abitatori e di ricchezze ; ma iliui' trata sommamente dalla mignificenza di molti principi, dalJo s/)lendore di molte nobilissime e bellissime citta, dalla sedia e maesta della reli;none, fioriva d' uomini prestantissimi nell' amministrazione delle cose pubbliche, e d'ingegni molto nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qualunque arte preclara ed industriosa. " * When we peruse this just and splendid description we can scarcely persuade ourselves that we are reading of times in which ihe annals of England and France present us only with a frightful spectacle of poverty, bar- barity, and ignorance. From the oppressions of illiterate masters and the sufferings of a brutalized peasantry, it is delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened States of Italy — to the vast and magnificent cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the museums, the libraries, the marts filled w ith every • GtiicciardiM. I'V K 3« MACHIAVELU. article of comfort or luxury, the manufactories swarming with artisans, the Apennines covered with rich cultivation up to their very summits, the To wafting the harvests of Lombardy to the granaries of Venice, and cairying back the silks of Bengal and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With peculiar pleasure every cultivated mind must rei)0se on the fair, the happy, the glorious Florence ; on the halls which rung with the mirth of Pulci ; the cell where twinkled tlie midnight lamp of Polilian, the statues on which the young eye of Michael Angelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspira- tion, the gardens in wliich Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the May-day dance of the Etrurian virgins. Alas, for the beautiful city 1 Alas, for the wit and tlie learning, the genius and the love I " Le donne, i cavalier, gli afTanni, tjli agl, Che n^'nvogliava ainore e cortesia, La dove i cuor sou falti si nialvagi."t A time was at hand when all the seven vials of the Ajiocalynse were to b« poured forth and shaken out over those pleasant countries — a time of slaugh- ter, famine, beggary, infamy, slavery, despair ! In the Italian States, as in many natural bodies, untimely decrepitude vtii the penalty of precocious maturity. Iheir early greatness and their early decline are principally to be attributed to the same cause — the prepouderance which the towns acquired in the political system. In a community of hunters or of shepherds every man easily and necessarily becomes a soldier. His ordinary avocations are perfectly compatible with all the duties of military service. However remote may be the expedition on which he is bound, he finds it easy to transport with him the stock from which he derives his subsistence. The whole people is an aniiy ; the whole year a march. Such was the state of society which facilitated the gigantic conquests of Altila and Timour. But a people which subsists by the cultivation of the earth is in a very different situation. The husbandman is bound to the soil on which he labours. A long campaign would be ruinous to him. Still his pursuits are such as give to his frame both the active and the passive strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, at least in the infancy of agricultural science, demand his uninter- rupted attention. At particular times of the year he is almost wholly unem- ployed, and can, without injury to himself, afford the time necessary for a short expedition. Thus the legions of Rome were supplied during its earlier wars. The season during which the farms did not require the presence of the cultiva- tors sufficed for a short inroad and a battle. These operations, too frequently interrupted to produce decisive results, yet served to keep up among the people a degree of discipline and courage which rendered them, not only secure, but formidable. The archers and billmen of the middle ages, who, with provisions for forty days at their backs, left the fields for the camp, were tioops of tlie same description. Jkit when commerce and manufactures begin to flourish a great change takes place. The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom render the exer- tions and hardships of war insupportable. The occupations of traders and artisans require their constant presence and attention. In such a community there is little supeifiuous time ; but .here is generally much superfluous money. S(-nie members of the society are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest from a task inconsistent with their habits and engagements. The history of Greece is, in this, as in many other respects, the best com- aacuiary oa the history of Italy. Five hundred years before the Christian era * 0*ate PucdtiKlo, xIt. MACHIAVELLI. %^ the citizens of the republics round the .^gcnn Sea formed perh^ivs th? nne';t militia tliat ever existed. As wealth and refinement advanced, the system underwent a gradual alteration. The Ionian States were the first in which ci-m- mcrce and the arts were cultivated — and the first in which the ancient discip.me decayed. Within eighty years after the battle of Platjea mercenary troops were everywhere plying for b.ittles and sieges. In the time of Demosthenes it was scarcely pos?ihle to persuade or compel the Athenians to enlist for foreign ser- vice. The laws of Lyurcgus prohibited trade and manufactures. The Spartans, therefore, continued to form a national force lon^' ifter their neighbours had begun to hire soldiers. But their military spirit declined with ther singular institutions. In the second century Greece containsd only one nation of WLirri<5rs, the savage highlandcrs of ^Eiolia, who were at least ten generations bciiind their counirymen in civilization and intelligence. All the causes which produced these effects amongst the Greeks, acted still more strongly on the modern It.alians. Instead of a power like Spaita, in its nnlure warlike, they had amongst them an ecclesiastical state, in its nature p.icific. Where there are numerous slaves every freeman is induced by the stron^'cst motives to familiarize himself with the use of arms. The common- wealths of Italy did not, like those of Greece, swarm wiih thousands of llii.se household en-.mies. Lastly, the mode in \s hich military operations were con- ducted during the prosperous times of Italy was peculiarly unfavourable lo the fonnation of an efficient militia. Men covtrcd with iron from head to foot, armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on horses r)f the largest breed, were considered as composing the strength of an army. The infantry wa;. regarded as comparatively worthless, and was neglected till it became really so. These tactics maintained tlioir ground for centuries in most parts of Europe. That fool soldiers could sviihstand the ciiargc of heavy cavalry was thought utterly impossible, till, towards the close of the fifteenth centuiy, the rude mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved the spell, and astounded the most experienced generals by receiving the dreaded shock on an impenetrable forest of pikes. The u>e of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modern bayonet might be acquired with coni]).arative ease. But nothing short of the daily exercise of years could triiin the man at anus to support his ponc'erous panoply, and manage his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe this most important branch of war be<-anie a separate profession. Beyond the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not generally a trade. It was the duty and liic amusement of a large class of country gentlemen. It was the service by which they held their lands, and the diversion by which, in th.e absence of mental resources, they beguiled their leisure. But in the NorlheiT- i-tates of Italy, as we have already remarked, the growing power of the cities, where it had not exterminated this order of men, had completely changed their habilic Here, therefore, the practice of employing mercenaries became universsJ jttv* time when it was almost unknown in other countries. When war becomes the trade of a sejiarate class the least dangerous cmirse left to a g'lvetniuenl is to form th:-.t class into a standing army. It is scarcely possible that men can pass their lives in the sei^vice of a single state without foi ling some interest in its greatness. Its victories are their victories, hs defejls are their defeats. Ihe contract loses something of its mt^rcaniilc character. The services of the soldier are considered as the effects of palrii.iic zeal, his pay as the tribute of nalioiial gratitude. To betray the power wliich employs him, to be even remiss in its service, are in his eyes the mo»t atrocious and degrading of crimes. When the p*'u«cs and commonwealths of Italy bej^an to UJC Liicl trc^opS| 38 iffACHlAVELLl. ti»eir wisest course would have been to form separate military estab.lshinents. Unhappily this was not done. The mercenary warriors of the Peninsula, instead of being attached to the service of difTerent powers, were regarded a" the common property of all. The connexion between the state and its defenders was reduced to the most simple and naked traffic. The adventurer brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, and his experience into the Kiarket. Whether the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the pope or the yiignory of Florence struck the bargain, was to him a matter of [)erfect in- difference. He was for the highest wages and the longest term. When the campaign for which he had contracted was finished, there was neither law nor punctilio ♦•o prevent him from instantly tuming his arms against his late masters. The soldier was altogether disjoined from the citizen and from the subject. The natural consequences followed. Left to the conduct of men who neither loved those whom they defended nor hated those whom they opposed — who were often bound by stronger ties to the army against which they fought than the state which they served — who lost by the termination of the conflict, and gained by its prolongation, war completely changed its character. Every man came into the field of battle impressed with the knowledge that, in a few days, he might be taking the pay of the power against which he was then employed and fighting by the side of his enemies agninst his as'^ociates. The strongest interest and the strongest feelings concurred t'o mitigate the hostility of those who had lately been brethren in arms, and who might soon be brethren in arms once more. Their common profession was a bond ol union not to be forgotten even when they were engaged in the service of con- tending parties. Hence it was that operations, languid and indecisive beyond any recorded in history, marches and countermarches, pillaging expeditions and blockades, bloodless cajiitulations and equally bloodless combats, make up the military histoi-y of Ilnly during the course of nearly two centuries. Mighty armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A great victory is won. Thou- sands of prisoners are taken ; and hardly a life is lost ! A pitched battle seems to have been really less dangerous than an ordinary civil tumult. Courage was now no longer necessary even to the military character. Men grew old in camps, and acquired the highest renown by their warlike achieve- ments, without being once required to face serious danger. The political consequences are too well known. The richest and most enlightened part ol the world was left, undefended, to the assaults of every barbarous invader — to tl)e brutality of Switzerland, the indolence of France, and the fierce rapacity »f Arragon. The moral effects which followed from this state of things were etill more remarkable. Among the rude nations which lay beyond the Alps valour was absolutely indispensable. Without it none could be eminent ; few could be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally considered as the foulest reproach. Among the polished Italians, enriched by commerce, governed by law, and passionately attached to literature, everything was done by svperiority of in- teliiuence. Their very wars, more pacific than the peace of their neighbours, required .i-T.;her civil than tsjlitary qualification i. Hence, while courage was the point •.;: honour in other countries, ingenuity became the point of honour in Itnly. From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly analogous, two opposite systems of fashionable morality. Through the g-eatei part of Europe the vices which peculiarly belong to liinid dispositions, and which are the natural defence of weakness, fmud and Inpocrisy, have always bi-on most disrepuu-ble. Oii tlie othci hjtud, the exccss^'^ of haughty and d;.;iu,..i suirits MACHIAVELLI. 39 have been treated with indulgence, and even with respect. The Italians re- garded with corresponding lenity those crimes which require self-command, address, quick obsei-vation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge oJ human nature. Such a prince as our Henry V. would have been the idol of the North The follies of his youth, the selfish and desolating ambition of his man- hood, the Lollards roasted at slow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field oi battle, the expiring lease of priestcraft renewed for another century, the dreadful legacy of a causeless and hopeless war bequeathed to i people who had no interest in its event, every tiling is forgotten but the victory of Agincourt ! Francis Sforza, on the other hand, was the model of the Italian hero. He made his employers and his rivals alike his tools. He first over- powered his oi)en enemies by the help of faithless allies ; he then armed him- self against his allies with the spoils taken from his enemies. By his incom- parable de.-vterity, he raised himself from the precarious and dependent situa- tion of a military adventurer to the first throne of Italy. To such a mar much was forgiven — hollow friendship, ungenerous enmity, violated faith. Such are the opposite errors which men commit, when their morality is nol a science, but a taste ; when they abandon eternal principles for accidental associations. We have illustrated our meaning by an instance taken from history. We will select another from fiction. Othello murders his wife ; he gives orders for the murder of his iieatenant ; he ends by murdering himself. Yet he never loses the esteem and affection of a Northern reader — his intrepid and ardent spirit redeeming everything. The unsuspecting confidence with which he listens to his adviser, the agony with which he shrinks from the thought of shame, the tempest of passion with which he commits his crimes and the haughty fearlessness with which he avows them, give an extraordinary interest tc his character, lago, on the contrary, is the object of universal loathmg. M^ny are inclined to suspect that Shakespeare has been seduced into an exag- geration unusual with him, and has drawn a monster who has no archetype in human nature. Now we suspect that an Italian audience in the fifteenth cen- tury would have felt very differently. Othello would have inspired nothing but detestation and contempt. The folly with which he tinists to the friendly professions of a man whose promotion he had obstructed — the credulity with which he takes unsupported assertions and trivial circumstances for unanswer- able proofs, the violence with which he silences the exculpation till the excul- pation can only aggravate his misery, would have excited the abhorrence and disgust of the spectators. The conduct of tago they would assuredly havt condemned ; but they would have condemned it as we condemn that of ins victim. Something of interest and respect would have mingled with their disapprobation. The readiness of his wit, the clearness of his judgment, the skill with which he penetrates the dispositions of others and conceals his own, would have insured to him a certain portion of their esteem. So wide was the difference l^etween the Italians and their neighbours. A similar difference existed between the Greeks of the second ceutury before Christ and their masters the Romans. The conquerors, brave and resolute, faithful to their engagements, and strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and cruel. With the vanquished people were deposited all the art, the science, and the literature of the western world. In poetry, in philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in sculpture, they had no rivals. Their manners were polished, their perceptions acute, their invention ready ; they were tolerant, affable, humane. But of courage and sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. The rude warriors wko had sub« MACHIAVELLt. dued them consoled themselves for their intellectual inferiority by remarking that knowledge and taste seemed only to make men atheists, cowards, and slaves. The distinction long continued to be strongly marked, and furnished an admirable subject for the fierce sarcasms of Juvenal. The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was the Greek ot the time of Juvenal and th-- ('.reck of the lime of Pericles joined in one. Like the former he was timid and pliiible, artful and unscrupulous. IkU, like the latter, he iiad a country. Its indL-jK-udence and prosi)erity were dear to liim. If his characte* were degraded by si/ine mean crimes, it was, on the other hand, ennobled L^ public spifii and by an honourable ambition. A vice sanctioned by the general o|)inion is merely a vice. The evil termi- nates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady, the latter a cimstitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost he too ofien Hings the remains of his virtue after it in despair. The Highland gentleman wlio, a century ago, lived by taking black mail from his miglibours, committed the same crime for which Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas of two hundred tlioi-.sand peojile. But there can be no doubt that he was a much less depraved man than Wild. The deed for which Mrs. brownrigg was hanged sinks into nothing when compared with the conduct of the Roman who treated the public to a hundred pair of gladiators. Yet we should probably wrong such a Roman if we sujiposed that his disposition was so cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. In our own country a woman forfeits her place in society by what, in a man, is too commonly considered as an honourable distinction, and, at worst, as a venial error. The consequence is notorious. The moral prin- ciple of a woman is frecjuenily more impaired by a single lapse from virtue than that of a man by twenty years of intrigue. Classical antiquity would furnish us with instances stronger, if possible, than those to which we have referred. We must apply this principle to the case before us. Habits of dissiniulation and falsehood, no doul>t, mark a man of our age and countiy as utterly worth- less and abandoned. But it by no means follows that a similar judgment would be just in the case of an Italian of the middle ages. On the contrary we frequently find those faults which we are accustomed to consider as certain indications of a mind altogether depraved, in company with great and good qualities, with generosity, with benevolence, with disinterestedness. From such a state of society Palamedes, in the admirable dialogue of Hume, might have drawn illustrations of his theory as striKing as any of those with which Fourli furnished him. These are not, we well know, the lessons which his- torians are generally most careful to teach, or readers most wiiling to learn. But they are not therefore useless. How Philip disposed his troops at Chicr- onea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, whether Mary blew up Daniley, or Siquier shot Charles XII., and ten thousand other questions of the same description, are in them.selves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse us, but the decision leaves us no wiser. He alone reads history aright who, observing how powerfully circumstances influence the feelings and opinions of men, how often vices pass into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns to dL^tinguiih what is accidental and transitory in human nature from what is essential and immutable. In this respect no history suggests more important reflections than that of the Tuscan and Lombard commonwealths. The character of the Italian statesman seems, at first sight, a collection of contradictions, a phantom as monstrous as the portress of Hell in Milton, half divinity, half snake, •najestic -.end beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below. We see a man whose thoughts aiiJ words have no connexion with each other ; who never hc.^iuics MACHIAVELLI. 41 at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who never wants a pretext when he is- inclined to betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, but from deep and cool meditation. His passions, like well-trained troops, are impetuous by rule, and in their most headstrong fury never forget the discipline to which they have been accustomed His whole soul is occupied with vast and complicated schemes of ambition Yet his aspect and language exhibit nothing but philosophic moderation. Hatred and revenge eat into his heart. — Yet every look is a cordial smile, every gesture a familiar caress. He never excites the suspicion of his adver- sary by petty provocations. His purpose is disclosed only when it is accom- plished. His face is unrufRed, his speech is courteous, till vigilance is laid asleep, till a vital point is exposed, till a sure aim is taken ; and then he strikes — fur the first and last lime. Military courage, the boast of the sottish German, the frivolous and prating Frenchtiian, the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, hv neilhci possesses nor values. He shuns danger — not because he is insensibit to shame, but because, in the society in which he lives, timidity has ceased to lie shaaicful. To do an injury openly is, in his estimation, as wicked as to do it secretly — and far less profitable. With him the most honourable means are the surest, the siieeiliest, and the darkest. He cannot comprehend how a man shimld scruple to deceive him whom he does not scruple to destroy. He would iliink it madness to declare open hostilities against a rival whom he might stab in a friendly embrace, or poison in a consecrated wafer. Yet this man, black with vices which we consider as most loathsome — ■ traitor, hypocrite, coward, assassin — was by no means destitute even of those virtues which we generally consider as indicating superior elevation of cha- racter. In civil courage, in perseverance, in presence of mind, those bar- barous warriors who were foremost in the battle or the breach were far his inferiors. Even the dangers which he avoided with a caution almost pusil- lanimous never confused his perceptions, never paralysed his inventive facul- Mes, never wrung out one secret from his ready tongue and his inscrutable brow. Though a dangerous enemy and a still more dangerous accomplice, he was a just and beneficent ruler. With so much unfairness in his policy, there was an extraordinary degree of fairness in his intellect. InlifTerent to truth in the transactions of life, he was honestly devoted to the pursuit of trulh in the researches of speculation. Wanton cruelty was not in his nature. On the contrary, where no political object was at stake, his disposition was soft and humane. The susceptibility ofhis nerves and the activity of his imn'.^ina« tion inclined him to sympathize with the feelings of others and to delight in the charities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually descending to actions which might seem to mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, he had, nevertheless, an exquisite sensibility, both for the natural and the moral sub- lime, for every graceful and every lofty conception. Habits of petty intrigue and dissimulation might have rendered him incapable of great general views, but that the expanding effect of his pliilosopliical studies counteracted the narrowing tendency. He had the keenest enjoyment of wit, eloipience, and fioetry. The fine arts profited alike by the severity ofhis judgment and t':s ibeiality of his patronage. The portraits of some of llie remarkable Italians of those times are perfectly in harmony with this description. Ample ami majestic foreheads, brows strong and dark, but not frowning, eyes of which the calm, full gaze, while it expresses nothing, seems to discern everything; cheeks pale with thought and sedentary habits, lips formed with feminine delicacy, b»t comiuessed with more than mascuUne decision, mark out men »t once enterprising and apprehensive ; men equally skilled in detecting the purposes of others, and in concealing their own ; men who must have l)eea 42 MAC III A VELLI. tormidable enemies and unsafe allies ; but men, at the same time, whoso 'empers were mild and e'luahle, and who possessed an amiilitude and subtlety of mind which would have rendered them eminent either in active or in con- templative life, anpcal, which is never tired of eulogizing its own justice and discernment, acts, on such occasions, like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Finding he de \ linfjuenls too numerous to be all punished, it selects some of ihem at hazurd, to bear the whole penally of an offence in which they are r.oi more deeply implicated than those who escape. Whether decimation be ? convenient moduction of .such a principle into the pliilobophy ol history. In the present instance the lot has fallen on Machiavelli ; a man whose public coinluct was upright and honourable, whose views of morality, where chey differed from ihc^se of the persons around him, seemed to have ditTered ior 'he better, and whose only fault was that, having adopted some of the maxims then generally received, he arranged them more luminously ?iX\d ex- pressed them more forcibly than any other writer. Having now, we hope, in some tlegree cleared the personal character of M ^chiavelli, we come to the consideration of his works. As a poet, he is not entitled to a very high place. The Decennali are merely abstracts of the history of his own times in rhyme. The style and versification are sedulously modelled on those of Dante, but the manner of Dante, like that of every other great original poet, was suited only to his own genius, and 'o his own subject. The distorted and rugged diction which gives to his unearthly imagery a yet more unearthly character, and seems to proceed from a man '^bouring to express that which is inexpressible, is at once mean and extra- fagant when misemployed by an imitator. The moral poems are in every point superior. That on Fortune, in particular, and that on Opportunity »hibit loth justness of thought and fertility of fancy. The Golden Ass has aothing but the name in common with the Romance of Apuleius — a book which, in spile of its irregular plan and its detestable style, is among the most ascinating in the Latin language, and in which the merits of Le Sage and RadcliiTe, Bunyan and Crebillon, are singularly united. The poem of Machia- velli, which is evidently unfinished, is carefully copied from the earlier cant( s of the Inferno. The writer loses himself in a wood. He is terrified I7 monsters and relieved by a beautiful damsel. His protectress conducts hi.n *o a large menagerie of emblematical bv.-asis, whose peculiarities are described at length. The manner, as well as the plan, of the Divine Comedy is care- fully imitated. Whole lir.es are transferred from it. But they no longer pr-^ dace their wonted effect. Virgil advises the husbandman who removes a .dant from one spot to another to mark its bearings oa the cork, and to place tt in the same position wi*^h regard to the different points of the heaven in which it formerly stood. A similar care is necessary in poetical transplant- Biion. Where it is neglected we perpetually see the flowers of language '• hich have bloomed on one soil wither on another. Vet the Golden Ass is r<"'t altogether destitute of merit. There is considerable ingenuity in the liilegory jwni some vivid colouring in the description. Tii« C'jaaeuies deserve cics^ altsalioa. The M.andragola, in p:irii^:Iai, is MACfflAVELLI. 43 Buperior to the best of GoKloui, ami inferior only to the best of Mnlicie. It is the work of a man who, if he liad ilevotetl himself to die drama, would probably have attained the highest eminence, and produced a permanent and salutary efTect on the national taste. This we infer, not so much from the deL,'ree as from the kind of its excellence. There are compositions which indicate still greater talent, and which are perused with still greater delight, from which we should have drawn very different conclusions. Books cpiite worthless are quite harmless. The sure sign of the general decline of an art is the frequent occurrence, not of deformity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, tragedy is corrupted by eloquence, and comedy by wit. 'I'he real object of the drama is the exhibition of the human charac*er. This, we conceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in local and temporary asso- ciations, like those which regulate the number of acts in a play, or of syllables ir a line. It is the very es^.ence of a species of composition in which every idea is coloured by passing through the medium of an imagined mind. T^ this fundamental law every other regulation is subordinate. The situations which most signally develop character form the best plot. The mother tongue of the passions is the best style. This principle, rightly understood, does not debar the poet from any grace of comjKjsition. There is no style in which some man may not, under sor-^ circumstances, express himself. There is, therefore, no style which the dramtk rejects, none which it does not occasionally require. It is in the discern- ment of place, of time, and of person that the inferior artists fail. The bril- liant rhodomontade of Mercutio, the elaborate declamation of Antony, are, where Shakespeare has placed them, natural and pleasing. But Dryden would have made Mercutio challenge Tybalt in hyperboles as fanciful an those in which he describes the chariot of Mnb. Corneille would have repre- sented Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleopatra with all the measured rhetoric of a funeral oration. No writers have injured the comedy of England so deeply as Congreve anil Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit and polished taste. Unhappily they made all their characters in their own likeness. Their works bear tie same relation to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a paint- ing : no delicate touches : no hues imi)erceptibly fading into each other : the whole is lighted up with an utiiversal glare. Outlines and tints are forgotten in tlie common blaze which illuminates all. The fl'uvers and fruits of the intellect abound ; but it is the abundance of a jungle, not of a garden — unwholesome, bewildering, unprofitable from its very plenty, rank from its very fragrance. Kver)- fop, every boor, every valet is a man of'wit. The very butts and dunes, Tattle, Urkwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel' de Rambouiilct. To prove the whole system of this school absurd it is only necessary to apply the test which dissolved the enchanted Florimel— to place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast the most celebrated characters which have been drawn by the writers of whom we speak, with the Bastard in King John or the nurse in Romeo and Juliet It was not surely from want of wit that Shakespe;;.-* adopted so differ'^nt a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw Mirai)e! and Millamant into the shade. All the good sayings of the facetious hours d^ Absolute and Surface might have been clipped from the single character cjI Falstaff without beint; missed. It would have been easy for that fertile minJ to have given Bardoi;.h and Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to have made Dogberry and Verges retort on each other in sparkling epigrams. But he knew, to use his own admirable language, that such indiscriminate pr* digality was '■'■ Jrom the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first oirtd now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to Nature." 44 ^f^i cm A VEU.I. This digression will enable our readers to understand what we mean when we say that, m the Mandragola, Machiavclli has proved that he completely understood the nalure of the dramatic art and possessed talents which would have enabled him to excel in it. By the correct and vigorous delineation of liiMiian natuie, it produces interest without a plen'ing or skilful plot, and lau4;liter without the least ambition of wit. The lo.cr, not a very delicate ot gene-ous lover, and his adviser the parasite are drawn with spirit. "'he hyijocritical confessor is an adniiraljle portrait. lie is, if we mistake not, the orij^inal of Father Dominic, the best comic character of Dryden. But old Kicias is the glory of the piece. We cannot call to mind anything that re- sembles him. The follies which Moliere ridicules are those of affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxcombs and pedants, not simiiletons, are his game. Shakespeare has, indeed, a vast assortment of fools ; but the precise species of which wc speak is not, if we remember right, to be found there. Shallow is a fool. But his animal spirits supfdy, to a certain degree, the place of clever- ness. His talk is to that of Sir John what soda-waier is to champagne. It lias the effervescence, though not the body or the flavour. Slender and .Sir Andrew Aguecheek are fools, troubled with an uneasy consciousness of tlieii foliy, which, in the latter, produces a most edifying meekness and docility, and in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy, and confusion. Cloten is ai. arrogant fool, Osric a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool ; but Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a fool positive. His mind is occupied by no strong feeling ; it takes every character, and retains none ; its aspect is diversified, not by passions, but by faint and transitory semblances of passion, a mock joy, a mock fear, a mock love, a mock pride, which chase each other like shadows over its surface, and vanish as soon as they appear. He is just idiot enough to be an object, not of pity or horror, but of ridicule. He bears some resemblance to poor Calandrino, whose mishaps, as recounted by Boc- caccio, have made all Europe merry for more than four centuries. He, perhaps, resembles still more closely Simon de Villa, to whom Bruno and Buffalmacco promised the love of the Countess Civillari. * Nicias is, like Simon, of a learned profession, and the dignity with which he wears tlie doctoral fur renders his absurdities infinitely more grotesque. The old Tuscan is the very language for such a being. Its peculiar simplicity gives even to the most forcible reasoning and the most brilliant wit an infantine air, generally de- lightful, but to a foreign reader sometimes a little ludicrous. Heroes and statesmen seem to lisp when they use it. It becomes Nicias incomparably, and renders all his silliness infinitely more silly. We may add that the verses with which the Mandragola is interspersed appear to us to be the most spirited and correct of ail that Machiavelli has written in metre. He seems to have entertamed the same opinion ; fur he has introduced some of them in other places. The contemporaries of tiie author were not blind to the merits of this striking piece. It was acted at Florence with the greatest success. Leo X. was among its admirers, and by h's order it was represented at Rome.+ The Clizia is an imitation of the Casina of Plautus, which is itself an iiiitation of the lost KXrjpovfiivoi of Diphilus. Plautus was, unquestionably, one of the best Latin writers. His works are 'copies ; r.ut they have, in an extraordinary degree, the air of originals. We infinitely prefer the slovenly • Decameron, Giom. viii. Nov. g. t Nothing can be more evident than tliat Paulus Jovins designates ths Mandragola under the name of the Nicias. We should not have noticed what is so perfectly r.'.vious, were it jicjt that this natural and palpable misnomei^ has led the saj;acioas ar^d influil. ..cis BavU lite e .5ros? error. MACIUAVELU. 4S exuberance of his fancy and the clumsy vigour of his diction to the artfully disguised poverty and elegant languor of Terence. But the Casina is by no means one of his best plays ; nor is it one which offers great facilities to an imitator. The story is as alien from modern habits of life as the manner in which it is developed from the modem fashion of composition. The lover remains in the country, and the heroine is locked up in her chamber during: the whole action, leaving their fate to be decided by a foolish father, a cunning mother, and two knavish servants. Machiavelli has executed his task with judgment and taste. He has accommodated the plot to a different state of society, and has very dexterously connected it with the history of his own times. The relation of the trick put on the doting old lover is exquisitely humorous. It is far superior to the corresponding passage in the Latia comedy, and scarcely yields to the account which Falstaff gives of his ducking. Two other comedies without titles, the one in prose, the other in verse, appear among the works of jMachiavelli. The former is very short, lively enough, but of no great value. The latter we can scarcely believe to be genuine. Neither its merits nor its defects remind us of the reputed author. It was first printed in 1796, from a manuscript discovered in the celebrated lilirary of the Strozzi. Its genuineness, if we have been rightly informed, is established solely by the comparison of hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by tl\e circumstance that the same manuscript contained a description of the plague of 1527, which has also, in consequence, been added to the works of Machiavelli. Of this last composition, the strongest external evidence would scarcely induce us to believe him guilty. Nothing was ever written more detestable, in matter and manner. The narrations, the reflections, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the very worst of their respective kinds, at once trite and affected, — threadbare tinsel from the Rag Fairs and Monmouth Streets of literature. A foolish schoolboy might, perhaps, write it, and, after he had written it, think it much finer than the incomparable introduction of the Decameron. But that a shrewd statesman, whose earliest works are charac- terized by manliness of thought and language, should, at nearly sixty years of age, descend to such puerility is utterly inconceivable. The little novel of Belphegor is pleasantly conceived and pleasantly told. But the extravagance of the satire, in some measure, injures its effect Machiavelli was unhappily married ; and his wish to avenge his own cause and that of his brethr-n in m.isfortune carried him beyond even the licence of fiction. Jonson seems to have combined some hints taken from this tale, with others from Boccaccio, in the plot of The Devil is an Ass — a play which, though not the most highly finished of his compositions, is, perhaps, that which exhibits the strongest proofs of genius. The political correspondence of Machiavelli, first published in I767» is ^"- questionably genuine and highly valuable. The unhappy circumstances ii? which his country was placed during the greater part of his public life gave extraordinary encouragement to diplomatic talent. From the moment that Charles VIII. descended from the Alps the whole character of Italian politics was changed. The governments of the Peninsula ceased to form an independent system. Drawn from their old orbit by the attraction of the larger bodies which now approached them, they became mere satellites of France and Spain. All their disputes, internal and external, were decided by foreign influence. The contests of opposite factions were carried on, not as formerly, in the Senate-house, or in the market-place, but in the antichambers of Louis and Ferdinand. Under these circumstances, the prosperity of the Italian States depended far more on the abiLty of their foreign agents than ^6 MACHIAVELLI. D'l tn? ronducl of those who were intnisted with the Homc^tic adminif^tration. The allll)u■>^aj Hence, among the Greeks patriotism became a governing principle, or rather X an ungovernable passion. Both their legislators and their philosophers took it O for granted that, in providing for the strength and greatness of the state, 'hey sufficiently provided for the happiness of the people. The writers of the Roman empire lived under despots into whose dominion a hundred nations ^-j were melted down, and whose gardens would have covered the little common- Cy wealths of Phlius and Platcea. Yet they continued to employ the same lan- guage, and to cant about the duty of sacrificing everything to a country to j_ which they owed nothing. •_. Causes similar to those which had influenced the dis]50sition of the Greeks Ot operated powerfully on the less vigorous and daring character of the Italians. *~" They, too, were members of small communities. Every man was deeply in- terested in the welfare of the society to which he belonged — a partaker in its wealth and its poverty, in its glory and its shame. In the age of Machiavelli this was peculiarly the case. Public events had produced ar. immense sum of money to private citizens. The Northern invaders had , brought want to their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their roofs, and the ^ knife to their throats. It was natural that a man who lived in times like these should overrate the importance of those measures by which a nation is rendered formidable to its neighbours, and undervalue those which make it prosperous within itself. Nothing is more remarkable in the political treatises of Machiavelli thaq ' Thucydides, il. fct. 5a MACinAVELLI. Jhe fairness of mind which they indicate. It appears where the author is in the wrong almost as strongly as where he is in the right. He never advances a false opinion because it is new or splendid, because he can clothe it in a happy piirase, or defend it by an ingenious sophism. His errors are at once explained by a reference to the circumstances in which he was placed. They evidently were not sriught out ; they lay in his way, and could scarcely be avoided. Such mistakes must necessarily be committed by early speculators in every :;cience. In this respect it is amusing to compare the Prince and the Discourses with the Spirit of Laws. Montesquieu enjoys, perhaps, a wider celebrity than any political writer of modern Europe. Something he doubtless owes to his merit, but much more to his fortune. He had the good luck of a valentine. He caught the eye of the French nation at the moment when it was waking from the long sleep of political and reli^^ious bigotry ; and, in consequence, he be- came a favourite. The English, at that time, considered a Frenchman who talked about constitutional checks and fundamental laws as a prodigy not less astonishing than the learned pig or the musical infant. Specious but shallow, studious of effect, indifferent to truth, eager to build a system, but careless of collecting those materials out of which alone a sound and durable system can !ie built, he constructed theories as rapidly and as slightly as card houses, no sooner projected than completed, no sooner completed than blown away, no sooner blov.n away than forgotten. Machiavelli errs only because his experi- ence, acquired in a very peculiar state of society, could not always enable him to calculate the effect of institutions differing from those of which he had observed the operation. Montesquieu errs because he has a fine thing to say, and is resolved to say it. If the phenomena which lie before him will not suit his purpose, all history must be ransacked. If nothing established by authentic testimony can be raked or chipped to suit hU Procrustean hypothesis, he puts up with some monstrous fanrt srrTout Siam, or cantara, or Japan, told by writers compared with whom Lucian and Gulliver were veracious — liars by a double right, as travellers and as Jesuits Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are commonly found together. Obscurity and affectation are the two greatest faults of style. Obscurity of expression generally springs from confusion of ideas ; and the same wish to dazzle at any cost vvhich produces affectation in the manner of a writer is likely to produce sophistry in his reasonings. The judicious and candid mind of Machiavelli shows itself in his luminous, manly, and polished language. The style of Montesquieu, on the other hand, indicates in every page a lively and ingenious, but an unsound mind. Every trick of expression, from the mysterious conciseness of an oracle to the flippancy of a Parisian coxcomb, is employed to disguise the fallacy of some positions and the triteness of others. Absurdities are brightened into epigrams ; truisms are darkened into enigmas. It is with difficulty that the strongest eye can sustain the glare with which some parts are illuminated, or penetrate the shade in which others are con- cealed. The political works of Machiavelli derive a pecttliar interest from th« mournful earnestness which he manifests whenever he touches on topics con- nected with the calamities of his native land. It is difficult to conceive iiny situation more painful than that of a great man, condemned to watch the lingering agony of an exhausted country, to tend it during the alternate fits o( stupefaction and ravi'.g which precede its dissolution, to see the symptoms of vitality disappear one by one, till nothing is left but coldness, darkness, and corruption. To this joyless and thankless duty was Machiavelli called. In the energetic language of the prophet, he was " mad for the sj^hl of hi* eya MA cm A VELLI. 53 which he saw " — disunion in the council, effeminacy in the camn, liberty ex- tinf^iished, commerce decaying, national honour sullied, an ei.^ightened and fiouvishiiiji; people given over to the ferocity of ignorant savages. Though his opinions had not escaped the contagion of that political immorality which was common among his countrymen, his natural disposition setms to have been rather stern and. impetuous than pliant and artful. When the misery and degradation of Florence and the foul outrage which he had himself sustained raised his mind, the smooth craft of his profession and his nation i? exchanged for the honest bitterness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one sick of the calamitous limes and abject people among whom his lot is cast. He pines for the strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the fasces of Brutus and the sword of Scijiio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp of the triumphal sacrifice. lie seems to tie transported back to the days when ei,:ht hundred thousand Italian warriors sprang to arms at the rumour of a Gallic invasion. He breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty patricians, who forgot the deai-est ties of nature in the claims of public duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the gold of Pyrrhns, and listened with unaltered composure to the tremendous tidings of Cannce. Like an ancient temple deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later pge, his ciiaracter ac- quires an interest from the very circumstances which debase it. The original proportions are rendered more striking by the contrast which they present to the mean and incongraous additions. The influence of the sentiments which we have described was not apparent in his writings alone. His enthusiasm, barred from the career which it would have selected for itself, seems to have found a vent in desperate levity. He enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in outraging the opinions of a society which he despised. He became careless of those decencies which were expected fronr a man so highly distinguished in the literary and political world. The sarcastic bitterness of his conversation disgusted those who were more inclined to accuse his licentiousness than their own degeneracy, and who were unable to conceive the strength of those emotions which are concealed by the jests of the wretched, and by the follies of the wise. The historical works of Machiavelli still remain to be considered. The life of Castruccio Castracani will occupy us for a very short time, and would scarcely have demanded our notice had it not attracted a much greater share of public attention than it deserves. Few books, indeed, could be more interesting than a careful and judicious account, from such a pen, of the illustrious Prince of Lucca, the most eminent of those Italian chiefs who, like Pisistratus and Gelon, acquired a power felt rather than seen, and resting, not on law or on prescription, but on the public favour and on their great personal qualities. Such a work would exhibit to us the real nature of that species of sovereignty, so singular and so often misunderstood, which the Greeks denominated tyranny, and which, modified in some degree by the feudal system, reappeared in the commonwealths of Lombardy and Tuscany But this little composition of Machiavelli is in no sense a history. It has no pretensions to fidelity. It is a trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is scarcely more authentic than the novel of Belphegor, and is very much duller. The last great work of this illustrious man was the history of his native city. It was written by the command of the pope, who, as chief of the house of Medici, was at that time sovereign of Florence. The characters of Cosmo, of Piero, and of Lorenzo are, however, treated with a freedom and impartiality equally honourable to the writer and to the patron. The miseries and humiliations of dependence, the bread which is more bitter than every other food, the slaira which are more painfu\ than every othei U ^A cm A VELLI. ayceni, * IkuI not brf)Isen tlic spirit of Macliiavo'.li. The most corrapting post in a col rupiuiy; profession had not depraved the {generous heart of Clement. The history does not ai)i)ear to be the fruit of much industry or research. It is unquestionably inaccurate. But it is elegant, lively, and picturesque l)eyond any other in the Italian language. The reader, we believe, carries away from it a more vivid and a more faithful impression of the national character and manners than from more correct accounts. The truth is, that the book' belonj^s rather to ancient than to modern literature. It is in ilie style, not of Davila and Clarendon, but of Herodotus and Tacitus : and tiie classical histories may almost be called romances founded in fact. The relation is, no doulit, in all its principal points, strictly true, but the luunerous little incidents which heighten the interest, the words, the gestures, the looks, are evidently furnished by the imagination of the author. The fashion of later times is different. A more exact narrative is given by the writer. It may be doubteil whetlier more exact notions are conveyed to the reader. The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture ol caricature ; and we are not aware that the best histories are not those in which a little of the exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed. Something is lost in accuracy; but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines are neglected ; but the great characteristic features are imprinted on the mind for ever. The history terminates with the death of Lorenzo de Medici. Machiaveili had, it seems, intended to continue it to a later period. But his death pre- vented the execution of his design ; and the melancholy task, of recordmg the desolation and shame of Italy devolved on Guicciardini. Machiaveili lived long enough to see the commencement of the last stniggle for Florentine liberty. Soon after his death monarchy was finally established — not such a monarchy as that of which Cosmo had laid the foundations deep in the constitution and feelings of his countrymen, and which Lorenzo had embellished with the trophies of every science and every art; but a loathsome tyranny, proud and mean, cruel and feeble, bigoted and lascivious. The character of Machiaveili was hateful to the new masters of Italy; and those parts of his theory which were in strict accordance with their own daily ]iractice afforded a pretext for blackening his memory. His works were misrepresented by the learned, misconstrued by the ignorant, censured by the Church, abused, with all the rancour of simulated virtue, by the minions of a base despotism and the priests of a baser superstition. The name of the man whose genius had illuminated all the dark places of policy, and to whose patriotic wisdom an oppressed people had owed their last chance of eman- cipation and revenge, passed into a proverb of infamy. For more than two hundred years his bones lay undistinguished. At length, an English noble- man paid the last honours to the greatest statesman of Florence. In the church of Santa Croce a monument was erected to his memory, which is contemplated with reverence by all who can distinguish the virtues of a great mind through the corruptions of a degenerate age; and which will be approached with still deeper homage when the object to which his public life was devoted shall be attained — when the foreign yoke shall be broken, when a second Proccita shall avenge the wrongs of Naples, when a happiei Rienzi shall restore the good estate of Rome, when the streets of Florence und Bologna shall again resound with their ancient war cry — Popolo; popoU\i muoiano i tiranni! * Paste Paradiso, cant.') xviL ss HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.* n,i Ctmstitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Dea.fi of George II. By Henky Hallam. In 2 vols. 1827. History, at least in its stateof imaginary perfection, is a compound of poetry and philosopliy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a vivid repre- sentation of particular characters and incidents. But, in fact, tlie two hos- tile elements of which it consists have never been known to foim a perfect amalgamation ; and, at length, in our own time, they have been completely and professedly separated. Good histories, in the proper sense of the word, we have not. But we have good historical romances, and good historical essays. The imagination and the reason, if we may use a legal metaphor, have made pariiiion of a province of literature of which they were formerly seised />er my et per tout ; and now they hold their respective portions in severally, instead of holding the whole in common. To make the past present, to bring the distant near — to place us in the society of a great man or on the eminence which overlooks the field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesli and blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an alleg(jry, to call up our ancestors before us with all their peculiarities of lan- guage, manners, and garb, to show us over their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain the uses of their ponderous furniture, — these parts of the duty which properly belongs to the historian have b'^en appropriated by the historical novelist. On the other hand, to extract t\ie philosophy of history, to diiect our judgment of events and men, to trace the connection of causes and effects, and to draw from the occurrences of former times general lessons of moral and political wisdom has become the business of a distinct class of writers. Of the two kinds of composition into which history has been thus divided, the one may be compared to a map, the other to a painted landscape. The [licture. though it places the object before us, does not enable us to ascert.nin v.iih accuracy the form and dimensions of its component pans, the distances, and the angles. The map is not a work of imitative art. It presents no scene to the imagination ; but it gives us exact ini'ormaiion as to the bearings of the vari'-Sis points, and is a more useful companion to the traveller or the general than the painting could be, though it were the grandest that ever Ru-a peopled with outlaws, or the sweetest over which Claude ever poured the mellow enu'gence of a setting sun. It is remarkable that the practice of separating the two ingredients of which history is composed has become prevalent on the Contnicni as well as in tliis country. Italy has already produced a historical novel of high merit and of still higher promise. In France tiie practice has been carried to a iengih somewhat whimsical. M. Sismoadi publishes a grave and stately history, very valuable, and a little tedious. He then sends forth as a companion lo it a novel, in which he attempts to give a lively representation of characters and manners. This course, as it seems to us, has all the disadvantages of a divi- sion of labour, and none of its advantages. We understand ihe exjiedieiicy of keeping the functions of cook and coachman distinct — the dinner will be better ''ressed, and the horses better managed. But where tlie two situations an- uni.tJ, as in the Mniire Jacques of Molicre, we do not see ihai liie iiiiUici' * Sdiabur^li Review, VoL xlviii. September, 182S, p. 96. 5© HALLAIWS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORV. is ir.ucli mended by the solemn form with which the pluralist passes from one of his employments to the other. We manage these things better in England. Sir Walter Scott gives us a novel ; Mr. Hallam a critical and argumentative history. Both are occupied with the same matter. Hut the former looks at it wiih the eye of a sculptor. His intention is to give an express and lively image of its external form. The latter is an anatomist. His task is to dissect the subject to its impost recesses and to lay bare before us all the springs of motion and all the causes of decay. Mr. Hallam is, on the wliole, far better qualified than any otlier writer of our time for the olTice whicli he has undertaken. He has great in^tustry and great acuteness. His knowledge is extensive, various, and profound. His mind is equally distinguished by the amplitude of its grasp and by the deli- cacy of its tact. His speculations have none of that vagueness wiiich is the common fault of political philosophy. On the contrary, they are strikingly practical. They teach us not only the general rule, but the mode of applying it to solve particular oases. In this respect they o.^ten remind us of the dis- courses of Alachiavelli. Tlie style is sometimes harsh, and sometimes obscure. We have also here and there remarkL-d a little of that unpleasant trick which Gibbon brought into fashion, the trick, we mean, of narrating by im{)licaliou and allusion. Mr. Hallam, however, has an excuse which Gibbon had not. His work is designed for readers who are already acquainted with the ordinary books on English history, and v/ho can, therefore, unri.ldle these little enigmas without difficulty. The manner of the book is, on the whole, not unworthy of the matter. The language, even when most faulty, is weighty and massive, and indicates strong sense in every line. It often rises to an eloquence, not florid or impassioned, but high, grave, and sober ; such as would become a state paper, or a judgment delivered by a great magistrate, a Somers, or a D'Aguesseau. In this respect the character of Mr, Hallara's mind corresponds strikingly with that of his style. His work is eminently judicial. Its whole spirit is that of the bench, not that of the bar. He sums up with a calm, steady impartiality, turning neither to the right nor to the left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating nothing, while the advocates on both sides are alternately biting their lips to hear their conflicting misstatements and sophisms exposed. Or. a general survey, we do not scruple to pronounce the Constitutional History the most impartial book that we ever read. We think it the more incumbent on us to bear this testimony strongly at first setting out, because, in the course of our remarks, we shall think it right to dwell principally on those parts of it from which we dissent. There is one peculiarity about Mr. Hallam which, while it adds to the value of his writings, will, we fear, take away something from their popularity. He is less of a worshipper than any historian whom we can call to mind. Every political sect has its esoteric and its exoteric school; its abstract doctrines for the initiated ; its visible symbols, its imposing forms, it mythological fables, for the vulgar. It assists the devotion of those who are unable to raise them- selves to the contemplation of pure truths by all the devices of pagan or papal sviperstition. It has its altars and its deified heroes, its relics and pilgrimages, its canonized martyrs and confessors, its festivals and its legendary miracles. Our pious ancestors, we are told, deserted the high altar of Canterbury, to lay all their oblations on the shrine of St. Thomas. In tlie same manner the great and comfortable doctrines of the Tory creed, those parlicjlarly which relate to reslricliins on worship and on trade, are adored by squires and rectors in Pitt Clubs, under the name of a minister who v.-as ii bad a reprS" HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 57 sentative of the system which has been christened after him as Becket of the spiiit of the Gospel. And, on the other hand, the cause for which Hampden bled on the field and Sydney on the scaffold is enthusiastically toasted by many an honest radical who would be puzzled to explain the difference between Ship-money and the Habeas Corpus Act. It may be added that, as in religion, so in politics, few even of those who are enlightened enough to com prehend the meaning latent under the emblems of their faith can resist the contagion of the popular superstition. Often, when they flatter themselves that they are merely feigning a compliance with the prejudices of the vulgar, they are themselves under the influence of those very prejudices. It probab'y was not altogether on grounds of expediency that Socrates taught his followers to honour the gods whom the state honoured, and bequeathed a cock to Escu- lapius with his dying breath. So there is often a portion of willing credulity and enthusiasm in the veneration which the most discerning men pay to their political idols. From the very nature of man it must be so. The faculty by which we inseparably associate ideas which have offen been presented to us in conjunction is not under the absolute control of the will. It may be quickened into morbid activity. It may be reasoned into sluggishness. But in a certain degree it will always exist. The almost absolute mastery which Mr. Hallani has obtained over feelings of this class is perfectly astonishing to us ; and will, we believe, be not only astonishing but offensive to many of his readers. It must particularly disgust those people who, in their speculations on politics, are not reasoners but fanciers ; whose opinions, even when sincere, are not pro- duced, according to the law of intellectual births, by induction or inference, but are equivocally generated by the heat of fervid tempers out of the over- flowing of tumid imaginations. A man of this class is always in extremes. He cannot be a friend to liberty without calling for a community of goods, or a friend to order without taking under his protection the foulest excesses o( tyranny. His admiration oscillates between the most wortliless of rebels and the most worthless of oppressors, between Marten, the scandal of the High Court of Justice, and Laud, the scandal of the Star Chamber. He can forgive anything but temperance and impartiality. He has a certain sympathy with the violence of his opponents, as well as with that of his associates. In every furious partisan he sees either his present self or his former self, the pensioner that is or the Jacobin that has been. But he is unable to comprehend a writer who, steadily attached to principles, is indifferent about names and badges, — and who judges of characters with equable severity, not altogether untinctured with cynicism, but free from the slightest touch of passion, party spirit, or caprice. We should probably like Mr. Hallam's book more if, instead of pointing out with strict fidelity the bright points and the dark spots of both parties, he had exerted himself to whitewash the one and to blacken the of her. But we should certainly prize it far less. Eulogy and invective may be had for the asking. But for cold, rigid justice— 'he one weight and the one measure — we know not where else we can look No portion of our annals nas been more perplexed and misrepresented by writers of different parties than the history of the Reformation. In this laby- rinth of falsehood and sophistry the guidance of Mr. Hallam is peculiarly valuable. It is impossible not to admire the even-handed justice with which he deals out castigation to right and left on the rival persecutors. It is vehemently maintained by some writers of the present day that the governmen. of Elizabeth persecuted neither Papists nor Puritans as such ; and occasionally that the severe measures which it adopted were dictated, not by religious intolerance, but by political necessity. Even the excellent account ol 58 HAU.AM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. tlu)se limes wh'icli Mr. Il.illam has ;;ivcn, lias nol alto;,'cl)iei impostJ silence oil llie authors of liiis fallacy. 'J he title of the queen, they say, was annulled by the |)0[)e ; her throne was given to another ; her suhjects were inc ted to rebellion ; her life was menaced ; every Catholic was bound in conscience to be a traitor ; it was, therefore, against traitors, not against Catholics, that the penal laws were enacted. That our readers may be the bettor able to appreciate the merits of this defence, we will state, as concisely as possible, the substance of some of these laws. .\s soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, and before the least hostility lo fier government had been shown by the Catholic population, an ict pas^;cd prohibiting the celebration of the rites of the Komish Church, on pain of foi- feiture for the first offence, of a year's imprisonment for the second, and of perpetual imprisonment for the third. A law was next made in 1562, enacting that all who had ever graduated at the Universities, or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all magistrates, should take the oath of sujiremacy when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture and imprisonment during the royal pleasure. After the lapse of three months it mi"^ht again be tendered to them ; and if it were again refused, the recusant was guilty of high treason ! A prospective law. however severe, framed to exclude Catholics from the liberal professions, would have been mercy itself compared with this odious act. It is a retro: pective statute; it is a retro- spective penal statute ; it is a retrospective penal statute against a large cla-ss. We will not positively affirm that a law of this description must always, and under all circumstances, be unjustifiable. But the presumption against it is most violent ; nor do we remember any crisis, either in our own history or in the history of any other country, which would have rendered such a provision necessary. In the present case, what circumstances called for extraordinary rigour? There might be disaffection among the Catholics. The prohibition of their worship would naturally produce it. But it is from their situation, not from their conduct ; from the wrongs which they had suffered, not from those which they had committed, that the existence of disco''itent among them must be inferred. There were libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours, and suspicions, — strange grounds for a law inllicting capital penalties, ex post facto, on a large body of men. Eight years later the bull of Pius deposing Elizabeth produced a third law. Thislaw, to which alone, as we conceive, the defence now under our con- sideration can apply, provides that, if any Catholic shall convert a Protestant to the Romish Church, they shall both suffer death as for high treason. We believe that we might safely content ourselves with stating the fact and leaving it to the judgment of every plain Englishman. Recent controversies have, however, given so much importance to this subject that we will offer a few remarks on it. In the first place, the arguments which are urged in favour of Elizabeth apply with much greater force lo the case of her sister Mary. The Catholics did not, at the time of Elizabeth's accession, rise in arms to seal a pretender on her'throne. But before Mary had given, or could give, provocation, the Hiost distinguished Protestants attempted lo set aside her rights in favour of the Lady Jane. That attempt, and the subsequent insurrection of Wyatl, furnished at least as good a plea for the burning of Protestants as the conspiracies against Elizabeth furnished for the hanging and embowelling of Papists. The fact is that both pleas are worthless alike. If such arguments are to pass current, it will be easy to prove that there was never such a thing as religious persecution since the creation. For there never was a ^eligijus persecutioit HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. S9 in which some odious crime was not, justly or unjustly, said to be obviously deducible from the doctrines of the persecuted party. We might say that the Coesars did not persecute the Christians ; that they only punished men who were charged, rightly or wrongly, with burning Rome, and with commit- ting the foulest abominations in their assemblies ; and that the refusal to throw frankincense on the altar of Jupiter was not the crime, but only evidence of the cnine. We uii^^lit say that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was imcnded to extirpiate, not a religious sect, but a |)olitical party. For, beyond all doubt, the proceedings of the Huguenots, from the conspiracy of An boise to the battle of Moncuntour, had given much more trouble to the French monarchy th;in the Catholics have ever given to the English since the Reformation ; and that too, with much less excuse. The true distinction is perfectly obvious. To punish a man because he has committed a crime, or is believed, though unjustly, to have committed a crime, is not persecution. To punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution ; and is, in every onse, foolish and wicked. When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington to death, she was not persecut- ing. Nor should we have accused her government of persecution for passing any law, however severe, against overt acts of sedition. But to argue that, because a man is a Catholic, he must think it right to murder a heretical sovereign, and that because he thinks it right he will attempt to do it, — and tlien to found on this conclusion a law for punishing him as if he had done it, is plain persecution. If, indeed, all men reasoned in the s.ame manner on the same data, and always did what they thought it their duty to do, this mode of dispensing pun- ishment might be extremely judicious. But as people who agree about premises often disagree about conclusions, and as no man in the world acts up to his own Standard of right, there are two enormous gaps in the logic by which alone penalties for ojjinions can Ije defended. The doctrine of reprobation, in the judgment of many very able men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the iloctrine of election. Others conceive that the Antinomian and Manichean heresies directly follow from the doctrine of reprobation ; and it is very generally thought that licentiousness and cruelty of the worst description are likely to be the fruits, as they often have been the fruits, of Antinomian and Manichean opinions. This chain of reasoning, we tliir.k, is as perfect in all its parts as that which makes out a Papist to be necessarily a traitor. Yet it would be rather a strong measure to hang the Calvinists, on the ground that, if they were spared, they would infallibly commit all the atrocities of Matthias and Knipperdoling. For, reason the matter as we may, experience shows us that a man may believe in election without believing in reprobation, that he may believe in rejirobation without being an Antinomian, and that he may be an Ancinomian without being a bad citizen. Man, in short, is so inconsistent a creature that it is impossible to reason from his belief to his conduct, or from one part of his belief to another. W^e do not believe that every Englishman who was reconciled to the Catholic Church would, as a necessary consequence, have thought himself justified in deposing or assassinating Elizabeth. It is not sufficient to say that the convert must have acknowledged the authority of the pope and that the pope had issued a bull against the queen. We know through what strange loopholes the human mind contrives to escape when it wishes to avoid a disagreeable inference from an admitted proposition. We know how long the fansenists contrived ^o believe the pope infallible in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to believe doc- 60 a A LLAMAS COmriTUTIONAL (JISTOkV. trines which he prononnce'-l to be heretical. Let it pass, however, that every Catholic in the kingdom thought that Elizabeth might be lawfully murdered. Still the old maxim that what is the business of everybody is the business of nobody is particularly likely to hold good in a case in which a cruel death is the almost inevitable consequence of making any attempt. Of the ten thousand clergymen of the Church of England there is scarcely one who would not say that a man who should leave his country and friends to preach the Gospel among savages, and who should, after labouring indefatigably without any hope of reward, terminate his life by martyrdom, would deserve the warmest admiration. Yet we doubt whether ten of the ten thousand ever thought of going on such an expedition. Why should we suppose that con- scientious motives, feeble as they are constantly found to be in a good cause, should be omnipotent for evil ? Doubtless there was many a jolly Popish priest in the old manor-houses of the northern counties, who would have ad- mitted, in theory, the deposing power of the pope, but who would not have been ambitious to be stretched on the rack, even though it were to be used, according to the benevolent proviso of Lord Burleigh, " as charitably as such a thing can be," or to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, even though, by that rare indulgence which the queen, of her special grace, certain knowledge, and mere motion, sometimes extended to very mitigated cases, he were allowed a fair time to choke before the hangman began to grabble in his entrails. But the laws passed against the Puritans had not even the wretched excuse which we have been considering. In this case the cruelty was equal, the dan- ger infinitely less. In fact, the danger was created solely by the cru--]ty. Rut it is superfluous to press the argument. By no artifice of ingenuity can the stigma of persecution, the wor-Nt blemish of the English Church, be effaced or patched over. Her doctrines, we well know, do not tend to intolerance. She admits the possibility of salvation out of her own pale. But this circum- stance, in itself honourable to her, aggravates the sin and the shame of those who persecuted in her name. Dominic and De Montfort did not, at least, mur- der and torture for differences of opinion which they considered as trifling. It was to stop an infection which, as they believed, hurried to perdition every soul which it seized, that they employed their fire and steel. The measures of the English government with respect to the Papist and Puritans sprang from a widely different prmciple. If those who deny that the founders of the Estab- lished' Church were guilty of religious persecution mean only that they were not influenced by any religious motive, v.-e perfectly agree with them. Neither the penal code of Elizabeth nor the more hateful system by which Charles II. attempted to force episcopacy on the Scotch, had an origin so noble. Their cause is to be sought in some ciccunistances which attended the Reformation in England — circumstances of which the effects long continued to be felt, and may in some degree be traced even at the present day. In Germany, m France, in Switzerland, and in Scotland the contest against the Papal power was esseiUiaily a religious contest. In all those countries, hideed. the cause of the Reformation, like every other great cause, attracted to itself many su[)po;Lers influenced by no conscientious principle, — many who quitted the Established Church only because they though: her in danger, — many who were weary of her restiaints, — and many who %vere greedy for her spoils. But it was not by these adherents that the separation was there con- ducted. They w^ere welcome auxiliaries; their support was too often purchased by unworthy compli inces, but, however exalted in rank or power, they were not the leaders in the enterprise. Men of a widely different description, meu who redeemed great infirmities and errors by sincerity, disinterestedness, energy, and couraijc ; men who with many of the vices of revolutionary chic£g H ALLAH'S CONSTITUTLONAL HISTORY. dl and of polemic divines, united some of the highest qualities of apostles, were the real directors. They might be violent in innovation and scurrilous in controversy. They might sometimes act with inexcusable severity towards opponents, and sometimes connive disreputably at the vices of powerful allies. But fear was not in them, nor hypocrisy, nor avarice, nor any petty selfishness. Their one great object was the demolition of the idols and the purification of the sanctuary. If they were too indulgent to the failings of eminent men from whose patronage they expected advantage to the Church, they never flinched before persecuting tyrants and hostile armies. If they set the lives of others at naught in comparison of their doctrines, they were ready to throw away their own. Such were the authors of the great schism on the Continent and in the northern part of this island. The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of Conde and the King of Navarre, Moray and Morton, might espouse the Protestant opinions, or might pretend to espouse them ; — but it was from Luther, from Calvin, from Knox, that the Reformation took its character. England has no such names to show ; not that she wanted men of sincere piety, of deep learning, v.{ steady and adventurous courage. But these were thrown into the background. Elsewhere, men of this character were the prin- cipals. Here they acted a secondary part. Elsewhere, worldliness was the tool of zeal. Here zeal was the tool of worldliness. A king, whose charac- ter may be best described by saying that he was despotism itself personified, inprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile Parliament, — such A-ere the instmments by which F.ii;^dand was delivered from the yoke of Rome. Tlie work which had been begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, was continued by Somerset, the murderer of his brother, and completed by Eliza- beth, the murderer of her guest. Sprung from Inutal passion, — nurtured by selfish policy, — the Reformation in England displayed little of what had, in other countries, distinguished it, — unflinching and unsparing devotion, bold- ness of speech, and singleness of eye. These were indeed to be found ; but it was in the lower ranks of the party which opposed the authority of Rome, in such men as Hooper, Latimer, Rogers, and Taylor. Of those who had any important share in bringing the alteration about, Ridley was perhaps the only person who did not consider it as a mere political job. Even Ridley did not play a very prominent part. Among the statesmen and prelates who principally gave the tone to the religious changes, there is one, and one only, whose conduct partiality itself can attribute to any other than interested motives. It is not strange, therefore, that his character should have been the subject of fierce controversy. We need not say that we speak of Cranmer. Mr. Hallam has been severely censured for saying, with his usual placid severity, that, "if we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him by his enemies; yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration." We will venture to expand the sense of Mr. Hallam, and to comment on it thus : — If we con- sider Cranmer merely aj a statesman, he will not appear a much worse man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Somerset. But when an attemjjt ig made to set him up as a saint, it is scarcely possibly for any man of sense who knows the history of the times to preserve his gravity. If the memory of the archbishop had been left to find its own place, he would have soon been lost 8 BQong the crowd which is mingled " A quel cattivo coro DegU angeli, che uou furoo ribclli, N^ fuf fcdell a Dio. ota £i«i ac hud." h HAlLAhVS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. And the only notice which it would have beca necessary lo take of Lis riime Would have been " Non ragioiiLam di lui ; ma gpiarda, e pas&a." But, since his admirers cliallenj^e for him a place in the noble army o( martyrs, his claims require fuller discussion. The ori(,'in o( his greatness, common enough in the scandalous ,hroniclfsof courts, seems stranj;oly out of place in a hagiology. Craiinier rooc into favour by serving Henry in the disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He promoted the marriage of Anne iJoleyn with the king. On a frivolous pretence, he pronounced that marriage null and void. On a pretence, if ptMsible, stdl more frivolous, he (ii>solvt'd the ties which bound the shameless, tyrant to Anne of Cleves. He aiuichcd himself to Cromwell while the foDune* of Cromwell flourished. He voted for cutting off his head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour turned. He conformed backwards and forwanls as the king changed his mind. WhUe Henry lived, he assisted in condenming to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiafion. When Henry died, he found out that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a loss for people to burn. The authority of his station and of his grey hairs was enr - ployed to overcome the disgust with which an intelligent and virtuous child regarded persecution. Intolerance is always bad. But the sanguinary intolerance of a man who thus wavered in his creed excites a loathing to which it is difficult to give vent without calling foul names. Equally false to political and religious obli- gations, he was first the tool of Somerset, and then the tool of Northumber- land. When the Protector wished to put his own brother to death, without even the semblance of a trial, he found a ready instrument in Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which forbade a churchman to take any part in matters of blood, the archbishop signed the warrant for the atrocious sentence. W'hen Somerset had been in his turn destroyed, his destroyer received the support of Cranmer in a wicked attempt to change the course of the succession. The apology made for him by his admirers only renders his conduct more contemptible. He complied, it is said, against his better judgment, because he could not resist the entreaties of Edward. A holy prelate of sixty, ona would think, might be better employed by the bedside of a dying child than in committing crimes at the request of his disciple. If he had shown half as much firmness uhcn Edward requested hiin to commit treason as he had before shown when Edward requested him not to commit murder, he might have saved the country from one of the greatest misfortunes that it ever under- went. He became, from whatever motive, the accomplice of the worthless Dudley. The virtuous scruples of another young and amiable mind were to be overcome. As Edward had been forced info persecution, Jane was to be seduced into usurpation. No transaction in our annals is more unjustifiable than this. If a hereditary title were to be respected, Mary possessed it. If a parliamentary title were preferable, Mary possessed that also. If the interest of the Protestant religion required a departure from the ordinary rule of succession, that interest vioidd have been best served by raising Elizabeth to the throne. If the foreign relations of the kingdom were considered, still stronger reasons might be found for preferring Elizabeth to Jane. There was great doubt whetlier Jane or the Queen of Scotland had the better claim ; and that doubt wviuld, ir all probability, have produced a war both with Scotland and with France, if the project of Northumberland had not been blasted in its infmcy. That Elizabeth had a better claim than the Queen of Scotland was iiiflisputable. To the part which Cranmer, and unfortunately some better uieii than Cranmer, took in this most reprehensible scheme, much of the HATlASrS COXSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 63 severity with which the I'rotestanta were afterwards treated must in fairness be ascribed. The plot failed ; Popery triumphed ; and Cranmer recanled. Most people look on his recantation as a single blemish on an honourable life, the frailty of an unguarded moment But, in fact, it was in strict accordance with the system on which he had constantly acted. It was part of a regular haoit. It was not the first recantation that he had made ; and, in all probability, if it had answered its purpose, it would not have JDcen the last. We do not blame him for not choosing to be burned alive. It is no very severe reproach to any person that he does not possess heroic fortitude. But surely a man who liked the fire so little should have had some sympathy for others. A persecutor who inflicts nothing which he is not ready to endure deserves some res|)ect. But when a man who loves his doctrines more than the lives of his neighbours loves his own little finger better than his doctrines, a very simple argument a fortiori will enable us to estimate the amount of his benevolence. But his martyrdom, it is said, redeemed everything. It is extraordinary that so much ignorance should exist on this subject. The fact is that, if a martyr be a man who chooses to die rather than to renounce his opinions, Cranmer was no more a martyr than Dr. Dodd. lie died solely because he could not help it. He never retracted his recantation till he found he had made it in vain. The queen was fully resolved that, Catholic or Protestant, he should burn. Then he spoke out, as people generally speak out when they are at the point of death and have nothing to hope or to fear on earth. If Mary had suffered him to live, we suspect that he would have heard mass and received absolution, like a good Catholic, till the accession of Elizabeth, and that he would then have purchased, by another apostasy, the power of burning men better and braver than himself. We do not mean, however, to represent him as a monster of wickedness. He Was not wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was merely a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times of frequent and violent change. That which has always been represented as his distinguishing virtue, the facility with which he forgave his enemies, belongs to the character. Those of his class are never vindictive, and never grateful. A present interest effaces past services and past injuries from their minds together. Their only object is self-preserva- tion ; and for this they conciliate thos' who wrong them, just as they abandon those who serve them. Before we e-iol a man for his forgiving temper, w« should inquire whether he is above r^ '.'enge, or below it. Somerset, with as little principle tm his coadjutor, had a firmer and more commanding mind. Of Henry, a.\ orthodox Catholic, excepting that he chose to be his own pope, and of Viizabeth, who certainly had no objection to the theology of Rome, we need Sixy nothing. These four persons were the great authors of the English Rerormation. Three of them had a direct interest in the extension of the royal prerogative. The fourth was the ready tool of any who could frighten him. It is not difficult to see from what motives, and on what plan, such persons would be inclined to remodel the Church. The scheme was merely to rob the Babylonian enchantress of her ornaments, to transfer the full cup of her sorceries to other hands, spilling as little as possib'* by the way. The Catholic doctrines and rites were to be retained in the Church of England. But the king was to exercise the control which had formerly belonged to the Roman pontiff. In this Henry for a time succee.nd fifty years, the servile handmaid of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liberty. The divine right of kings, and the duty of passively obeying all their commands, were her favourite tenets. She held them (irmly through times of oppression, persecution, and licentiousness ; while law was trampled down ; while judgment was perverted ; while the people were eaten as though they were bread. Once, and but once, — for a moment, and but for a moment, — wken her own dignity and property were touched, she forgot to practise the submission which she had taught. Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages which were to be derived from a close connection between the monarchy and the priesthood. At the time of her accession, indeed, she evidently meditated a partial reconciliation with Rome. And, throughout her whole life, she leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious parts of the Catholic system. But her imperious temper, her keen sagacity, and her peculiar situation, soon led her to attach herself completely to a Church which was all her own. On the same principle on which she joined it, she attempted to drive all her people within its pale by persecution. She supported it by severe penal laws, not because she thought conformity to its discipline necessary to salvation ; but because it was the fastness which arbitrary power was making strong for itself ; — because she ex- pected a more profound obedience from those who saw in her both their civil and their ecclesiastical chief, than from those who, like the Papists, ascribed spiritual authority to the Pope, or from those who, like some of the Puritans, ascribed it only to Heaven. To dissent from her establishment was to dissent from an institution founded with an express view to the maintenance and extension of the royal prerogative. The great queen and her successors, by considering conformity and loyalty as identical, at length made them so. With respect to the Catholics, indeed, the rigour of persecution abated after her death. James soon found that they were unable to injure him, and that the animosity which the Puritan party felt towards them drove them of necessity to take refuge under his throne. During the subsequent conflict, their fault was anything but disloyalty. On the other hand, James hated the Puritans with more than the hatred of Eliza- betb- Her aversion to them was political ; his wa-s !?e'«or-".k T^< sect had a ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 65 plagued him in Scotland, where he was weak ; and he was detennined to be even with them in England, where he was powerful. Persecution gradually changed a sect into a faction. That there was anything in the religious opinions of the Puritans which rendered them hostile to monarchy has never been proved to our satisfaction. After our civil contests, it became the fashion to say that Presbyterianism was connected with Republicanism ; just as It has been tlie fashion to say, since the time of the French Revolution, that infidelity is connected with Republicanism. It is perfectly true that a Church, constituted on the Calvinistic model, will not strengthen the hands of the sovereign so much as a hierarchy which consists of several ranks, differing in dignity and emolument, and of which all the members are con- stantly lookin:^ to the government for promotion. But experience has clearly shown that a Calvinistic Church, like every other Church, is disaffected when it is persecuted, quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal when it is favoured and cherished. Scotland has had a Presbyterian establishment during a century and a half. Yet her general assembly has not, during that period, given half so much trouble to the government as the convocation of the Church of England gave to it during the thirty years which followed the Revolution. That James and Charles should have been mistaken in this point is not surprising. But we are astonished, we must confess, that men of our own time, men who have before them the proof of what toleration can effect, — men who may see with their own eyes that the Presbyterians are no such monsters when government is wise enough (to let them alone, should defend the old persecutions on the ground that they were indispensable to the safety of the Church and the throne. How persecution protects churches and thrones was soon made manifest. A systematic political opposition, vehement, daring, and inflexible, sprang from a schism about trifles altogether unconnected with the real interests of religion or of the state. Before the close of the reign of Elizabeth this oppo- sition began to show itself. It broke forth on the question of the monopolies. Even the imperial lioness was compelled to abandon her prey, and slowly and fiercely to recede before the assailants. The spirit of liberty grew with the growing wealth and intelligence of the people. The feeble struggles and insults of James irritated instead of suppressing it ; and the events which immediately followed the accession of his son portended a contest of no com- mon severity between a king resolved to be absolute, and a people resolved to be free. The famous proceedings of the third Parliament of Charles and the tyran- nical measures which followed its dissolution are extremely well described by Mr. Hallam. No writer, we think, has shown, in so clear and satisfactory a manner, that at that time the government entertained a fixed purpose of destroying the old parliamentary constitution of England, or at least of reducing it to a mere shadow. We hasten, however, to a part of his work which, . though it abounds in valuable information and in remarks well deserving to be attentively considered, — and though it is, like the rest, evidently written in a spirit of perf^^t impartiality, appears to us, in many points, objection- able. We pass to tht year 1640. The fate of the short Parliament held in that year clearly indicated the views of the king. That a Parliament so moderate in feeling should have met after so many years of oppression is truly wonder- ful. Hyde extols its loyal and conciliatory spirit. Its conduct, we are told, made the excellent Falkland in love with the very name of Parliament. We think, indeed, with Oliver St. John, that its moderation was carried too far, and that the times required sharper and more decided^ councils. I\ was foj* D 66 HALLAAVS CONSTITUTIONAL HIST0R9. innate, however, that the king had another opportunity of showing that hatred of the liberties of his subjects which was the ruling principle of all his conduct. The sole crime of this assembly was that, meeting after a long intermission of Parliaments, and after a long series of cruelties and illegal imposts, they seemed inclined to examine grievances before they would vote supplies. For thij insolence they were dissolved almost as soon as they met. Defeat, universal agitation, financial embarrassments, disorganization in every part of the government, compelled Charles again to convene the Houses before the close of the same year. Their meeting was one of the great eras in the history of the civilized world. Whatever of political freedom exists either in Europe or in America, has sprung, directly or indirectly, from those institu- tions which they secured and reformed. We never turn to the annals of those times without feeling increased admiration of the patriotism, the energy, the decision, the consummate wisdom, which ma»-ked the measures of that great Parliament, from the day on which it met o the comm'^ncement of civil hostilities. The impeachment of Strafford was the first, and perhaps the greatest blow. The whole conduct of that celebrated man proved that he had formed a deliberate scheme to subvert the fundamental laws of England. Those parts of his coiTespondence which have been brought to light since his death place the mattei beyond a doubt. One of his admirers has, indeed, offered to show "that the passages which Mr. Hallam has invidiously extracted from the correspondence between Laud and Strafford, as proving their design to introduce a thorougii tyranny, refer not to any such desigr, but to a thorough reform in the affairs of state, and the thorough maintenance of just authority.'* We will recommend two or three of these passages to the especial notice of ©ur readers. All who know anything of those times know that the conduct of Hampden -ti the affair of the Ship-money met with the warm approbation of every respectable Royalist in England. It drew forth the ardent eulogies of the champions of the prerogative and even of the Crown lawyers themselves. Clarendon allows his demeanour through the whole proceeding to have been such that even those who watched for an occasion against the defender of the people were compelled to acknowledge themselves unable to find any fault in him. That he was right in the point of law is now universally admitted. Even had it been otherwise, he bad a fair case. Five of the judges, servile as our courts then were, pronounced in his favour. The majority against him was the smallest possible. In no country retaining the slightest vestige of constitutional liberty can a modest and decent appeal to the laws be treated as a crime. Strafford, however, recommends that, for taking the sense of a legal tribunal on a legal question, Hampden should be punished, and punished severely, " whipt," says the insolent apostate, " whipt into his senses. If the rod," he adds, " be so used Ui:;t it smarts not, I am the more sorry." Tliis is the maintenance of just authority. In civilized nations, the most arbitrary governments have generally suffered justice to have a free course in private suits. Strafford wished to make every cause in every court subject to the royal prerogative. He complained that in Ireland he was not permitted to meddle in cases between party and party. " I know very well," says he, "that the common lawyers will be passionately against 't, who are wont to put such a prejudice upon all other professions, as if noi»v were to be trusted or capable to administer justice, but themselves ; yet how well this suits with monarchy, when they monopolise all to be governed by their year-be oks, you in England have a costly example." We are really curious to know by what arguments it is to be proved i^ia* the power ol H ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 67 interfering in the law-suits of individuals is part of the just authority of the executive government. It is not strange that a man so careless of the common ciAdl rights, vi'hich even despots have generally respected, should treat with scorn the limitations which the Constitution imposes on the royal prerogative. We might quote pages : but we will content ourselves with a single specimen : — " The debts of the Crown being taken off, yei* may goz'ern as you please: and most re- solute I am that may be done without borrowing any help forth of the king's lodgings." Such was the theory of that thorough reform in the state which Stiafford meditated. His whole practice, from the day on which he sold himself to the court, was in strict conformity to his theory. For his accomplices various excuses may be urged, ignorance, imbecility, religious bigotry. But Went- worth had no such plea. His intellect was capacious. His early prepos- sessions were on the side of popular rights. He knew the whole beauty and value of the system which he attempted to deface. He was the first of the Rats, — the first of those statesmen whose patriotism has been only the co- quetry of political prostitution, and whose profligacy has taught governments to adopt the old maxim of the slave-market, that it is cheaper to buy than 10 breed, to import defenders from an opposition than to rear them in f ministry He was the first Englishman to whom a peerage was not an ad- dition of honour, but a sacrament of infamy — a baptism into the communion of corruption. As he was the earliest of the hateful list, so was he also by far the greatest ; — eloquent, sagacious, adventurous, intrepid, ready of inven- tion, immutable of purpose, in every talent which exalts or destroys nations pre-eminent, the lost Archangel, the Satan of the apostasy. The title for which, at the time of his desertion, he exchanged a name honourably dis- tinguished in the cause of the people, reminds us of the appellation which, from the moment of the first treason, fixed itself on the fallen Son of the Morning, " so call him now. — His former name Is heard no more in heaven." The defection of Strafford from the popular party contributed mainly to draw on him the hatred of his contemporaries. It has since made hira an object of peculiar interest to those whose lives have been spent, like his, in proving that there is no malice like the malice of a renegade. Nothing can be more natural or becoming than that one turncoat should eulogize another. Many enemies of public liberty have been distinguished by their private virtues. But Strafford was the same throughout. As was the statesman, such was the kinsman, and such the lover. His conduct towards Lord Mount- morris is recorded by Clarendon. For a word which can scarcely be called rash, which could not have been made the subject of an ordinary civil action, he dragged a man of high rank, married to a relative of that saint about whom he whimpered to the Peers, before a tribunal of slaves. Sentence of death was passed. Everything but death was inflicted. Yet the treatment which Lord Ely experienced was still more scandalous. That nobleman was thrown into pr ^on, in order to compel him to settle his estate in a manner agreeable to his daughter-in-law, whom, as there is every reason to believe, Strafford had debauched. These stories do not rest on vague report. The historians most partial to the minister admit their truth, and censure them in terms which, though too lenient for the occasion, are still severe. These facts are alone sufficient to justify the appellation with which Pym branded him^ — "the wicked Earl." In spite of all his vices, in spite of all his dangerous projects — Stra'Tord waj 68 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. certainly entitled to the benefit of the law ; — but of the law in all its rigour ; of the law according to the utmost strictness of the letter, which killeth. He was not to be torn in pieces by a mob, or stabbed in the back by an assassin. lie was not to have punishment meted out to him from his own iniquitous measure. But if justice, in the whole range of its wide armoury, contained •)ne weapon which could pierce him, that weapon his pursuers were bound, before god and man, to employ. — " If he may Find mercy in the law, 'tis his : if none, Let him not seek't of us." Such was the language which the Parliament might justly use. Did, then, the articles against Strafford strictly amount to high treason? Many people, who know neither what the articles were nor what high treason is, will answer in the negative, simply because the accused person, speaking for his life, took that ground of defence. The journals of the Lords show that the judges were consulted. They answered, with one accord, that the articles on wliich the earl was convicted amounted to high treason. This judicial opinion, even if we suppose it to have been eiToneous, goes far to justify the Parliament. The judgment pronounced in the Exchequer Cliamber has always been urged by the apologists of Charles in defence of his conduct respecting Ship-money. Yet on that occasion there was but a bare majority in favour of the party at whose pleasure all the magistrates composing the tribunal were removable. The decision in the case of Straf- ford was unanimous ; as far as we can judge, it was unbiassed ; and though there may be room for hesitation, we think on the whole that it was reason- able. "It may be remarked," says Mr. Hallam, "that the fifteenth article of the impeachment, charging Strafford with raising money by his own authority, and quartering troops on the people of Ireland in order to compel their obedience to his unlawful requisitions, upon which, and upon one other article, not upon the whole matter, the Peers voted him guilty, does, at least, approach very nearly, if we may not say more, to a substantive treason "vithin tlie statute of Edward III., as a levying of war against the king." This most sound and just exposition has provoked a very ridiculous reply. " It should seem to be an Irish construction this," says an assailant of Mr. Hallam, "which makes the raising money for the king's service, with his knowledge, and by his approbation, to come under the head of levying war on the king, and therefore to be high treason." Now, people who undertake to write on points of constitutional law should know what every attorney's clerk and every forward schoolboy on an upper form knows, that by a fundamestal maxim of our polity, the king can do no wrong ; that every court is bound to suppose his conduct and his sentiments to be, on every occasion, such as they ought to be,jand that no evidence can be received for the purpose of setting aside this loyal and salutary presumption, The Lords, therefore, were boimd to take it for granted that the king considered arms which were unlawfully directed against his people, as directed against his own throne. The remarks of Mr. Hallam on the bill of attainder, though, as usual, ^'eighty and acute, do not perfectly satisfy us. He defends the principle, but oljjects to the severity of the punishment. That on great emergencies, the Slate may justifiably |)ass a retrospective act against an offender, we havfi no doubt whatever. We are acquainted with only one argument on the other side, which has in it enough of reason to bear an snswer. Warning, it is said, is the end of punishment But a punishment inflicted, not by a HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 69 general rule, but by an arbitrary discretion, cannot serve the puroose (fa warning ; it is, therefore, useless, and useless pain ought not ; j be .nflicttd. This sophism has found its way into several books on penal legislation. It ftdmits, however, of a very simple refutation. In the first place, punishments ix post facto are not altogether useless even as warnings. Tiiey arc warnings lo a particular class which stand in great need of warnings, to favourites aiul ministers. They remind persons of this deccription that there may be a day of reckoning for those who niin and enslave their country in all the forms of law. But this is not all. Warning is, in ordinary cases, the principal end of punishment ; but it is not the only end. To remove the ofTender, to pre- serve society from those dangers which are to be apprehended from his incor- rigible depravity, is often one of the ends. In the case of such a knave as Wild, or such a ruffi?n as Thurtell, it is a very important end. In the case of a powerful and wicked statesman it is infinitely more important ; so im- portant as alone to justify the utmost severity, even though it were certain that his fate would not deter others from imitating his example. At pre^-jnt, indeed, we should think it extremely pernicious to take such a course, even with a worse minister than Strafford — if a worse could exist ; for, at present, Parliament has only to withhold its support from a Cabinet to produce an immediate change of hands. The case was widely different in the reign of Charles I. That prince had governed during eleven years without any Parlia- ment ; and, even when Parliament was sitting, had supported Buckingham against its most violent remonstrances. Mr. Hallam is of opinion that a bill of pains and penalties ought to have been passed against Strafford ; but he draws a distinction less just, we think, than his distinctions usually are. His opinion, so far as we can collect it, is this — that there are almost insurmountable objections to retrospective laws for capital punishment ; but that, wliere the punishment stops short of death, the objections are comparatively trifling. Now, the practice of taking the severity of the penalty into consideration, when the question is about the mode of procedure and the rules of evidence, is no doubt sufficiently common. We often see a man convicted of a simple larceny on evidence on which he would not be convicted of a burglary. It sometimes happens that a jury, when there is strong suspicion, but not absolute demonstration, that an act, un- questionably amounting to murder, was committed by the prisoner before them, will find him guilty of manslaughter, but this is surely very irrational. The rules of evidence no more depend on the magnitude of the interests at stake than the rules of arithmetic. We might as well say that we have a greater chance of throwing a size when we are playing for a penny than when we are playing for a thousand pounds, as that a form of trial which is sufficient for the purposes of justice, in a matter affecting liberty and property, is insufficient in a matter afTecting life. Nay, if a mode of proceeding be too lax for capital cases, it is, a fortiori, too lax for all others; for, in capita) cases, the principles of human nature will always afford considerable security. No judge is so cruel as he who indemnifies himself for scrupulosity in cases of blood by licence in affairs of smaller importance. The difference in tale on the one side far more than makes up for the difference in weight on the other. If there be any universal objection to retrospective punishment, 'here is no mor? to be said. But such is not the opinion of Mr. Hallam. He approves of tne mode of proceeding. He thinks that a punishment, not previously affixed by law to the offences of Strafford, should have been inflicted ; that he .slioultl !iave been degraded from his rank, and condemned to perpetual ban- ishment by act of Parliament ; but he sees strong objections to the taking away of his life. Our difficulty would have been at the firbt step, and iheie yo IIALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, only. Indeed, we can scarcely conceive that any case which does not call for capital punishment, can call for retrospective punishment. We can scarcely conceive a man so wicked and so dangerous that ihe whole course of law must be disturbed in order to reach him ; yet not so wicked as to deserve the severest sentence, nor so dangerous as to require the last and surest custody — that of the grave. If we had thouL,dit that StrafTord might be safely suffered to live in France, we should have thought it better that he should continue to live in England than that he should be exiled by a special act. As to degradation, it was not the earl, but the general and the statesman, whom the people had to fear. Essex said on that occasion, with more truth than eloquence, " Stone-dead hath no fellow." And often during the civil wars the Parliament had reason to rejoice that an irreversible law and an impassable barrier protected them from the valour and capacity of Strafford. It is remarkable that neither Hyde nor Falkland voted against the bill of attainder. There is, indeed, reason to believe that Falkland spoke in favour of it. In one respect, as Mr. Hallam has observed, the proceeding was honourably distinguished from others of the same kind. An act was passed to relieve the children of .Slraltord from the forfeiture and corruption of blood which were the legal consequences of the sentence. The Crown had never shown equal generosity in a case of treason. The liberal conduct of the Commons has been fully and most appropriately repaid. The house of Went- worth has since that time been as much distinguished by public spirit as by power and splendour, and may at the present moment boast of members with whom Say and Hampden would have been proud to act. It is somewhat curious that the admirers of Strafford should also be, with- out a single exception, the admirers of Charles ; for, whatever we may think of the conduct of the Parliament towards the unhappy favourite, there can be no doubt that the treatment which he received from his master was disgraceful. Faithless alike to his people and to his tools, the king did not scruple to play the part of the cowardly approver, who hangs his accomplice. It is good that there should be such men as Charles in every league of villainy. It is for such men that the offer of pardon and reward which appears after a murder is intended. They are indemnified, remunerated, and despised. The very magistiate who avails himself of their assistance looks on them as wretches more degraded than the criminal whom they betray. Was Strafford inno- cent ? was he a meritorious servant of the Crown ? If so, what shall we think of the prince who, having solemnly promised him that not a hair of his head should be hurt, and possessing an unquestioned constitutional right to save him, gave him up to the vengeance of his enemies? There were some points which we know that Charles would not concede, and for which he was willing to risk the chances of civil war. Ought not a king, who will make a stand for anything, to make a stand for the innocent blood ? Was Strafford guilty? Even on this supposition, it is difficult not to feel disdain for the partner of his guilt, the tempter turned punish er. If, indeed, from that time foith, the conduct of Charles had been blameless, it might have been said that his eyes were at last opened to the errors of his former conduct, and that, in sacrificing to the wishes of his Parliament a minister whose crime had been a devotion too zealous to the interests of his prerogative, he gave a painful and deeply humiliating proof of the sincerity of his repentance. We may de- scribe his behaviour on this occasion in terms resembling those which Hume has employed when speaking of the conduct of Churchill at the Revolution. It required ever after the most rigid justice and sincerity in his dealings with hii people to vindicate it. His subsequent dealings with his people, however, clearly ihowed, that it was not from any respect for the Constitution, or from anr HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. fi sense of the deep criminality of the plans in which Strafford and himself had been engaged, that he gave up his minister to the axe. It became evident that he hud abandoned a servant who, deeply guilty as to all others, was guilt- less to him alone, solely in order to gain time for maturing other schemes of tyranny, and purchasing the aid of other Wentworths. He, who vould not avail himself of the power which the laws gave him to save a friend to whom his honour was pledged, soon showed that he did not scruple to break eveiy law and forfeit every pledge in order to work the ruin of his opponents. " Put not your trust in princes ! " was the depression of the fallen mininter, when he heard that Charles had consented to his death. The whole history of the times is a sermon on that bitter text. The defence of the Long Parlia- ment is comprised in the djnng words of its victim. The early measures of that Parliament Mr. Hallam in general approves. But he considers the proceedings which took plnce after the recess in the summer of 1641 as mischievous and violent. He thinks that, from that time, the demands of the Houses were not warranted by any imminent danger to the Constitution, and that ''n the war wliich ensued they were clearly the aggressors. As this is '".le of the most interesting questions in our history, we will venture to '■tate, at some length, the reasons wliich have led us to form an opinion on ic contrary to that of a writer whose judgment we so highly respect. We will premise thrt we think worse of King Charles I. than even Mr. Hallam appears to do. The fixed hatred of liberty which was the principle of the king's public conduct, the unscrpulousness with which he adopted any means which might enable him to attain his ends ; the readiness with which he gave promises, the impudence with which he broke them, the cruel indiffer- ence with which he threw away his useless or damaged tools, rendered him — at least till his character was fully exposed and his power shaken to its founda- tions, — a more dangerous enemy to the Constitution than a man of far greater talents and resolution might have been. Such princes may still be seen, — the scandals of the southern thrones of Europe ; — princes false alike to the accom- plices who have served them and to the opponents who have spared them ; — nrinces who, in the hour of danger, concede evei^thing, swear everything, — Iiold out their cheeks to every smiter, — give up to punishment every minister of their tyranny, and await with meek and smiling implacability the blessed day of perjury and proscription. We will pass by the instances of oppression and falsehood which disgraced the early part of the reign of Charles. We will leave out of the question the •whole history of his third Parliament, — the price which he exacted for assent- ing to the Petition of Right, — the perfidy with which he violated his engage- ments, — the death of Eliot. — the barbarous punishments inflicted by the Star Chamber, — the Ship-money, and all the measures now universally condemned, which disgraced his administration from 1630 to 1640. We will admit that it might be the duty of the Parliament, after punishing the most guilty of his creatures, — after abolishing the inquisitorial tribunals which had been the in* ' struments of his tyranny, — after reversing the unjust sentences of his victims, to pause in its course. The concessions which had been made were great, the evils of civil war obvious — the advantages even of victory doubtful. The former errors of the king might be imputed to youth, — to the pressure of cir- cumstances, — to the influence of evil counsel, — to the undefined state of the law. We firmly believe that, if even at this eleventh hour, Charles had acted fairly towards his people, if he had even acted fairly towards his own parti- sans, the House of Commons would have given him a fair chance of retrieving the p.tblic confidence. Such was the opinion of Clarendon. He distinctly »tates that the fury of opposition had abated, — that a reaction h.ad bej^uii to J« HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, take place, — that the majority of those wlio had taken part agaiast the king were desirous of an honouraMe and complete reconciliation, and that the more violent, or, as it soon appeared, the more judicious meml)ers of the party, were fast declining in credit. The remonstrance had been carried with great difficulty. The uncompromising antagonists of the court, such as Cromwell, had begun to talk of selling their estates and leaving England, The event soon showed that they were the only men who eally understood how much inhumanity and fraud lay hid under the constitutional language and eracious demeanour of the king. The attempt to seize the five members was undoubtedly the real cause of the war. From that moment the loyal confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard the king was turned into haired and incurable suspicion. From that moment the Parliament was com[jelled to .surround itself with defensive arms ; — from that numient the city assumed the appearance of a garrison; — from that moment it was that, in the phrase of Clarendon, the carriage of Hampden became fiercer, that he drew the sword and threw away the scabbard. For, from that moment, it must have been evident to every impartial observer, that in the midst of professions, oaths, and smiles, the tyrant was constantly looking forward to an absolute sway and to a bloody revenge. The advocates of Charles have very dexterously contrived to conceal from their readers the real nature of this transaction. By making concessions apparently candid and ample, they elude the great accusation. They allow tliat the measure was weak and even franiic, — an absurd caprice of Lord Digby, absurdly adopted by the king. And thus they save their client from the full penalty of his transgression, by entering a plea of guilty to the minor offence. To us his conduct appears at this day as at the time it appeared to the Parliament and the city. We think it by no means so foolish as it pleases his friends to represent it, and far more wicked. In the first place, the transaction was illegal from beginning to end. The impeachment was illegal. The process was illegal. The service was illegal. If Charles wished to prosecute the five members for treason, a bill against them should have been sent to a grand jury. That a commoner cannot be tried for high treason by the Lords, at the suit of the Crown, is part of the rery alphabet of our law. That no man can be arrested by a message or verbal summons of the king, with or without a warrant from a responsible magistrate, is equally clear. This was an established maxim of our jurispru- dence in the time of Edward IV. " A subject," said Chief Justice Markham to that prince, " may arrest for treason : the king cannot ; for, if the arrest be illegal, the party has no remedy against the king." The time at which Chailes took tliis step also deserves consideration. We have already said that the ardour which the Parliament had displayed at the time of its first meeting had considerably abated, that the leading opponents of the Court were desponding, and that their followers were in general inclined to milder and more temperate measures than those which had hitherto been pursued. In every country, and in none more than in England, there is 3 disposition to take the part of those who are unmercifully run down and whc seem destitute of all means of defence. Every man who has observed the ebb and How of public feeling in our own time will easily recall examples to \llustrate this remark. An English statesman ought to pay assiduous worship io Nemesis, — to be most apprehensive of ruin when he is at the height of power and popularity, and to dread his enemy most when most completely prostrated. The fate of the coalition ministry of 1784 is perhaps the strongest uxjlance m our history of the operation of this principle. A few weeks turned HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 73 the ablest and most extended ministry that ever existed into a feeble oppc^si- tion, and raised a king who was talking of retiring to Hanover, to a height of power whicli none of his predecessors had enjoyed since the Revokitioa. A crisis of this description was evidently approaching in 1642. At such a crisis a prince of a really honest and generous nature, v.'ho had erred, who had seeiv his error, who had regretted the lost afifections of his people, who rejoiced in the dawning hope of regaining them, would be peculiarly careful to take no step which could give occasion of offence, even to the unreasonable. On the other hand, a tyrant, whose whole life was a lie, who hated the Constitution the more because he had l)een compelled to feign respect for it, and to whom Iiis honour and the love of his people were as nothing, would select such a crisis for some appalling violation of law, for some strol.e which might remove the chiefs of an opposition, and intimidate the herd. This Charles attempted. He missed his blow; — but so narrowly that it would have been mere madness in those at whom it was aimed to trust him again. It deserves to be remarked that the king had, a short time before, pro- mised the most respectable Royalists in the house of Commons, Falkland, Colepepper, and Hyde, that he would take no measure in which that House was concerned, without consulting them. On this occasion he did not con- sult them. His conduct astonished them more than any other members of the Assembly. Clarendon says that they were deeply hurt by this want of confidence, and the more hurt, because, if they had been consulted, they would have done their utmost to dissuade Charles from so improper a proceeding. Did it never occur to Clarendon, — will it not at least occur to men less partial, — that there was good reason for this ? When the danger to the throne seemed imminent, the king was ready to put himself for it time into the hands of those who, though they disapproved of his past conduct, thought that the remedies had now become worse than the distemjjers. But we believe that in his heart he regarded both the parties in the Parliament with feelings of aversion which differed only in the degree of their intensity, and that the awful warning which he proposed to give, by immolating the principal sup- •^orters of the remonstrance, was partly intended for the instruction of those who had concurred in censuring the Ship-money and in abolishing the Star Chamber. The Commons informed the king that their members should be forth- coming to answer any charge legally brought against them. The Lords refused to assume the unconstitutional office with which he attempted to in- vest them. And what was then his conduct ? He went, attended by hundreds of armed men, to seize the objects of his hatred in the House itself. The party opposed to him more than insinuated that his purpose was of the most atrocious kind. We will not condemn him merely on their suspicions. We will not hold him answerable for the sanguinary expressions of the loose brawlers who composed his train. We will judge of his act by itself alone. And we say, without hesitation, that it is impossible to acquit him of having ncditated violence, and violence which might probably end in blood. He. knew 1 .at the legality of his proceedings was denied ; he mnst have known that some of the accused members were not men likely to submit peaceably to an illegal arrest. There was every reason to expect that he would find them in their places, that they would refuse to obey his summons, and that the House would support tliem in their refusal. What course would then have been left to him ? Unless we suppose that he went on this expedition for the sole purpose of making himself ridiculous, we must believe that he would have had recourse to force. There would have been a scufile ; and it might Bot, audvi such circumstances, have been in his power, even it" it had beeu ia 74 ff ALLAH'S C0N:.TITU710KAL HISTORy." his inclination, to prevent a scuffle from ending in a massacre. Fortunately for his fame, unfortunately, perhaps, tor what he prized far more, the interest* of his hatred and his ambition, the affair ended differently. The birds, as he said, were flown, and his plan was disconcerted. Posterity is not extreme f^ mark abortive crimes ; and thus the king's advocates have found it easy to represent a step which, but for a trivial accident, might have filled England with mourning and dismay, as a mere error of judgment, wild and foolish, but perfectly innocent. Such was not, however, at the time, the opinion of any p-irty. The most zealous Royalists were so much disgusted and ashamed that tliey suspended tlieir opposition to the popular party, and, silently at least, concurred in measures of precaution so strong as almost to amount to re- sistance. From that day, whatever of confidence and loyal attachment had survived the misrule of seventeen years was, in the great body of the people, extin- guished, and extinguished forever. As soon as the outrage had failed, the hypocrisy recommenced. Down to the veiy eve of this flagitious attempt, Charles had been talking of his respect for the privileges of Parliament and the liberties of his people. He began again in the same style on the morrow ; but it was too late. To trust him now would have been, not moderation, but insanity. What common security would suffice against a prince who was evidently watching his season with that cold and patient hatred which, in the long run, tires out every other passion ? It is certainly from no admiration of Charles that Mr. Hallam disapproves of the conduct of the Houses in resorting to arms. But he thinks that any attempt on the part of that prince to establish a despotism would have been as strongly opposed by his adherents as by his enemies, and that therefore the Constitution might be considered as out of danger, or, at least, that it had mv>re to apprehend from the war than from the king On this subject Mr. Hallam dilates at length, and with conspicuous ability. We will offer a few considerations which lead us to incline to a different opinion. The Constitution of England was only one of a large family. In all the monarchies of western Europe, during the middle ages, there existed restraints on the royal authority, fundamental laws, and representative assemblies. In the fifteenth century the government of Castile seems to have been as' free as that of our own country. That of Arragon was beyond all question more so. In France the sovereign was more absolute. Yet, even in France, the States-General alone could constitutionally impose taxes ; and, at the very time when the authority of those assemblies was beginning to languish, the Parliament of Paris received such an accession of strength as enabled it, in some measure, to perform the functions of a legislative assembly. Sweden and Denmark had constitutions of a similar description. Let us overleap two or three hundred years, and contemplate Europe at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Every free constitution, save one, had gone down. That of England had weathered the danger, and was riding ill full security. In Denmark and Sweden the kings, had availed themselves of the disputes which raged between the nobles and the commons, to unite all the powers of government in their own hands. In France the ins'itution of the States was only mentioned by lawyers as a part of the ancient theory of their government. It slept a deep sleep, destined to be broken by a tremen- dous waking. No person remembered the sittings of the three orders, or ex- pected ever to see them renewed. Louis the Fourteenth had imposed on his Parliament a patient silence of sixty years. His grandson, after the War of the Spanish Succession, assimilated the constitution of Arragon to that of Castile and extinguished the last feeble remains of liberty in the Peninsula. HALLAArS CONSTITUTIONAL JilSrORY, yj in England, on the other hand, the Parliament was infinitely more powerful than it had ever been. Not only was its leijislative authority fully established ; but its right to interfere, by advice almost equivalent to command, in every department of the executive government, was recognized. The appointment of ministers, the relations with foreign powers, the conduct of a war or a negotiation, depended less on the pleasure of the prince than on that of the Iwo House?. What then m.ade us to differ? Why was it that, in that epidemic malady of constitutions, ours escaped the destroying intluence ; or rather that, at the very crisis of the disease, a favourable turn took place in England, and in England alone? It was not surely without a cause that so many kindred sys- tems of government, having flourished together so long, languished and expired at almost the same time. It is the fashion to say, that the progress of civilization is favourable to liberty. The maxim, though on the whole true, must be limited by many qualifications and exceptions. Wherever a poor and rude nation, in which the form of government is a limited monarchy, receives a great accession of wealth and knowledge, it is in imminent danger of falling under arbitrary power. In such a state of society as that which existed all over Europe during the middle ages it was not from the king but from the nobles that there was danger. Very slight checks sufficed to keep the sovereign in order. His means of corruption and intimidation were scanty. He had little money, little patronage, — no military establishment His armies resembled juries. They were drafted out of the mass of the people : they coon returned to it again : and the character which was habitual prevailed ov'.r that which was occasional. A campaign of forty days was too short, the discipline of a national militia too lax, to efface from their minds the feelings of civil life. As they carried to the camp the sentiments and interests of the farm and the shop, so they carried back to the farm and the shop the military accomplish- ments which they had acquired in the camp. At home the soldier learned how to value his rights — abroad how to defend them. Such a military force as this was a far stronger restraint on the regal power than any legislative assembly. Resistance to an established government, in modern times so difficult and perilous an enterprise, was, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the simplest and easiest matter in the world. Indeed, it was far too simple and easy. An insurrection was got up then almost as easily as a petition is got up now. In a popular cause, or even in an un- popular cause, favoured by a few great nobles, a force of ten thousand armed men was raised in a week. If the king were, like our Edward II. and Richard II., generally odious, he could not procure a single bow or halbert. He fell at once and without an effort. In such times a sovereign like Louis the Fifteenth or the Emperor Paul, would have been pulled down before his misgovernment had lasted for a month. We find that all the fame and influence of our Edward III. could not save his Madame de Pompadour from the effects of the public hatred. Hume and many other v/riters have hastily concluded that, in the fifteenth century, the English Parliament was altogether servile, because it recognized, without opposition, every successful usurper. That it was not servile, its con- duct on many occasions of inferior importance is sufficient to prove. But surely it was not strange that the majority of the nobles, and of the deputies chosen by the commons, should approve of revolutions which the nobles and commons had effected. The Parliament did not blindly follow the event of Tvar, but participated in those changes of public sentiment on which the event cf war depended. The legal check was secondary and auxiliary to tha*. which 7* HALLAAPS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. the nation held in its own hands. There have always been nonarchies in Asia in wliich Uie royal authority has been tempered by fundamental laws, though no legisiative body exists to watch over them. The guarantee is the opinion of a community of which every individual is a soldier. Thus, the king of Cahul, as Mr. Elphinstone informs us, cannot augment the land revenue, or interfere with the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals. In the Eurf-])ean kingdoms of this description there were representative assemblies. ]!ut it was not ne-cessary, that those assemblies should meet very frequently, thai they should interfere with all the operations of the executive government, that they should watch with jealousy, and resent with prompt indignation, every violation of the laws which the sovereign might commit. They were so strong that they might safely be careless. He was so feeble that he might safely be suffered to encroach. If he ventured too far, chastise' ment and ruin were at hand. In fact, the people suffered more from his weakness thai' from his authority. The tyranny of wealthy and powerful sub- jects was the diaracteiislic evil of the tinies. The royal prerogatives were not even sufficient for the defence of property and the maintenance of police. The progress of civilization introduced a great change. War became a science, and, us a necessary consequence, a separate trade. The great body of the people grew every day more reluctant to undergo the inconveniences of military service, and better able to pay others for undergoing them. A new class of men, therefore, dependent on the Crown alone, natural enemies of those populai rights which are to them as the dew to the fleece of Gideon — slaves among I icemen — freemen among slaves — grew into importance. That physical force, which in the dark ages, had belonged to the nobles and the commons, and had, far more than any charter or any assembly, been the safe- guard of their jirivilegcs, was transferred entire to the king. Monarchy gained in two ways. The sovereign was strengthened, the subjects weakened. The great mass of f lie population, destitute of all military discipline and organiza- tion, ceased to exercise any influence by force on political transactions. There have, indeed, j 4istinguished only by wperior diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pvy. HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL /^rSTORY. suits of peace, from the other members of the community which they had saved. In the general spirit and character of his administration, we think Crom^ well far superior to Napoleon. *' In civil government," says Mr. Ilallam, ' ' there can be no adequate parallel between one who had sucked only the dregs of a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the stores of reason and philosophy were open." These expressions, it seems to us, convey the highest eulogium on our great countryman. Reason and philosophy did not teach the conqueror of Europe to command his passions, or to pursue, as a first object, the happiness of his people. They did not prevent him from risking his fame and his power in a frantic contest against the principles of human nature and the laws of the physical world, against the rage of the winter and the liberty of the sea. They did not exempt him from the influence of that most pernicious of superstitions, a presumptuous fatalism. They did not pre- serve him from the inebriation of prosperity, or restrain him from indecent querulousness in adversity. On the other hand, the fanaticism of Cromwell never urged him on impracticable undertakings, or confused his perception of the public good. Inferior to Bonaparte in invention, he was far superior to him in wisdom. The French Emperor is among conquerors what Voltaire is among writers, a miraculous child. His splendid genius was frequently clouded by fits of humour as absurdly perverse as those of the pet of the nursery, who quarrels with his food, and dashes his playthings to pieces. Cromwell was emphatically a man. He possessed, in an eminent degree, that masculine and full-grown robustness of mind, that equally diffused intel- lectual health, which, if our national partiality does not mislead us, has peculiarly characterised the great men of England. Never was any ruler so conspicuously born for sovereignty. The cup which has intoxicated almost all others sobered him. His spirit, restless from its buoyancy in a lower sphere, reposed in majestic placidity as soon as it had reached the level con- genial to it. He had nothing in common with that large class of men who distinguish themselves in lower posts, and whose incapacity becomes obvious J.S soon as the public voice summons them to take the lead. Rapidly as his for- tunes grew, his mind expanded more rapidly still. Insignificant as a private citizen, he was a great general ; he was a still greater prince. The manner of Napoleon was a theatrical compound, in which the coarseness of a revo- lutionary guard-room was blended with the ceremony of the old Court of Versailles. Cromwell, by the confession even of his enemies, exhibited in his demeanour the simple and natural nobleness of a man neither ashamed of his origin nor vain of his elevation, of a man who had found his proper place in society, and who felt secure that he was competent to fill it. Easy, even to familiarity, where his own dignity was concerned, he was punctilious only for his country. His own cl iracter he left to take care of itself ; he left it to be defended by his victories \a war and his reforms in peace. But he was a jealous and imjjlacable guardian of the public honour. He suffered a crazy Quaker to insult him in the midst of Whitehall, and revenged himself only by liberating him and giving him a dinner. But he was prepared to risk the chances of a war to avenge the blood of a private Englishman. No sovereign ever carried to the throne so large a portion of the best qualities of the middling orders —so strong a sympathy with the feelings and interests of his people. He was sometimes driven to arbitrary measures ; but he had a high, stout, honest, English heart. Hence it was that he loved to surround his throne with such men as Hale and Blake. Hence it was that he allowed so large a share of political liberty to his subjects, and that, even when an opposition dangerous ta his power and to his person almost if ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 89 compelled him to govern by the sword, he was still anxious to leave a germ from which, at a more favourable season, free institutions might spring. We firmly believe that, if his first Parliament had not commenced its debates by disputing his title, his government would have been as mild at home as it was energetic and able abroad. He was a soldier — he had risen by war. Had his ambition been of an impure or selfish kind, it would have been easy for him to plunge his country into continental hostilities on a large scale, and to dazzle the restless factions which he ruled, by the splendour of his vic- tories. Some of his enemies have sneeringly remarked, that in the successes obtamed under his administration he had no personal share ; as if a man who had raised himself from obscurity to empire solely by his military talents could have any unworthy reason for shrinking from military enterprise. This re- proach is his highest glory. In the success of the English navy he could have no selfish interest. Its triumphs added nothing to his fame ; its increase added nothing to his means of overawing his enemies ; its great leader was not his friend. Yet he took a peculiar pleasure in encouraging that noble service which, of all the instruments employed by an English government, is the most impotent for mischief, and the most powerful for good. His administration wa> glorious, but with no vulgar glory. It was not one of (hose periods of overstrained and convulsive exertion v.-hich necessarily pro duce debility and languor. Its energy was natural, healthful, temperate. He placed England at the head of the Protestant interest, and in the first rank of Christian powers. He taught every nation to value her friendship and to dread her enmity. But he did not squander her resources in a vain atternpt to invest her with that supremacy which no power, in the modern system of Europe, can safely affect, or can long retain. This noble and sober wisdom had its reward. If he did not carry the banners of the Commonwealth in triumph to distant capitals, if he did not adorn Whitehall with the spoils of the Stadthouse and the Louvre, if he did not portion out Flanders and Germany into principalities for his kinsmen and his generals, he did not, on the other hand, see his country overrun by the armies of nations which his ambition had provoked. He did not drag oi;t the last years of his life an exile and a prisoner, in an unhealthy climate and under an ungenerous gaoler, raging with the impotent desire of vengeance, and brooding over visions of departed glory. He went down to his grave in the fulness of power and fame ; and he left to his son an authority which any man of ordinary firmness and prudence would have retained. But for the weakness of that foolish Ishbosheth, the opinions which we have been expressing would, we believe, now have formed the orthodox creed of good Englishmen. We might now be writing under the government of his Highness Oliver V. or Richard IV., Protector, by the Grace of God of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the domi- nions thereto belonging. The form of the great founder of the dynastv, on lior^Ht;ack, as when he led the charge at Naseby, or on foot, as when li« took the ru tce from the table of the Commons, would adorn our squares and overlook car public offices from Charing Cross ; and sermons in his praise would be duly preached on his lucky day, the third of September, by court- chaplains, guiltless of the abomination of the surplice. Bu(, though his memory has not been taken under the patronage of any party, though every device has been used to blacken it, though to praise him would long have been a punishable crime, truth and merit at last prevail. Cowards who had trembled at the very sound of his name, tools of office who, like Downing, had been proud of the honour of lacqu£>ing his coach, might iobuli iuoi ia loyal svc^ches and addresses. Venal poets might transfer to ^ hallam's constitutional Hisrojiv. the kin{^ the same euloy;ics, little the worse for wear, which they had bestowed on the Protector. A ficivle multitude might crowd to shout and .««v>flf round the gibbeted remains of the greatest prince and soldier of the age. But when the Dutch cannon startled an effeminate tyrant in his own palace, when the conquests which had been made by the armies of Cromwell were sold to ]>;impcr the harlots of Charles, when Englishmen were sent to fight under the banners of France against the independence of Europe and the Protestant reHgion, many honest hearts swelled in secret at the thought of one who had never suffered his country to be ill used by any but himself. It must indeed liave been difficult for any Englishman to see the salaried Viceroy of France, Al the most important crisis of his fate, sauntering through his harern, yawn- ing and talking nonsense over a despatch, or beslobbering his brother and his courtiers in a fit of maudlin affection,* without a respectful and tender remem- brance of him before whose genius the young pride of Louis and the veteran craft of Mazarin had stood rebuked, who had humbled Spain on the land and Holland on the sea, and whose imperial voice had arrested the victorious arms of Sweden and the persecuting fires of Rome. Even to the present day his character, though constantly attacked, and scarcely ever defended, is popular with the gieat body of -lur countrymen. The most questionable act of his life was the execution of Charles. We have already strongly condemned that proceedmg ; but we by no means con- sider it as one which attaches any peculiar stigma of infamy to the names of those who participated in it. It was an unjust and injudicious display of violent party spirit ; but it was not a cruel or perfidious measure. It had all those features which distinguish the errors of magnanimous and intrepid spirits from base and malignant crimes. We cannot quit this interesting topic without a few words on a transaction which Mr. Hallam has made the subject of a severe accusation against Crom- well ; and which has been made by others the subject of a severe accusation against Mr. Hallam. We conceive that both the Protector and the historian may be vindicated. Mr. Hallam tells us that Cromwell sold fifty English gentlemen as slaves in Barbadoes. For making this statement he has been charged with two high literary crimes. The first accusation is, that, from his vicilent prejudice against Oliver, he has calumniated him falsely. The second, preferred by the same accuser, is, that from his violent fondness for the same Oliver, he has hidden his calumnies against him, at the fag end of a note, instead of putting them into the text. Both these imputations cannot possibly be true, and it happens that neither is so. His censors will find, when they take the trouble to read his book, that the story is mentioned in the text as well as in the notes ; and they will also find, when they take the trouble to read some other books with which speculators on English history ought to be acquainted, that the story is true. If there could have been any doubt about the matter. Burton's Diary must have set it a rest. But, in truth, there was abundant and superabundant evidence, before the appearance of that valuable publication. Not to mention the authority to which Mr. Hallam refers, and V hich alone is perfectly satisfactory, there is Slingsby Bethel's account of the proceedings of Richard Cromwell's Parliament, published immediately after its dissolution. He was a member ; he must, therefore, have known what happened: and violent as his prejudices were, he never could have been such an idiot as to state positive falsehoods with respect to public transactions which had taken place only a few days before. It will not be quite so easy to defend Cromwell against Mr. Hallam as to • TTiesf particulars, ind nuiny laore of the 5?-me kind, ar* recorded by Pepyi BALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. Oi defend Mr. HalLim against those who attack his history. But tl.e story is certainly by no means so bad as he takes it to be. In the first place, this slavery was merely the compulsory labour to which every transported convict is liable. Nobody acquainted with the language of the last century can be ignorant that such convicts were generally termed slaves, until discussions about another species of slavery, far too miserable and altogether unmerited, rendered the word too odious to be applied even to felons of English origin. These persons enjoyed the protection of the law during the term of their service, which was only five years. The punishment of tranportation has been inflicted, by almost every government that England has ever had, for political offences. After Monmouth's insurrection, and after the rebellions in 1715 and 1745, great numbers of the prisoners were sent to America. These considerations ought, we think, to free Cromwell from the imputation of having inflicted on his enemies any punishment wh ch in itself is of a shocking and atrocious character. To transport fifty men, however, without a trial is bad enough. But let us consider, in the first place, that some of these men were taken in arms against the government, and that it is not clear that they were not all so taken. In that case Cromwell or his officers might, according to the usage of those unhappy times, have put them to the sword, or turned them over to the pro- vost-marshal at once. This, we allow, is not a complete vindication ; for execution by martial law ought never to take place but under circumstances which admit of no delay ; and if there is time to transport men, there is time to try them. The defenders of the measure stated in the House of Commons that the persons thus transported not only consented to go, but went with remarkable cheerfulness. By this we suppose it is to be understood, not that they had any violent desire to be bound apprentices in I'.arbadoes, but that they considered themselves as, on the whole, fortunate and leniently treated, in the situation in which they had placed themselves. When these considerations are fairly estimated, it must, we think, be allowed that this selling into slavery was not, as it seems at first sight, a barbarous outrage, unprecedented in our annals, but merely a very arbitrary proceeding, which, like most of the arbitrary proceedings of Cromwell, was rather a violation of positive law than of any great principle of justice and mercy. When Mr. Hallam, declares it to have been more oppressive than any measures of Charles II., he forgets, we imagine, that under the reign of that prince, and during the administration of Lord Clarendon, many of the Round- heads were, without any trial, imprisoned at a distance from England, merely in order to remove them bej'ond the reach of the great liberating writ of our law. But, in fact, it is not fair to compare the cases. The government of Charles was perfectly secure. The " res dura et regni nozitas " is the great apology of Cromwell. From the moment that Cromwell is dead and buried, we go on in almost /)erfect harmony with Mr. Hallam to the end of his book. The times which followed the Restoration peculiarly require that unsparing impartiality which is his most distinguishing virtue. No part of our history, during the last three centuries, presents a spectacle of such general dreariness. The whole breed of our statesmen seems to have degenerated ; and their moral and intel- lectual littleness strikes us with the more disgust because we see it placed in immediate contrast with the high and majestic qualities of the race which they succeeded. In the great civil war even the bad cause had been renderc'i' respectable and amiable by the purity and elevation of mind which many on Us friends displayed. Under Charles II. the best and noblest of ends was 92 ff ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, disjrraced by means the most cruel and sordid. The rage of faction succeeded to the love of liberty. Loyalty died away into servility. We look in vain among the leading politicians of either side for steadiness of principle, or ever, for that vulgar fidelity to party which, in our time, it is esteemed infamous to violate. The inconsistency, perfidy, and baseness vi^hich the leaders con- stantly practised, which their followers defended, and which the great body of the people regarded, as it seems, with little disapprobation, appear in the present age almost incredible. In the age of Charles I. they would, we believe, have excited as much astonishment. Man, however, is always the same. And when so marked a difference appears between two generations it is certain that the solution may be found in their respective circumstances. The principal statesmen of the reign of Charles II. were trained during the civil war and the revolutions which followed it. Such a period is eminently favourable to the growth of quick and active talents. It forms a class of men, shrewd, vigilant, inventive ; of men whose dexterity triumphs over the most perplexing combinations of circumstances, whose presaging instinct no sign of the times, no incipient change of public feelings, can elude. But it is an unpropitious season for the firm and masculine virtues. The statesman who enters on his career at such a time can form no permanent connections, can make no accurate observa- tions on the higher parts of political science. Before he can attach himself to a party, it is scattered. Before he can study the nature of a government, it is overturned. The oath of abjuration comes close on the oath of allegiance. The association which was subscribed yesterday is burned by the hangman to-day. In the midst of the constant eddy and change self-preservation becomes the first object of the adventurer. It is a task too hard for the strongest head to keep itself from becoming giddy in the eternal whirl. Public spirit is out of the question. A laxity of principle, without which no public man can be eminent or even safe, becomes too common to be scandalous ; and the whole nation looks coolly on instances of apostasy which would startle the foulest turncoat of more settled times. The history of France since the Revolution affords some striking illustrations of these remarks. The same man was minister of the Republic, of Bonaparte, of Louis XVIII. , of Bonaparte again after his return from Elba, of Louis again after his return from Ghent. Yet all these manifold treasons by no means seemed to destroy his influence, or even to fix any peculiar stain of infamy on his character. We, to be sure, did not know what to make of him ; but his countrymen did not seem to be shocked ; and in truth they had little right to be shocked : for there was scarcely one Frenchman, distinguished in the state or in the army, who had not, according to the best of his talents and opportunities, emulated the example. It was natural, too, that this should be the case. The rapidity and violence with which change followed change in the affairs of France towards the close of the last century had taken away the reproach of inconsistency, unfixed the principles of public men, and pro- duced in many minds a general scepticism and indifference about principles of government. No Englishman who has studied attentively the reigri of Charles II. will think himself entitled to indulge in any feelings of national superiority over the Diclionnaire des Girouettes. Shaftesbury was surely a far less respectable man than Talleyrand ; and it would be injustice even to Fouche to compue hhu with Lauderdale. Nothing, indeed, can more clearly show how low the standard of political morality had fallen in this country than the fortunes of the men whom we have named. The government wanted a ruffian to carry on the most atrocious i.ystem of misgovemment with which any nation was H ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 93 ever cursed, to extirpate Presbyterianism by fire and sword, the drowning of women, the frightful torture of the boot. And they found him among the chiefs of the rebellion and the subscribers of the Covenant. The opposition looked for a chief to head them in the most desperate attacks ever made, •onder the forms of the Constitution, on any English administration : and they Belected the minister who had the deepest share in the worst parts of that ad- ministration, — the soul of the Cabal, — the counsellor who had shut up the exchequer and urged on the Dutch war. The whole political drama was of the same cast. No unity of plan, no decent propriety of character and cos- tume, could be found in the wild and monstrous harlequinade. The whole was made up of extravagant transformations and burlesque contrasts ; Atheists turned Puritans ; Puritans turned Atheists ; Republicans defending the divine right of kings ; prostitute courtiers clamouring for the liberties of the people ; judges inflaming the rage of mobs ; patriots pocketing bribes from foreign powers ; a Popish prince torturing Presbyterians into Episcopacy in one part of the island; Presbyterians cutting off the heads of Popish noblemen and gentlemen in the other. Public opinion has its natural flux and reflux. Aftei a violent burst, there is commonly a reaction. But vicissitudes so extraor- dinary as those which mark the reign of Charles II. can only be explained by supposing an utter want of principle in the political world. On neither side was there fidelity enough to face a reverse. Those honourable retreats from power which, in later days, parties have often made, with loss, but still in good order, in firm union, with unbroken spirit and formidable means of an- noyance, were utterly unknown. As soon as a check took place a total route followed : arms and colours were thrown away. The vanquished troops, like the Italian mercenaries of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, enlisted, on the very field of battle, in the service of the conquerors. In a nation proud of its sturdy justice and plain good sense, no party could be found to take a firm middle stand between the worst of oppositions and the worst of courts. When, on charges as wild as Mother Goose's tales, on the testimony of wretches who proclaimed themselves to be spies and traitors, and whom every- DOdy now believes to have been also liars and murderers, the offal of gaols and brothels, the leavings of the hangman's whip and shears, Catholics guilty of nothing but their religion were led like sheep to the Protestant shambles, where were the loyal Tory gentry and the passively obedient clergy ? And where, when the time of retribution came, when laws were strained and juries packed to destroy the leaders of the \Miigs, when charters were invaded, when Jefferies and Kirke were making Somersetshire what Lauderdale and Graham had made Scotland, where were the ten thousand brisk boys of Shaftesbury, the members of ignoramus juries, the wearers of the Polish medal ? All-powerful to destroy others, unable to save themselves, the mem- bers of the two parties oppressed and were oppressed, murdered and were murdered, in their turn. No lucid interval occurred between the frantic paroxysms of two contradictory illusions. To the frequent changes of the government during the twenty years which had preceded the Revolution this unsteadiness is, in a great measure, to be attributed. Other causes had also been at work. Even if the country had been governed by the house of Cromwell or by the remains of the Long Par- liament, the extreme austerity of the Puritans would necessarily have produced a revulsion. Towards the close of tlie Protectorate many signs indicated that a time of licence was at hand. But the restoration of Charles II. rendered tlie change wonderfully rapid and violent Profligacy became a test of ortho- doxy and loyalty, a q a.ilication for rank and office. A deep and general taint infected the morals of the most influential classes, and spread itself 94 ITAILAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. through every province of letters. Poetry inflamed the passions ; philosophy undermined the principles ; divinity itself, inculcating an abject reverence for tlie Court, gave additional effect to its licentious example. We look in vain for those qualities which lend a charm to the errors of hig' and ardent natures, for the generosity, the tenderness, the chivalrous delicacy, R'hich ennoble appe- tites into passions, and impart to vice itself a portion of the majesty of virtue. The excesses of that age remind us of the humours of a gang of footpads, revelling with their favourite beauties at a flash-house. In the fashionable libertinism there is a hard, cold ferocity, an imj)udcnce, a lowness, a dirtiness, which can be paralleled only among the heroes and heroines of that t.. thy and heartless literature which encouraged it. One nobleman of great abilities wanders about as a Merry-Andrew. Another harangues the mob stark naked from a window, A third lays an ambush to cudgel a man who has offended him. A knot of gentlemen of high rank and influence combine to push their fortunes at Court by circulating stories intended to ruin an innocent girl, stories which had no foundation, and which, if they had been true, would never have passetl the lips of a man of honour.* A dead child is found in the palace, the offspring of some maid of honour by some courtier, or perhaps by Charles himself. The whole flight of panders and buffoons pounce upon it, and carry it in triumph to the royal laboratory, where his majesty, after a brutal jest, dissects it for the amusement of the assembly, and probably of its father among the rest The favourite Duchess stamps about Whitehall, cursing and swearing. The ministers employ their time at the council-board in making mouths at each other and taking off each other's gestures for the amusement of the king. The Peers at a conference begin to pommel each other and to tear collars and periwigs. A speaker in the House of Commons gives offence to the Court. He is waylaid by a gang of bullies, and his nose is cut to the bone. This ignominious dissoluteness, or rather, if we may venture to designate it by the only proper word, blackguardi>m of feeling and manners, could not but spread from private to public life. The cynical sneers, the epicurean sophistry, which had driven honour and virtue from one part of the character, extended their influence over every other. The second generation of the statesmen of this reign were worthy pupils of the schools in which they had been trained, of the gaming-table of Grammont, and the tiring-room of Nell. In no other age could such a trifler as Buckingham have exercised any political influence. In no other age could the path to power and glory have been thrown open to the manifold infamies of Churchill. The history of that celebrated man shows, more clearly, perhaps, than that Bf any other individual, the malignity and extent of the corruption which had eaten into the heart of the public morality. An English gentleman of family attaches himself to a prince who has seduced his sister, and accepts rank and- wealth as the pri'-e of her shame and his own. He then repays by ingratitude the benefits whi( ii he has purchased by ignominy, betrays his patron in a manner which the best cause cannot excuse, and commits an act, not only of private treachery, but of distinct military desertion. To his conduct at the crisis of the fate of James no ser^dce in modem times has, as far as we re- member, furnished any paralleL The conduct of Ney, scandalous enough ndi doubt, is the very fastidiousness of honour in comparison of it. The perfidj of Arnold approaches it most nearly. In our age and country no talents, no services, no party attachments, could bear any man up under such mountains of infamy. Yet, even before Churchill had performed those great actions * The manner in which Hamilton relates the circumstances of the atrocious i.?ot ag^ainSk poor Anne Hyde, is, if possible, more disgraceful to the Court of which he laay be aon°>-l«iad H a specimen, than the plot iLs«lf HALLAM*S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 95 which in some degree redeem his character with posterit)', the load lay very lightly on him. He had others in abundance to keep him in countenance. Godolphin, Orford, Danby, the trimmer HaUfax, the renegade Sunderland, were all men of tlie same class. Where such was the political morality of the noble and the wealthy, it may easily be conceived that those professions which, even in the best tli.es, arc peculiarly liable to corruption, were in a frightful state. Such a bench and such a bar England has never seen. Jones, Scroggs, Jefferies, North, Wright, Sawyer, Williams, Shower, are to this day the spots and blemishes of our legal clironicles. Differing in constitution and in situation, — whether blustering or cringing, — whetlier persecuting Protestants or Catholics — they were equally unprincipled and inhuman. Tlie part which the Church played was not equally atrocious; but it must have been exquisitely diverting to a scoffer. Never were principles so loudly professed, and so flagrantly abandoned. The Royal prerogative had been magnified to the skies in theological works. The doc- trine of passive ol'edience had been preached from innumerable pulpits. The University of Oxford had sentenced the works of the most moderate constitu- tionalists to the flumes. The accession of a Catholic king, the frightful cruel- ties committed in the west of England, never shook the steady loyalty of the clergy. But did tliey serve the king for naught ? He laid his hand on them, and they cursed him to his face. He touched the revenue of a college and the liberty of some prelates ; and the whole profession set up a yell worthy of Hugh Peters himself. Oxford sent its plate to an invader with more alacrity than she had shown when Charles I. requested it. Nothing was said about the wickedness of resistance till resistance had done its work, till the anointed vicegerent of Heaven had been driven away, and till it had become plain that he would never be restored, or would be restored at least under strict limitations. The clergy went back, it must be owned, to their old theory, as soon as they found that it would do them no harm. To the general baseness and profligacy of the times Clarendon is prin- cipally indebted for his high reputation. He was, in every respect, a man unlit for his age, — at once too good for it and too bad for it. He seemed to be one of the ministers of Elizabeth, transplanted at once to a state of so- ciety widely different from that in which the abilities of such statesmen had been serviceable. In the sixteenth century the royal prerogative had scarcely been called in question. A minister who held it high was in no danger, so long as he used it well. That attachment to the Crown, that extreme jealousy of popular encroachments, that love, half religious, half political, for the Church, which, from the beginning of the Long Parliament, showed itself in Clarendon, and which his sufferings, his long residence in France, and his high station in the Government served to strengthen, would, a hundred years earlier, have secured to him the favour of his sovereign without rendering him odious to the peojile. His probity, his correctness in private life, his decency of deportment, and his general ability would not have misbecome a colleague of Walsingham and Burleigh. But, in the times on which he was cast, his errors and his virtues were alike out of place. He imprisoned men without trial. He was accused of raising unlawful contributions on the people for the support of the army. The abolition of the Triennial Act which ensured the frequent holding of Parliaments was one of his favourite objects. He seems to have meditated the revival of the Star Chamber and the High Commission C')urt. His zeal for the prerogative made him unpopular ; lnU it could nt^t secure to him the favour of a master far more desirous of ease and plea.Mire tlian of power. Charles would rather have lived in exile and privacy, with kVu&dance of money, a crowd of mimics to amuse him, aad a scure of mia< 96 HALLAAPS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. trcstts, than have purchased the absolute dominion of the world by the privri lions and exertions to which Clarendon was constantly urging him. A coun- cillor who was always bringing him papers and giving him advice, and who stoutly refused to compliment Lady Castlemaine and to carry messages to Miss Stewart, soon became more ha'eful to him than ever Cromwell had been. Thus, considered by the people as an oppressor, by the Court as a censor, the minister fell from his high office with a ruin more violent and destructive than could ever have been his fate if he had either respected the principles of the Constitution or flattered the vices of the king. Mr. Ilallam has formed, we think, a correct estimate of the character and administration of Clarendon. Bat he scarcely makes a sufficient allowance for the wear and tear which honesty almost necessarily sustains in the friction o' ])olitical life, and which, in times so rough as those through which Clarendon passed, must be very considerable. When these are fairly estimated, we think that his integrity may be allowed to pass muster. A high-minded man he certainly was not, either in public or in private affairs. His own account of his conduct in the affair of his daughter is the most extraordinary passage in autobiography. We except nothing even in the Confessions of Kousseau. Several writers have taken a perverted and absurd pride in representing them- selves as detestable ; but no other ever lal)Oured hard to make himself despio able and ridiculous. In one important particular Clarendon showed as little regard to the honour of his country as he had shown to that of his family. He accepted a subsidy from France for the relief of Portugal But this method of obtaining money was afterwards practised to a much greater extent, and for objects much less respectable, both by the Court and by the Opposition. These pecuniary transactions are commonly considered as the most disgrace- ful part of the history of those times ; and they were, no doubt, highly repre- hensible. Yet, in justice to the Whigs and to Charles himself, we must admit that they were not so shameful or atrocious as at the present day they appear. The effect of violent animosities between parties has always been an indiffer- ence to the general welfare and honour of the State. A politician, where faciions run high, is interested not for the whole people, but for his own sec- lion of it. The rest are, in his view, strangers, enemies, or rather pirates. The strongest aversion which he can feel to any foreign power is the ardour of friendship, when compared with the loathing which he entertains towards those domestic foes with whom he is cooped up in a narrow space, with whom he lives in a ooTi:Uart interchange of petty injuries and insults, and from whom, in the day of their success, he has to expect severities far beyond any that a con- queror from a distant country would inflict. Thus, in Greece it was a point of honour for a man to leave his country and cleave to his party. No aristo- cratical citizen of Samos or Corcyra would have hesitated to call in the aid of J.acedsemon. The multitude, on the contrary, looked to Athens. In the J,' Italian States of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, from the same cause, no man was so much a Florentine or a Pisan as a Ghibeline or a Guelf. It may be doubted whether there was a single individual who would have scrupled to raise his party from a state of depression by opening the gates of his native city to a French or an Arragonese force. The Reformation, dividing almost evei7 European country into two parts, produced similar effects. The Catholic was too strong for the Englishman, the Huguenot for the Frenchman. The Protestant state-men of Scotland and France accordingly called in the aid of Elizabeth ; and the Papists of the League brought a Spanish army into the very heart of France. The commotions to which the French Revolution gave rise were f^llowe.l by the same con<;equeDces, The Republicans in every part of Lurupe were eager to see the armies of the National Convention and the Direc- stALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. gTies employed by minds rather subtle than strong, to quiet Aose internal twinges which they cannot but feel and which they wiU not obey. As their oath was in the teeth of their principles, so was their conduct in the teeth of their oath. Their ccnstant machinations ;u^nst the Govern* HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 9$ ment to which they had sworn fidelity brought a reproach on their order and on Chrisiianity itself. A distinguished churchman has not scrujiltd U) say ihat the rapid increase of infidelity at that time %\as principally produced hy the disgust which the faithless conduct of his brethren excited in nicu not sul ciently candid or judicious to discern the beauties of the system amidst tha vices of its ministers. L>ut the rejiroach was not confined to the Church. In every political party, in the Caljinet itself, duplicity and perfidy abounded. The very men whom \Villiam loaded with benefits, and in whom he reposed most confidence, with his seals of office in their hands, kept up a correspondence with the exiled family. Orford, Carmarthen, and Shrewsbury were guilty of this odious treachery. Even Devonshire is not altogether free from suspicion. It may well be conceived that, at such a time, such a nature as that of Marlborough would riot in the very luxury of baseness. His former treason, thoroughly furnished with all that makes infamy exquisite, placed him under the disad- vantage which attends every artist from the time that he produces a master- piece. Yet his second great stroke may excite wonder, even in those who appreciate all the merit of the first. Lest his admirers should be able to say that at the time of the Revolution he had betrayed his king from any other than selfish motives, he proceeded to betray his country. He sent intelligence to the French Court of a secret expedition intended to attack Uiest. The con- sequence was that the expedition failed, and that eight hundred British soldiers lost their lives from the abandoned villainy of a British general. Yet this man has been canonized by so many eminent writers that to speak of him as he deserves may seem scarcely decent. To us he seems to be the very San Ciappelletto of the political calendar. The reign of William HI., as Mr. Hallam happily says, was the nadir of the national prosperity. It was also the nadir of the national character. During that period was gathered in the rank harvest of vices sown during thirty years of licentiousness and confusion J but it was also the seed-time of great virtues. The press was emancipated from the censorship soon after the Revolution ; and the Government fell immediately under the censorship of the press. States- men had a scrutiny to endure which was every day becoming more and more severe. The extreme violence of opinions abated. The Whigs learned modera- tion in office ; the Tories learned the principles of liberty in opposition, Tlie parties almost constantly approximated, often met, sometimes crossed eaeh Other. There were occasional bursts of violence ; but, from the time of tl)e Ke volution, those bursts were constantly becoming less and less terrible. Tha severity with which the Tories, at the close of the reign of Anne, treated some of those who had directed public affairs during the war of the Grand Alliance, . and the retaliatory measures of the Whigs, after the accession of the House of Hanover, cannot be justified ; but they were by no means in the style of the infuriated parties whose alternate murders had disgraced our history towartis the close of the reign of Charles II. At the fall of Walpole far greater moderation was displayed. And from that time it has been the practice, — a practice not strictly according to the theory of our Constitution, but still most salutary, — to consider the loss of office, and the public disapprobation as punishments sufficient for errors in the administration not imputable to personal corruption. Nothing, we believe, has contributed more than tins lenity to raise the character of public men. Ambition is of itself a game sufficiently hazardous and sufficiently deep to inflame the passions, vnthouC adding property, life, and liberty to the slake. Where the play rv.ris so desperately high as in the seventeenth century, honour is at an end. '^'iiie*'^ 100 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HILTORY. men, instead of being as they should be, at once mild and steadj, are at once ferocious and inconsistent. The axe is for ever before their eyes. A \ orvlai outcry sometimes unnerves them, and sometimes malt the accession of George III., " from unwillingness," as he says, "to excite the prejudices of modern politics, especially those connected with personal character." These two eras, we think, deserved the distinction on other grounds. Our remote posterity, when looking back on our history in that ^compreliensive manner in which remote posterity alone can, without much danger of error, look back on it, will probably observe tliose points with pecu- liar interest. They are, if we mistake not, the beginning and the end of an entire and separate chapter in our annals. The period which lies between them is a perfect cycle, a great year of the public mind. In the reign of Henry VII. all the poHtical differences which had agitated England since the Norman conquest seemed to be set at rest. The long an(J fierce struggle between the Crown and the barons had terminated. The grie- vances which had prorluced the rebellions of Tyler and Cade had disappeared. Villanage was scarcely known. The two royal houses, whose conflicting claims had long convulsed the kingdom, were at length united. The claimants whose pretensions, just or injust, had disturbed the new settlement, were over- throv,'n. In religion there was no open dissent, and probably very little secret heresy. The old subjects of contention, in short, had vanished those which were to succeed had not yet Appeared, ff ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, loi Soon, however, new principles were arnouncerl ; principles which were destiiiud to keep England during two centuries and a half in a state of coin- motiou. The Reformation divided the people into two great parties, l.-ic Protestants were victorious. They again subdivided themselves. Political systems were engrafted on theological doctrines. The mutual animosities of the two parties gradually emerged into the light of public life. First t-ime con- flicts in Parliament ; then civil war; then revolutions upon revolutions, each attended by its appurtenance of proscriptions, and persecutions, and tests ;' each followed by severe measures on the part of the conquerors ; each exciting a deadly and festering hatred in the conquered. During the reign of George II. things were evidently tending to repose. At the close of it the nation had completed the great revolution which commenced in the early part of the" sixteenth century, and was again at rest 1 he fury of sects had died away. The Catholics themselves practically enjoyed toleration ; and more than toleration they did not yet venture even to desire. Jacobitism was a mere name. Nobody was left to fight for that wretched cause, and very few to drink for it. The Constitution, purchased so dearly, was on every side extolled and worshipped. Even those distinctions of party which must almost always be found in a free state could scarcely be traced. The two great bodies which, from the time of the Revolution, had been gradually tending to approximation were now united in emulous support of that splendid administration which smote to the dust both the branches of the House of Bourbon. The great battle for our eccle siastical and civil polity had been fought and won. The woimds had been healed. The victors and the vanquished were rejoicing together. Every person acquainted with the political writers of the last generation will recollect the terms in which they generally speak of that time. It was a glimpre of a golden age of union and glory, — a short interval of rest, which had been preceded by centuries of agitation, and which centuries of agitation were destined to follow. How soon faction again began to ferment is well known. In the letters of Junius, in Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Discontents, and in many other writings of less merit, the violent dissensions which speedily convulsed the country are imputed to the system of favouritism which George III. intro- duced, to the inlluence of Bute, or to the profligacy of those who called them- selves tlie king's friends. With all deference to the eminent writers to whom we have referred, we may venture to say tliat they lived too near the events of which they treated to judge correctly. The schism which was then appearing in the nation, and which has been from that time almost constantly widening, had little in common with those which had divided it during the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts. The syir-ptoms of popular feeling, indeed, will always be in a great measure the same ; but the principle which excited that feeling was here new. The support which was given to Wilkes, the clamour for reform during the American war, the disaffected conduct of large classes of people at the time of the French Revolution, no more resembled the opposi- tion which had been offered to the government of Charles II. than that opposition resembled the contest between the Roses. In the political, as in the natural body, a sensation is often referred to a part widely different from that i>n which it really resides. A man whose leg is cut elf fancies that he feels a pain in his toe. And in the same manner the people, in the earlier pan of the late reign, sincerely attributed their discontent ts grievances vvhich had been effectually lopped off. They imagined that the prerogative was too strong for the Constitution, that the principles of the Revolution were abandoned, that the system of the Stuarts was restored. Every impartial man must now acknowledge that these charges were gi ound Ida IIALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORV. less. The jiroccedings of the government with respect to the Middlesex election would Jiave lK;(?n conteriiphiled with dclif;lit \iy the fust gcm-iation of Wliigs. They would have thought it a s])lendid triumi>h of the cause of lihtTty that the king and the Lords should resign to the House of Commons a portion of the legislative pe popular with the great body of the community. The Parliament nrnv resembles the same person put into office, surrounded by petitioners whom twenty times his patronage would not satisfy; stunned with complaints, buried in memorials, compelled by the duties of his station to bring forward measures similar to those which he was formerly accustomed to observe and to check, and perpetually encountered by objections similar to those which it was formerly his business to raise. Perhaps it may be laid down as a general rule that a legislative assembly, not constituted on democratical principles, cannot be popular long after it ceases to be weak. Its zeal for what the people, rightly or wrongly, con- ceive to be their interest, its sympathy with their mutable and violent pas- sions, are merely the effects of the particular circumstances in which it is placed. As long as it depends for existence on the public favour, it will employ all the means in its power to conciliate that favour. While this is the case, defects in its constitution are of little consequence. But, as the close union of such a body with the nation is the effect of an identity of in- terest not essential but accidental, it is in some measure dissolved from the time at which the danger which produced it ceases to exist. Hence, before the Revolution, the question of Parliamentary reform was of very little importance. The friends of liberty had no very ardent wish for it. The s^-ongest Tories saw no objections to it. It is remarkable that Clarendon loudly applauds the changes which Cromwell introduced, changes far stronger than the Whigs of the present day would in general approve. There is no reason to think, however, that the reform effected by Cromwelj Dutdd any great difiereuce in the cooduct of the Parliament. Indeed, it tiM 104 HALL AM' S CONSTJTUTIoyAL HISTORY. House of Commons had, during the reign of Charles II., been electetl by jniversal sufTiage, or if all the seats had been put up to sale, as in the l"':e;ich Parliaments, it would, we suspect, have acted very much as it did. We know how strongly the Parliament of Paris exerted itself in favour of tlie people en many important occasions ; and the reason is evident Though it (lid not emanate from the jjcojile, its whole consequence depended on the sup- port of the j/tople. From the time of tlie Revolution the House of Commons has been grailually becoming what it now is, — a great council of state, con- taining many members chosen freely by the people, and many others anxious to acqiiiic tlie fav(jur of the people ; but, on the whole, aristocratical in its temper and interest. It is very far from being an illiberal and stupid oligarchy ; but is equally far from being an express image of the general feeling. It is nifluenced by the opinion of the people, and influenced powerfully, but slowly and circuitously. Instead of outrunning the public mind, as before the Re- volution it frequently did, it now follows with slow steps and at a wide distance. It is, therefore, necessarily unpopular; and the more so because the good u hich it j)ro(lnces is much less evident to common perception than the evil r liich it in!licl.>. It bears the blame of all the mischief wiiich is done, or iujiposed to be done, by its authority or by its connivance. It does not get the credit, on tlie other hand, of having prevented those innumerable abuses wiiich do not exist solely because the House of Commons exists. A large part of the nation is certainly desirous of a reform in the repre- sentative system. How large that part may be, and how strong its desires on the subject may be, it is difficult to say. It is only at intervals that the clamour on the sul,>ject is loud and vehement. But it seems to us that, during the remissions, the feeling gathers strength, and that every successive burst is more violent than that which preceded it. The public attention may be for a lime diverted to the Catholic claims or the mercantile code ; but it is pro- bable that at no very distant period, perhaps in the lifetime of the present generation, all other questions will merge in that which is, in a certain degree, connected with them alL Already we seem to ourselves to perceive the signs of unquiet times, the ?ague presentiment of something great and strange which pervades the com- munity, the restless and turbid hopes of those who have everything to gain, the dimly hinted forebodings of those who have everything to lose. Many indications might be mentioned, in themselves, indeed, as insignificant as straws ; but even the direction of a straw, to borrow the illustration of Bacon, rill sho-.v from what quarter the storm is setting in. A great "statesman might, by judicious and timely reformations, by recon- ciling the two greai branches of the natural aristocracy, the capitalists and the landowners, and by so widening the base of the government as to interest in its defence the whoh of the middle class, that brave, honest, and sound-hearted class, which is as anxious for the maintenance of order and the security of properly as it is hostile to corruption and oppression, succeed in averting a struggle to which no rational friend of liberty or of law can look forward without gi-eat apprehensions. There are those who will be contented with nothing but demolition ; and there are those who shrink from all repair. There are innovators who long for a President and a National Convention ; and there are bigots who, while cities larger and richer than the capitals of many great kingdoms are calling out for representatives to watch over their interests, select some hackneyed jobber in boroughs, some peer of the narrowest and smallest mind, as the fittest depositary of a forfeited franchise. Between these extremes there lies a more excellent way. Time is bringing round another tarisis andogous to that which occurred in the seventeenth century. We stand SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 105 in a situation similar to that in which our ancestors stood under the reign ol James I. It will soon again be necessary to reform that we may pre- serve, to save the fundamental principles of the Constitution by aJ'erations in the subordinate parts. It will then be possible, as it was possible two hundred years ago, to protect vested rights, to secure every useful institution, — every institution endeared by antiquity and noble associations, and, at the same time, to introduce into the system improvements harmonizing with the original plan. It remains to be seen whether two hundred years have made us wiser. We know of no great revolution which might not have been prevented by compromise early and graciously made. Finnncss is a great virtue in public affairs ; but it has its proper sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections in which small minorities are engaged, the outbre.-.kiiigs of popular violence unconnected with any extensive project or any durable principle, are best repressed by vigour and decision. To shrink from them is to make them formidable. But no wise ruler will confound the pers'ading taint with the slight local irritation. No wise ruler will treat the deeply seated discontents of a great party, as he treats the fury of a mob which destroys, mills and power-looms. The negloct of this distinction has been fatal even to governments strong in the power of the sword. The present time is indeed a time of peace and order, but it is at such a time that fools are most thoughtless, and wise men most thoughtful. That the discontents which have agitated the country during the late and the present reign, and which, though not always noisy, are never wholly dormant, will again break forth with aggravated s) mptons, is almost as certain as that the tides and seasons will follow their appointed course. But in all movements of the human mind which tend to great revolutions there is a crisis at which moderate concession may amend, conciliate and preserve. Happy will it be for England if, at that crisis, her interests be confided to men for whom history has not recorded the long series of human crimes and follies in vain. SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. Sir Thomas More : or. Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society. By Robsrt SouTHBY, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate, a vols. 8vo. Lond. 1829. It would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr. Southey's talents and acquire- ments to write two volumes so large as those before us, which should be wholly destitute of information and amusement. Vet we do not rejiember to have read with so Httle satisfaction any equal quantity of matter, written by any man of real abilities. We have, for some time past, observed with great regret the strange infatuation which leads the Poet-laureate to abandon those depart- nr.ents of literature in which he might excel, and to lecture the public on sciences of which he has still the very alphabet to learn. He has now, w< think, done his worst. The .subject which he has at last undertaken to tre^ '■ is one which demands all the highest intellectual and moral qualities of a philosophical statesman, — an understanding at once comprehensive and acute — a heart at once upright and charitable. Mr. Southey brings to the task two faculties which were never, we believe, vouchsafed in miasure so copious to any human being, — the faculty of believing without a re; son, and the faculti of hating without a provocation. _ It is, indeed, most extraordinary that a mind like Mr. Southey's, — a mind richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by study, m mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most enlightened generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed -should te utterly loS SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETV'. destitute of the power of discerning truth from falsehood. Yet such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey one of the fine arts. He judges of a theory or a public measure, of a religion, a political party, a peace or a war, as men judge of a picture or a statue, by the effect produced on his imagination. A chain of associations is to him what a chain of reasoning is to other men ; and what he calls his opinions, are in fact merely his tastes. Part of this description might, perhaps, apply to a much greater man, Mr. •Burke. But Mr. Burke, assuredly, possessed an understanding admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, — an understanding stronger than that of .any statesman, active or speculative, of the eighteenth century, — stronger than (everything, except his own fierce and ungovernable sensibility. Hence, ha generally chose his side like a fanatic, and defended it like a philosopher. His conduct, in the most important events of his life, — at the time of the impeach^ r^ent of Hastings, for example, and at the time of the French Revolution,— 9iems to have been prompted by those feelings and motives, which Mr. Cole- ridge has so happily described : " Stormy pity, and the cherish'd lure Of pomp, and proud precipitance of si^aL" Hindostan, with its vast cities, its gorgeous pagodas, its infinite swarms A dusky population, its long-descended dynasties, its stately etiquette, excited in a mind so capacious, so imaginative, and so susceptible, the most intense interest The peculiarities of the costume, of the manners, and of the laws, the very mystery which hung over tne language and origin of the people, seized his imagination. To plead in Westminster Hall, in the name of the English people, at the bar of the English nobles, for great nations and kh.gs separated from him by half the world, seemed to him the height of human glory. Again, it is not difficult to perceive, that his hostility to the French Revolution principally arose from the vexation which he felt, at having all his old political associations disturbed, at seeing the well-known boundary-marks of states obliterated, and the names and distinctions with which the history of Europe had been filled for ages, swept away. He felt like an antiquarian whose shield had been scoured, or a connoisseur, who found his Titian retouched. But however he came by an opinion, he had no sooner got it, than he did his best to make out a legitimate title to it. His reason, like a spirit in the service of an enchanter, though spell-bound, was still mighty. It did whatever work his passions and his imagination might impose. But it did that tvork, however arduous, with marvellous dexterity and vigour. Flis course was not determined by argument ; but he could defend the wildest course by argu- ments more plausible, than those by which common men support opinions, which they have adopted, after the fullest deliberation. Reason has scarcely ever displayed, even in those well-constituted minds of which she occupies the throne, so much power and energy as in the lowest offices of that imperial servitude. Now, in the mind of Mr. Southey, reason has no place at all, as either leader or follower, as either sovereign or slave. He does not seem to know what an argument is. He never uses arguments himself. He never troubles Aimself to answer the arguments of his opponents. It has never occurred to him, that a man ought to be able to give some better account of the way in which he has arrived at his opinions than merely that it is his will and pleasure to hold them, — that there is a difference between assertion and demonstration, — that a rumour does not always prove a fact, — that a fact does not always prove a theory, — that two contradictory propositions cannot be undeniable truths, — that to beg the question, is not tlie way to se/^tle it, — or tbit wheO SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 107 en objection is raised, it ought to be met with something more convincing, than "scoundrel" and "blockhead." It would be absurd to read the works of such a \^'riter for political instruc- tion. The utmost that can be expected from any system pron)ulgated by him is that it may be splendid and affecting, — that it may suggest sublime and pleasing images. His scheme of philosophy is a mere day-dream, a poetical creation, like the Domdaniel caverns, the Swerga, or Padalon ; and indeed, it bears no inconsiderable resemblance to those gorgeous visions. Like them, it has .something of invention, grandeur, aad brilliancy. But like them, it is grotesque and extravagant, and perpetually violates that conventional proba- bility which is essential to the effect even of works of art. The warmest admirers of Mr. Soutliey will scarcely, we think, deny that his success has almost always borne an inverse proportion to the degree in which his undertakings have required a logical head. His poems, taken in the mass, stand far higher than his prose works. The Laureate Odes, indeed, among which the Vision of Judgment must be classed, are, for the most part, worse than Pye's, and as bad as Gibber's ; nor do we tliink him generally happy in short pieces. But his longer poems, though full of faults, are nevertheless very extraordinary productions. We doubt greatly whether they will be read fifty years hence, — but that if they are read, they will be admired, we have n^ doubt whatever. But though in general we prefer Mr. Southey's poetry to his prose, we must make one exception. The Life of Nelson is, beyond all doubt, the most perfect and the most delightful of his works. The fact is, as his poems most abundantly prove, that he is by no means so skilful in designing, as in filling up. It was therefore an advantage to him to be furnished with an outline of characters and events, and to have no other task to perform than that of touching the cold sketch into life. No writer, perhaps, ever lived, whose talents so precisely qualified him to write the history of the great naval warrior. There were no fine riddles of the human heart to read — no theories to found — no hidden causes to develope — no remote consequences to predict. The character of the hero lay on the surface. The exploits were brilliant and picturesque. The necessity of adhering to the real course of events saved Mr. Southey from those faults which dtform the original plan of almost every one of his poems, and which even his innumerable beauties of detail scarcely redeem. The subject did not require the exercise of those reasoning powers the want of which is the blemish of his prose. It would not be easy to find in all literary history, an instance of a more exact hit between wind and water. John Wesley, and the Peninsular War, were sulijects of a very different kind, — subjects which required all the qualities of a philosophic historian. In Mr. Southey's works on these subjects, he has, on the whole, failed. Yet there are charming specimens of the art of narration in both of them. The Life of Wesley will probably live. Defective as it is, it contains the only popular account of a most remarkable moral revolution, and of a m^n whose eloquence and logical acuteness might have rendered him eminent in literature, whose genius for government was not inferior to that of Richelieu, and who, whatever his errors may have been, devoted all his powers, in defiance of obloquy and Jerision, to what he sincerely considered as the highest good of his species. The History of the Peninsular War is already dead : — indeed, the second volurce was dead-bom. The glory of producing an imperishable record ol that great conflict seems to be reserved for Colonel Napier. The Book of the Church contafes some stories very prettily told. The rest is mere rubbish. The adventure was manifestly one which could be achieved only by a profound thinker, and in which even a profoimd thinker might hav« lo8 SOUTHS Y'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. failed, unless his passions had been kept under strict control. In all those works in which Mr. Southey has completely abandoned narration, arwi under- taken to argue moral and political questions, his failure has been convplete and Ignominious. On such occasions, his writings are rescued from utter contempt and derision solely by the beauty and purity of the English. We find, we confess, so great a charm hi Mr. Southey's style, that, even when he writes nonsense, we generally read it with pleasure, except, indeed, when he tries to be droll. A more insufferable jester never existed. He very often attempts to be humorous, and yet we do not remember a single occasion on which he has succeeded farther than to be quaintly and flippantly dull. In one of his works, he tells us that Bishop Sprat was very properly so called, inasmuch as he was a very small poet. And in the bool now before us, he cannot quote Francis Bugg without a remark on his unsafoury name. A man might talk fully like this by his own fireside ; but that any human being, after having made such a joke, should write it down, and copy it out, and transmit it to the printer, and correct the proof-sheets, and send it forth into the world, is enough to make us ashamed of our species. The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which Mr. Southey manifests towards his opponents is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attributed to the manner in which he forms his opinions. Differences of taste, it has often been remarked, produce greater exasperation than differences on points of science. But this is not all. A peculiar austerity marks almost all Mr. Southey's judg- ments of men and actions. We are far from blaming him for fixing on a high standard of morals, and for applying that standard to every case. But rigour ought to be accompanied by discernment, and of discernment Mr. Southey seems to be utterly destitute. His mode of judging is monkish ; it is exactly what we should expect from a stem old Benedictine, who had been preserved from many ordinary frailties by the restraints of his situation. No man out of a cloister ever wrote about love, for example, so coldly and at the same tims so grossly. His descriptions of it are just what we should hear from a recluse who knew the passion only from the details of the confessional. Almost all his heroes make love either like seraphim or like cattle. He seems to have oo notion of anything between the Platonic passion of the Glendoveer, who gazes with rapture on his mistress's leprosy, and the brutal appetite i)f Arvalan and Roderick. In Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. He is first all clay, and then all spirit ; he goes forth a Tarquin, and comes back too ethereal to be married. The only love-scene, as far as we can recollect, in Madoc, consists of the delicate attentions which a savage, who has drunk too Viuch of the prince's metheglin, offers to Gocrvyl. It would be the labour of a. week to find in all the vast mass of Mr. Southey's poetry a single pasia[;e indicating any sympathy with those feelings which have consecrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks of Meillerie. Indeed, if we except some very pleasing images of paternal tendernesss and filial duty, there is scarcely anything soft or humane in Mr. Southey's poe'iy. WHiat theologians call the spiritual sins are his cardinal virtues — hatred, pxide, and the insatiable thirst of vengeance. These passions he disguises under the name of duties; he purifies them from the alloy of vulgar interests ; he en- robl.es them Ijy uniting 'hem with energy, fortitude, and a severe sanctity of manners, and then holds, them up to the admiration of mankind. This is the si)iiit of Thalaba, of l.adurlad, of Adosinda, of Roderick after his regenera- tion. II is tbe si)iril which, in all his writings, Mr. Southey appears to affect. " I do well to be angty," seems to be the predominant feeling of his mind. Almost the only mark of chnrity which he vouchsafes to his oi)pouents is to pray for their conversion, and this he does in terms not unlike tliose. in which SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY /og *re can imagine a Portuguese priest intei ceding with Heaven for a Jew delivered over to the secular arm after a relapse. 'We have always heard, and fully believe, fhat Mr. Southeyis a very amiable and humane man ; nor do we intend to apply to him personally any of the re- marks which we have made on the spirit of his writings. Such are the capnces of human nature. Even Uncle Toby troubled himself very little about tha French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of Namur. And when Mr. Southey takes up his pen, he changes his nature as much as Captain Shandy when he girt on his sword. The only opponents to whom he gives quarter are those in whom he finds something of his own character reflected. He seems to have an instinctive antipathy for calm, moderate men — for mm who shun extremes and who render reasons. He has treated Mr. Owen, ol Lanark, for example, with infinitely more respect than he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Lingard ; and this for no reason that we can discover, except that Mr, Owen is more unreasonably and hopelessly in the wrong than any speculator of our time. Mr. Southey's political system is just what we might expect from a man who regards politics not as a matter of science, but as a matter of taste and feeling. All his schemes of government have been inconsistent with them- selves. In his youth he was a republican ; yet, as he tells us in his preface to these Colloquies, he was even then opposed to the Catholic claims. He is now a violent Ultra-Tory. Yet while he maintains, with vehemence approach- ing to ferocity, all the sterner and harsher parts of the Ultra-Tory theory of government, the baser and dirtier part of that theory disgusts him. Exclusion, persecution, severe punishments for libellers and demagogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if necessary, rather than any concession to a discontented people, — these are the measures which he seems inclined to recommend. A severe and gloomy tyranny — crushing opposition, silencing remonstrance, drilling the minds of the people into unreasoning obedience — has in it some- thing of grandeur which delights his imagination. But there is nothing fine in the shabby tricks and jobs of office. And Mr. Southey, accordingly, has no toleration for them. "When a democrat, he did not perceive that his system led logically, and would have led practically, to the removal of religious dis> tinctions. He now commits a similar error. He renounces the abject and paltry part of the creed of his party, without perceiving that it is also an essential part of that creed. He would have tyranny and purity together ; though the most superficial obsei^vation might have shown him that there can be no tyranny without corruption. It is high time, however, that we should proceed to the consideration of the Work, which is our more immediate subject, and which, indeed, illustrates in almost every page our general remarks on Mr. Southey's writings. In the ^reface, we are informed that the author, notwithstanding some statements to ihe contrary, was always opposed to the Catholic claims. We fully believe this ; both because we are sure that Mr. Southey is incapable of publishing a deliberate falsehood, and because his averment is in itself probable. It is exactly what we should have expected that, even in his wildest paroxysms of democratic enthusiasm, Mr. Southey would have felt no wish to see a simple remedy applied to a great practical evil ; that the only measure which all the great statesmen of two generations have agreed with each other in supporting Would be the only measure which Mr. Southey would have agreed with him- self in opposing. He has passed from one extreme of political opinion to another, as Satan, in Milton, went round the globe, contriving constantly to "ride with darkness." Wherever the thickest shadow of the night may at any moment chance to fall, there is Mr. Southey, It is not everybody who no SOUIIIEV'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. could have so dexterously avoided blundering on the daylight in the course ol a journey to the Antipodes. Mr. Souihcy hxs not Ixc-n fortunate in the plan of any of his fictitious narra- tives. But he has never failed so conspicuously as in the wo.k before us ; except, indeed, in the wretched Vision of Ju ON SOCIETY. I15 he issues any in the name of another, and is forced to cash what he issues in his own? But Mr. Southey's error lies uctper still. "All wealth," says he, "was tangible and real till paper currency was introduced." Now, was there ever, since men emerged from a state of utter barbarism, an age in which there were no debts? Is not a debt, while the solvency of the debtor is undoubted, always reckoned as part of the wealth of the creditor ? Yet is it tangible and real wealth ? Does it cease to be wealth, because there is the security of a vritten acknowledgment for it? And what else is paper currency? Did Mr. Southey ever read a bank-note? If he did, he would see that it is a written acknowledgment of a debt, and a promise to pay that debt. The promise may be violated — the debt may remain unpaid — those to whom it was due may suffer : but this is a risk not confined to cases of paper currency — it is a risk inseparable from the relation of debtor and creditor. Every man who sells goods for anything but ready money runs the risk of finding that what he consid ;red as part of his wealth one day is nothing at all the next day. Mr. SouLn ;y refers to the picture galleries of Holland. The pictures were undoubtedly real and tangible possessions. But surely, it might happen that a burgomaster might owe a picture-dealer a thousand guilders for a Teaiers. What in this case corresponds to our paper money is not the picture, which is tangible, but the claim of the picture-dealer on his customer for the price of the picture, which is not tangible. Now, would not the picture- dealer consider this claim as part of his wealth ? Would not a trades- man who knew of it give credit to the picture dealer the more readily on account of it ? The burgomaster might be ruined. If so, would not those consequences follow which, as Mr. Southey tells us, were never heard of till paper money came into use ? Yesterday this claim was worth a thousand guilders. To-day what is it ? The shadow of a shade. It is true that the more readily claims of this sort are transferred from hand to hand, the more extensive will be the injury produced by a single failure. The laws of all nations sanction, in certain cases, the transfer of rights not yet reduced into possession. Mr. Southey would scarcely wish, we should think, that all endorsements of bills and notes should be declared invalid. Yet even if this were done the transfer of claims would imperceptibly take place to a very great extent. When the baker trusts the butcher, for example, he is in fact, though not in form, trusting the butcher's customers. A man who owes large bills to tradesmen and fails to pay them, almost always produces distress through a very wide circle of people whom he never dealt with. In short, what Mr. Southey takes for a difference in kind, is only a difference of form and degree. In every society men have claims on the property of others. In every society there is a possibility that some debtors may not be able tz fulfil their obligations. In every society, thereiore, there is wealth wh.ch is not tangible, and which may become the shadow of a shade. > Mr. Southey then proceeds to a dissertation on the national debt, which he' considers in a new and most consolatory light, as a clear addition to the income of the country. " You can understand," says Sir Thomas, " that it constitutes a great part or me national wealth." "So large apart," answers Montesinos, "that the interest amounted, daring the prosperous time of agriculture, to as much as the rental of all the land in Great Britain ; and at present to the rental of all lanes, all houses, and all other fixed property put together." The ghost and the Laureate agree that it is very desirable that there should be so secure and advantageous a deposit for wealth as the funds afford, ^jj Thomas then proceeds ;— 1(6 SOUTHliY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. " Another and far more momentous benefit must not be overlooked th« cxi)en(liture of an annual interest, equalling, as you have stated, the present lental of all fixed properly." "That expenditure," quoth Montesinos, "gives c-nployment to half the industry in the kingdom, and feeds half the mouths. Take, indeed, 'Jic weight of the national debt from this great and complicate*? social machir.e, and the wheels must stop." From this passage we sliould have been inclined to think that Mr. Scuthey supposes the dividend to be a frcc-gif' periodically sent down from heaven to tlie fundholders, as quails and niantia were sent to the Israelites; were it not that he has vouchsafed, in tlie following question and answer, to give the public some infomiation which, we believe, wxs very little needed. " Whence conies the interest ? " says Sir Thomas. •• It is raised," answers Montesinos, '* by taxation." Now, has Mr. Southey ever considered what would be done with this snm if it were not paid as interest to the national creditor? If he would think over this matter for a short time, we suspect that the " momentous benefit" of vliich he talks would appear to him to shrink strangely in amount. A fundliulder, we will suppose, spends an income of five hun«ircd pounds a-year, and his ten nearest neighbours pay fifty pounds each to the tax-gatherer, lor tlie purpose of discharging the interest of the national debt. If the debt were wiped out — a measure, be it understood, which we sy no means recommend — the fuiuihulder would cease to spend his five hundred pounds a-year. He would no longer give emplo\Tnent to industry, or put food into the mouths of labourers. This Mr. Southey thinks a fearful evil. But is there no mitigating circumstance ? Each of his ten neighbours has fifty pounds more th^r formerly. Each of them will, as it seems to our feeble und..-rsfandings, e.i ploy more industry, and feed more mouths, than formerly. The sum is exac ij the same. It is in different hands. But on what grounds does Mr. SoutLey call upon us to believe that it is in the hands of men who will spend less liberally or less judiciously ? He seems to think that nobody but a fundholder can employ the poor ; that if a tax is remitted, those who formerly used to pay it proceed immediately to dig holes in the earth, and bury the sum which the government had been accustomed to take ; that no money can set industry in motion till it has been taken by the tax-gatherer out of one man's pocket and put into another man's. We really wish that Mr. Southey w ould try to prove this principle, which is, indeed, the foundation of his whole theory of finance ; for we think it right to hint to him that our hard-hearted and unima- ginative generation will expect some more satisfactory reason than the only one with which he has yet favoured it, — a similitude touching evaporation and dew. Both the theory and the illustration, indeed, are old friends of ours. In every season of distress which we can remember, Mr. Southey has been pro- claiming that it is not from economy, but from increased taxation, that the country must expect relief; and he still, we find, places the undoubting faith of & political Diafoirus, in his " Resaignare, repurgare, et reclyaterizare." *'A people," he tells us, "may be too rich, but a govenunent cannot be so." "A state," says he, " cannot have more wealth at its command than may be employed for the general good, a liberal expenditure in national works being one of the surest means for promoting nalionsd prosperity ; and the benefit being still more obvious, of an expenditure directed to the purjDOses ol national improvement. But a people may be too rich." We fully admit tliat a state cannot have at its command more wealth thui SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 117 wr; le employed for the general good. But neither can individuals, or bodies of individuals, have at their command more wealth than 7'iay be employe 1 for the general good. If there be no limit to the sum which may b^ usefully laid out in public works and national improvement, then wealth, w nether in the hands of private men or of the government, may always, if the possessors choose to spend it usefully, be usefully spent. The only ground, therefore, on which Mr. Southey can I'ossibly maintain that a govenimenl cannot be too rich, but that a people may be too rich, must be this : that governments are more likely to spend their money 00 good objects than private individuals. But what is useful expenditure ? "A liberal expenditure in national works," says Mr. Southey, "is one of the surest means for promoting national pros- perity." Does he mean the wealth of the state? If so, his reasoning runs thus : — The more wealth a state has the better ; for the more wealth a Btate has, the more wealth it will have. This is surely sometliing like that fa.lacy which is ungallantly termed a lady's reason. If by national prosperity he means the wealth of the people, of how gross a contradiction is he guilty. A people, he tells us, may be too rich — a government cannot — for a government can employ iu riches in making the people richer. The Vycalth of the people is to be taken from them, because they have too much, and laid out in works which will yield them more. vVe are really at a loss to determine whether Mr. Southey's reason for recom- mending large taxation is that it will make the people rich, or that it will make tiiem poor. IJut we are sure, that if his object is to make them rich, he takes the wrong course. There are two or three principles respecting public works which, as an experience of vast extent proves, may be trusted in almost every case. It scarcely ever happens that any private man, or body of men, will invest property in a canal, a tunnel, or a bridge, but from an expectation that the outlay will be profitable to them. No work of this sort can be profitable to private speculators, unless the public be willing to pay for the use of it. The jjublic will not pay of their own accord for what yields no profit or convenience to them. There is thus a direct and obvious connection between the motive fv'hich induces individuals to undertake such a work, and the utility of the work. Can we find any such connection in the case of a public work executed by a government ? If it is useful, are the individuals who rale the country richer? If it is u.seless, are they poorer? A public man may be solicitous for his credit ; but is not he likely to gain more credit by an useless display of osten- tatious architecture in a great town than by the best road or the best canal in some remote province? The fame of public works is a much less certain test of their utility than the amount of toll collected at them. In a corrupt age, there will be direct embezzlement. In the purest age, there will be abundance of jobbing. Never were the statesmen of any country more sensitive to public opinion, and more spotless in pecuniary transactions, than those who have of late governed England. Yet we have only to look at the buildings recently erected in London for a proof of our rule. In a bad age, the fate of the public is to be robbtd. In a good age, it is much milder — merely to have the dcnrest and the worst of everything. iiuiidings for state purposes the state must erect. And here we think that, in genera), the state ought to stop. We firmly believe that five hundred thou- sand pounds subscribed by individuals for railroads or canals would produ-ic more advantage to the public than five millions voted by Parliament for th« same purpose. There are certain old saws about the master's eye and about everybody's business in which we place very great faith. liS SOUTJIEVS COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. Ther« is, we have said, no consistency in Mr. Southey*s political system. But if there bo in it any lea-ling principle, if iln.re be any one error which diverges more widely and variously than any oiher, it is that of which his theory about national works is a ramification. He conceives that the business of tlj<» magistrate is not merely »o see that the persons and projierty of the people are secure from attack, but that he ought to be a perfect jack-of-all-trades, — archi- tect, engineer, schoohnaster, meicliani, theologian, — a Lady Bountiful in every parish, — a I'aul Pry in every house, spying, eaves-dropi^ing, relieving, admo- nisliiiig, sjjcnding our money for us, and choosing our opinions for us. His principle is, if we understand it rightly, that no man can do anything so well for himself as his rulers, be they who they may, can do it for him ; thu a govennnent approaches nearer and nearer to perfection in proportion as it interferes more and more with the habits and notions of individu\ls. He seems to be fully convinced that it is in the power of government to relieve the distresses under which the lower orders labour. Nay, he considers doubt on this subject as impious. We cannot refrain from quoting his argu- ment on this subject. It is a perfect jewel of logic. " Many tnousaiuls in your metropolis," says Sir Thomas More, " rise every morning with- out knowing; how they arc to subsist during the day ; as many of them, where they arc t', laws their efficacy, and both their zeal and wnction ; and it is necessary that this religion be established as for the security of the state, and for the welfare of the people, who would otherwise be moved to ?ad fro with every wind of doctrine. A state is secure in proportion as tb* people v SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. t\^ tttached to hs institnrions ; It is, therefore, the first and plainest rule of sound prlicy, thatth* people be trained up in the way they should go. The stnte that net;lecis liiis prepares its own destruction ; and they who train them in any other way are undermining JL Notiiin^ in ab.-tract science can be more certain than these positions arc." " All of which," answers Montesinos, " are nevertheless denied by OBr professors of the arts Babblative and Scribblative ; some in the audacity of evil designs, and others in the glorious durance of impenetrable ignorance." The greater part of the two volumes before us is merely an amplification of ihese absurd paragraphs. What does Mr. Southey mean by saying that re- ligion is demonstrably the basis of civil government ? He cannot surely mean that men have no motives except those derived from religion for establishing and supporting civil government, that no temporal advantage is derived from civil government, that man would experience no temporal inconvenienc* from living in a state of anarchy? If he allows, as we think he must allow, that it is for the good of mankind in this world to have civil government, and that the great majority of mankind have always thought it for their good in this world to have civil government, we then have a basis for government quite distinct from religion. It is true that the Christian religion sanctions govern- ment as it sanctions everything which promotes the happiness and virtue of our species. But we are at a loss to conceive in what sense religitm can be said to be the basis of government, in which it is not also the basis of the practices of eating, drinking, and lighting fires in cold weather. Nothing in history is more certain than that government has existed, has received some obedience and given some protection, in times in which it derived no support firom religion, — in times in which there was no reHgion that influenced the hearts and lives of men. It was not from dread of Tartarus, or belief in the Elysian fields, that an Athenian wished to have some institutions which might keep Orestes from filching his cloak, or Midias from breaking his head. " It is from religion," says Mr. Southey, "that power derives its authority, and laws their efficacy." From what religion does our power over the Hindoos derive its authority, or the law in virtue of which we hang Brahmins its effi- cacy ? For thousands of years civil government has existed in almost every comer of tke world, — in ages of priestcraft, — in ages of fanaticism, — in nges ol I.picurean indifference, — in ages of enlightened piety. 1 lowevcr pure or impure the faith of the ,.»^ople might be ; whether they adored a beneficent or a malig- nant power ; whether they thought the soul mortal or immortal, they have, as soon as they ceased to be absolute savages, found out their need of civil government, and instituted it accordingly. It is as universal as the practice of cookery. Yet it is as certain, says Mr. Southey, as any thing in ab- stract science, that government is founded on religion. We should like to know what notion Mr. Southey has of the demonstrations of abstract science. But a vague one, we suspect. The proof proceeds. As religion is the basis of government, and as the state is secure in proportion as the people are attached to its institutions, it is therefore, says Mr. Southey, the first rule of policy that the government shoidd train the people in the way in which they should go : and it is plain that those who train them in any other way are undermining the state. N ow, it does not appear to us to be the first object that people should always believe in the established religion, and be attached to the established govern- ment. A religion may be false. A government may be oppressive. And whatever support government gives to false religions, or religion to oppressive gavrrnnients, we consivler as a cleai evil. The maxim that governments ought to train the people in the wav in which they should go sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the ri^ht way than the lao SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. people to fall in*.o the right way of themselves? Have there not been governments which were blind leaders of the blind? Are there not still such governments? Can it be laid down as a general rule that the movement of political and religious truth is rather downwards from the government to the people than upwards from the people to the government? These are questions which it is of importance to have clearly resolved. Mr. Southey declaims against public opinion, which is now, he tells us, usurping supreme power. Formerly, according to him, the laws governed ; now public opinion governs. What are laws but expressions of the opinion of some class which has power over the rest of the community? By what was the world ever governed, but by the opinion of some person or persons? By what else can it ever be governed? What are all systems, religious, political, or scientific, but opinions resting on evidence more or less satisfactory ? The question is not between human opinion, and some higher and more certain mode of arriving at truth, but between opinion and opinion, — between the opinion of one man and another, or of one class and another, or of one generation and another. Public opinion is not infallible ; but can Mr. .Southey construct any institutions wh>cK shall secure to us the guidance of an infallible opinion ? Can Mr. Southey select any family, — any profession — any class, in short, distin'niished by any plain b.i'ige from the rest of the community, whose opinion is more likely to be just than this much-abused public opinion? Would he choose the peers, for example? Or the two hundred tallest men in the country? Or the poor Knights of Windsor? Or children who are born with cawls, seventh sons of seventh sons ? We cannot suppose that he would recommend popular election ; for that is merely an appeal to public opinion. And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best ? Mr. Southey and many other respectable people seem to think that when they have once proved the moral and religious training of the people to be a most important object, it follows, of course, that it is an object which the government ought to pursue. They forget that we have to consider, not merely the goodness of the end, but also the fitness of the means. Neither in the natural nor in the political body have all members the same office. There is surely no contradiction in saying that a certain section of the com- munity may be quite competent to protect the persons and property of the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, or to superintend our private habits. So strong is the interest of a ruler to protect his subjects against all depre- dations and outrages except his own, — so clear and simple are the means by which this end is to be effected, that men are probably better off under the worst governments in the world than they would be in a state of anarchy. Even when the appointment of magistrates has been left to chance, as in the Italian Republics, things have gone on better than they would have done, if there had been no magistrates at all, and every man had done what seemed ri"ht in his owni eyes. But we see no reason for thinking that the opinions of the magistrate are more likely to be right than those of any other man. None of the modes by which nilers are appointed, — popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, — afford, as far as we can perceive, much security for their being wiser than any of their neighbours. The chance of their being wiser than all their neighbours together is still smaller. Now we cannot conceive how it can be laid down, that it is the duty and the right of one class to direct the opinions of another, unless it can be proved that th? former class is more likely to form just opinions than the latter. The duties of government would be, as Mr. Sout' ey says that they &!<^ SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. I2l paternal, if a government were necessarily as much superior in wisdom to a people, as the most foolish father, for a time, is to the most intelligent child, and if a government loved a people as fathers generally love their children. But there is no reason to believe that a government will either have the paternal warmth of affection or the patenial superiority of intellct. Mr. Southey might as well say that the duties of the shoemaker are paternal, and that it is an usurpation in any man not of the craft to say that his shoes are bad, and to insist on having better. The division of labour would be no blessing, if those by whom a thing is done were to pay no attention to the opinion of those for wliom it is done. The shoemaker, in the Relapse, tells Lord Foppington that his lordship is mistaken in supposing that his shoe pinches. "It does not pinch — it cannot pinch — I know my business — and I never made a belter shoe." This is the way in which Mr. Southey would have a government treat a people who usurp the privilege of thinking. Nay, the shoemaker of Vanburgh has the advantage in the comparison. He COU' tented himself with regulating his customer's shoes, about which he kne\» something, and did not presume to dictate about the coat and hat. But Mr. Soutliey would have the rulers of a country prescribe opinions to the people, not only al'out iiolitics, but about matters concerning which a government has no peculiar sources of information, — concerning which any man in the streets may know as much, and think as justly, as a king, — religion and morals. ^Ien are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely. A government can interfere in discussion only by mnking it less free than it would otherwise be. Men are most likely to form just opinions when they have no other wish than to know the trutli, and are exempt from all in- fluence, either of hope or fear. Government, as government, can bring nothing but the influence of hopes and fears to support its doctrines. It carries (ja controversy, not with reasons, but with threats and bribes. If it employs reasons, it does so not in virtue of any powers wliich belong to it as a j^.. .-ei u- ment. Thus, instead of a contest between argument and argument, we hav. a contest between argument and force. Instead of a contest in whic'i tra ii, from the natural constitution of the human mind, has a decided advr.nt.. ;e over falsehood, we have a contest in which truth can be victorious only l^y accident. And what, after all, is the security which this training gives to gove:-nmcnt:- ? Mr. Southey would scarcely recommend that discussion should be mm.- . fi'ec- tually shackled, that public opinion should be more strictly discipline 1 ii;to conformity with established institutions, thnn in Spain and Italy. Yit we know that the restraints which exist in Spain and Italy have not pr( vor.'.ed atheism from spreading among the educated classes, and especially r.mnng those whose ofhce it is to minister at the altars of God. All our reader ■ kr ^w how, at the time of the French Revolution, priest after priest came forwird to declare that his doctrine, his ministry, his whole life, had been a lie- -a iiiim- mery during which he could scarcely compose his countenance sufl.'ici !y to carry on the imposture. This was the case of a false, or at least n !;rf ;sly corrupted religion. Let us take, then, the case of all others the mf t lav cur- able to Mr. Southey's argument. Let us take that form of religion v> ' xh he holds to be the purest — the system of the Arminian part of the Church of England. Let us take the form of government which he most admires aiul regrets — the government of England in the time of Charles I. Wot. id he wish to see a closer connection between Church and State than then exi.sted ? Would he wish for more powerful ecclesiastical tribunals? for a more zeaioiu kiig? for a moie active primate? Would he wish to see a more comjlct* I2a SOUT/IEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. monopoly of public instruction given to the pstaMishH Church ? Could any govc-rnniciil do nuue to train tlie people in tlic way in vvhali he would have tlicnigo? And in what diil all tliis training enter at the close of 1639, represents the Church of Lnj^dand as in the highest and most palmy state. So elTeclually had the government pursued that policy which Mr. Southey wishes to see revived that there was scarcely the least ap[>earance of dissent. Most of the bishops stated .'hat all was well amung tlicir fltH.k'i, Seven or eij^ht persons in the diocese of retcrborou^jh had seciutd efractory to the Church, but had made ample submission. In Norfolk and hjffjlk all whom there h.id been re.ison to suspect had made profcssiun of conformity, and appeared to observe it strictly. It is confe^^L•d that there was a liillc diflTiculiy in bringing some of the vulgar in SufTolk to take the sacrament at the rails in the chancel. This was the only open instance of non-conformity which the vigilant eye of Laud could find in all the dioceses of his twenty-one suffragans, on the very eve of a revolution in which primate and Church, and monaich and monarchy, were to perish together. At which time would Mr. Southey prunuunce the Constitution more secure — in 1639, when Laud presented this report to Charles, or now, when thou- sands of meetings openly collect mdlions of dissenters, when designs against the tithes are openly avowed, when books attacking not only the establish- ment, but the first principles of Christianity, are openly sold in the streets? The signs of discontent, he tells us, are stronger in England now than in France when the States-General met ; and hence he wuuld have us infer that a revolution like that of France may be at hand. Does he not know that the danger of states is to be estimated, not by what breaks out of the public mind, but by what stays in it? Can he conceive anything more terrible than the situation of a government which rules without apprehension over a people of hypocrites, — wliich is flattered by the press and cursed in the inner chambers, — which exults in the attachment and obedience of its subjects, and knows not that those subjects are leagued against it in a free-masonry of hatred, the sign of which is every day conveyed in the glance of ten thousand eyes, the pressure of ten thousand hands, and the tone of ten thousand voices ? Profound and ingenious policy ! Instead of curing the disease, to remove those symptoms by which alone its nature can be known ! To leave the serpent his deadly sting, and deprive him only of his warning rattle ! \Vhen tlie people whom Charles had so assiduously trained in the good way tad rewarded his paternal care by cutting off his head, a new kind of training came into fashion. Another govemme-jit arose, which, like the former, con- siderea religion as its surest basis, and the religious discipline of the people as its first duty. Sanguinary laws were enacted against hbertinism ; profane pictures were burned ; drapery was put on indecorous statues ; the theatres were shut up ; fast-days were numerous : and the Parliament resolved that no person should be admitted into any public employment unless the House should be first satisfied of his vital godliness. We know what was the end of this training. We know that it ended in impiety, in filthy and heartless sen- suality, in the dissolution of all ties of honour and morality. We know that at this very day scriptural phrases, scriptural names, perhiips some scriptural doctrines, excite disgust and ridicule, solely because they are associated with the austerity of that period. Thus has the experiment of training the people in established forms of religion been twice tried in England on a large scale, once by Charles and Laud, and once by the Puritans. The High Tories of our time still ealcrtain many of the feel'ngs and opinionf of Charles and Laud, tbo:gb SOUTHEV'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. »23 In a mitigated form ; nor is it flifficult to see that the heirs of the Puritans .ne siill amongst us. It would be desirable that each of these parlies should icmember how little advaiiujjo or honour it formerly derived from llie clv>scst allianc with power, — that it fell by the support of rulers, and rose by their opposition, — that of the two .-ystems, that in which the peoide were at any time l)€in^ drilled, was always at that lime the iinpopulr;r sy-tem,— that tiie training of the High Church ended in the reign of the Puritans, and the train* iiig of the Puritans in the reigii of the harlots. This was quite natural. Nothing is so galling and detestable to a people not broken in from the birth, as a paternal, or, in other words, a nieddlinj^ government, — a government which tells tliem what to read, and say, and eat, and drink, and wear. Our fathers could not bear it two hundred years ago ; and we are not more patient than they. Mr. Souiiiey thinks that the yoke of (he Church is dropping off, because it is loose. We feel convinced that it is borne only because it is easy, and that, in the instant in which an attempt is made to tighten it, it will be flung away. It will be neither the first nor the strongest yoke that has been broken asunder and trampled under foot in the day of the vengeance of England. How far Mr. Southey would have the government carry its measures for training the people in the doctrines of the Church, we are unable to discover. In one passage Sir Thomas More .asks with great vehcn»ence, "Is it possible that your laws should suffer the unbelievers to exist as a party ? " Vetitum est adeo sccleris nihil?" Montesinos answers. ** They avow themselves in defiance of the laws. The fa.shionable doctrine which the press at this time maintains is, that this is a matter in which the laws ought not to interfere, every man having a right, both to form what opinion he plexses upon religious subjects, and to promul- gate that opinion." It is clear, therefore, that Mr. Southey would not give full and perfect tolcra* tion to infidelity. In another passage, however, he observes with some truth, though too swecpingly, that "any degree of intolerance short of that full extent which the Papal Church exercises where it has power, acts upon the opinions which it is intended to suppress, like pruning upon vigorous plants ; they grow the stronger for it." These two passages put together woidd lead us to the conclusion that, in Mr. Southey's opinion, the utmost severity ever em- ployed by the Roman Catholic Church in the days of its greatest power, ought to be employed against unbelievers in England ; in plain words, that Carlile and his shopmen ought to be burned in Smithfield, and that every person who, when callefi upon, should decline to make a solemn profession of Christianity, ought to sutler the same fate. We do not, however, believe that Mr. Southey would recommend such a course, though his language would, in the case of tny other writer, iustify us in supposing this to be his meaning. His opinions form no system at all. He never sees, at one glance, more of a question than will famish matter for one flowing and well-tunied sentence ; so that it would be the height of unfairness to charge him personally with holding a doctrine, merely because that doctrine is deducible, though by the closest and most accurate reasoning, from the premises which he has laid down. We are, therefore, left completely in the dark as to Mr. Southey's opinions about toleration. Immeiliately after censuring the government for not punishinj infidels, he procec-fls to discuss the question of the Catholic disabilities — now, thank Go!e of between five hundred and three thousand pounds a-year than could l>e foimd in all the dominions of the Emperor Nicholas. The neat and com- modious houses which have been built in London and its vicinity, for people of this class, within the last thirty years, would of themselves form a city larger than the capitals oi some European kingdoms. And this is the state ( , society in which the great proprietors have devoured the smaller ! The cure which Mr. .Southey thinks that he has discovered is worthy of thr sagacity which he has shown in detecting the evil. The calamities arising from the collection of wealth in the hands of a few capitalists are to be remedied by collecting ic in the hands of one great capitalist, who has no conceivable motive to use it better than other capitalists — the all-devouring state. It is not strange that, differing so widely from Mr, Southey as to the pasT progress of society, we should differ from him also as to its probable destin)» He thinks, that to all outward appearance, the country is hastening to de- struction ; but he relies firmly on the goodness of God, We do not see either the piety or the rationality of thus confidently expecting that the Supreme Being will interfere to disturb the common succession of causes and effects. We, too, rely on his goodness — on his goodness as manifested, not in extraordinary inter|jositions, but in those general laws which it has pleased him to establish in the Physical and in the nuiral world. We rely on the natural tendency of the human intellect to truth, and on the natural tendency of society to improvement. We know no well-authenticated instance of a people which has decidedly retrograded in civilisation and prosperity, except from the influence of violent and terrible calamities — such as those which laid the Roman Empire in ruins, or those which, about the beginning of the six- teenth century, desolated Italy. We know oi nc country which, at the end of fifty years of peace and tolerably good government, has been less prosperous than at the beginning of that period. The political importance of a state may decline, as the balance of power is disturbed by the introduction of new forces. Thus the influence of Holland and of .Sjiain isniuthdinnnishcd. But are Holland and .Spain poorer than formerly? We doubt it. Oilier countries have outrun them. But we suspect that they have been positively, though not relatively, advancing. We suspect that Holland is richer than when she sent her navies up the Thames, — that Spain is richer than when a French king was brought captive to the footstool of Charles V. History is full of the signs of this natural progress of society. We see in jlmust every part of the annals of mankind how the industry of individuals, struggling up against wars, taxes, famines, conflagrations, mischievous prohibi' tions, and more mischievous protections, creates faster than governments can squander, and repairs whatever invaders can destroy. We see ihe capital of nations increasing, and all the arts of life approaching nearer and nearer to per- fection, in spile of the grossest corruption and the wildest profusion on the part nf nalcrs. The present aioii;ent is one of ^eat distress. Eut how ?jnail will tJ2»t 130 SOUTIJEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. distress appear when we think over the history of the last forty years ; — a wa^ coiiiiiaicd with wiiich all other wars now sink into insignificance; — taxation, such as the most heavily taxed people of former times could not have concei fed ; — a debt laxger than all the public debts that ever existed in the world added together ; — the food of the jicople studiously rendered dear ; — the currency iin- piuiientiy debased, and iniprudeiilly restored. Yet is the country poorer than in 1790? We fully believe that, in spite of all the misgovernmenl of her rulers, she has been almost constantly bccijniing richer and richer. Now and tli'.n ihere has been a slojipage, now and then a short retrogression ; but as to the general tendency there can be no doubt. A single breaker may recede, but the tide is evidently coming in. If we were to prophesy that in the year 1930 a population of fifty millions, belter fed, clad, and lodged than the Kngli.-h of our time, will cover these islands, — that Sussex and Huntingdi^nshire wdl be wealthier than the wealthiest parts of the West-Kirinciples yet undiscovered, will be in eveiy house, — that there will be no highways but railroads, no travelling but by steam, — that our debt, vast as it seems to us, will appear to our great g*and- children a trilling encumbrance, which might easily be paid off in a year or t\vo, — many people would think us insane. We prophesy nothing; but this we say — If any person had told the Parliament which met in perplexity and terror after the crash in 1720, that in 1S30 the wealth of England would surpass all their wildest dreams — that the annual revenue would equal the principal of that debt which they considered as an intolerable burden — that for one man of^ 10,000 then living, there would be five men of;^50,ooo ; that London would be twice as large and twice as populous, and that nevertheless the mortality would have diminished to one lialf wliat it then was, — that the post-office would bring more into the exchequer than t^ie excise and customs had brought in together under Charles II., — that stage-coaches would run from London to York in twenty-four hours — that men would sail without wuid, and would be beginning to ride without hwr.-;e puffing. Whether the old or the new vice be the worse, — whether those who formerly lavished insincere praise on others, or those who now contrive, by every art of beggary and bribery, to stun the public with praises of themselves, disL;raee their vocation the more deei>ly, — we shall not attempt to decide. But of this we are sure, — thit it is high time to mnke a stand agninst the new trickery. The puffing of books is now so shamefully and so successfully practised that it is the duty of all who are anxious for the purity of the national taste, or for the honour of the literary character, to join in discountenancing it. All the pens that ever were employed in magnifying P.ish's lucky office, Romanis's fleecy hosiery, Packwofnl's razor straps, and Rowland's Kalydor, — all the placard- bearers of Dr. F.ady, — all the -.vall-chalkers of Day and Martin,— seem to have taken service with the poets and novelists of this generation. Devices which, in the lowest trades, are con^^iilercd as disreputable are ado])ted without scruple, and improved upon with a des])icable ingenuity by people engaged in a pursuit which never was, and never will be, considered as a mere trade by any man of honour and virtue. A butcher of the highest class disdains to ticket his meat. A mercer of the highest class would be ashamed to hang up papers in his window inviting the passers-by to look at the stock of a bank- rupt, all of the first quality, and going for half the value. We expect some reserve, some decent pride, in our hatter and our bootm;.ker. But no artifice by which notoriety can be obtained is thought too abject for a man ol letters. It is amusing to think over the history of most of the publications which have had a run during the last few years. The publisher is often the publisher of some periw'ical work. In this periodical work the first flourish of trumpets is sounded. The peal is then echoed and re-echoed by all the other periodical works over which the publisher or the author, or the author's coterie, may have any influence. The newspapers are for a fortnight filled with puffs of all the various kinds which .Sheridan recounted, — direct, oblique, and collusive. Some- times the praise is laid on thick for simple-minrled pco])le. " Pathetic," "sublime, "splendid," "graceful, brilliant wit," " exqui^-ite humour," and oth^r phrases equally flattering, fall in a shower as thick and as sweet a-, the sugar-plums at a Roman carnival. Sometimes greater art is u.scd. A sinecure has been ofTered to the writer if he would suppress his work, or if he would even soften down a few of his incomparable portraits. A distinguished military and political character has challenged the inimitable satirist of t]io rices of the great ; and the puffer is ghid to learn that the parties have bce.i bouod over to keep tbe peace. Soinetimea it is thout-ht expedient that Iha € 134 MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEM J!. puffer should nnt on a grave face, and utter his pancfn-ric in (lie form of ad- monition ! " Such attacks on private character cannot be loo much cond«fmned. Even the exuljcrant wit of our author and the irresistible jKiwer of his *'ither- in{^ sarcasm, arc no excuses fortunity we do not understand. Extreme poverty may, ine an excuse for employing these shifts, as it may be an excuse for stealing a leg of mutton. But we really think that a man of spirit and delicacy would quite as soon satisfy his wanls in one way as in the other. It is no cxeuse for an author that the praises of jonmalists are prrnnired by the money or influence of his publisher, and not by his own. It is his business to take such precautions as may prevent others from doing what must degrade him. It is for his honour as a gentleman, and if he is really a man of talents, it will eventually be for his honour and interest as a writer, that his works should come before the public, recommended by their own merits alone, and should be discussed with perfect freedom. If his objects be really such as he may own without shame, he will find that they will, in the long run, be better attained by suffering the voice of criticism to be fairly heard. At present, we too often see a writer attempting to obtain literary fame as Shakespeare's usurper obtains sovereignty. The publisher plays Buck- ingham to the author's Richard. Some few creatures of the conspiracy are dexterously disposed here and there in the crowd. It is the business of these hirelings to throw up their caps, and clap their hands, and utter their vivas. The rabble at first stare and wonder, and at last join in .shouting for shouting's sa1ccrtain why. When, tliereforc, people whom he thinks more comi^etent to judge tlian himself, and of whose sincerity he entertains no iloubl, a»ure him that a particular work is exc^uisitely beautiful, he takes it for granted that they must be in the right. He returns to the examination, resolved to find or imagine beauties; and if he can work himself up into something like admira- tion, he exults in his own proficiency. Just such is the manner in which nine readers out of ten judge of a book. They are ashamed to dislike what men, who speak xs having authority, declare to be guoil. At present, however contemptible a poem or novel may be, there is not the lea.st difnculty in procuring favourable notices of it from all sorts of i)ublications, daily, weekly, and montldy. In the meantime, little or nothing IS said on the other side. The author and the publisher are interested in crying u]i the book. NoUidy has any very strong interest in crying it down. Those who are best fitted to guide the public opinion think it beneath them lo expose mere nonsense, and comfort themselves by reflecting that such jxijiu- larity cannot last. This contemptuous lenity has been carried too far. It is perfectly true that reputations which have been forced into an uiuiaHin\l bloom lade almost as soon as they have expanded ; nor have we any apprehensions that puffing will ever raise any scribbler to tlie rank of a classic. It is, indeed, amusing to turn over some late volumes of periodical works, and to see how many immortal pnxluctions have, within a few months, been gathered to the poems of Ulackmore and the novels of Mrs. Uehn ; how many " profound Views of human nature," and "exquisitedclineationsof fashionable nianncr>," and "vernal, and sunny, and refreshing thoughts," and " higli iin.'.ginings," and " young breathings," and " embodyings," ancl " pinings," and "minglings with the beauty of the universe," and " harmonies which dissolve the soul in a passionate .sense of loveliness and divinity," the world has contrived to forget. The names of the books and the writers are buried in as deep an oblivion as the name of the builder of Stoncheiige, Some of the well-piifled ** f.ishionable novels " of the last, hold the pastry of the jiresent year ; and others of the cla^s, which are now extolled in language almost too high llnwn for the merits of Don f^uixote, will, we have no doubt, line the trunks of eighteen hundred and thirty-one. But, though we have no a|)prehensions that pufling will ever confer permanent reputation on the undeserving, we still tliiiik its mlluence most |>ernicious. Men of real merit will, if ih'^y persevere, at Ixst reach the station to which they are entitled, and intruders will be ejected with contempt and derision. Lut it is no small evil that the avenues to fame should be blocked up by a swann of noisy, pushing, elbowing pre- tenders, who, though they will not ultimately be able to make good their own entrance, hinder, in the meantime, thos^ who have a right to enter. All who will not disgrace themselves by joining in the unseemly sculile must expect to be at first hustled and shouldered back. Some men of talents acconlingly turn away in dejccti<ear no pro- portion to desert. Others employ in self-defence the means by which com- ^wulurs, Lir iiifcrior to ihcnijiclves, appear for a lime lo n a dc '.kicwn powerst aiwJ suificicnt elevation jf nmul, lo wait with secure aiul ciniempfjous pilienoe while dunce after dunce presses before tliem. Those 'vho will nol stuop to the baseness of llie modern fxshion are too often discouraged. Those vho stoop to it are always tlcj^raded. We have of late observed with great plcn sure some symptoms which le^d us to hope that resjiectable literary men of all parties are beginning to oe impatient of this insulTerable nuis.ince. And we purpose to do what in us lies for the abating of it. We do not think that we can mfire usefully arsist in this good work than by sl'.mving our honest countrymen what that >ort of j'oelry is which ]>ulT.ng cnn drive through eleven ecity commences with a description of the creation, in which we can find only one thought which has the least pretension to ingenuity, and that one thought is stolen from Dr}'den, and marred in tlie stealing- - " La'., softly bea-.itiful as music's clo.se, Aiijjclic woman iuto being rose." The all-pervading influence of the Supreme l!eing is then described in a few toleiabie Hues borrowed fioni Pope, and a great many intoieiablc lines of Mr. Robert Montgomery's own. The following may stand as a specimen : — " But who could trace Tiiine unrestricted course. Though Fancy follow'd with iinnioital forte f There's not a bloi.si)m fondled by the hreeze. There's not a fruit that beautifies the trees, '1 here's not a p.iriicie in .sea or air. But nature owns thy plastic inlkience there I With fearful gaze, still be it mine lo see How all is filled and vivified by Thee ; Upon thy mirror, earth's majestic view. To paiut Thy I'resence, and to feel it too." T^e last two lines contain an excellent specimen of Mr. Robert ^fDnt• gomery's Turkey-carpet style of writing. The majestic view of earth is the mirror of God's presence, and on this mirror Mr. Robert M.jntgomery paints God's presence. The use of a mirror, we submit, is not to be painied upon. A few more lines, as bad as tho.-e which we have quoted, bring us to one of the most amusing instances of hterary pilfering which we remeinber. It might be of use to plagiarists to know, as a general rule, that what they steal is, to emj'ioy a phrase common in advertisements, of no use to any but the right MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. \yj owner. We never fell in, however, with any plunderer who so little under>^ stooa how to tuni his booty to good account as Mr. Montgomery. Lord Byron, in a passage which everybody knows by heart, has said, addressing the sea, 'Time writer no wrinkle on thine azure brow." Mr. Robert Montgomery very coolly appropriates the image, and reproduces the stolen gooda in the following form : " Ami Thou, vast Ocean, on who^e awful face Time's iron feet can print no ruin-trace." So may such ill-got gains ever prosper ! The effect wliich the ocean produces on atheists is tljen described in tlie following lofty lines : "Oh ! never did the dark-soul'd Atheist stand. And watch the breakers boiling on the strand. And. while Creation staugcr'd at his nod, Mock the dread presence of the mighty God I We hear Him va the wind-he: an adverb, it makes nonsense of the words, "Thy cares provide." These beauties we have taken, almost at random, from the first part of the j-oem. The second part is a series of descriptions of various events, — a battle — a murder — an execution — a marriage — a funeral — and so forth. Mr. Robert Montgomery terminates each of these descriptions by a-ssuring us that the Deity was present at the battle, murder, execution, mae-iage, or funeral, in question. And this proposition, which might be safely predicated of every event that ever happened, or ever will happen, forms tiie only link which, connects these descriptions with the subject, or with each other. How the descriptions are executed, our readers are probably hy this tinoe^ MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 1^9 able to conjecture. The battle is made up of the battles of all ages and nations ; "red-mouth'd cannons, uproaringto the clouds," and "hands grasp- ing firm the glittering shield." The only military operations of which this part of the poem reminds us are those which reduced the Abbey of Quedtin- burgh to submission. The Templar with his cross — the Austrian and Prussian grenadiers 'n full uniform — and Curlius and Dentatus with their battering- ram. We ought not to pass by unnoticed the slain war-horse, who will no more " Roll his red eye, and rally for the fight ; " or the slain warrior, who, while "lying on his bleeding breast," contrives to " stare ghastly and grimly on the skies." As to this lust exploit, wc can only say, as Dante did on a similar occasion, — " Forse per forza gia di parlasia Si stravolse cosi alcun del tuttot Ma io uul vidt, d& credo che »ia." The tempest is thus describ>ed^ *' But lot around the marsh'lling clouds unite. Like thick buiialtons halting for the fight ; The sun sinks back, the tempest-spirits sweep Fierce through the air, and flutter on the deep. Till from their caverns rush the maniac bl.ists. Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts. And the lash'd billnws, rnlling in a train, kear their white heads, and race alon^; the main t " What, we should like to know, is the difference between the two operations which Mr. Robert Montgomery so accurately distinguishes from each other, — the fierce sweeping of the tempest-spirits through the air and the rushing of !he maniac blasts from their caverns? And why does the former operation tnd exactly when the latter commences? We cannot stop over each of Mr. Robert Montgomery's descriptions. We liave a shi[)wrecked sailor, who "visions a viewless temple in the air;" — a n\urL'alion of the sick and the burial of the dead. l'> b.-!nj: crtnl'Hed from political power. For no man has any right to power. 144 CIVIL DISABILIl 1 3.S OF THE JEWS. A man has a right to his property ; — a man has a right to be protected frotr ])ersonal injury. These rights tlie law allows to the Jew ; and with thes«« rights it would be atrocious to interfere. But it is a mere matter of favour to admit any man to pohtical power ; and no man can justly complain that he is iut out from it. We cannot but admire the ingenuity of this contrivance fcr shifting the ourden of the proof from off those to whom it properly belongs, and who would, we suspect, find it rather cumbersome. Surely no Christian can deny that every human being has a right to be allowed every gratification which produces no harm to others, and to be spared every mortification which pro- duces no good to others. Is it not a source of mortilication to any class of men that they are excluded from political power? If it be, they have, on Christian principles, a right to be freed from that mortification, unless it can be shown that their exclusion is necessary for the averting of some greater evil. The presumption is evidently in favour of toleration. It is for the prosecutor to make out his case. The strange argument which we are considering would prove too much even for those who advance it. If no man has a right to political power, then neither Jew nor Christian has such a right. The whole foundation of government is taken away. But if government be taken away, the property and the persons of men are insecure ; and it is acknowledged that men have a right to their property and to personal security. If it be right that the pro- perty of men should be protected, and if this can only be done by means of government, then '-t must be right that govemraent should exist. Now, there cannot be government unless some person or persons possess political power. Therefore, it is right that some person or persons should possess political power. That is to say, some person or persons must have a right to poUtical power. It will hardly be denied that government is a means for the attainment of an end. If men have a right to the end, they have a right to this — that the means shall be such as will accomplish the end. It is because men are not in the habit of considering what tke end of government is that Catholic disabilities and Jewish disabiUties have been suffered to exist so long. We hear of essen- tially Protestant governments ard essentially Christian govermnents — words which mean just as much as essentially Protestant cookery, or essentially Christian horsemanship. Government exists for the purpose of keeping the peace — for the purpose of compelling us to settle our disputes by arbitration, instead of settling them by blows — for the purpose of compelling us to supply our wants by industiy, instead of supplying them by rapine. This is the only operation for which the machinery of government is fit, the only operation which wise governments ever attempt to perform. If there is any class of people who are not interested, or do not think themselves interested, in the security of property and the maintenance of order, that class ought to have no share of the powers which exist for the purpose of securing property and maintaining order. But why a man should be less fit to exercise those powers because he weai-s a beard, because he does not eat ham, because he goes to the synagogue on Saturdays instead of going to the church on Sundays, we cannot conceive. The points of difference between Christianity and Judaism have very much to do with a man's fitness to be a bishop or a rabbi. But they have no more to do with his fitness to be a magistrate, a legislator, or a minister of finance, than with his fitness to be a cobbler. Nobody has ever thought of com.pelling cobblers to make any declaration on the true faith of a Christian. Any man would rather have his shoes mended by a heretical cobbler than by a person who had subscribed all the thirty-nine articles, but had never handled an awL CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. »45 Mi*n act thus, not because they a/e indifferent to religion, but because they do not see what religion has to do with the mending of their shoes. Yet religion has as nuch to do with the mending of shoes as with the budget and the army estimate;. We have surely had several signal proofs within the last twenty years that a ve^ good Christian may be a very bad Chancellor of the Exchequer. But it vould be monstrous, say the persecutors, that Jews should legislate for a Chriitian community. This is a palpable misrepresentation. What is proposed is, not that the Jews should legislate for a Christian community, but that a legidature composed of Christians and Jews should legislate for a com- munity con.posed of Christians and Jews. On nine hundred and ninety-nine questions oit of a thousand, — on all questions of police, of finance, of civil and criminal law, of foreign policy, — the Jew, as a Jew, has no interest hostile to that of the Christian, or even to that of the Churchman. On questions relating to the ecclesiastical establishment, the Jew and the Churchman may differ. But they cannot differ more widely than the Catholic and the Church- man, or the Independent and the Churchman. The principle that Churchmen ought to monof olize the whole power of the state would at least have an intelligible meaning. The principle that Christians ought to monopolize it has no meaning at all. For no question connected with the ecclesiastical in- stitutions of the country can possibly come before Parliament, with respect to which there will not be as wide a difference between Christians as there can be between any Christian and any Jew. In fact, the Jews are not now excluded from political power. They possess It ; and as long as they are allowed to accumulate large fortimes, they must possess it. The distinction which is sometimes made between civil privileges and political power is a distinction without a difference. Privileges are power. Civil and political are synonymous words — the one derived from the Latin, the other from the Greek. Nor is this mere verbal quibbling. If we look for a moment at the facts of the case, we shall see that the things are inseparable, or rather identical. That a Jew should be a judge in a Christian country would be most shock- ing. But he may be a jur)'man. He may try issues of fact; and no harm is done. But if he should be suffered to try issues of law, there is an end of the Constitution. He may sit in a box plainly dressed, and return verdicts. But that he should sit on the bench in a black gown and white wig, and grant new trials, would be an abomination not to be thought of among baptized people. The distinction is certainly most philosophical. What power in civilized society is so great as that of the creditor over the debtor ? If we take this away from the Jew, we take away from him the security of his property. If we leave it to him, we leave to him a power more despotic by far than that of the king and all his cabinet. It would be impious to let a Jew sit in Parliament. But a Jew may make money ; and money may make members of Parliament. Gatton and Old Sarum may be the property of a Hebrew. An elector of PenrjTi vdll take ten pounds from Shylock rather than nine pounds nineteen shillings and eleven- pence three-farthings from Antonio. To this no objection is made. That a Jew should possess the substance of legislative power, that he should command eight votes on every di\'ision, as if he were the great Duke of Newcastle himself, is exactly as it should be. But that he should pass the bar and sit down on those mysterious cushions of green leather, that he should cry "hear" and " order, ' and talk about being on his legs, and bemg, for one, free to say this and to say that, would be a profanation sufficient to bring ruin on the country. That a Jew shoidd be privy councillor to a Christian king would be an eter- aal disgrace to tbe nriticn. But the !?w m^y govern ike money-market, and 146 CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. the money-market may govern the world. The minister may l>c in doif)t a* to Ills scheme of finance till he has been ch>seleolitic;il power fiom them. '1 licse wL«e men did not see that, when everything else had Inrcn given, political jwwcr hail l»ccn given. They continued t<) rcjieat their cuckoo song, when it was no longer a •[uestion whether Catholics sli'uld have political power or not, w.hen a Catho- lic association bearded the Parliament, when a Catholic agitator rxercised infinitely more authority than the Lord Lieutenant. If it is our duly as Christians to exclude the Jews from political power, it must be our duly to treat them as our ancestors treated them— to murder them, and banish them, and rob them. For in tliat way, and in that way alone, can we really deprive them of political power. If we do not adopt this course, we may take away the shadow, but we must leave them the sub^tance. We may do enough to pain and irritate them ; but we shall not do enough to secure ourselves from danger, if danger really exists. Where wealth is there power must inevitably be. The English Jews, we are told, are not Englishmen. They are a separate people, living locally in this island, but living morally and politically in com- munion with their brethren who are scattered overall the world. An English Jew looks on a Dutch or a Portuguese Jew as his countryman, and on an English Christi.an as a stranger. This want of patriotic feeling, it is said, renders a Jew unfit to exercise jiolitical functions. The argument h.as in it something plausible ; but a close examination shows it to be quite unsound. Even if the alleged facts are admitted, still the Jevre are not the only people who have preferred their sect to their country. The feeling of patriotism, when society is in a healthful state, springs up by a natural and inevitable association, in the minds of citizens who know that they owe all their comforts and pleasures to the bond which unites them in one community. But, under partial and oppressive governments these associa- tions cannot acquire that strength which they have in a better state of things. Men are compelled to seek from their party that protection which they ought to receive from their country, and they, by a natural consequence, transfer to their party that alVection which they would otherwise have felt for their coun- try. The Huguenots of France called in the help of England against their Catholic kings. The Catholics of France called in the licip of Spain againsl a Huguenot king. Would it be fair to infer, that at present the French Pro- testants would wish to see their religion made dominant by the help of a Prussian or English army? Surely not. And why is it that they are not wdling, as they fonnerly were willing, Co sacrifice the interests of their country to the interests of their religious pei >ua=ion ? The reas his neighbours ? Does he furnish his house meanly because he is a pilgrim and sojourner in the land ? Does the expectation of being restored to the country of his fathers make him insensible to the fluctuations of the stock- euhasiye? Dues he, iu arraiiging his private affairs, ever take into fne I50 CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. account the chance of his migrating to Palestine ? If not, why are we to suppose that feelings which never influence his dealings as a merchant, or his dispositions as a testator, will acquire a boundless influence over him as soon as he becomes a magistrate or a legislator ? There is another argument which we would not willingly treat with levity, and yet which we scarcely know how to treat seriously. Scripture, it is said, is full of terrible denunciations against the Jews. It is foretold that they are to be wanderers. Is it then right to give them a home ? It is foretold that they are to be oppressed. Can we with propriety suffer them to be rul*""^ ? To admit them to the rights ol citizens is manifestly to insiilt the Divine oracles. We allow that to falsify a prophecy inspired by Divine wisdom would be a most atrocious crime. It is, therefore, a happy circumstance for our frail species that it is a crime which no man can possibly comm t. If we admit the 1 ews to a seat in Parliament we shall, by so doing, prove that the prophecies in question, whatever they may mean, do not mean that the Jews shall be excluded from Parliament. In fact, it is already clear that the prophecies do not bear the meaning put upon them by the respectable persons whom we are now answering. In France and in the United States the Jews are already admitted to all the rights of citizens. A prophecy, therefore, which should mean that the Jews would never, during the course of their wanderings, be admitted to all the rights of citizens in the places of their sojourn would be a false prophecy. This, therefore, is not the meaning of the prophecies of Scripture. But we protest altogether against the practice of confounding prophecy with precept — of setting up predictions which are often obscure against a morality which is always clear. If actions are to be considered as just and good merely because they have been predicted, what action was ever more laudable than that crime which our bigots are now, at the end of eighteen centuries, urging us to avenge on the Jews — that crime which made the earth shake and blotted out the sun from heaven ? The same reasoning which is now employed to vindicate the disabilities imposed on our Hebrew country- men will equally vindicate the kiss of Judas and the judgment of Pilate. " The Son of man goeth, as it is written of him ; but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed." And woe to those who, in any age or in any country, disobey his benevolent commands under pretence of accomplishing his predictions. If this argument justi lies the laws now existing against the Jews, it justifies equally all the cruelties which have ever been committed against them — the sweeping edicts of banishment and confiscation, the dungeon, the rack, and the slow fire. How can we excuse ourselves for leaving pr()[)erly to people who are to "serve their enemies in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things ;" — for giving protection to the persons, of those who are to " fear day and night, and to have none assurance of their/ life ;" — for not seizing on tlie children of a race whose "sons and daughters) are to be given unto another people ? " We have not so learned the doctrines of Him who commanded us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and wlu>, when He was called upon to explain what lie meant by a neighbour, selected as an example a heretic and an alien. Last year, we remember, it was represented by a pious writer in the John Bull newspaper, and by some other equally fervid Christians, as a monstrous in- decency, that the measure for the relief of the Jews should be brought forward in Passion week. One of these humorists ironically recommended that it should be read a second time on Good Frirlay, We should have had no objec- tion ; nor do we believe that the day could be commemorated in a more worthy qianner. We know of no day fil icr for tcnuinating long hostilities and Tejjairing MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRO//. Ijl cruel wrongs than the day on which the religion of mercy was founded. We Know of no day fitter for blotting out from the statute-book the last traces of intolerance than the day on which the spirit of intolerance produced the foulest of all judicial murders, the day on which the list of the victims of intolerance, that noble list wherein Socrates and More are enrolled, was glorif>ed by a yet greater and holier name. MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. Letters and Journals of Lord Byron ; with Notices of his Life. By Thomas M borb, Esq. 2 vols. 4to. London. 1830. We have read this book with the greatest pleasure. Considered merely as a composition, it deserves to be classed among the best specimens of English prose which our age has produced. It contains, indeed, no single passage equal to two or three which we could select from the Life of Sheridan. But, as a whole, it is immeasurably superior to that work. The style is agreeable, clear, and manly, and when it rises into eloquence, rises without effort or ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior to the manner. It would be difficult to name a book which exhibits more kindness, fairness, and modesty. It has evidently been written, not for the purpose of showing, what, however, it often shows, how well its author can write, but for the pur- pose of vindicating, as far as truth will pennit, the memory of a celebrated man who can no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never thrusts himself between Lord Byron and the public. With the strongest temptations to egotism, he has said no more about himself than the subject absolutely re- quired. A great part — indeed, the greater part, of these volumes, consists of extracts from the letters and journals of Lord Byron ; and it is difficult to speak too highly of the skill which has been shown in the selection and arrangement. We will not say that we have not occasionally remarked in *hese two large quartos an anecdote which should have been omitted, a letter which should have been suppressed, a name which should have been con- cealed by asterisks, or asterisks which do not answer the purpose of concealing the name. But it is impossible, on a general survey, to deny that the task *as been executed with great judgment and great humanity. When we con- sider the life which Lord Byron had led, his petulance, his irritability, and his commimlcativeness, we cannot but admire the dexterity with which Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so much of the character and opinions of his friend, with so little pain to the feelings of the living. The extracts from the journals and correspondence of Lord Byron are in tin highest degree valuable — not merely on account of the information which they contain respecting the distinguished man by whom they were written, but on account also of their rare merit as compositions. The letters, at least those whicli were sent from Italy, — are among the best in our language. They are less aflected than tliose of Pope and Walpole ; — they have more matter in them than those of Cowper. Knowing that many of them were not written merelv for the person to whom they were directed, but were general epistles, meant to be read by a large circle, we expected to find them clever and spuited, h\\\ deficient in ease. We looked with vigilance for instances of stiffness in the language and awkwardness in the transitions. We have been agreeably dis- appointed ; and we must confess that, if the epistolary style of Lord Byron was artificial, it was a rare and admirable instance of that highest art which cannot he distinguished from nature. Of the deep and painful interest which this book excites no abstract can give a iu it nrvtion. So sad and dark a story is scarcely to be found in any v/01 k of 152 MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. fiction ; and we are little disposed to envy the moralist who can read it with* out being softened. The pretty fable by which the Duchess of Orleans illustrates the cha-"acter of her son the Regent migl)t, with little change, be applied to Byron. All the fairies, save oi.e, had been bidden to his cradle. All the gossips had been profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed nobility, another genius, a third beauty. The malignant elf who had been uninvited came last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse with every blessing. In the rank of Lord Byion, in his understanding, in his character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. He was born to all that men covet and admire. But in every one of those eminent advantages which he possessed over others was mingled something of misery and debasement. He was sprung from a house, ancient, indeed, and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of crimes and follies which had attained a scandalous publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, would have died upon the gallows. The young peer had great intellectual powers ; yet there was an unsoimd part in his mmd. He had naturally a generous and feelmg lieart ; but his temper was wayward and irritable. lie had a head which statuaries loved to cojy, and a foot the deformity of which the beggars in the streets mimicked. Dis- tinguished at once by the strength and by the weakness of his intellect, affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord, and a handsome cripple, he required, if ever man required, the firmest and the most judicious training. But capri- ciously as nature had dealt with him, the parent to whom the office of forming his character was intrusted was more capricious still. She passed from paroxysms of rage to paroxysms of tenderness. At one time she stifled him vith her caresses ; — at another time she insulted his deformity. He came into the world ; and the world treated him as his mother had treated him, — sometimes with fondness, sometimes with ciuelty, never with justice. It indulged him without discrimination, and punished him without discrimi- nation. He was truely a spoiled child, — not merely the spoiled child of his parent, but the spoiled child of nature, the spoiled child of fortune, the spoiled child of fame, the spoiled child of society. His first poems were received with a contempt which, feeble as they were, they did not absolutely deserve. The poem which he pulilished on his return from his travels was, on the other hand, extolled far alvave its merit. At twenty-four he found himself on the higliest pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Wordsworth, Southey, and a crowd of other distinguished writers beneath his feet. There is scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a rise to so dizzy an eminence. Everything that could stimulate, and everything that could gratify the strongest propensities of our nature — the gaze of a hundred drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole nation, the applause of applauded men, the love of the loveliest women, — all this world and all the glory of it were at once offered to a young man to whom nature had given violent passions, and whom education had never taught to control them. He lived as many men live who have no similar excuse to plead for their faults. But his countrymen and his countiywomen would love him and admire him. They were resolved to see in his excesses only the flash and outbreak of that same fiery mind which glowed in his poetry. He attacked religion ; yet in religious circles his name was mentioned with fondness ; and in many religious [lublications his v/orks were censured with singular tenderness. He lampooned the Prince Regent , yet he could not alienate the Tories. Everything, it seemed, was to be for- given to youth, rank, and genius. Then tame the reaction. Society, capricious in its indignation as it had MOOHE'S LIFE OP LORD BVRO^. t%% t-een capn'cious in its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward and petted darling. He had been worshipped with an irrational idolatry. lie vas per- secuted with an irrational fury. Much has been written about those ih happy domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his life. Yet nothuig is, nothing ever was, positively known to the public but this, that he quarrelled with his lady, and that she refused to live with him. There have been hints in abundance, and shrugs and shakings of the head, and " Well, well, we know," and "We could an if we would," and "If we list to speak," and "There be that misjht an they list." But we are not aware that there is be- fore the world, substantiated by credible, or even by tangible evidence, a single fact indicating that I,ord Byron was more to blame than any other man who is on bad terms with his wife. The professional men whom Lady Byron consulted were undoubtedly of opinion that she ought not to live with her husband. But it is to be remembered that they formed that opinion with- out hearing both sides. We do not say, we do not mean to insinuate, that Lady Byron was in any respect to blame. We think that those who condemn her on the evidence which is now before the public are as rash as those who condemn her husband. We will not pronounce any judgment, we caimot, even in our own minds, form anyjut'gment on a transaction which is so imperfectly known to us. It would have been well if, at the time of the separation, all those who knew as little about the matter then as we know about it now had shown that forbearance which, under such circumstances, is but common justice. We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its period.cal fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels, pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes out- rageous. We cannot suffer the laws of rel'gion and decency to be v!(/laied. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that ths Eng- lish people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly, some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose cftences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he has to be driven from it. He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals established in England with the Parisian laxity. At length our anger is satiated. Our victim is mined and heart- broken. And our virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years more. It is clear that those vices which destroy domestic happiness ought to be as much as possible repressed. It is equally clear that they cannot be re- pressed by penal legislation. It is, therefore, right and desirable that public opinion should be directed against them. But it should be directed against them uniformly, steadily, and temperately, not by sudden fits and starts. There should be one weight and one measure. Decimation is always an ob- jectionable mode of punisliment. It is the resource of judges too indolent and hasty to investigate facts and to discriminate nicely between shades of l^uilt. It is an iiTational practice, even when adopted by military triiunals. When adopted by the tribunal of public opinion, it is infinitely more irra- tional. It is good that a certain portion of disgrace should constantly attend on certain baa actions. But it is not good that the offenders should merely have to stand the risks of a lottery of infamy, that ninety-nine out of every hundred should escape, and that the hundjudtli, t.erhaps the most innocent of tS4 MOORE'S LIFE OP LORD BYROM. the hundred, should pay for all. We remember to have seen a mob assembled in Lincoln's Inn to hoot a gentleman against whom llie most oppressive proceeding known to the English law was then in progress. He was hooted because he had been an indifferent and unfaithful husband, as if some of the iTiost ])opular men of the age, — Lord Nelson for example, — had not been un- faithful husbands. We remember a still stronger case. Will posterity believe tliat, in an age in which men whose gallantries were universally known, and had been legally proved, filled some of the highest offices in the state and in the army, presided at the meetings of religious and bent^v'<)]eiit institutions, — ■ we'e the delight of every society, and the favourites of the multitude, — a crowd ot moralists went to the theatre, in order to pelt a poor actor for disturbing the conjugal felicity of an alderman? What there was in the circumstances either of the offender or of the sufferer to vindicate the zeal of the audience, we could never conceive. It has never been supposed that the situation of an actor h peculiarly favourable to the rigid virtues, or that an alderman enjoys any special immunity from injuries such as that which on this occasion roused the anger of the public. But such is the justice of mankind. In these cases the punishment was excessive ; but the offence was known and proved. The case of Lord Byron was harder. True Jedwood justice was dealt out to him. First came the execution, then the investigation, and last of all, or rather not at all, the accusation. The public, without knowing any- tliing whatever about the transactions in his family, flew into a violent passion with him, and proceeded to invent stories which might justify its anger. Ten or twenty different accounts of the separation, inconsistent with each other, with themselves, and with common sense, circulated at the same time. What evidence there might be for anyone of these, the virtuous people who repeated them neither knew or cared. For, in fact, these stories were not the causes, but the effects of the public indignation. They resembled those loathsome slanders which Goldsmith and other abject libellers of the same class were in the habit of publishing about Bonaparte; — how he poisoned a girl with arsenic wlien he was at the military school,— that he hired a grenadier to shoot Dessaix at Marengo, — that he filled St. Cloud with all the pollutions of Capreae. There was a time when anecdotes like these obtained some credence from persons who, hating the French emperor without knowing why, were eager to believe anything which might justify their hatred. Lord Byron fared in the same way. His countrymen were in a bad humour with him. His writings and his character had lost the charm of novelty. He had been guilty of the offence which, of all offences, is punished most severely ; he had been over-praised ; he had excited too warm an interest ; and the public, with its usual justice, chastised him for its own folly. The attachments of the multi- tude bear no small resemblance to those of the wanton enchantress in the Arabian Tales, who, when the forty days of her fondness were over, was not content with dismissing her lovers, but condemned them to expiate, in loath- some shapes, and under severe punishments, the crime of having once pleased her too well. The obloquy which Byron had to endure was such as might well have shaken a iiiore constant mind. The newspapers were filled with lampoons. The theatres shook with execrations. He was excluded from circles where he had lately been the observed of all observers. All those creeping things that rio*; in the decay of nobler natures hastened to their repast ; and they were right ; — they did after their kind. It is not every day that the savage envy of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies of such a spirit, and the deifvadation of such a name. The unhappy man left his country for ever. The howl of contumely followed MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 15.' him across the sea, up the Rhine, over the Alps ; it gradually waxed ta^nter ; it died away. Those who had raised it began to ask each other what, after all, was the matter about which they had been so clamorous, and wished to invite back the criminal whom they had just chased from them. His poetiy became more popular than it had ever been ; and his complaints were read with tears by thousands and tens of thousands who had never seen his fane. He had fixed his home on the shores of the Adriatic, in the most picturesque and interesting of cities, beneath the brightest of skies, and by the brightest of seas, Censoriousness was not the vice of the neighbours whom he had chosen. They were a race corrupted by a bad government and a bad religion, long renowned for skill in the arts of voluptuousness, and tolerant of all the caprices of sensuality. From the public opinion of t)^ country of his adoption, he had nothing to dread. With the public opinion jf the country of his birth, he was at open war. He plunged into wild and desperate excesses, ennobled by no generous or tender sentiment. From his Venetian harem he sent forth volume aft«r volume, full of eloquence, of wit, of pathos, of ribaldry, and of bitter disdain. His health sank under the effects of his intemperance. His hair turned grey. His food ceased to nourish him. A hectic fever withered him up. It seemed that his body and mind were about to perish together. From this wretched degradation he was in some measure rescued by a con- nection, culpable indeed, yet such as, if it were judged by the standard of morality established in the country where he lived, might be called virtuous. But an imagination polluted by vice, a temper embittered by misfortune, and a frame habituated to the fatal excitement of intoxication, prevented him from fully enjoying the happiness which he might have derived from the purest and most tranquil of his many attachments. Midnight draughts of ardent spirits and Rhenish wines had begun to work the ruin of his fine intellect. His verse lost much of the energy and condensation which had distinguished it. But he would not resign, without a struggle, the empire which he had exercised over the men of his generation. A new dream of ambition rose before him ; — to be the chief of a literary party ; to be the groat mover of an intellectual revolu- tion ; — to guide the public mind of England from his Italian retreat, r.s Voltaire had guided the public mind of France from the villa of Ferney. With this hope, as it should seem, he established The Liberal. But, powerfully as he had affected the imaginations of his contemporaries, he mistook his own powers if he hoped to direct their opinions ; and he still more grossly mistook his own disposition, if he thought that he could long act in concert with other men of letters. The plan failed, and failed ignoniiiiioiisly. Angry with himself, angry with his coadjutors, he relinquished it, and turned to another project, the last and noblest of liis life. A nation, once the first among the nations, pre-eminent in knowledge, pre- eminent in military glory, the cradle of phdosophy, of eloquence, and of the fine arts, had been for ages bowed down under a cruel yoke. All the vices which tyranny generates, — the abject vices which it generates in those who submit to it, — tlie ferocious vices which it generates in those who struggle against it,— had deformed the character of that miseral)le race. The valour ■which had won the great battle of human civilisation, — which had saved Europe, which had subjugated Asia, lingered only among pirates and robbers. The ingenuity, once so conspicuously displayed in every department of physical and moral science, had been depraved into a timid and servile cunning. On a sudden this degraded people had risen on their oppressors. Discountenanced or betrayed by the surrounding potentates, they had found in themselves some- thing of that which might well supply the place of all foreign assistaiK'e:,— » something ol the energy of their fathers. IS6 MOORE*S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. As a man of letters, Lord Byron could not but be interested in the event of this contest. His political opinions, though, like all his opinions, unsettled, leaned strongly towards the side of liberty. He had assisted the Ita..an in- surgents with his purse, and, if their struggle against the Austrian government had been prolonged, would probably have assisted them with his sword. But to Greece he was attached by peculiar ties. He had when young resided in that country. Much of his most splendid and popular poetry had been inspired by its scenery and by its history. Sick of inaction, — degraded in his own eyes by his private vices and by his literary failures, — pining for untried excitement and honourable distinction, — he carried his exhausted body and his wounded jpirit to the Grecian camp. His conduct in his new situation showed so much vigour and good sense as to justify us in believing that, if his life had been prolonged, he might have distinguished himself as a soldier and a politician. But pleasure and sorrow had done the work of seventy years upon his delicate frame. The hand of death was upon him : he knew it ; and the only wish which he uttered was that he might die swoid in hand. This was denied to him. Anxiety, exertion, exposure, and those fatal stimulants which had become indispensable lo him, soon stretched him on a sick bed, in a strange land, amidst strange faces, without one human being he loved near him. There, at thirty-six, the most celebrated Englishman of the nineteenth century closed his brilliant and miserable career. We cannot even now retrace those events without feeling something of what was felt by the nation when it was first known that the grave had closed over so much sorrow and so much glory ; — something of what was felt by those who saw the hearse, with its long train of coaches, turn slowly northward, leaving behind it that cemetery which had been consecrated by the dust of so many great poets, but of which the doors were closed against all that remained o( Byron. We well remember that on that day rigid moralists could not refrain from weeping for one so young, so illustrious, so unhappy, gifted with rucb rare gifts, and tried by such strong temptations. It is unnecessary to make any reflections. The history carries its moral with it Our age has indeed been fruitful of warnings to the eminent, and of consolations to the obscure. Two men have died within oar recollection who, at the time of life at which many people have hardly completed their education, had raised themselves, each in his own department, to the height of glory. One of them died at Longwood ; the other at Mi^solonj^jhi. It is always difficult to sej'arut? ihe literary character of a man who lives in our time from his personal character. It is peculiarly difficult to make this separation in the case of Lord Byron. For it is scarcely too much to say that Lord Byron never wrote without some reference, direct or indirect, to himself The interest excited by the events of his life mingles itself in our minds, and pro'')ably in the minds of almost all our readers, with the interest which properly belongs to his works. A generation must pass away before it will be possible to form a fair judgment of his books, considered merely as books. At present they are not only books, but relics. We will, however, venture, though witii unfeigned diffidence, to offer some desultory remarks on his poetry. His lot was cast in the time of a great literary revolution. That poetical dynasty which hi$ dethroned the successors of Shakespeare and Spenser was, in its turn, dethroned by a race who represented themselves as heirs of the ancient line, so long dispossessed by usurpers. The real nature of this revolution has not, we think, been comprehended by the great majority of thoce who con- COirred in it. If this question were proposed, — wherein especiaJIy dees the pee try of oui MOORE* S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. l57 times differ from that of the last century ? — ninety-nine persons out of a hun- dred would answer that the poetry of the last century was correct, but ccld anu mechanical, and that the poetry of our time, though wild and irre^lar, pre- sented far more vivid images, and excited the passions far more stiongly than that of Pamell, or Addison, or Pope. In the same manner we conr intly hear it said that the poets of the age of Elizabeth had far more genius, but far less correctness, than those of the age of Anne. It seems to be taken for granted that there is some necessary incompatibility, some antithesis between ccrrectness and creative power. We rather suspect that this notion arises merely from an abuse of words, and that it has been the parent of many of the fallacies which perplex the science of criticism. What is meant by correctness in poetry ? If by correctness be meant the conforming to rules which have their foimdation in trath and in the principles of human nature, then correctness is only another name for excellence. If by correctness be meant the conforming to rules purely arbitrary, correctness may be another name for dulness and absurdity. A writer who describes visible objects falsely and violates the propriety of character, — a writer who makes the mountains "nod their drowsy heads " at night, or a dying man take leave of the world with a rant like that of Maxi- min, may be said, in the high and just sense of the phrase, to write incorrectly. lie violates the first great law of his art. His imitation is altogether unlike the thing imitated. The four poets who are most eminently free from incor- rectness of this description are Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton. They are, therefore, in one sense, and that the best sense, the most correct of poets. When it is said that Virgil, though he had less genius than Homer, was a -Tiore correct writer, what sense Is attached to the word correctness ? Is it .neant that the story of the ^neid is developed more skilfully than that of the Odyssey ? — that the Roman describes the face of the external world, or the emotions of the mind, more accurately than the Greek?— that the characters of Achates and Mnestheus are more nicely discriminated, and more consist- ently supported, than those of Achilles, of Nestor, and of Ulysses ? The fact incontestably is that, for every violation of the fundamental laws of poetry which can be found in Homer, it would be easy to find twenty in Virgil. Troilus and Cressida is perhaps of all the plays of Shakespeare that which is commonly considered as the most incorrect. Yet it seems to us infinitely more correct, in the sound sense of the term, than what are called the most correct plays of the most correct dramatists. Compare it, for example, with the Iphigenie of Racine. We are sure that the Greeks of Shakspeare bear a far greater resemblance than the Greeks of Racine to the real Greeks who besieged Troy ; and for this reason, that the Greeks of Shakespeare are human beings, and the Greeks of Racine mere names — mere words printed in capitals at the heads of paragraphs of declamation. Racine, it is true, would have shuddered at the thought of making Agamemnon quote Aristotle. But of what use is it to avoid a single anachronism, when the whole play is one anachronism, — tlie sentiments and phrases of Versailles in the camp of Aulis ? In the sense in which we are now using the word correctness, we think th \ Sir Walter Scott, Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Coleridge, are far more correct writers than those who are commonly extolled as the models of correctness, — Pope, for example, and Addison. The single description of a moonlight night in Pope's Iliad contains more inaccuracies than can be found in all the Excur- sion. There is not a single scene in Cato in which everything that conduces to poetical illusion, — all the propriety of character, of language, of situation, is not more ^ossiy violated than in any part of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. No man can possibly think that the Romans of Adiieare lias exhibited the union of effeminacy and valour In Antony. A dramatist cannot couuiiiit a greater error than that of following those pointed descriptions of character in wliich satirists and historians indulge so much. It is by rejecting what is natural that satirists and historians produce these striking characters. Their great object generally is to ascribe to every man as many contradictory qualities as possible : and this is an object easily attained. By judicious selection and judicious exaggeration, the intellect and the dispo- sition of any human being might be described as being made up of nothing but startling contrasts. If the dramatist attempts to create a being answering to one of these descriptions, he fails, because he reverses an imperfect analytical process. He i)roduces, not a man, but a personified epigram. Very eminent writers have fallen into this snare. Ben Jonson has given us a Ilermogenes, taken from the lively lines of Horace ; but the inconsistency which is so amusing in the satire appears unnatural and disgusts us in the play. Sir Walter Scott has committed a far more glaring error of the same kind in the novel of Peveril. Admiring, as every judicious reader must admire, the keen and vigorous lines in which Dryden satirised the Duke of Buckingham, he attempted to make a Duke of Buckingham to suit them — a real living Zimri ; and he made, not a man, but the most grotesque of all monsters. A writer who should attempt to introduce into a play or a novel such a Wharton as the Wharton of Pope, or a Lord Hervey answering to Sporus, would fail in the same manner. But to return to Lord Byron ; his women, like his men, are all of one breed. Haidee is a half-savage and girlish Julia; Julia is a civilized and matronlv Haidee. Leila is a wedded Zuieika, Zuleika a virgin Leila. Gulnare and Medora appear to have been intentionally opposed to each other. Yet the diiTerence is a difference of situation only. A slight change of circum- stances would, it should seem, have sent Gulnare to the lute of JNIedora, and armed Medora with the dagger of GAnare. It is hardly too much to say, that Lord Byron could exhibit only one man and only one woman, — a man proud, moody, cynical, — with defiance on his brow, and misery in his heart, a scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet capable of deep and strong affection : — a woman all softness and gentleness, ?.oving to caress and to be caressed, but capable of being transformed by love into a tigress. Even these two characters, his only two characters, he could not exhibit dramatically. lie exhibited them in the manner, not of Shakespeare, but of Clarendon. He analysed them ; he made them analyse themselves ; but he did not make them show themselves. He tells us, for example, in many lines of great force and spirit, that the speech of Lara was bitterly sarcastic — that he talked little of his travels — that if he was much questioned about them, his answers became short, and his brow gloomy. But we have none of Laia's sarcastic speeches or short answers. It is not thus that the giea^, mast«ri of MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYROJV. 167 httinan nature have portrayed human beings. Homer never tells us 'Jiat Nestor loved to relate long stories about his youth. Shakespeare never telk us that in the mind of lago everything that is beautiful and endearing wa.s asso dated with some filthy and debasing idea. It is curious to observe the tendency which the dialogue of Lord Byron always has to lose its character of a dialogue, and to become soliloquy. The scenes between Manfred and the Chamois-hunter, — between Manfred and the A\'itch of the Alps, — between Manfred and the Abbot, are instances of this tendency. Manfred, after a few unimportant speeches, has all the talk to himself. The other interlocutors are nothing more than good listeners. They drop an occasional question of ejaculation which sets Manfred off again on the inexhaustible topic of his personal feelings. If we examine the fine passages in Lord Byron's dramas — the description of Rome, for example, in Manfred — the description of a Venetian revel in Marino Faliero — the invective which the old doge pronounces against Venice, we shall find that there is nothing dramatic in them, that they derive none of their effect from the character or situation of the speaker, and that they would have been as fine, or finer, if they had been published as fragments of blank verse by Lord Byron. There is scarcely a speech in Shakespeare of which the same could be said. No skilful reader of the plays of Shakespeare can endure to see what are called the fine things taken out, under the name of " Beauties," or of *' Elegant Extracts," or to hear any single passage, *' To be or not to be," for example, quoted as a sample of the great poet. "To be or not to be" has merit un- doubtedly as a composition. It would have merit if put into the mouth of a chorus. But its merit as a composition vanishes when compared with its merit as belonging to Ilamlot It is not too much to say that the great plays of Shakespeare would lose less by being deprived of all the passages which are commonly called the fine passages than those passages lose by being read separately from the play. This is, perhaps, the (^highest praise which can be given to a dramatist. On the other hand, it may be doubted whether there is, in all Lord Byron's plays, a single remarkable ])assage which owes any portion of its interest or effect to its connection with the characters or the action. He has written only one scene, as far as we can recollect, which is dramatic even in manner — the scene between Lucifer and Cain. The conference in that scene is animated, and each of the interlocutors has a fair share of it But this scene, when examined, will be found to be a confirmation of our remarks. It is a dialogue only in form. It is a soliloquy in essence. It is in reality a debate carried on •vithin one single unquiet and sceptical mind. The questions and the answers, the objections and the solutions, all belong to the same character. A writer who showed so little diamatic skill in works professedly dramatic was not likely to write narrative with dramatic effect. Nothing could indeed be more rude and careless than the structure of his narrative poems. He seems to have thought, with the hero of the Rehearsal, that the plot was good for nothing but to bring in fine things. His two longest works, Childe Harold and Don Juan, have no plan whatever. Either of them might have been extended to any length, or cut short at any point. The state in which the Giaour appears illustrates the manner in which all his poems were constructed. They are all, like the Gia/)ur, collections of fragments ; and, though there may be no empty spaces marked by asterisks, it is still easy to perceive, by the clumsiness of the joining, where the parts for the sake of which the whole was composed end and begin. It was in description and meditation that he excelled. "Description," as he said i» Don Tuan. "was his forte" His manner is indeed peculiar, and it I6S MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. almost unoqwnlled ; — rapid, sketchy, full of vigour ; the selection happy ; 'he strokes few and bold. In spite of the reverence which we feci for the genius of Mr. Wordsworth, we cannot but tiiink that the minuteness of his descrip- tions often diminishes their effect. He has accustomed himself to gaze on nature with the eye of a lover, — to dvvell on every feature, — and to mark every c'iani;e of aspect. Those beauties which strike the most negligent observer, and those which only a close attention discovers, are equally familiar to him jnd are equally prominent in his poetry. The proverb of old Hesiod, that lialf is often more than the whole, is eminently applicable to description. The policy of the Dutch, who cut down most of the precious trees in the Spice Islands, in order to raise the value of what remained, was a policy which poets would do well to imitate. It was a policy which no poet understood better than Lord Byron. Whatever his faults might be, he was never, while his wind retJiined its vigour, accused of prolixity. His desciipiions, great as was their intrinsic merit, derived their principal interest fiom the feeling which always mingled with them. He was himself the beginning, the middle, and the end, of all his own poetry, — the hero of every tale, — the chief object in every landscape. Harold, Lara, Manfred, and a crowd of other characters, were universally considered merely as loose in- cognitos of Byron ; and there is every reason lo believe that he meant then: to be so considered. The wonders of the outer world, — the Tagus, with the mighty fleets >>f England riding on its bosom, — the towers of Cintra over- hanging the shaggy forests of cork-trees and willows, — the glaring marble of Pentelicus, — the banks of the Rhine, — the glaciers of Clarens, — the sweet lake of Leman, — the dell of Egeria, with its summer-birds and rustling lizards, — the shapeless ruins of Rome overgrown with ivy and wall-flowers, — the stars, the sea, the mountains, — all were mere accessaries, — the background to one dark and melancholy figure. Never had any writer so vast a command of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, and despair. That Marah was never dry. No art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust, its perennial waters of bitterness. Never was there such variety in monotony as that of Byron. From maniac laughter to piercing lamentation, there was not a single note of human anguish of which he was not master. Year after year, and month after month, he continued to repeat that to be wretched is the destiny of all ; that to be eminently wretched is the destiny of the eminent ; that all the desires by which we are cursed lead alike to misery, — if they are not gratified, to the misery of disappoint- ment, — if they are gratified, to the misery of satiety. His principal heroes are men who have arrived by different roads at the same goal of despair, — who are sick of life, — who are at war with society, — who are supported in their anguish only by an unconquerable pride resembling that of Prometheus on *^^he rock, or of Satan in the burning marl ; who can master their agonies by the force of their vill, and who, to the last, defy the whole power of earth and heaven. H*. always described himself as a man of the same kind with his favouite creations, as a man whose heart had been withered, — whose capa- city for happiness was gone and could not be restored, but whose invincible spirit dared the worst that could befall him here or hereafter. How much of this morbid feeling sprang from an original disease of the mind, — how much from real misfortune, — how much from the nervousness of dissipation, — how much was fanciful, — how much of it was merely affected. — it is impossible for us, and would probably have been impossible for the most intimate friends of Lord Byron, to decide. Whether there ever existed, or can ever exist, a person answering to the description which he gave of himself, «!ay be doubted : but that he was not such a person is beyond all doubt. It MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 169 is ridiculous to imagine that a man who mind was really im'iue i with scoin of his fellow-creatures would have published three or four books every year in order to tell them so ; or that a man who could say with truth that he neithei sought sympathy nor needed it would have admitted all Europe to hear hi> farewell to his wife, and his blessings on his ehild. In the second canto o* \hilde Harold, he tells us that he is insensible to fame and obloquy : " 111 may such contest now the spirit move, Which heeds nor keen reproof nor partial praise." Yet we know on the best evidence that, a day or two before he published these lines, he was greatly, indeed childishly, elated by the compliments paid to his maiden speech in the House of Lords. We are far, however, from thinking that his sadness was altogether feigned. He was naturally a man of great sensibility ; — he had been ill-educated ; — hii feelings had been early exposed to sharp trials ; — he had been crossed in his boyish love ; — he had been mortified by the failure of his first literary efforts ; — he was straitened in pecuniary circumstances ; — he was unfortunate in his domestic relations ; — the public treated him with cruel injustice ; — his health and spirits suffered from his dissipated habits of life ; — he was, on the whole, an unhappy man. He early discovered that, by parading his unhappiness before the multitude, he excited an unrivalled interest. The world gave hirrj every encouragement to talk about his mental sufferings. The effect which his first confessions produced induced him to affect much that he did not feel ; and the affectation probably reacted on his feelings. How far the character in which he exhibited himself was genuine, and how far theatrical, it would pro- bably have puzzled himself to say. Tliere can be no doubt that this remarkable man owed the vast influence which he exercised over his contemporaries at least as much to his gloomy egotism as to the real power of his poetry. We never could very clearly flinlerstand how it is that egotism, so unpopular in conversation, should be so popular in writing ; or how it is that men who affect in their compositions qualities and feelings which they have not impose so much more easily on llieir contemporaries than on posterity. The interest which the loves of Petrarch excited in his own time, and the pitying fondness with which half Europe looked upon Rousseau, are well known. To readers of our age, the love of Petrarch seems to have been love of that kind which breaks no hearts, and the sufferings of Rousseau to have deserved laughter rather than pity, — to have been partly counterfeited, and partly the consequences of his own perverseness and vanity. What our grandchildren may think of the character of Lord Byron, as exhiLIied in his poetry, we will not pretend to guess. It is certain that the interest which he excited during his life is without a parallel in literary history. The feeling with which young readers of poetry regarded nim can be con- ceived only by those who have experienced it. To people who are unacquainted with real calamity, " nothing is so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy." This faint image of sorrow has in all ages been considered by young gentlemen as an agreeable excitement. Old gentlemen and middle-aged gentlemen have so many real causes of sadness that they are rarely inclined "to be as sad as night only for wantonness." Indeed, they want the power almost as mach as the inclination. W^e know very few persons engaged in active life who, even if they were to procure stools to be melancholy upon, and were to sit down with all the premeditation of Master Stephen, would be able to enjoy much of what somebody calls the "ecstasy of woe." Amonjj that large clas? of young persons whase reading is almost ectdrelf t^ CROKER'S EDITIOiM 01 confined to works of imagination the popularity of Loid Byron was un. bounded. They bought pictures of hiin ; they treasured up the smallest rel.ci of him ; tney learned hLs poems by heart, and did their best to write like him, and to lot)k like him. Many of them practised at the glass in the hope of catching the curl of the upper lip, and the scowl of the brow, which appear in some of his portraits. A few discarded their neckcloths in imitation of their great leader. For some years the Minerva press sent forth no novel, without a mysterious, unhappy, Lara-like peer. The number of hoj)efuliL undergraduates and medical students who became things of dark imaginings, — on wliom the freshness of the heart ceased to fall like dew, — tvhose pas- sions had consumed themselves to dust, and to whom the relief of tears was denied, passes all calculation. This was not the worst. Tliere was created ^ in the minds of many of these enthusiasts a pernicious and absurd association between intellectual power and moral depravity. From the poetry of Lord Byron they drew a system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and volup- tuousness, a system in whicli the two great commandments were, to hate youi. neighbour, and to love your neighbour's wife. The affectation has passed away ; and a few more years will destroy what- ever yet remains of that magical potency which once belonged to the name of Byron. To us he is still a man, young, noble, and unhappy. To our cliildren he will be merely a writer ; and their impartial judgment will appoint his place among writers, without regard to his rank or to his private history. That his poetry will undergo a severe sifting, that much of what has been ad- mired by his contemporaries will be rejected as worthless, we have little doubt. But we have as little doubt that, after the closest scrutiny, there will still remain much that can only perish with the English language. SAMUEL JOIIXSON. The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, by Jamks Boswell, Esq. A new Editleu, witli numerous Additions and Notes. By JoHi* Wii.soN Ckokbr, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 vols. 8vo. Loudon. 1831. This work has greatly disappointed us. Whatever faults we may have been prepared to find in it, we fully expected that it would be a valuable addition to English literature ; that it would contain many curious facts, and many judicious remarks ; that the style of the notes would be neat, clear, and pre- cise ; and that the tyijographical execution would be, as in new editions of classical works it ought to be, almost faultless. We are sorry to be obliged to say that the merits of Mr. Croker's perfonnance are on a par with those of a certain leg of mutton on which Dr. Johnson dined, while travelling from London to Oxford, and which he, with characteristic energy, pronounced to be "as bad as bad could be ; ill fed, ill killed, ill kept, and ill dressed." That part of the volumes before us for which the editor is responsible is ill com- piled, ill arrangt.-d, ill written, and ill printed. Noth ng ill tlie work has astonished us so much as the ignorance or care- lessness of Mr. Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many of his blunders are such as we should be surprised to hear any well educated gentleman com- mit, even in conversation. The notes absolutely swarm ^vith misstatements into which the editor never would have fallen if he had taken the slightest pains to investigate the truth of his assertions, or if he had even been well acquainted with the book on which he undertook to comment. We will give a few instances, Mr. Croker tel's us in a note that Derrick, who was tnastei* of the cere- KOSWELVS LIFE OF JOHNSON. 171 monies at Bath, died very poor in 1760.* We read on; and, a few pages later, we find Dr. Johnson and Boswell talking of the same Derrick as still living and reigning, — as having retrieved his character, — as possessing so much power over his subjects at Bath, that his opposition might be fatal to Sheridan's lectures on oratory. + And all tliis is m 1763. The fact is that Dennck died in 1769. In one note we read, that Sir Herbert Croft, the author of that pompous and foolish account of Young, which ajjpears among the Lives of the Poets, flied in 1805. J Another note in the same volume states that this same Sir Herbert Croft died at Paris, after residing abroad for fifteen years, on the 27th of April, i8i6.§ Mr. Crokcr informs us that Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, the author of the life of Beattie, died in 1816.II A Sir William Forbes undoubtedly died in that year, — but not the Sir William Forbes in question, whose death took place in 1S06. It is notorious, indeed, that the biographer of Beattie lived just long enough to complete the history of his friend. Eight or nine years before the date which Mr. Cruker has assigned for Sir William's death. Sir Walter Scott lamented that event in the introduction to the fourth canto of Marmion. Every school-girl knows the lines : " Scarce h.id lamented Forbes paid The tribute to his Minstrel's shade : The tale of friendship scarce was told. Ere the narrator's heart was cold : Far may we search before we find A heart so manly and so kind ! " In one place we are told, that Allan Ramsay, the painter, was bom in 1 709, and died in 1 784 ; IT in another, that he died in 1 784, in the seventy- first year of his age.** If the latter statement be correct, he must have been born in or about 17 13. In one Iplace ^ir. Croker says, that at the commencement of the intimacy between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady was twenty- live years old. ft In other places he says that Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided with Dr. Johnson's seventiclh.+i Johnsoi was born in 1709. If, tlierefore, Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year coincided \\ iih Johnson's seventieth, she could have been only twenty-one year's old in 1765. This is not all. Mr. Croker, in another place, assigns the year 1777 as the date of the com- plimentary lines which Johnson made on Mrs. Thrale's tliirty-fifth birthday. §§ If this date be correct, Mrs. Thrale must have been born in 1742, and could have been only twenty-three when her acquaintance with Johnson commenced. Two of Mr. Croker's three statements must be false. We will not decide between them ; we will only say, that the reasons which he gives for thinking that Mrs. Thrale was exactly thirty-five years old when Johnson was seventy, appear to us utterly frivolous. / gain, Mr. Croker informs his readers that " Lord Mansfield survived Johnson /«// ten years." II II Lord Mansfield survived Dr. Johnson just eight years and a quarter. Johnson found in the library of a French lady, whom he visited during his short visit to Paris, some works which he regarded with great disdain. " I looked," says he, "into the books in the lady's closet, and, in contempt, showed them to Mr. Thrale, Prince Titi, — Bibliotheque des Fees, — ami other books." UK " The History of Prince Titi," observes Mr. Croker, " wa» I. 394. t I. 404. % IV. 321. 5 IV. 428. II II. a6«. f IV. 105. ** V. 281. ft I. Sio. tt IV. 271, 322. 88 TIT. 463. III! II. 151. ft HI. 271, 173 CHOKER'S EDITION OF said to be the autobiography of Frederick Prince of Wales, but was probably written by Ralph his secretary." A more absurd note' never was penned. The history of Prince Titi, to wliich Mr. Croker refers, whether v/ri*^'«n by Princt Frederick or by Ralph, was certainly never published. If M.. Croker had taken the trouble to read with attention that very passage in Park's Royal and Noble Authors which he cites as his authority, he would have seen that the manuscript was, given up to the government. Even if this memoir had been printed, it is not very likely to find its way into a French 1? ly's bookcase. And would any man in his senses speak contemptuously of a French lady, for .having in her possession an English work, so curious and interesting as a Life of Prince Frederick, whether written by himself or by a confidential secretary, must have been ? The history at which Johnson laughed was a very proper companion to the Bibliotheque des Fees, — a fairy tale about goo I Prince Titi and naughty Prince Violent. Mr. Croker may find it in the Magasin dis Enfans, the first French book which the little girls of England read to their ^governesses. Mr. Croker states that Mr, Henry Bate, who afterwards assumed the name of Dudley, was proprietor of the Morning Herald, and fought a duel with George Robinson Stoney, in consequence of some attacks on Lady Strathmore which appeared in that paper.* Now, Mr. Bate was then connected, not with the Morning Herald, but vdth the Morning Post ; and the dispute took place before tht Morning Herald was in existence. The duel was fought in January, 1777. The Chronicle of the Annual Register for that year contains an account of the transaction, and distinctly states that Mr. Bate was editor of the Morning Post. The Morning Herald, as any person may see by looking at any number of it, was not established till some years after this affair. For this blunder there is, we must acknowledge, some excuse ; for it certainly seems almost incredible to a person living in our time that any human being should ever have stooped to fight with a writer in the Morning Post. "James de Duglas," says Mr. Croker, "was requested by King Robert Bruce, in his last hours, to repair with his heart to Jerusalem, and humbly to deposit it at the sepulchre of our Lord, which he did in 1329. "f Now, it is well known that he did no such thing, and for a very sufficient reason, — because he was killed by the way. Nor was it in 1329 that he set out. Robert Bruce died in 1329, and the expedition of Douglas took place in the following year, ^^ Quand le printems vint et la saison" says Froissart, — in June, 1330, says. Lord Hailes, whom Mr. Croker cites as the authority for his statement. Mr. Croker tells us that the great Marquis of Montrose was beheaded at Edinfnirgh in 1650. J There is not a forward boy at any school in England who does not know that the marquis was hanged. The account of the execu- tion is one of the finest passages in Lord Clarendon's History. We can scarcely suppose tliat Mr. Croker has never read that passage ; and yet we can scarcely suppose that any person who has ever perused so noble and pathetic a story can have utterly forgotten all its most striking circumstances. " Lord Townshend," says Mr. Croker, "was not secretary of state till 1720." § Can Mr. Croker possibly be ignorant that Lord Townshend was made secretary of state at the accession of George I. in 1714, — that he con- tinued to be secretary of state till he was displaced by the intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope at the close of 1716, — and that he returned to the office of secretary of slate, not in 1720, but in 1721 ? Mr. Croker, indeed, U • T. 196, t IV. »5- % It. 52« 5 HT. 58. SGSWELL 'S LIFE OF JOHNSOM. 173 generally iinfortnnafe in his statements respectins^ the Townshend family. He tells us that Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the excl>*iquer, was •' nephew of the prime minister, and son of a peer who was secretary of state, and leader of the House of Lords. " * Charles Townshend was not nephew, but grand-nephew of the Duke of Newcastle, — not son, but grandson, of the Lord Townshend who was secretary of state, and leader of the House o<' Lords. "General Burgoyne surrendered at Saratoga," says Mr. Croker, "in March, 1778." t General Burgoyne surrendered on the 17th of October, 1777. "Nothing," says Mr. Croker, "can be more unfounded than the assertion that Byng fell a martyr to political party. By a strange coincidence of circum- stances, it happened that there v.'as a total change of administration between his condemnation and his death : so that one party presided at his trial, and another at his execution : there can be no stronger proof th?t he was not a political martyr. "+ Now, what wall our readers think of this writer, when we assure them that this statement, so confidently made respecting events so notorious, is absolutely untrue ? One and the; same administration was in ottice when the court-martial on Byng commenced its sittings, through the whole trial, at the condemnation, and at the execution. In the month of November, 1756, the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke resigned ; the Duke of Devonshire became first lord of the treasury, and Mr. Pitt, secretary of state. This administration lasted till the month of April, 1757. Byng's court-martial began to sit on the 28th of December, 1756. He was shot on the 14th of March, 1757. There is something at once diverting and pro- voking in the cool and authoritative manner in which Mr. Croker makes these random assertions. We do not suspect him of intentionally falsifying history. But of this high literary misdemeanour we do without hesitation accuse him, — ■ that he has no adequate sense of the obligation which a writer, who professes to relate facts, owes to the public. We accuse him of a negligence and an ignorance analogous to that crassa negligentia and that crassa ignoraniia on which the law animadverts in magistrates and surgeons, even when malice and corruption are not imputed. We accuse him of having undertaken a work which, if not performed with strict accuracy, must be very much .worse than useless, and of having performed it as if the difference between an accu- rate and an inaccurate statement was not worth the trouble of looking into the most common book of reference. But we must proceed. These volumes contain mistakes more gross, if pos- sible, than any that we have yet mentioned. Boswell has recorded some observations made by Johnson on the changes which took place in Gibbon's religious opinions. That Gibbon when a lad at Oxford turned Catholic is well known. "It is said," cried the Doctor, laughing, "that he has been a Mahommedan." " This sarcasm," says the editor, "probably alludes to the tenderness with which Gibbon's malevolence to Christianity induced him to treat Mahommedanism in his history." Now the sarcasm was uttered in 1776, and that part of the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which relates to Mahommedanism was not published till 178S, twelve years after the date of this conversation, and near four years after the death of Johnson. " It was in the year 1761," says Mr. Croker, "that Goldsmith published his Vicar of Wakefield. This leads the editor to observe a more serious inac- curacy of Mrs. Piozzi than Mr. BosweU notices, when he says Johnson left her lable to go and sell the Vicar of Wakefield for Goldsmith. Now, Dr. Johnsou was not acquainted with the Thrales till 1 765, four years after tlie book had • IfT. ^68. * TV. 222. I I. 298. 174 CROKRR'S EDITION OF been published."* Mr. Croker, in reprehending the fancied inaccuracy of Mrs. I'hrale, has himself shown a degree of inaccuracy, or, to speak more properly, a degree of ignorance, hardly credible. The Traveller was not pub- lished till 1765 ; and it is a fact as notorious as any in literary history, that the Vicar of Wakefild, though written before the Traveller, was published after it. It is a fact which Mr. Croker may find in any common life of Goldsmitli, —in that written by Mr. Chalmers, for example. It is a fact which, aft Boswell tells us, was distinctly stated by Johnson in a conversation with Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is, therefore, quite possible and probable that the cele- brated scene of the landlady, the sheriffs officer, and the bottle of Madeira may have taken place in 1765. Now, Mrs. Thrale expressly says that it was near the beginning of her acquaintance with Johnson, in 1765, or, at all events, not later than 1766, that he left her table to succour his friend. Her accuracy is, therefore, completely vindicated. The very page which contains this monstrous blunder contains another blunder, if possible, more monstrous still. Sir Joseph Mawbey, a foolish member of Parliament, at whose speeches and whose pigstyes the wits of Brookes's were, fifty years ago, in the habit of laughing most unmercifully, stated, on the authority of Garrick, that Johnson, while sitting in a coffee- house at Oxford, about the time of his doctor's degree, used some contemp- tuous expressions respecting Home's play and Macpherson's Ossian. " Many men," he said, " many women, and many children, might have written Douglas." Mr. Croker conceives that he has detected an inaccuracy, and glories over poor Sir Joseph in a most characteristic manner. " I have quoted this anecdote solely with the view of showing to how little credit hearsay anec- dotes are in general entitled. Here is a story published by Sir Joseph Mawbey, a member of the House of Commons, and a person every way worthy of credit, v/ho says he had it from Garrick. Now mark : — Johnson's visit to Oxford, about the time of his doctor's degree, was in 1754, the first time he had been there since he left the university. But Douglas was not acted till 1756, and Ossian not published till 1760. All, therefore, that is new in Sir Joseph Mawbey's story is false, "f Assuredly, we need not go far to find ample proof that a member of the House of Commons may commit a very gross error. Now mark, say we, in the language of Mr, Croker. The fact is that Johnson took his Master's degree in 1754,+ and his Doctor's degree in 1775. § In the spring of 1776 || he paid a visit to Oxford, and at this visit a conversation re- specting the works of Home and Macpherson might have taken place, and, in ill probability, did take place. The only real objection to the story Mr. Croker has missed. Boswell states, apparently on the best authority, that as early, at least, as the year 1763, Johnson, in conversation with Blair, used the same expressions respecting Ossian which Sir Joseph represents him as having used respecting Douglas.^ Sir Joseph or Garrick confounded, we suspect, the two stories. But their error is venial compared with that of Mr. Croker. We will not multiply instances of this scandalous inaccuracy. It is clear that a writer who, even when warned by the text on which he is commentinji^ falls into such mistakes as these, is entitled to no confidence whatever. Mr. Croker has committed an error of four years with respect to the publication of Goldsmilli's novel, — an error of twelve years with respect to the publication of parl^ of Gibbon's History, — an error of twenty-one years with respect to one of the most remarkable events in Johnson's life. Two of Ihcse three errors he has committed while ostentatiously displaying his own accuracy and correcting what he represents as the loose assertions of others. How can hia • V. 40<>. t V. 409- I I- 262. 9 III. 90S. II III. 32CI. f I. '405. EOSWELrS LIFE OF JOHNSON. S75 readers take on trust his statements concerning the births, marriages, divorces, and deaths of a crowd of people whose names are scarcely known to this generation ? It is not likely that a person who is ignorant of what almost everybody knows can know that of which almost everybody is ignorant. We did not open this book with any wish to find blemishes in it. We have made no curious researches. The work itself, and a very common knowledge of literary and political history, have enabled us to detect the mistakes which we have pointed out, and many other mistakes of the same kind. We must say, and we say it with regret, that we do not consider the authority of Mr. Croker, unsupported by other evidence, as sufficient to justify any writer who may fol low him in relating a single anecdote or in assignmg a date to a single event. Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance and heedlessness in his criti- cisms as in his statements concerning facts. Dr. Johnson said, very reasonably, as it appears to us, tliat some of the satires of Juvenal are too gross for imita- tion. I\Ir. Croker, who, by the way, is angry with Johnson for defending Prior's tales against the charge of indecency, resents this aspersion on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that the doctor can have said anything so absurd. " He probably said — %ovi\Q passages oi them — for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which the same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that tt xs altogether ^0=,% ^Vi^i licentious."* Surely Mr. Croker can never have read the second and ninth satires of Juvenal. Indeed, the decisions of this editor on points of classical learning, though pronounced in a very authoritative tone, are generally such that, if a school- boy under our care were to utter them, our soul assuredly should not spare for his crying. It is no disgrace to a gentleman who has been engaged during near thirty years in political life that he has forgotten his Greek and Latin. But he becomes justly ridiculous if, when no longer able to construe a plain sentence, he affects to sit in judgment on the most delicate questions of style and metre. From one blunder, a blunder which no good scholar would have made, Mr. Croker was saved, as he informs us, by Sir Robert Peel, who quoted a passage exactly in point from Horace. We heartily wish that Sir Robert, whose classical attainments are well known, had been more fre- quently consulted. Unhappily he was not always at his friend's elbow ; and we have, therefore, a rich abundance of the strangest errors. Boswell has pre- served a poor epigram by Johnson, inscribed " Ad Lauram parituram." Mr Croker censures the poet for applying the word puella to a lady in Laura'i situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lucina. "Lucina," he says, "was never famed for her beauty."t If Sir Robert Peel had seen this note, he probably woidd have again refuted Mr. Croker's criticisms by an appeal to Horace. In the secular ode Lucina is used as one of the names of Diana, and the beauty of Diana is extolled by all the most orthodox doctors of the ancient mythology, from Homer in his Odyssey, to Claudian in his Rape of Proserpine, In another ode, Horace describes Diana as the goddess who assists the " laborantes utero puellas." But we are ashamed to detain our readers with this fourth-form learning. Boswell found, in his tour to the Hebrides, an inscription written by a Scotch minister. It runs thus : "Joannes Macleod, &c., gentis suae Phil- archus, &c.. Florae Macdonald matrimoniali vinculo conjugatus turrem hanc Beganodunensem proaivorum habitaculum longe vetustissimum, diu penitus labefactatam, amio serse vulgaris mdclxxxvi. instauravit." — "The minister, " says Mr. Croker, "seems to have been no contemptible Latinist. Is not Philarchus a very happy term to express the paternal and kindly authority oi • I. 167. t i. 13». t7<5 CHOKER* S EDITION OF t e J »ad of a clan ?"* The composition of this eminent Latinist, short as it Is, amtains several words that are just as much Coptic as Latin, to say nothing of the incorrect structure of the sentence. The word Philarchus, even if it were a happy term expressing a paternal and kindly authority, would prove nothing for the minister's Latin, whatever it might prove for his Greek. But it is clear that the word Philarchus means, not a man who rules by love, but a man wlio loves rule. The Attic writers of the best age use the A'ord cpiXapxos in the sense which we assign to it. Would Mr. Croker translate J" rSo " CHOKER'S EDITION OF the case is infinitely stronger. What man of taste and feeling can endur« harmonies, rifacimenfi, abridgments, expurgated editions ? Who evor reads a stage-copy of a play when he can procure the original ? Who ever cut open Mrs. Siddons's Milton ? Who ever got through ten pages of Mr. Gilpin's translation of John Banyan's Pilgrim into modern English ? Who would lose, in the confusion of a Diatessaron, the peculiar charm which be'jngs to the narrative of ihe disciple whom Jesus loved ? The feeling of a reader who has become intimate with any great original ork is that which Adam expressed towards his bride : " Should God creat aether Kve, and I Another rib affor . yet lo^s of thee Would never from my hf jrt." No substitute, however exquisitely formed, will fill the void left by the original. Tlie second beauty may be equal or superior to the first ; but still it is not she. The reasons which Mr. Croker has given for incorporating passages from Sir John Hawkins and Mrs. Thrale with the narrative of Boswcll would vindicate tiie adulteration of half the classical works in the language. If Pepys's Diary and Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs had been published a hundred years ago, no human i)cing can doubt that Mr. Hume would have made great use of those books in liis History of England. But would it, on that account, be judicious in a writer of our own times to publish an edition of Hume's History of England, in which large additions from Pepys and Mrs. Hutchinson should be incorporated with the original text? Surely not. Kume's history, be its faults what they may, is now one great entire work, the production of one vigorous mind, work- ing on such materials as were within its reach. Additions made by anothci hand may supply a particular deficiency, but would grievously injure the general effect. With Boswell's book the case is stronger. There is scarcely, in the whole compass of literature, a book which bears interpolation so ill. \Ve know no production of the human mind which has so much of what may be called the race, so much of the peculiar flavour of the soil from which it sprang. The work could never have been written if tlie writer had not been precisely what he was. His character is displayed in every paj,e, and this display of character gives a delightful interest to many passages which have no other interest. The Life of Johnson is assuredly a great — a very great work. Homer is not more decidedly the first of heroic poets, — Shakespeare is not more decidedly the first of dramatists, — Demosthenes is not more decidedly the first of orators, than Boswell is the first of biographers. He has no second. He has distanced all his competitors so decidedly that it is not worth while to place them. Eclipse is first, and the rest nowhere. We are not sure that there is in the whole history of the human intellect so strange a phenomenon as this book. Many of the greatest men tlial ever lived have written biography. Boswell was one of the smallest men that ever lived, and he has beaten them all. He was, if we are to give any credit to his own account or to the united testimony of all who knew him, a man of the meanest and feeblest intellect, Johnson described him as a fellow who had missed his o 'ly chance of immortality by not having been alive when the Dunciad was w.itten. Beauclerk used his name as a i^roverbial expression for a bore. He was the laughing-stock of the whole of that brilliant society which has owed to him the greater part of its fame. He was always laying himself at the feet of some eminent man, and begging to be spit upon and trampled upon. He was always earning some ridiculous nickname, and then "binding it as a crown unto him, — not merely in metaphor, but literally. He exhibited himself, at the Shakespeare Jubilee, »o all the crowd which filled Stratford-on-Avcn, witJi g BOS WELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSOI^. iSl placard round his hat bearing the inscription of Corsica Boi.-well. In his Touiv he proclaimed to all the world that at Edinburgh he was known by the appella- tion of Paoli Boswell, Servile and impertinent, — shallow and pedantic, — a bigot and a sot, — bloated with family pride, and eternally blustfcring about the dignity of a born gentleman, yet stooping to be a tale-bearer, an eaves-dropper, a common butt in the taverns of London, — so curious to know everybody who was talked about, that, Tory and high Churchman as he was, he manoeuvred, we have been told, for an introduction to Tom Paine, — so vain of the most childish distinctions, that when he had been to court, he drove to the ofifice where his book was printing, without changing his clothes, and summoned all the printer's devils to admire his new ruffles and sword ; — such was this man, — and such he was content and proud to be. Everything which another man would have hidden, — everything the publication of which would have made another man hang himself, was matter of gay and clamorous exultation to his w-eak and diseased mind. What silly things he said, — ^hat bitter retorts he provoked, — how at one place he was troubled with evil presentiments whicli came to nothing, — how at another place, on waking from a drunken doze, had in themselves, they are good dramatically, like the nonsense of Justice Shallow, the clipped English of Dr. Caius, or the mis- placed consonants of Fluellen. Of all confessors, Boswell is the most candid. Other men who have pretended to lay open their own hearts, — Rousseau, for example, and Lord Byron, — have evidently written with a constant view tc effect, and are to be then most distrusted when they seem to be most sincere. There is scarcely any man who would not rather accuse himself of great crimes and of dark and tempestuous passions than proclaim all his little vanities and wild fancies. It would be easier to find a person who would avow actions like those of Ctesar Borgia or Danton, than one who would ])ul)lish a day-dream like those of Alnaschar and Malvolio. Those weaknesses which most men keep covered up in the most secret places of the mind, not to be disclosed to the eye of friendship or of love, were precisely the weak- nesses which Boswell paraded before all the world. He was perfectly frank, because the weakness of his understanding and the tumult of his spirits pre- vented him from knowing when he made himself ridiculous. His book resembles nothing so much as the conversation of the inmates of the Palace of Truth. His fame is great ; and it will, we have no doubt, be lasting ; but it is fame of a peculiar kind, and indeed marvellously resembles infamy. We remember no other case in which the world has made so great a distinction between a book and its author. In general, the book and the author are considered as one. To admire the book is to admire the author. The case of Boswell is an exception, — we think the only exception, to this rule. His woik is universally allowed to be interesting, instructive, eminently original: yet it has brought him nothing but contempt. All the world reads it : all tlie wo'ld delights in it : yet we do not remember ever to have read or ever to have heard any expression of respect and admiration for the man to wl7om we owe so much instruction and amusement. While edition after edition of his book was coming forth, his son, as Mr. Croker tells us, was ashamed of it, and hated to hear it mentioned. This feeling was natural and reasonable. Sir Alexander saw thr.t, in proportion to the celebrity of the work, was the hOSWELVS LIFE OF JOHNSON. 183 degradation of the author. The very editors of this uiiforiuiiute goitlcnian's books have forgotten their allegiance, and, like those Puritan casuists who took arms by the authority of the king against his person, have attacked the •writer while doing homage to the writings. Mr. Croker, for example, has published two thousand five hundred notes on the life of Johnson, and yet scarcely ever mentions the biographer whose performance he has taken such pains to illustrate without some expression of contempt. An ill-natured man Boswell certainly was not. Yet the malignity of the most malignant satirist could scarcely cut deeper than his thoughtless loquacity. Having himself no sensibility to derision and contempt, he took it for granted that all others were equally callous. lie was not ash;*ncd to exhibit himself to the whole world as a common spy, a common tattler, a humble companion without the excuse of poverty, — and to tell a hundred stories of his own j^ertness and folly, and of the insults wliicli his pertncss and folly brought upon him. It was natural that he should show little dis- cretion in cases in which the feelings or the honour of others might be con- cerned. No man, surely, ever published such stories respecting persons whom he professed to love and revere. He would infallibly have made his hero as contemptible as he has made himself, had not his hero really pos- sessed some moral and intellectual qualities of a very high order. The best proof that Johnson was really an extraordinary man is that his character, instead of being degraded, has, on the whole, been decidedly raised by a work in which all his vices and weaknesses are exposed more unsparingly than they ever were exposed by Churchill or by Kenrick. Johnson grown old, Johnson in the fulness of his fame and in the enjoy- ment of a competent fortune, is better known to us than any other man in history. Everything about him, — his coat, his wig, his figure, his face, his scrofula, his St. Vitus's dance, his rolling walk, his blinking eye, the outward signs which too clearly marked his approbation of his dinner, his insatiable appetite for fish-sauce and veal-pie with plums, his inextinguishable thirst for tea, his trick of touching the posts as he walked, his mysterious practice of treasuring up scraps of orange-peel, his morning slumbers, his midnight disputations, his contortions, his mutterings, his gruntings, his puffings, his vigorous, acute, and ready elo(juence, his sarcastic wit, his vehemence, his insolence, his fits of tempestuous rage, his queer inmates, — old Mr. Levettand blind Mrs. Williams, the cat Hodge and the negro Frank, — all are as familiar to us as the objects by which we have been surrounded from childhood. I'.ut we have no minute information respecting those years of Johnson's life during which his character and his manners became immutably fixed. We know him, not as he was known to the men of his own generation, but as he was known to men whose father he might have been. That celebrated ckib of which he was the most distinguished member contained few persons wlio could remember a time when his fame was not fully established and his habits completely formed. He had made himself a name in literature while Reynolds and the Wartons were still boys. He was about twenty years older than Burke, Goldsmith, and Gerard Hamilton, about thirty years older than Gibbon, Beauclerk, and Langton, and about forty years older than Lord Stowell, Sir William Jones, and Windham. Boswell and Mrs. Thrale, the two writers from whom we derive most of our knowledge respecting him, never saw him till long after he was fifty years old, till most of his great works had become classical, and till the pension bestowed on him by the Crown had placed him above poverty. Of those eminent men who were his most inti- mate associates towards the close of his life, the only one, as far a^ we renif^m- b^r, who knew liim d^ulji^j; the first ten or twelve years of hw rc.~«idcn!.e in die t./ iSa croker's edition op capital, was David Garrick ; and it does not appear that during tho.e years David Garrick saw much of his fellow-townsman. Johnson came up to London precisely at the time when the condition cf a man of letters was most miserable and degraded. It was a dark night between tA'o sunny days. The age of the Maecenases had passed away. The age of general curiosity and intelligence had not arrived. The number of readers is at present so great that a popular author may sul^sist in comfort and opulence on the profits of his works. In the reigns of William III., of Anne, and of George I., even such men as Congreve and Addison would scarcely have been able to live like gentlemen by the mere sale of their writings. But the defi- ciency of the natural demand for literature was, at the close of the seventeenth and at the beginning of the eighteenth century, more than made up by artifi' cial encouragement, — by a vast system of bounties and premiums. There was, jjcrhaps, never a time at which the rewards of literary merit were so s|>lcnclid, — at which men who could write well found such easy admittance into the most distinguished society, and to the highest honours of the state. 'I'he chiefs of both the great parties into which the kingdom was divided patronised literature with emulous munificence. Congreve, when he had scarcely attained his majority, was rev.-arded for his first comedy with places which made him independent for life. Smiili, though his Ilippol^tus and I'haedra failed, woula have been consoled with tliree hundred a-year but for his own folly. Rowe was not only poet laureate, but also land-surveyor of the Customs in the port of London, clerk of the council to the Prince of Wales, and secretary of the Presentations to the Lord Chancellor. Hughes was secretary to the Commissions of the Peace. Ambrose Philips was judge of the Prerogative Court in Ireland. Locke was Commissioner of Appeals and of the Board of Trade. Newton was Master of the Mint. Stepney and Prior were employed in embassies of high dignity and importance. Gay, who commenced life as apprentice to a silk mercer, became a secretary of Lega- tion at five-and-twenty. It was to a poem on the Death of Charles II., and to the City and Country Mouse, that Montague owed his introduction into public life, his earldom, his garter, and his auditorship of the Exchequer. Swift, but for the unconquerable prejudice of the queen, would have been a bishop. Oxford, with his white staff in his hand, passed through the crowd of his suitors to welcome Parnell, when that ingenious writer deserted the Whigs. Steele was a commissioner of stamps and a member of Parliament. Aithur Mainwaring was a commissioner of the Customs and auditor of the imprest. Tickell was secretary to the Lords Justices of Ireland, Addison was secretary of state. This liberal patronage was brought into fashion, as it seems, by the mag- nificent Dorset, who alone of all the noble versifiers in the court of Charles II, possessed talents for composition which would have made him eminent with- out the aid of a coronet. Montague owed his elevation to the favour of Dorset, and imitated through the whole course of his life the liberality to which he was himself so greatly indebted. The Tory leaders, — Ilarley and Boling- l)ioke in particular, — vied with the chiefs of the Whig party in zeal for the encouragement of letters. But soon after the accession of the house of Hanover a change took place. The supreme power passed to a man who cared little for poetry or eloquence. The importance of the House of Com- mons was constantly on the increase. The government was under the necessity of bartering ff)r I'arliamentary i^upport much of that patronage which had beea em]il()yed in fostering literary merit ; and Walpole was by no means inclined to divert any part of the fund of corruption to purposes which he considered Its iiile. II'; h.^.il .v.iinc.nt talents for govrrnnn-nt and for debate. 2>at he had BOSWELL 'S LIFE OP JOHNSON. 185 paid little attention to bonks, and felt little respect for authors. One of .he coarse jokes of bis friend Sir Charles Ilanhiiry Williams was far more pleasing to him than Thomson's Seasons or Richardson's Pamela. He had observed that some of the distmguished writers whom the favour of Halifax had turned into statesmen had been mere encumbrances to their party, dawdlers in office and mutes in Parliament. During the whole course of his administration, there- fore, he scarcely befriended a single man of genius. The best writers of the age gave all 'heir support to the opposition, and contributed to excite that dis- content which, after plunging the nation into a foolish and unjust war, over- threw the minister to make room for men less able and equally unscrupulous. The opposition could reward its eulogists with little more than promises and caresses. St. James's would give nothing : — Leicester House had nothing to give. Thus, at the time when Johnson commenced his literary career, a writer had little to hope from the patronage of powerful individuals. The patronage of the public did not yet furnish the means of comfortable subsistence. The prices paid by booksellers to authors were so low that a man of considerable talents and unremitting industry could do little more than provide foi the day which wns passing over him. The lean kine had eaten up the fat kine. The thin ana withered ears had devoured the good ears. The season of rich harvests was over, and the f)eriod of famine had begun. All that is squalid aud miserable might now be summed up in the word — Poet. That word denoted a creature dressed like a scarecrow, familiar with compters and spong- ing-houses, and perfectly qualified to decide on the comparative merits of the Common Side in the King's Bench prison and of Mount Scoundrel in the Fleet Even the poorest pitied him ; and they well might pity him. For if their condition was equally abject, their aspirings were not equally high, nor their sense of insult equally acute. To lodge in a garret up four pair of stairs, to dine in a cellar among footmen out of place, — to translate ten hours a day for the wages of a ditcher, — to be hunted by bailiffs from one haunt of beggary and pestilence to another, from Grub Street to St. George's P'ields, and from St. George's Fields to the alleys behind St. Martin's Church, — to sleep on a bulk in June and amidst the ashes of a glass-house in December, — to die in a hospital, and to be buried in a parish vault, was the fate of more than vine writer who, if he had lived thirty years earlier, would have been admitted to the sittings of the Kitcat or the Scriblerus club, would have sat in Parliament, and would have been entrusted with embassies to the High Allies ; who, if he had lived in our time would have received from the booksellers several hundred pounds a year. As every climate has its peculiar diseases, so every walk of life has its pecu- liar temptations. The literary character, assuredly, has always had its share of faults, — vanity, jealousy, morbid sensibility. To these faults were now sup'.radded all the faults which are commonly found in men whose livelihood is precarious, and who^e principles are exposed to the trial [of severe distress. All the vices of the gambler and of the beggar were blended with those of the author. The prizes in the wretched lottery of book-malcing were scarcely less ruinous than the blanlcs. If good fortune came, it came in such a manner that it was almost certain to be abused. After months of starvation and despair, a full third night or a well-received dedication filled the pocket of the lean, ragged, unwashed poet with guineas. He hastened to enjoy those luxuiies with the images of which his mind had been haunted while he was sleeping amidst the cinders and eating potatoes at the Irish ordinary in Shoe Lane. A week of taverns soon qualified him for another year of night* oeliais. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a crowd of other*. f . '^ ... *^ i86 CROfCER'S EDITION OP Sometimes blnzing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats ; sometimes lyinj^ in bed because their coats "had gone to pieces, or wearing paper cravats because their linen was in pawn ; sometimes drinking champagne and tokay with Eetty Careless ; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in PoiTidge Island, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste ; tliey knew luxury ; — they knew beggary ; — but they never knew comfort. These men were irreclaimable. They looked on a regular and frugal life w.th the same aversion which an old gipsy or a Mohawk hunrer feels for a stationary abode, and for the restraint and securities of civilized communities. They were as untameable, as much wedded to their desolate freedom, as the wild ass. They could no more be broken in to the offices of social man than the unicorn could be trained to serve and abide by the crib. It was well if they did not, like beasts of a still fiercer race, tear the hands which ministered to their necessities. To assist them was impossible ; and the most benevolent of mankind at length became weary of giving relief which was dissipated with the wildest profusion as soon as it had been received. If a sum was bestowed on the wretched adventurer, such as, properly husbanded, might have sup- plied him for six months, it was instantly spent in strange freaks of sensuality, and before forty-eight hours had elapsed, the poet was again pestering all his acquaintance for twopence to get a plate of shin of beef at a subterraneous cookshop. If his friends gave him an asylum in their houses, those houses were forthwith turned into bagnios and tavem?. All order was destroyed ; all business was suspended. The most good-rXvtured host began to repent of his eagerness to serve a man of genius in distress when he heard his guest 1 oaring for fresh punch at five o'clock in the morning. A few eminent writers were more fortunate. Pope had been raised above poverty by the active patronage which, in his youth, both the great political parties had extended to his Homer. Young had received the only pension ever bestowed, to the best of our recollection, by Sir Robert Walpole, as the reward of mere literary merit. One or two of the many poets who attached themselves to the opposition, Thomson, in particular, and Mallet, obtained, after much severe suffering, the means of subsistence from their political friends. Richardson, like a man of sense, kept his shop ; and his shop kept him, which his novels, admirable as they are, would scarcely have done. But nothing could be more deplorable than the state even of the ablest men, who at that time depended for subsistence on their writings. Johnson, Collins, Fielding, and Thomson, were certainly four of the most distinguished persons that England produced during the eighteenth century. It is well known that they were all four arrested for debt. Into calamities and difficulties such as tb'*se Johnson plunged in his twenty-eigiith year. From that time till he was three or four and fifty, we have little information respecting him ; little, we mean, compared with the full and accurate information which we possess respecting his proceedings and habits towards the close of his life. He emerged at length from cock- lofts and sixpenny ordinaries into the society of the polished and the opulent. His fame was established. A pension sufficient for his wants had been con- ferred on him : and he came forth to astonish a generation with which he had almost as little in common as with Frenchmen or Spaniards. In his early years he had occasionally seen the great ; but he had seen them as a beggar.- He now came among them as a companion. The de- mand for amusement and instruction had, during the course of twenty years, been gradually increasing. The price of literary labour had risen ; and those rising men of letters with whom Johnson was henceforth to associate were, for the most part, persons widely different from those who had walked aboui SOSIVELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. iSj with him all night in the streets for want of a lodging. Burke, Robertson, the Wartons. Gray, Mason, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Beattie, Sir William Jones, Goldsmith, and Churchill were the most distinguished writers of what may be called the second generation of the Johnsonian age. Of these men ChurchilJ was the only (•'>ne in whom we can trace the stronger linea- Dients of that character vvliich, when Johnson first came up to London, was common among authors. Of the rest, scarcely any had felt the pressure of severe poverty. All had been early admitted into the most respectable society on an equal footing. They were men of quite a different species from the dependents of Curll and Osborne. Johnson came among them the solitary specimen of a past age, the last survivor of the genuine race of Grub Street hacks ; the last of that genera- tion of authors whose abject misery and whose dissolute manners had fur- nished inexhaustible matter to the satirical genius of Pope. From nature he had received an uncouth figure, a diseased constitution, and an irritable temper. The manner in which the earlier years of his manhood had been passed had given to his demeanour, and even to his moral character, some peculi;\rities appalling to the civilized beings who were the companions of his old age. The perverse irregularity of his hours, the slovenliness of his person, his fits of strenuous exertion, interrupted by long intervals of slug- gishness, his strange abstinence, and his equally strange voracity, his active benevolence, contrasted with the constant rudeness and the occasional fero- city of his manners in society, made him, in the opinion of those with whom he lived during the last twenty years of his life, a complete original. An original he was, undoubtedly, in some respects. But if we possessed full information concerning those who shared his early hardships, we should pro- bably find that what we call his singularities of manner were for the most part failings which he had in common with the class to which he belonged. lie ate at Streatham Park as he had been used to eat behind the screen at St. John's Gate, when he was ashamed to show his ragged clothes, lie ate as it was natural that a man should eat, who, during a great part of his life, had passed the morning in doubt whether he should have food for the after- noon. The habits of his early life had accustomed him to bear privation with fortitude, but not to taste pleasure with moderation. He could fast ; but when he did not fast, he tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling on his forehead, and the perspiration running down his cheeks. He scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it, he drank it greedily and in large tumblers. There were, in fact, mitigated symjJtoms of that same moral disease which raged with such deadly malignity in his friends Savage and Boyse. The roughness and violence which he showed in society were to be expected from a man whose temper, not naturally gentle, had, been long tried by the bitterest calamities — by the want of meat, of fire, and of clothes, by the importunity of creditors, by the insolence of booksellers, by the derision of fools, by the insincerity of patrons, by that bread which is the bitterest of all food, by those stairs which are the most toilsome of ail paths, by that deferred hope which makes the heart sick. Through all these things the ill-dressed, coarse, ungainly pedant had struggled manfully up to eminence and command. It was natural that, in the exercise of his power, he should be " eo immitior, qui toleraverat," that, though his heart was undoubtedly generous and humane, his demeanour in society should be harsh and despotic. For severe distress he bad sympathy, and not only sym- pathy, but munificent relief. But for the sufiermg which a harsh word in- flicts upon a delicate mind he had no pity ; for it was a kind of suflTering which he could scarcely conceive. He would carry home on his shouIder3 % tRS CRGJfCER'S EDITION OF siuk and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place rl rcfui^e for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum ; nor could all their peevishness and ingiatitude weary out his benevolence. But tlie pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous ; and he scarcely felt suflicient compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. He .aad seen and felt so much of sharp misery that he was not affected by paltry vexations ; and he seemed to think that everybody ought to be as much hardened to those vexations as himself. He was angry with Boswell for complaining of a head- ache, — with Mrs. Thrale for grumbling about the dust on the road, or the smell of the kitchen. These were, in his phrase, "foppish lamentations," which people ought to be ashamed to utter in a world so full of misery. Gold- smith crying because the Good-natured Man had failed inspired him with no pity. Though his own health was not good, he detested and despised valetu- dinarians. Even great pecujiiary losses, unless they reduced the loser absoi lately to beggary, moved him very little. People whose hearts liad been softened by prosperity might cry, he said, for such events ; but all that could be expected of a plain man was not to laugh. A person who troubled himself so little about small or sentimental grievances of human life was not likely to be very attentive to the feelings of others in the ordinary intercourse of society. He could not understand how a sarcasnj or a reprimand could make any man really unhappy, " My dear doctor," said he to Goldsmith, "what harm do^^s it do a man to call him Holofernes?" "Pooh, ma'am," he exclaimed to Mrs. Carter, " who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably?" Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in small things. Johnson was impolite, not because he wanted benevolence, but because small things appeared smaller to him than to people who had never known what it was to live for tourpence-halfi)euny a day. The characteristic peculiarity of his intellect was the union of great powers with low prejudices. If we judged of him by the best parts of his mind, we should ])!ace him almost as high as he was placed by the idolatry of Boswell ; — if by the worst parts of his mind, we should jilace him even below Boswell himself. Where he was not under the intiuence of some strange scruple, or some domineering passion, which prevented him from boldly and fairly investigating a subject, he was a wary and acute reasouer, a little too much inclined .to scepticism, and a little too fond of paradox. No man was less likely to be imposed upon by fallacies in argument or by exaggerated statements of fact. But if, while he was beating down sopliisms and ex[)osing false testimony, some childish prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well managed nursery, came across him, he was smitten as if by enchanlment. His mind dwin(llei 196 SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF nolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall, thin form of Langton, the courtly sneer of Beauclerk, and the beaming smile of Garrick, Gibbon tap. ping his snuff-box and Sir Joshua with his trumpet in his ear. In the fore- ground is that strange figure which is as familiar to us as the figures of those among whom we have been brought up, — the gigantic body, the huge, massy face, seamed with the scars of disease, the brown coat, the black worsted stockings, the grey wig with the scorched foretop, the lirty hands, the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mjmth moving with convulsive twitches ; we see the heavy form rolling ; we hear it puffing ; and then comes the " Why, sir !" and the " What then, sir ?" and the " No, Kir !" and the "You don't see your way through the question, sir !" What a singular destiny has been that of this remarkable man ! To be regarded in his own age as a classic, and in ours as a companion ! — To receive from his contemporaries that full homage which men of genius have in general received only from posterity ! — To be more intimately known to posterity than other men are known to their contemporaries ! That kind of fame which is coaunonly the most transient is, in his case, the most durable. The reputation oi those writings, which he probably expected to be immortal, is every day fading ; while those peculiarities of manner and that careless table- talk, the memory of which he probably thought would die with him, are likely to be remembered as long as the English language is spoken in any quarter of the globe. JOHN BUNYAN. The Pilgrim's Progress, with a Life of John Bunyan. By Robert Soothev, Esq., LL.D. Poet-Laureate. Illustrated with Engravings. 8vo. London. 1830. This is an eminently beautiful and splendid edition of a book which well deserves all that the printer and the engraver can do for it. The Life of Bunyan is, of course, not a performance which can add much to the literary reputation of such a writer as Mr. Southey. But it is written in excellent English, and, for the most part, in an excellent spirit. Mr. Southey pro- pounds, we need not say, many opinions from which we altogether dissent ; and his attempts to excuse the odious persecution to which Bunyan was subjected have sometimes moved our indignation. But we will avoid this topic. We are at present much more inclined to join in paying homage to the genius of a great man than to engage in a controversy concerning Church government and toleration. We must not pass without notice the engravings with which this volume is decorated. Some of Mr. Heath's woodcuts are admirably designed and executed. Mr. Martin's illustrations do not please us quite so well. His Valley of the Shadow of Death is not that Valley of the Shadow of Death which Bunyan imagined. At all events, it is not that dark and horrible glen which has from childhood been in our mind's eye. The valley is a cavern : the quagmire is a lake : the straight path runs zigzag : and Christian appears like a speck in the darkness of the immense vault. We miss, too, those hideous forms which make so striking a part of the description of Bunyan, and which Salvator Rosa would have loved to draw. It is with unfeigned diffidence that we pronounce judgment on any question relating to the art of painting. But it appears to us that Mr. Martin has not of late been fortunate in his choice of subjects. He should never have attempted to illustrate the Paradise Lost. There can be no two manners more directly 1HE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 197 opposed to each other than the manner of his painting and the manner of Milton's poetry. Those things which are mere accessaries in the descrip- tions become the principal objects in the pictures ; and those figures which are most prominent in the descriptions can be detected in the pictures only by a very close scrutiny. Mr. Martin has succeeded perfectly in representing the pillars and candelabras of Pandemonium. But he has forgotten that Milton's Pandemonium is merely the background to Satan. In the picture, the Archangel is scarcely visible amidst the endless colonnades of his inferna palace. Milton's Paradise, again, is merely the background to his Adam and Eve. But in Mr. Martin's picture the landscape is everything. Adam, Eve, and Raphael, attract much less notice than the lake and the mountains, the gigantic flowers, and the giraffes which feed upon them. We read that James II. sat to Verelst, the great flower-painter. When the perform- ance was finished, his majesty appeared in the midst of a bower of sun- flowers and tulips, which completely drew away all attention from the central figure. All who looked at the portrait took it for a flower-piece. Mr. Martin, we think, introduces his immeasurable spaces, his innumerable multitudes, his gorgeous prodigies of architecture and landscape, almost as unseasonably as Verelst introduced his flower-pots and nosegays. If Mr. Martin were to paint Lear in the storm, we suspect that the blazing sky, the sheets of rain, the swollen torrents, and the tossing forest would draw away all attention from the agonies of the insult'"d king and father. If he were to paint the death of Lear, the old man asking the by-standers to undo his button, would be thrown into the shade by a vast blaze of pavilions, standards, armour, and heralds' coats. Mr. Martin would illustrate the Orlando Furioso well, — the Orlando Innamorato still better, — the Arabian Nights best of all. Fairy palaces and gardens, porticos of agate, and groves flowering with emeralds and rubies, — inhabited by people for whom nobody cares, — these are his proper domain. He would succeed admirably in the enchanted ground of Alcina, or the mansion of Aladdin. But he should avoid Milton and Bunyan. The characteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Progress is that it is the only work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many thousands with tears. There are some good allegories in Johnson's works, and some of still higher merit by Addison. In these performances there is, perhaps, as much wit and ingenuity as in the Pilgrim's Progress. But the pleasure which is produced by the Vision of Mirza, the Vision of Theodore, the genealogy of Wit, or the contest between Rest and Labour, is exactly similar to the pleasure which we derive from one of Cowley's odes or from a canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure which belongs wliolly to the under- standing, and in which the feelings have no part whatever. Nay, even Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting. It was in yain that he lavished the riches of his mind on the House of Pride and the House of Temperance. One unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, pervades the whole of the Fairy Queen. We become sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly Sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the persons who reau the first canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first book, aiid not one in a hundred perseveres to the end of the poem. Very few and very weary are those who are in at the death of the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, which are said to have been destroyed in Ireland, had been preserved, we doubt whether any hf>art less stout than that of a com* mentatrr would have held out to the end. foS sOUTHEY*S EDITION OF It is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. That wonclerful book, while it obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who arc too simple to admire it. Dr. Johnson, all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books through, made an exception in favour of the Pilgrim's Progress. That work, he said, was one of the two or three works which he wished longer. It was by no common merit that the illiterata sectary extracted praise like this from the most pedantic of critics and the most bigoted of Tories. In the wildest parts of Scotland the Pilgrim's Progress is the delight of the peasantry. In every nursery the Pilgrim's Progress is a greater favourite than Jack the Giant-killer. Every reader knows the straight, and narrow path as well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward! and forward a hundred times. This is the highest miracle of genius, — that things which are not should be as though they were, — that the imagination! of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. And thi. miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting- place, no turn-stile, with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicket gate, and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction, — the long line of road, as straight as a rule can make it, — the Interpreter's house, and all its fair shows, — the prisoner in the iron cage, — the palace, at the doors of which armed men kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked persons clothed all in gold, — the cross and the sepulchre, — the steep hill and the pleasant arbour, — the stately front of the House Beautiful by the wayside, — the low, green valley of Humiliation, rich with grass and covered with flocks, — all are as well known to us as the sights of our own street. Then we come to the narrow place where Apollyon strode right across the whole breadth of the way, to stop the journey of Christian, and where after- wards the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the precipices on both sides falls blacker and blacker. The clouds gather overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly dis- cernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long, dark valley he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones of those whom they had slain. Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till at length the towers of a distant city appear before the traveller ; and soon he is in the midst of the innumerable multitudes of Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. There are Italian Row, and French Row, and Spanish Row, and British Row, with their crowds of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the earth. Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and through the meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river which is bordered oiV both sides by fruit-trees. On the left side branches off the path leading to the Horrible Castle, the court-yard of which is paved with the skulls of pilgn .ns ; and right onward are the sheepfolds and orchards of the Delectable Mountains. From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies through the togs and briers of the Enchanted Ground, with here and there a bed of soft cushions spread under a green arbour. And beyond is the land of Beulah, where the flowers, the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, and where the sun shines nijiht and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements and streets THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. i^ of pearl, on the other side of that black and cold river lied to other modem writers, have a perfect propriety when applied to him. Jle was not an author, but a bard. His poetry seems not to have been an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the full age of man, he might not improbably have given to the world some great work of the very highest rank in design and execution. But, alas 1 6 i^c'itpvit 9lia f'lnov' ?K\vess for weak, timid, and harassed minds. The character of Mr. Fearing, of Mr. Feeblemind, of Mr. Despondency and his daughter Miss Muchafraid, the account of poor Littlefaith who was robbed by the three thieves of his spending money, the description of Christian's terror in the dungeons of Giant Despair and in his passage through the river, all clearly show how strong a sympathy Bunyan felt, after his own mind had become clear and cheerful, for persons afllicled with religious melancholy. Mr. Southey, who has no love for the Calvinists, admits that, if Calvinism had never worn a blacker appearance than in Bunyan's works, it would never have become a term of reproach. In fact, those works of Bunyan with which we are acquainted are by no means more Calvinistic than the articles and homilies of the Church of England. The moderation of his opinions on the subject of predestination gave offence to some zealous persons. We have seen an absurd allegory, the heroine of which is named Hephzibah, written by some raving supralapsarian preacher who was dissatisfied with the mild theology of the Pilgrim's Progress. In this foolish book, if we recollect rightly, the Interpreter is called the Enlightener, and the House Beautiful is Castle Strength, Mr. Southey tells us that the Catholics had also their Pilgrim's Progress, without a Giant Pope, in which the Interpreter is the Director, and the House Beautiful, Grace's Hall. It is surely a remarkable proof of the j)ower of Bunyan's genius, that two religious parties, both of which regarded his opinions as heterodox, should have had recourse to him for assistance. There are, we think, some characters and scenes in the Pilgrim's Progress which can be fully comprehended and enjoyed only by persons familiar with the history of the times through which Bunyan lived. The character of Mr. Greatheart, the guide, is an example. His fighting is, of course, allegorical ; but thr allcgoi-y is not strictly preserved. He delivers a sermon on imputed righteousness to hia companions ; and, soon after, he gives battle to Giant Grim, who had taken upon him to back the lions. He expounds the fifty- third chapter of Isaiah to the household and guests of Gains ; and then he •allies out to attack Slaygood, who was of the nature of flesh-eaters, in hi» THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 258 den. These are inconsistencies ; but they are inconsistencies which add, we think, to the interest of the narrative. We have not the least doubt that Bunyan had in view some stout old Greatheart of Naseby and Worcester, who prayed with his men before he drilled them, who knew the spiritual state of every dragoon in his troop, and who, with the praises of God in his mouth, and a two-edged sword in his hand, had turned to flight, on ma^y fields of battle, the swearing, drunken bravoes of Rupert and Lunsford. Every age produces such men as By-ends. But the middle of the seven- teenth century was eminently prolific of such men. Mr. Southey thinks that the satire was aimed at some particular individual ; and this seems by no means improbable. At all events, Bunyan must have known many of those hypocrites who followed religion only when religion walked in silver slippers, when the sun shone, and when the people applauded. Indeed, he might have easily found all the kindred of By-ends among the public men of his time. He might have found among the peers my Lord Turn-about, my Lord Time- server, and my Lord Fair-speech ; in the House of Commons, Mr. Smooth- man, Mr. Anything, and Mr. Facing-both-ways ; nor would "the parson of the parish, Mr. Two-tongues," have been wanting. The town of Bedford probably contained more than one politician who, after contriving to raise an estate by seeking the Lord during the reign of the saints, contrived to keep what he had got by persecuting the saints during the reign of the stnimpets — and more than one priest who, during repeated changes in the discipline and doctrines of the Church, had remained constant to nothing but his benefice. One of the most remarkable passages in the Pilgrim's Progress is that in which the proceedings against Faithful are described. It is impossible to doubt that Bunyan intended to satirise the mode in which state trials were conducted under Charles II. The licence given to the witnesses for the prose- cution, the shameless partiality and ferocious insolence of the judge, the pre- cipitancy and the blind rancour of the jury, remind us of those odious mum- meries which, from the Restoration to the Revolution, were merely forms preliminary to hanging, drawing, and quartering. Lord Hategood performs the office of counsel for the prisoners as well as Scroggs himself could have performed it. "Judge. Thou ninagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these honest gentl&^ men have witnessed against thee ? " Faithful. May 1 speak a few words in my own defence? " Judge. Sirrah, sirrah I thou deservest to live no longer, but to be slain immediately upon the place ; yet, that all men may see our gentleness to thee, let us hear what thou, vile runa- gate, hast to say." No person who knows the state trials can be at a loss for parallel cases. Indeed, write what Bunyan would, the baseness and cruelty of the lawyers of those times "sinned up to it stUl," and even went beyond it. The imaginary trial of Faithful, before a jury composed of personified vices, was just and merciful, when compared with the real trial of Lady Alice Lisle before that tribunal w? ere all the vices sat in the person of Jefferies, The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English lan- guage. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a smgle word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly w4iat he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehe- ment exliortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, — the dialect of plain working mea| '^v.:} LORD NUGENT S MEMORIALS OP HAMPDEN. —was perfectly sufficient There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language, — no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed. Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. To our refined forefathers, we sup- pose. Lord Roscommon's Essay on Translated Verse, and the Duke of Buck- inghamshire's Essay on Poetry, appeared to be compositions infinitely superioi to the allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times ; and we are not afraid to say that, though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth centurj', there were only two great creative minds. One of ihose minds produced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pil- grim's Progress, JOHN HAMPDEN. Some Memorials of John Hampden, his Party, and his Times. By Lord Nugbmt. 2 vols, 8vo. London. 1831 We have read this book vnth great pleasure, though not exactly with tha kind of pleasure which we had expected. We had hoped that Lord Nugent would have tieen able to collect, from family papers and local traditions, much new and interesting information respecting the life and character ol the renowned leader of the Long Parliament, — the first of those great English commoners whose plain addition of Mister has, to our ears, a more majestic sound than the proudest of the feudal titles. In this hope we have been disappointed ; but assuredly not from any want of zeal or diligence on the part pf the noble biographer. Even at Hampden, there are, it seems, no important papers relating to the most illustrious proprietor ot that ancient domain. The most valuable niemorials of him which still exist, belong to the family of his friend. Sir John ElioL Lord Eliot has furnished the portrait which is engraved for this work, together with some very interesting letters. The portrait is un- doubtedly an original, and probably the only original now in existence. The intellectual forehead, the mild penetration of the eye, and the inflexible resolu- tion expressed by the lines of the mouth, sufficiently guarantee the likeness. We shall probably make some extracts from the letters. They contain almost nil the new infoniiation that Lord Nugent has been able to procure respecting the private pursuits of the great man whose memory he worships with an enthusiastic, bat not extravagant, veneration. The public life of Hampden is surrounded by no obscurity. His history, more particulary from the year 1640 to his death, is the history of England. These memoirs must be considered as memoirs of the history of England ; and, as such, they well deserve to be attentively perused. They contain some curious facts which, to us at least, are new, — much spirited narrative, many judicious remarks, and much eloquent declamation. We are not sure that even the want of information respecting the private character of Hampden is not in itself a circumstance as strikingly characteristic as any which the most minute chronicler, — O'Meara, Mrs. Thrale, or Boswell himself, — ever recorded concerning their heroes. The celebrated Puritan leader is an almost solitary instance of a great man who neither sought nor shunned greatness,- — who found glory only because glory lay in the plain path of duty. During more than forty years he was known to liis country neigh- bours as a gentleman of cultivated mind, of high principles, of polished address, happy in his family, and active in the discharge of local duties ;■— and to political men, as an honest, industrious, and sensible member of Parliamanti LORD NUGENT* S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 205 not eager to display his talents, stanch to his party, and attentive to the interests of his constituents. A great and terrible crisis came. A direct attack was made by an arbitrary government on a sacred right of Englishmen, — on a right which was the chief security for all their other rights. The nation looked round for a defender. Calmly and unostentatiously the plain Bucking- hamshire esquire placed himself at the head of his countrymen, and right before the face and across the path of tyranny. The times grew darker and more troubled. Public service, perilous, arduous, delicate, was required ; and to every service the intellect and the courage of this wonderful man were found fully equal. He became a debater of the first order, a most dexterous manager of the House of Commons, a negotiator, a soldier. He governed a fierce and turbulent assembly, abounding in able men, as easily as he had governed his family. He showed himself as competent to direct a campaign as to conduct the business of the petty sessions. We can scarcely express the admiration which we feel for a mind so great, and, at the same time, so healthful and so well proportioned, — so willingly contracting itself to the humblest duties, — so easily expanding itself to the highest, — so contented in repose, — so powerful in action. Almost every part of this virtuous and blame- less life which is not hidden from us in modest privacy is a precious and splendid portion of our national history. Had the private conduct of Hampden afforded the slightest pretence for censure, he would have been assailed by the same blind malevolence which, in defiance of the clearest proofs, still continues to call Sir John Eliot an assassin. Had there been even any weak part in the character of Hampden, had his manners been in any respect open to ridicule, we may be sure that no mercy would have been shown to him by the writers of Charles's faction. Those writers have carefully pre- served every little circumstance which could tend to make their opponents odious or contemptible. They have told us that Pym broke down in a speech, that Ireton had his nose pulled by HoUis, tliat the Earl of Northumberland cudgeled Henry Marten, that St. John's manners were sullen, that Vane had an ugly face, that Cromwell had a red nose. They have made themselves merry with the cant of injudicious zealots. But neither the artful Clarendon nor the scurrilous Denham could venture to throw the slightest imputation on the morals or the manners of Hampden. What was the opinion entertained respecting him by the best men of his time, we learn from Baxter. That eminent person, — eminent not only for his piety and his fervid devotional eloquence, but for his moderation, his knowledge of political affairs, and his skill in judging of characters, — declared in the Saint's Rest that one of the pleasures which he hoped to enjoy in heaven was the society of Hampden. In the editions printed after the Restoration, the name of Hampden was omitted. " But I must tell the reader," says Baxter, "that I did blot it out, not as changing my opinion of the person. . . . Mr. John Hampden was one that friends and enemies acknowledged to be most eminent for prudence, piety, and peaceable counsels, having the most universal praise of any gentle- man that I remember of that age. I remember a modciate, prudent, aged gentleman, far from him, but acquainted with him, whom I have heard saying, that if he might choose what person he would be then in the world, he would be John Hampden. " We cannot but regret that we have not fuller memorials of a man who, after passing through the most severe temptations by which human virtue can be tried, — after acting a most conspicuous part in a revolu- tion and a civil war, could yet deserve such praise as this from such authority. Yet the want of memorials is surely the best proof that hatred itself could find no blemish on his memory. The story of his earlj life is soon told. He was the head of a family which 2o6 LORD NUCENVS MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEl^. had been settled in Buckinghamshire before the Conquest. Part of the estate which he inherited had been bestowed by Edward the Confessor on Baldwyr de Hampden, whose name seems to indicate that he was one of 'he Norman favourites of the last Saxon king. During the contest between ihe houses of Vork and Lancaster, the Hampdens adhered to the party of the Red Rose, and were, consequently, persecuted by Edward IV., and favoured bv Henry VII. Under the Tudors, the family was great and flourishing. Griffith Hampden, high sheriff of Buckinghamshire, entertained Elizabeth with great magnificence at his seat. His son, William Hampden, sate in the Parliament which that queen summoned in the year 1593. William married Elizabeth Cromwell, aunt of the celebrated man who afterwards governed the British islands with more than regal power ; and from this marriage sprang ' John Hampden. He was born in 1594. In 1597 his father died, and left h^m heir to a very large estate. After passing some years at the grammar-school of Thame, young Hampden was sent, at fifteen, to Magdalene College, in the Univer- sity of Oxford. At nineteen, he was admitted a student of the Inner Temple, where he made himself master of the principles of the English law. In 1619 he married Elizabeth Symeon, a lady to whom he appears to have been fondly attached. In the following year he was returned to Parliament by a borough which has in our time obtained a miserable celebrity, the borough of Grampound. Of his private life during his early years little is known beyond what Clarendon has told us. "In his entrance into the world," says that great historian, *' he indulged himself in all the licence in sports, and exercises, and company, which were used by men of the most jolly conversation." A remarkable change, however, passed on his character. " On a sudden," says Clarendon, "from a life of great pleasure and licence, he retired to extra- ordinary sobriety and strictness, — to a more reserved and melancholy society." It is probable that this change took place when Hampden was about twenty- five years old. At that age he was united to a woman whom he loved and esteemed. At that age he entered into political life. A mind so happily constituted as his would naturally, under such circumstances, relinquish the pleasures of dissipation for domestic enjojnments and public duties. His enemies have allowed that he was a man in whom virtue showed itself in its mildest and least austere form. With the morals of a Puritan, he had the manners of an accomplished courtier. Even after the change in his habits, "he preserved," says Clarendon, "his own natural cheerfulness and vivacity, and, above all, a flowing courtesy to all men." These qualities distinguished nim from most of the members of his sect and his party, and, in the great ! crisis in which he afterwards took a principal part, were of scarcely less service to the country than his keen sagacity and his dauntless courage. In January, 162 1, Hampden took his seat in the House of Commons. His mother was exceedingly desirous that her son should obtain a peerage. His family, his possessions, and his personal accomplishments were such as would, in any age, have justified him in pretending to that honour. But in the reign of James I. there was one short cut to the House of Lords. It was but to ask, to pay, and to have. The sale of titles was carried on as openly as the sale of boroughs in our times. Hampden turned away with contempt from the de- grading honours with which his family desired to see him invested, and attached himself to the party which was in opposition to the court It was about this time, as Lord Nugent has justly remarked, that parlia» mentary opposition began to take a regular form. From a very early age, Uie English had enjoyed a far larger share of liberty than had fallen to the Tot LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPLEN. 207 of any neighbouring people. How it chanced that a country conquered and enslared by invaders — a country of which the soil had been portioned out among foreign adventurers, and of which the laws were written in a foreign tongue — a country given over to that worst tyranny, the tyranny of caste over caste, — should have become the seat of civil liberty, the object of the admira- tion and envy of surrounding states, is one of the most obscure problems in the philosopliy of history. But the fact is certain. Within a century and 3 half after the Norman conquest, the Great Charter was conceded. Within two centuries after the Conquest, the first House of Commons met. Froissart tells us, what, indeed, his whole narrative sufficiently proves, that, of all the nations of the fourteenth century, the English were the least disposed to endure oppression. "C'est le plus perilleux peuple <\\\\ soit au monde, et plus outrageux et orgueilleux." The good canon probal)ly did not perceive that all the prosperity and internal peace which this dangerous people enjoyed were the fraits of the spirit which he designates as proud and outrageous. He has, however, borne ample testimony to the effect, though he was not sagacious enough to trace it to its cause. "En le royaume d'Angleterre," says he, " toutes gens, laboureurs et marchands, ont appris de vivre en paix, et a mener leurs marchandiscs paisiblement, et les laboureurs labourer." In the fifteenth century, though England was convulsed by the struggle between the two branches of the royal family, the physical and moral condition of the people continued to improve. Villenage almost wholly disappeared. The calamities of war were little felt, except by those who bore arms. The oppressions of the government were little felt, except by the aristocracy. The institutions of the country, when compared with the institutions of the neighbouring kingdoms, feem to have been not undeserving of the praises of Fortescue. The govern- ment of Edward IV., though we call it cruel and arbitrary, was humane an4 liberal when compared with that of Louis XL, or that of Charles the Bold, Comines, who had lived amidst the wealthy cities of Flanders, and who had visited Florence and Venice, had never seen a people so well governed as the English. " Or selon mon advis," says he, "entre toutes les seigneuries du monde, dont j'ay connoissance, ou la chose publique est mieulx traitee, et ou regne moins de violence sur le peuple, et ou il n'y a nuls edifices abbatus ny demolis pour guen:e, c'est Anglclerre ; et tombe le sort et le malheur sur ceuli qui font la gueiie. About the close of the fifteenth and the commencement of the sixteenth century, a great portion of the influence which the aristocracy had possessed passed to the Crown. No English king has ever enjoyed such absolute power as Henry VIII. But while the royal prerogatives were acquiring strength at the expense of the nobility, two great revolutions took place, destined to be the parents of many revolutions, the invention of printing and the reformation of the Church. The immediate eflTect 01 the Reformation in England was by no means favourable to political liberty. The authority which had been exercised by the popes was transferred almost entire to the king. Two formidable powers which had often served to check each other were united in a single despot. If the system on which the founders of the Church of England acted could have been permanent, the Reformation would have been, in a political sense, the greatest curse that ever fell on our country. But that system carried within it the seeds of its own death. It was possible to transfer the name of Head of the Church from Clement to Henry ; but it was impossible to transfer to the new establishment the veneration which the old establishment had inspired. Mankind had not broken one yoke in pieces only in order to put on another. The supremacy of the Bishop of Rome had been for ages considered as a fun- 208 LORD NUGENT' S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. damental principle of Christianity. It had for it everything that cou.d make a prejudice deep and strong, — venerable antiquity, high authority, general consent. It had been taught in the first lessons of the nurse. It was taktn for granted in all the exhortations of the priest. To remove it was to break innumerable associations, and to give a great and perilous shock to the principles. Yet this prejudice, strong as it was, could not stand in the great ilay of the deliverance of the human reason. And it was not to be expected that the public mind, just after freeing itself by an unexampled effort, from a bondage which it had endured for ages, would patiently submit to a tyranny which could plead no ancient title. Rome had at least prescription on its side. Liut Protestant intolerance, — despotism in an upstart sect, — infallibility claimed by guides who acknowledged tliat ihey had passed the greater part of their lives in error, — restraints imposed on the liberty of private judgment, at the pleasure of rulers who could vindicate their own proceedings only by asserting the liberty of private judgment, — these things could not long be borne. Those who had pulled down the crucifix could not long continue to persecute for the surplice. It required no great sagacity to perceive the inconsistency and dishonesty of men who, dissenting from almost all Christendom, would suffer none to dissent from themselves, who demanded freedom of conscience, yet refused to grant it, — who execrated per- secution, yet persecuted, — who urged reason against the authority of one oppo- nent, and authority against the reasons of another. Bonner acted at least in ac- cordance with his own principles. Cranmer could vindicate himself from the charge of being a heretic only by arguments which made him out to be a murderer. Thus the system on which the English princes acted with respect to ecclesi- astical affairs for some time after the Reformation was a system too obviously unreasonable to be lasting. The public mind moved while the government moved, but would not stop where the government stopped. The same impulse which had carried millions away from the Church of Rome continued to carry them forward in the same direction. As Catholics had become Protestants, Protestants became Puritans ; and the Tudors and Stuarts were as unable to avert the latter change as the popes had been to avert the former. The dis- senting party increased and became strong under every kind of discouragement and oppresssion. They were a sect. The government persecuted them, and they became an opposition. The old constitution of England furnished to them the means of resisting the sovereign without breaking the law. They were the majority of the House of Commons. They had the power of giving or withholding supplies ; and, by a judicious exercise of this power, they might hope to take from the Church its usurped authority over the consciences of men, and from the Crown some part of the vast prerogative which it had recently acquired at the expense of the nobles and of the pope. The faint beginnings of this memorable contest may be discerned early in the reign of Elizabeth. The conduct of her last Parliament made it clear that one of those great revolutions which policy may guide but cannot stop was in progress. It was on the question of monopolies that the House of Commons gained its first great victory over the throne. The conduct of the extraordinary woman who then governed England is an admirable study for politicians whd live in unquiet times. It shows how thoroughly she understood the people whom she ruled, and the crisis in which she was called to act. What she held she held firmly. What she gave she gave graciously. She saw that it was necessary to make a concession to the nation ; and she made it, not grudgingly, not tardily, not as a matter of bargain and sale, not, in a word, as Charles I. would have made it, but prom|)tly and cordially. Before a bill tculd be framed or an address presented, she applied a remedy to the evil ol LORD NUGENT' 5 MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 209 which the nation complained. She expressed in the wannest terms her grati» tude to her faithful Commons for detecting abuses which interested persons had concealed from her. If her successors had inherited her wisdom with her crown, Charles I. might have died of old age, and James H. would never have seen St. Germain's. She died ; and the kingdom passed to one who was, in his own opinion, the greatest master of kingcraft that ever lived, — but who was, in truth, one of those kings whom God seems to send for the expreis purpose of hastening revolutions. Of all the enemies of liberty whom Britain has i>roduced, he was at once the most harmless and the most provo'^ing. His office resembled that of the man who, in a Spanish bull-fight, goaus the torpid savage to fuiy, by shaking a red rag in the air, and by now and then throwing a dart, sharp enough to sting, but too small to injure. The policy of wise tyrants has always been to cover their violent acts with popular forms. James was always ob truding his despotic theories on his subjects without the slightest necessity. His foolish talk exasperated them infinitely more than forced loans or benevo- lences would have done. Yet, in practice, no king ever held his prerogatives less tenaciously. He neither gave way gracefully to the advancing spirit of liberty nor took vigorous measures to stop it, but retreated before it with ludicrous haste, blustering and insulting as he retreated. The English people had been governed during nearly a hundred and fifty years by princes who, whatever might be their frailties or their vices, had all possessed great force ot character, and who, whether beloved or hated, had always been feared. Now, at length, for the first time since the day when the sceptre of Henry IV. dropped from the hand of his lethargic grandson, England had a king whom she despised. The follies and vices of the man increased the contempt which was produced by the feeble policy of the sovereign. The indecorous gallantries of the court, — the habits of gross intoxication in which even the ladies indulged, — were alone sufficient to disgust a people whose manners were beginning to be strongly tinctured with austerity. But these were trifles. Crimes of the most frightful kind had been discovered ; others were suspected. The strange story of the Gowries was not forgotten. The ignominious fondness of the king for his minions, — the perjuries, the sorceries, the poisonings, which his chief favourites had planned within the walls of his palace, — the pardon which, in direct violation of his duty and of his word, he had granted to the mysterious threats of a murderer, made him an object of loathing to many of his subjects. What opinion grave and moral persons residing at a distance from the court enter tained respecting him we learn from Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs. England was no place, — the seventeenth century no time, — for Spoinis and Locusta. This was not all. The most ridiculous weaknesses seemed to meet in the wretched Solomon of Whitehall, — pedantry, buffoonery, garrulity, lowcuriosity, the most contemptible personal cowardice. Nature and education had done their best to produce a finished specimen of all that a king ought not to be. His awkward figure, his rolling eye, his rickety walk, his nervous tremblings, bis slobbering mouth, his broad Scotch accent, were imperfections which might have been found in the best and greatest man. Their effect, however, '^as to make James and his office objects of contempt, and to dissolve those associations whic''. had been created by the noble bearing of preceding aion« archs, aild whi.-*i were ri themselves no inconsiderable tence to royalty. The sovereign whow janies most resembled was, we think, Claudius Cassar. Both had the same feeble and vacillating temper, the same childishness,, the same coarseness, the same poltroonery. Both were men of learning; both wrote and spoke,- -not indeed well, — but still in a manner in which it seems ^■Jeiost incredible that men so foolish sbould have writter or spoken. The i 110 LOXD mJGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEM. follies and inrkcencies of James are well described in the words which Sieto- nius uses respecting Claudius : " Multa talia, etiam privalis deformia, nccduni principi, ncque infacundo, neque indocto, immo etiam, [-crtinaciter liberalibus studiis dedito." The description given by Suetonius of the manner in which tht Roman prince transacted business exactly suits the IJriton. " In cogno- scendo ac decemendo mira varietate animi fuit, modo circumspectus et sagax, modo inconsultus ac pra-ceps, nonnumijuam frivolus amentique similij." Claudius was ruled successively by two bad women : James succcsiively by two bad men. Even the description of the person of Claudius, which we find in the ancient memoirs, mit^ht, in many points, serve for that of James. "Cetcrum et ingredicntem destilucbant poplites minus firmi, et rcmisse quid vel scrio agcntem multa dehonestabant, risus indecens, ira turpior, spumante rictu, — pneterea linguie titubantia." The Parliament which James had called soon after his accession had been refractory. His second Parliament, called in the spring of 1614, had bcco more refractory still. It had been dissolved after a session of two months ; and during six years the king had governed without having recourse to the legislature. Daring those six years, melancholy and disgraceful events, at home and abroad, had followed one another in rapid succession ; — the divorce of l.ndy Essex, the murder of Overbury, the elevation of Villiers, the pardon of Somerset, the disgrace of Coke, the execution of Raleigh, the battle of Prague, the invasion of the Palatinate by Spinola, the ignominious flight of the son-in law of the English king, the depression of the Protestant interest all over the Continent. All the extraordinary modes by which James could venture to raise money had been tried. His necessities were greater than ever ; and he was compelled to summon the Parliament in which Hampden made his first appearance as a public man. This Parliament lasted about twelve months. During that time it visited with deserved punishment several of those who during the preceding six years had enriched themselves by peculation and monopoly. Michell, one of the grasping patentees who had purchased of the favourite the power of robbing the nation, was fined and imprisoned for life. Mompesson, the original, it is said, of Massingei-'s Overreach, was outlawed and deprived of his ill-gotten wealth. Even Sir Edward Villiers, the brother of Buckingham, found it convenient to leave England. A greater name is to be added to the igno- minious list. By this Parliament was brought to justice that illustrious philosopher whose memory genius has half redeemed from the infamy due to servility, to ingratitude, and to corruption. After redressing internal grievances the Commons proceeded to take into consideration the state of Europe. The king flew into a rage with them for meddling with such matters, and, with characteristic judgment, drew them into a controversy about the origin of their House and of its privileges. When he found that he could not convince them, he dissolved them in a passion, and sent some of the leaders of the Opposition to ruminate on his logic in prison. During the time which elapsed between this dissolution and ^e meeting of the next Parliament, took place the celebrated negotiation respecting the Infanta. The would-be despot was unmercifully browbeaten. The would-ba Solomon was ridiculously overreached. "Steenie," in spite of the begging and sobbing of his dear "dad and gossip," carried off baby Charles in triumph to Madrid. The sweet lads, as James called them, came back safe, but with- out their errand. The great master of kingcraft, in looking for a Spanish match, had found a Spanisn war. In February, 1624, a Parliament met, during the whole sitting of which James was a mere puppet in the hands of his "baby," and of his "poor slave and dog." The Commons were disposed to LORD NUGENT' S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. ail support the king in the vigorous policy which his son and his favourite urged him to adopt. But they were not disposed to place any confidence in their feeble sovereign and his dissolute courtiers, or to relax in their efforts to remove public grievances. They, therefore, lodged the money which they voted for the war in the hands of Parliamentary Commissioners. They imjieached the treasurer. Lord Middlesex, for corruption, and they passed a bill by which patents of monopoly were declared illegal. Hampden did not, during the reign of James, take any prominent part in public affairs. It is certain, however, that he paid great attention to the detailai of Parliamentary business, and to the local interests of his own county. It was in a great measure owing to his exertions that Wendover and tome other^ boroughs on which the popular parly could depend recovered tae elective franchise, in spite of the opposition of the court. The health of the king had for some time been declining. On the twenty- seventh of March, 1625, he expired. Under his weak rule the spirit of liberty had grown strong, and had become equal to a great contest. The contest was brought on by the policy of his successor. Charles bore no resemblance to his father. He was not a driveller, or a pedant, or a buffoon, or a coward. It would be absurd to deny that he was a scholar and a gentleman, a man of exquisite taste in the fine arts, a man of strict morals in private life. His talents for business were respectable ; his demeanour was kingly. But he was false, imperious, obstinate, narrow-minded, ignorant of the temper of his people, unobservant of the signs of his times. The whole principle of his government was resistance to public opinion ; nor did he make any real concession to that opinion till it mattered not whether he resisted or conceded, — till the nation, which had long ceased to love him or to trust him, had at last ceased to fear him. His first Parliament met in June, 1625. Hampden sat in it as burgess for Wendover. The king wished for money. The Commons wished for the redress of grievances. The war, however, could not be carried on without funds. The plan of the Opposition was, it should seem, to dole out supplies by small sums, in order to prevent a speedy dissolution. They gave the king two subsidies only, and proceeded to complain that his ships had been employed against the Huguenots in France, and to petition in behalf of the Puritans who were persecuted in England. The king dissolved them, and raised money by letters under his Privy Seal. The supply fell far short of what he needed ; and, in the spring of 1626, he called together another Parliament. In this Parliament Hampden again sat for Wendover. The Commons resolved to grant a very liberal supply, but to defer the final passing of the act for that purpose till the grievances of the nation should be redressed. The struggle which followed far exceeded in violence any that had yet taken place. The Commons impeached Buckingham. The king threw the managers of the impeachment into prison. The Commons denied the right of the king to levy tonnage and poundage without their consent. The king dis- | solved them. They put forth a remonstrance. The king circulated a declaration i vindicating his measures, and committed some of the most distinguished mem- » bers of the Opposition to close custody .Money was raised by a forced loan, u'hich was apportioned among the people according to the rate at which they liarl been respectively assessed to the last subsidy. On this occasion it was that Hampden made his first stand for the fundamental principle of the English Constitution. He positively refused to lend ^ farthing. He was required to give his reasons. He answered " that he could be content to lend as well as others, but feared to draw upon himself that curse in Magna Charta, which should be read twice a year, against those who infringe it." For this spirited unswer the Privy Council committed him close prisoner to the Gate HousCi 2ta LORD NUGENT' S MEMORIALS OP H-AMPDBff, After some time he was again brought up ; but he persisted in his, refusal, and was sent to a place of confinement in Hampshire. The government went on, oppressing at home, and blundering in all its measures abroad. A war was foolishly undertaken against France, and more foolishly conducted. Buckingham led an expedition against Rhe, and failed ignominiously. In the meantime soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes of which ordinary justice should have taken cognisance were punished by martial law. Near eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for refusing to contribute to the forced loan. The lower people who showed any signs of ineubordvnation were pressed into the fleet, or compelled to serve in the army. Money, how- ever, came in slowly ; and the king was compelled to summon anotnei Parliament. In the hope of conciliating his subjects, he set at liberty the persons M'ho had been imprisoned for refusing to comply with his unlawful demands. Hampden regained his freedom, and was immediately re-elected Durgess for Wendover. Early in 1628 the Parliament met. During its first session the Commons prevailed on the king, after many delays and much equivocation, to give, in return for five subsidies, his full and solemn assent to that celebrated instru- ment — the second great charter of the liberties of England, — known by the name of the Petition of Right. By agreeing to this act the king bound himself to raise no taxes without the consent of Parl'nment, to imprison no man except by legal process, to billet no more soldiers on the people, and to leave the cognisance of offences to the ordinary tribunals. In the summer this memorable Parliament was prorogued. It met again in anuary, 1629. Buckingham was no more. That weak, violent, and dissolute ad- venturer, who, with no talents or acquirements but those of a mere courtier, had, in a great crisis of foreign and domestic politics, ventured on the part of prime minister, had fallen, during the recess of Parliament, by the hand of an assassin. Both before and after his death the war had been feebly and unsuccessfully conducted. The king had continued, in direct violation ' of the Petition of Right, to raise tonnage and poundage without the consent of Parliament. The troops had again been billeted on the people ; and it was clear to the Commons that the five subsidies which they had given as the price of the nationalliberties had been given in vain. They met accordingly in no complying humour. They took into their most serious consideration the measures of the government concerning tDn- nage and poundage. They summoned the officers of the custom-house to their bar. They interrogated the barons of the exchequer. They committed one of the sheriffs of London. Sir John Eliot, a distinguished member of the Opposition, and an intimate friend of Hampden, proposed a resolution con- demning the unconstitutional imposition. The Speaker said that the king had commanded him to put no such question to the vote. This decision produced the most violent burst of feeling ever seen within the walls of Parlia- ment. Hayman remonstrited vehemently against the disgraceful language which had been heard trom the chair. Eliot dashed the paper which con- tained his resolution on the floor of the House. Valentine and Hollis held the Speaker down in his seat by main force, and read the motion amidst the loudest shouts. The door was locked — the key was laid on the table. Black Rod knocked for admittance in vain. After passing several strong resolutions, the House adjourned. On the day appointed for its meeting it was dissolved by the king, ana several of its most eminent members, among whom wers Hollis and Sir John Eliot, were committed to prison. Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House, \e had been a member of man/ very important committees, and had read antj LORD NUGENt'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPD-^N. 213 written much concerning the law of Parliament. A manuscript volume of Parliamentary cases, which is still in existence, contains many extracts from his notes. He now retired to the duties and pleasures of a rural life. During the eleven years which followed the dissolution of the Parliament of 1628, he resided at his seat in one of the most beautiful parts of the county of Buck- ingham. The house, which has since his time been greatly altered, and which is now, we believe, almost entirely neglected, was then an old English mansion built in the days of the Plantagenets and the Tudors. It stood on the brow of a hill which overlooks a narrow valley. The extensive woods which surround it were pierced by long avenues. One of those avenues the grandfather of the great statesman had cut for the approach of Elizabeth ; and the opening, which is still visible for many miles, retains the name of the Queen's Gap. In this delightful retreat Hampden passed several years, performing with great activity all the duties of a landed gentleman and a magistrate, and amusing himself with books and with field sports. He was not in his retirement unmindful of his persecuted friends. In particular, he kept up a close correspondence with Sir John Eliot, who was confined in the Tower. Lord Nugent has published several of the letters. We may perhaps be fanciful ; — but it seems to us that every one of them is an admirable illustration of some part of the character of Hampden which Clarendon has drawn. Part of the correspondence relates to the two sons of Sir John Eliot These young men were wild and unsteady ; and their father, who was now separated from them, was naturally anxious about their conduct He at length resolved to send one of them to France, and the other to serve a campaign in the Low Countries. The letter which we subjoin shows that Hampden, though rigorous towards himself, was not uncharitable towards others, and that his puritanism was perfectly compatible with the sentiments and the tastes of an accomplished gentleman. It also illustrates admirably what has been said of him by Clarendon : — " He was of that rare affability and temper in debate, and of that seeming humility and submission of judg- ment, as if he brought no opinion of his own with him, but a desire of information and instruction. Yet he had so subtle a way of interrogating, and, under cover of doubts, insinuating his objections, that he infused his own opinions into those from whom he pretended to learn and receive them. " The letter runs thus: — "I am so perfectly acquainted with your clear insight into the dispositions of men, and ability to fit them with courses suitable, that, had you bestowed sons of mine as you have done your own, my judgment durst hardly have called it into question, especially when, in laying the design, you have prevented the objections to be made against it. For if Mr. Richard Eliot will, in the intermissions of action, add study to practice and adorn that lively spirit with flowers of contemplation, he will raise our expectations of another Sir Edward Vere, that had this character — all srmmer in the field, all winter in his study — in whose fall fame makes this kingdom a great loser ; and, having taken this resolution from counsel with the highest wisdom, as I doubt not you have, I hope and pray that the same power will crown it with a blessing answerable to your wish. The way you take with my other friend shows you to be none of the Bishop of Exeter's f the accused members. Th« LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OP HAMPDES\ 22? Commons sent their sergeant to break the seals. The tyrant resolved to follow up one outrage by another. In making the charge, he had struck at the institution of juries. In executing the arrest, he struck at the privileges of Parliament Ke resolved to go to the House in person, with an armed force, and there to seize the leaders of the Opposition, while engaged in the discharge of their parliamentary duties. What was his purpose ? Is it possible to believe that he had no definite purpose, — that he took the most important step of his whole reign without having for one moment considered what might be its effects ? Is it possible to believe that he went merely for the purpose ol making himself a laughing- stock, — that he intended, if he had found the accused members, and if they had refused, as it was their right and duty to refuse, the submission which he illegally demanded, to leave the House without bringing them away ? If we reject both these suppositions, we must believe, — and we certainly do believe, — that he went fully determined to carry his unlawful design into effect by violence ; and, if necessary, to shed the bi(xje realm have been, under these circumstances, safely confided to the king ? Would it not have been frenzy in the Parliament to raise and pay an army of fifteen or twenty thousand men for the Irish war, and to give to Charles the absolute control of this army, and the power of selecting, pro- moting, and dismissing officers at his pleasure? Was it not probable that this army might become, what it is the nature of armies to become, what so many armies formed under much more favourable circumstances have become, what the army of the English Commonwealth became, what the army of the French RepuV)lic became, — an instrument of despotism? Was it not possible that the soldiers might forget that they were .also citizens, and might be ready to serve their general against their country? Was it not certain that, on the first day on which Charles could venture to revoke his concessions, and to punish his ofiponents, he would establish an arbitrary govomment, and ex.ict a bloody revenge ? Our own times furnish a parallel case. Suppose that a revolution should lake niace in .Spain, — that the constitution of Cadiz should be re-established, — that the Cortes should meet again, — that the Spanish I'rynnes and Burtons, who are now wandering in rags round Leicester Square, should be restored to their country, — Ferdinand VII. would, in that case, of course repeat all the oaths and promises which he had made in 1820, and broke in 1823. But would it not be madness in the Cortes, even if they wera to le.ive him the name of king, to leave him more than the name? Would co\. all Europe scoff at them, if they were to peiTnit him to assemble a large army for an ex- pedition to America, to model that army at his pleasure, to put it under the command of officers chosen by himself? Should we not say tliat every mem- ber of the constitutional party who might concur in such a measure would most richly deserve the fate which he would probably meet, — thefateof Kiero and of the Empecinado ? We are not disposed to pay compliments to F'erdi* nand ; nor do we perceive that we pay him any compliment when we say that of all sovereigns in history, he seems to us most to resemble, in sonie very important points. King Charles I. Like Charles, he is pious- after a certain fashion ; like Charles, he has made large concessions to his peoj. le, after a cer- tain fashion. It is well for him that he has had to deal with luen who bore very little resemblance to the English Puritans. The Commons would have the power of the sword ; the king would not part with it ; and nothing remained but to try the chances of war. Charles still had a strong party in the country. His august office, — his dignified man- ners, — his solemn protestations that he would for the time to come respect the liberties of his subjects, — j>ity for fallen greatness, — fear of vioknt innovation, secured for him many adherents. He had with him the Church, the Univer- sities, a majority of the nobles and of the old landed gentry. The austerity of the Puritan manners drove most of the g.iy and dissolute youth of that age to the royai standard. Many good, brave, and moderate men. who disliked kij 232 lORD NUGENT' S MEMORIALS OF HAM PL EN. former conduct, and who entertained doubts touching his present sincerity, espoused his cause unwillingly, and with many painful misgivings, because, though they dreaded his tyranny much, they dreaded democratic violence more. On the other side was the great body of the middle orders of England, — the merchants, the shopkeepers, the yeomanry, headed by a very large and formid- able minority of the peerage and of the landed gentry. The Earl of Essex, a man of respectable abilities and of some miUtary experience, was appointed to the command of the Parliamentary army. Hampden spared neither his fortune nor his person in the cause. He sul> scril)ed two thousand pounds to the public service. He took a colonel''' --om- mission in the army, and went into Buclcinghamshire to raise ^ legiment oi infantry. His neiglibours eagerly enlisted under his command. His men were known by their green uniform and by their standard, which bore on one side the watchword of the Parliament, " God with us," and on the other the device of Hampden, " Vestigia nulla retrorsum " This motto well described the line of conduct which he pursued. No member of his party had been so tempe- rate, while there remained a hope that legal and peaceable measures might save the country. No member of his party showed so much energy and vigour when it became necessary to appeal to arms. He made himself thoroughly master of his military duty, and " performed it," to use the words of Claren- don, "upon all occasions most punctually." The regiment which he had raised and trained was considered as one of the best in the service of the Par- liament. He exposed his person in every action with an intrepidity which made him conspicuous even amongst thousands of brave men. "He was," says Clarendon, " of a personal courage equal to his best parts ; so that he was an enemy not to be wished wherever he might have been made a friend, and as much to be apprehended where he was so as any man could deserve to be." Though his military career was short, and his military situation subordinate, he fully proved that he possessed the talents of a great general, as well as those of a great statesman. We shall not attempt to give a history of the war. Lord Nugent's account of the military operations is very animated and striking. Our abstract would be dull, and probably unintelligible. There was, in fact, for some time no great and connected system of operations on either side. The war of the two parties was like the war of the Arimanes and Oromasdes, neither of whom, according to the Eastern theologians, has any exclusive domain, — who are equally omnipresent, — who equally pervade all space, — who carry on their eternal strife within every particle of matter. There was a petty war in almost every county. A town furnished troops to the Parliament while the manor-house of the neighbouring peer was garrisoned for the king. The combatants were rarely disposed to march far from their own homes. It was reserved for Fairfax and Cromwell to terminate this desultory warfare, by moring one overwhelming force successively against all the scattered fragments of die royal party. It is a remarkable circumstance that the officers who had studied tactics in what were considered as the best schools, — under Vere in the Netherlands, — and under Gustavus Adolphus in Germany, — displayed far less skill than those commanders who had been bred to peaceful employments, and who never saw even a skirmish till the civil war broke out. An unlearned person might hence be inclined to suspect that the military art is no very profound mystery, that its principles are the principles of plain good sense, and that a quick eye, a cool head, and a stout heart will do more to make a ^Tiura! than all the dia£;ranis of Joniini. ThiS; V.owv^ver, is r-rtain, tliaX lORD NUGENTS MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEi^. 23J Hampden showed himself a far better officer than Essex, and Cromwell than Leslie. The military errors of Essex were probably in some degree produced by political timidity. He was honestly, but not warmly, attached to the cause of the Parliament ; and next to a great defeat he dreaded a great victory. Hampden, on the other hand, was for vigorous and decisive measures. When he drew the sword, as Clarendon has well said, he threw away the scabbard. He had shown that he knew better than any public man of his time how to value and how to practise moderation. But he knew that the essence of war is violence, and that moderation in war is imbecility. On several occasions, particularly during the operations in the neighbourhood 'if Brentford, he remonstrated earnestly with Essex. Wherever he commanded separately, the boldness and rapidity of his movements presented a striking contrast to the sluggishness of his superior. In the Parliament he possessed boundless influence. His employmenti towards the close of 1642 have been described by Denham in some lines which, though intended to be sarcastic, convey in truth the highest eulogy. Hampden is described in this satire as perpetually passing and repassing between the military station at Windsor and the House of Commons at West- minster, — as overawing the general, and as giving law to that Parliament which knew no other law. It was at this time that he organised that cele- brated association of counties, to which his party was principally indebted for its victory over the king. In the early part of 1643, the shires lying in the neighbourhood of London, which were devoted to the cause of the Parliament, were incessantly annoyed by Rupert and his cavalry. Essex had extended his lines so far that almost every point was vulnerable. The young prince, though not a great general, was an active and enterprising partisan, frequently surprised posts, burnt villages, swept away cattle, and was again at Oxford before a force sufficient to encounter him could be assembled. The languid proceedings of Essex were loudly condemned by the troops. All the ardent and daring spirits in the parliamentary party were eager to have Hampden at their head. Had his life been prolonged, there is every reason to believe that the supreme command would have been intrusted to him. But it was decreed that, at this conjuncture, England should lose the only man who united perfect disinterestedness to eminent talents, — the only man who, being capable of gaining the victory for her, was incapable of abusing that victory when gained. In the evening of the seventeenth of June, Rupert darted out of Oxford with his cavalry on a predatory expedition. At three in the morning of the following day, he attacked and dispersed a few parliamentary soldiers who lay at Postcombe. He then flew to Chinnor, burned the village, killed or took all the troops who were posted there, and prepared to hurry back with his booty and his prisoners to Oxford. Hampden had, on the preceding day, strongly represented to Essex the danger to which this part of the line was exposed. As soon as he received intelligence of Rupert's incursion, he sent off a horseman with a message to the general. The cavaliers, he said, could only return by Chiselhamptou Bridge. A force ought to be instantly despatched in that direction for the purpose of intercepting them. In the meantime, he resolved to set out with all the cavalry that he could muster, for the purpose of impeding the march of the enemy till Essex could take measures for cutting off their retreat. A considerable body of horse and dragoons volunteered to follow him. He was not their commander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service^ &34 LORD NVGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. But "he was," says Clarendon, "second to none but the general himself in the observance and application of all men." On the field of Chalgrove he came up with Rupert. A fierce skirmish ensued. In the first charge, Hampden was struck in tlie shoulder by two bullets, which broke the bone, and lodged in the body. The troops of the Parliament lost heart and gave way. Rupert, after pursuing them for a short time, hastened to cross the abridge, and made his retreat unmolested to Oxford. I'l Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands leaning on his horse'sf neck, moved feebly out of the battle. The mansion which had been inhabited by his father-in-law, and from which in his youth he had carried home his^ , bride Elizabeth, was in sight. There still remains an affecting tradition that he looked for a moment towards that beloved house, and made an effort tc go thither to die. But the enemy lay in that direction. He turned his horse towards Thame, where he arrived almost fainting with agony. The surgeons dressed his wounds. But there was no hope. The pain which he suffered was most excruciating. But he endured it with admirable firmness and resignation. His first care was for his country. He wrote from his bed several letters to London concerning public affairs, aud sent a last pressing message to the head-quarters, recommending that the dispersed forces should be con- centrated. When his public duties were performed, he calmly prepared himself to die. He was attended by a clergyman of the Church of England, with whom he had lived in habits of intimacy, and by the chaplain of the Buckinghamshire Green-coats, Dr. Spurton, whom Baxter describes as a famous and excellent divine. A .short time before his death the sacrament was administered to him. He declared that, though he disliked the government of the Church of England, he yet agreed with that Church in all essential matters of doctrine. His intel- lect remained unclouded. When all was nearly over, he lay murmuring faint prayers for himself and for the cause for which he died. " Lord Jesus," he exclaimed, in the moment of his last agony, "receive my soul — O Lord, save my country. — O Lord, be merciful to " In that broken ejaculation passed away his noble and fearless si:)irit. He was buried in the parish church of Hampden. His soldiers, bare- headed, with reversed arms and muffled drums and colours, escorted his body to the grave, singing, as tliey marched, that lofty and melancholy psalm in which the fragility of human life is contrasted with the immutability of Him in whose sight a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watcli in the night. The news of Hampden's death produced as great a consternation in his party, according to Clarendon, as if tlieir whole army had been cut off. The journals of the time amply prove that the Parliament and all its friends were filled with grief and dismay, Lord Nugent has quoted a remarkable passage from the next Weekly Intelligencer. " The loss of Colonel Hampden goeth near the heart of eveiy man that loves the good of the king and country, and makes some conceive little content to be at the army now that he is gone. The memory of this deceased colonel is such, that in no age to come but it will more and more be had in honour and esteem ; — a man so religious, and of that prudence, judgment, temper, valour, and integrity, that he hath left few his like behind." He had indeed left none his like behind him. There still remained, indeed, in his party many acute intellects, many eloquent tongues, many brave and honest hearts. There still remained a rugged and clownish soldier, — half fanatic, half buffoon, — wliose talents, discerned as yet only by one penetrating eye, were equal to all the highest duties of the soldier and the prince. But LORD NUGENT' S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 23? in Hampden, and in Hampden alone, were united all the qualities which, a such a crisis, were necessary to save the State, — the valour and energy of Crom- well, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity and moderation of Manchester, the stem integrity of Hale, the ardent public spirit of Sydney. Others might possess the qualities which were necessary to save the popular party in the crisis of danger ; he alone had both the power and the inclina- tion to restrain its excesses in the hour of triumph. Others could conquer ; he alone could reconcile. A heart as bold as his brought up the cuirassiers who turned the tide of battle on Marston Moor. As skilful an eye as his watched the Scotch army descending from the heights over Dunbar. But it was when to the sullen tyranny of Laud and Charles had succeeded the fierce conflict of sects and factions, ambitious of ascendency and burning for revenge, — it was when the vices and ignorance which the old tyranny had generated threatened the new freedom with destruction, that England missed the sobriety, the self-command the perfect soundness of judgment, the perfect rectitude of intention, to which the history of revolutions furnishes no parallel, or furnishes a parallel in Wasliingtoa alone. BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. Mpronirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honourable William Cecil Lord Hurglilcy, Secretary of State in the Reign of King Edward VI., and Lord High Trea- surer of England in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. Containing an Historical View of the Times in which he lived, and of the many eminent and illustrious Persons with whom he was connected ; with Extracts from his Private and Official Correspondence and other Papers, now first published from the Originals. By the Reverend Edwakd Nares, D.D., Regius Professor of Modem History in the Universuy of Oxford. 3 vols. 4to. London: 1828, i8j2. The work of Dr. Nares has filled us with astonishment similar to that which Captain Lemuel Gulliver felt when first he landed in Brobdingnag, and saw corn as high as the oaks in the New Forest, thimbles as large as buckets, and wrens of the bulk of turkeys. The whole book, and every component part of it, is on a gigantic scale. The title is as long as an ordinary preface. The prefatory matter would furnish out an ordinary book ; and the book contains as much reading as an ordinary library. We cannot sum up the merits of the stupendous mass of paper which lies before us better than by saying that it consists of about two thousand closely printed pages, that it occupies fifteen hundred inches cubic measure, and that it weighs sixty pounds avoirdupois. Such a book might, before the deluge, have been considered as light reading- by Hilpa and Shalum. But unhap])ily the life of man is now threescore years and ten ; and we cannot but think it somewhat unfair in Doctor Nares to demand from us so large a portion of so short an existence. Compared with the laboiur of reading through these volumes, all other labours — the labour of thieves on the treadmill, of children in factories, of negroes in sugar plantations — are an agreeable recreation. There was, it is said, a criminal in Italy, who was suffered to make his choice between Guic- ciardini and the galleys. He chose the history. But the war of Pisa was too much for him. He changed his mind, and went to the oar. Guicciardini, though certainly mt the most amusing of writers, is a Herodotus or a Frois- sart, when compared with Doctor Nares. It is not merely in bulk, but in specific gravity also, that these memoirs exceed all other human compositions. On every subject which the Professor discusses, he produces three times aa many pages as anoihei man ; and one of his pages is as tedious as anothw S36 BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. _ian's three. His book is swelled to its vast dimensions by endless repetitions, by episodes which have nothing to do with the main action, by quotations from 1 ooks which are in every circulating library, and by reflections which, when tliey happen to be just, are so obvious that they must necessarily occur to the laind of every reader. He employs more words in expounding and defending 1 truism than any other writer would employ in supporting a paradox. Of tl. e rules of historical perspective, he has not the faintest notion. There is neither foreground nor background in his delineation. The wars of Charles V. in ( jermany are detailed at almost as much length as in Robertson's life of that i>rince. The troubles of Scotland are related as fully as in M'Crie's Life of John Knox. It would be most unjust to deny that Doctor Nares is a man of great industiy and research ; but he is so utterly incompetent to arrange the materials which he has collected that he might as well have left them in theii original repositories. Neither the facts which Doctor Nares has discovered, nor the argumr-nts which he urges, will, we apprehend, materially alter the opinion generally entertained by judicious readers of history concerning his hero. Lord Burghley can hardly be called a great man. He was not one of those whose genius and energy change the fate of empires. He was by nature and habit one of those who follow — not one of those who lead. Nothing that is recorded, either of his words or of his actions, indicates intellectual or moral elevation. But his talents, though not brilliant, were of an eminently useful kind ; and his prin- ciples, though not inflexible, were not more relaxed than those of his associates and competitors. He had a cool temper, a sound judgment, great powers of application, and a constant eye to the main chance. In his youth he was, it seems, fond of practical jokes. Yet even out of these he contrived to extract some pecuniary profit When he was studying the law at Gray's Inn, he lost all his furniture and books to his companion at the gaming table. He accord- ingly bored a hole in the wall which separated his chambers from those of his associate, and at midnight bellowed through this passage threats of damnation and calls to repentance in the ears of the victorious gambler, who lay sweating with fear all night, and refunded his winnings on his knees next day. "Many other like merry jests," says his old biographer, "I have heard him tell, too long to be here noted." To the last, Burghley was somewhat jocose; and some of his sportive sayings have been recorded by Bacon. They show much more shrewdness than generosity, and are, indeed, neatly expressed reasons for exacting money rigorously, and for keeping it carefully. It must, however, be acknowledged that he was rigorous and careful for the public advantage as well as for his own. To extol his moral character as Doctor Nares has ex- tolled it is absurd. It would be equally absurd to represent him as a corrupt, rapacious, and bad-hearted man. He paid great attention to the interests of the state, and great attention also to the interest of his own family. He never deserted his friends till it was very inconvenient to stand by them, was an excellent Protestant when it was not veiy advantageous *o be a Papist — recom. mended a tolerant policy to his mistress as strongly as he could recommend it without hazarding her favour— never put to the rack any person from whom it did not seem probable that useful information might be derived — and was so moderate in his desires that he left only three hundred distinct landed estates, though he might, as his honest servant assures us, have left much more, "if he would have taken money out of the Exchequer for his own use, as many Treasurers have done." Burghley, like the old Marquis of Winchester, who preceded him in the custody of the White Staff, was of the willow, and not of the oak. He first rose into notice by defending the suprciiuit^ of Henry VIll. He w.'',s BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. 237 subsequently favoured and promoted by the Duke of Somerset. He not only contrived to escape unhurt when his patron fell, but became an important member of the administration of Northumberland. Doctor Nares assures us over and over again that there could have been nothing base in Cecil's conduct on this occasion ; for, says he, Cecil continued to stand well with Cranmer. This, we confess, hardly satisfies us. We are much of the mind of Falstaft's tailor. We must have better assurance for Sir John than Bardolph's. We like not the security. Through the whole course of that miserable intrigue which was carried on round the dying bed of Edward VI., Cecil so demeaned himself as to avoid, first, the displeasure of Northumberland, and afterwards the displeasure of Mary. He was prudently unwilling to put his hand to the instniment. which changed the course of the succession. But the furious Dudley was master of the palace. Cecil, therefore, according to his own account, excused, himself from signing as a party, but consented to sign as a witness. It is not easy to describe his dexterous conduct at this most perplexing crisis, in lan- guage more appropriate than that which is employed by old Fuller: — "His hand wrote it as secretary of state," says that quaint writer ; " but his heart consented not thereto. Yea, he openly opposed it ; though at last yielding to the greatness of Northumberland, in an age when it was present drowning not to swim with the stream. But as the philosopher tell us, that though the planets be whirled about daily from east to west, by the motion of ihe primum mobile, yet have they also a contrary proper motion of their own from west to east, which they slowly, though surely, move at their leisure ; so Cecil had secret counter-endeavours against the strain of the court herein, and privately advanced his rightful intentions against the foresaid duke's ambition." This was undoubtedly the most perilous conjuncture of Cecil's life. Wherever there was a safe course, he was safe. But here every course was full of danger. His situation rendered it impossible for him to be neutral. If he acted on either side — if he refused to act at all— he ran a fearful risk. He saw all the difficulties of his position. He sent his money and plate out of London, made over his estates to his son, and carried arms about his person. His best arms, however, were his sagacity and his self-command. The plot in which he had been an unwilling accomplice ended, as it was iiatural that so odious and absurd a plot should end, in the ruin of its con- trivers. In the meantime, Cecil quietly extricated himself, and, having been successively patronised by Henry, by Somerset, and by Northumberland, continued to flourish under the protection of Mary, He had no aspirations after the crown of martyrdom. He confessed him- self, therefore, with great decorum, heard mass in Wimbledon Church at Easter, and, for the better ordering of his spiritual concerns, took a priest into his house. Doctor Nares, whose simplicity passes that of any casuist with whom we are acquainted, vindicates his hero by assuring us that this was not superstition, but pure unmixed hypocrisy. " That he did in some manner conform, we shall not be able, in the face of existing documents, to deny ; while we feel in our own minds abundantly satisfied that, during this very trying reign, he never abandoned the prospect of another revolution in favour of I'rotestantism." In another place, the Doctor tells us that Cecil went to mass "with no idolatrous intention." Nobody, we believe, ever accused him of idolatrous intentions. The very ground of the charge against him is that ne had no idolatrous intentions. Nobody would have blamed him if he had really gone to Wimbledon Church, with the feelings of a good Catholic, to worship the host. Doctor Nares speaks in several places with just severity of the sophistry of the Jesuits, and with just admiration of the incomparable letters 238 BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES, of Pascal. It is somewhat strange, therefore, that he should adopt, to the full extent, the Jesuitical doctrine of the direction of intentions. We do not blame Cecil for not choosing to be burnt. The deep stain upon his memory is that, for differences of opinion for which he would risk nothing himself, he, in the day of his power, took away without scruple the lives of others. One of the excuses suggested in these Memoirs foi his conforming, dur- ing the reign of Mary, to the Church of Rome, is that he may have been of the same mind with those German Protestants who were called Adiaphorists, and who considered the popish rites as matters indifferent. Melancthon was one of those moderate persons, and " appears," says Doctor Nares, *' to have gone greater lengths than any imputed to Lord Burghley. " We should have thought this not only an excuse, but a complete vindication, if Burghley had been an Adiaphorist for the benefit of others as weU as for his own. If the popish rites were matters of so little moment that a good Protestant might lawfully^ practice them for safety, how could it be just or humane that a Papist should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, for practising them from a sense of duty ? Unhappily these non-essentials soon became matters of life and death. Just at the very time at which Burghley attained the highest point of power and favour, an Act of Parliament was passed by which the penalties of high treason were denounced against persons who should do in sincerity what he had done from cowardice. Early in the reign of Mary, Cecil was employed in a mission scarcely con- sistent with the character of a zealous Protestant. He was sent to escort the Papal Legate, Cardinal Pole, from Brussels to London. The great body of moderate persons, who cared more for the quiet of the realm than for the con- troverted points which were in Lssue between the Churches, seem to have placed their chief hope in the wisdom and humanity of the gentle Cardinal. Cecil, it is clear, cultivated the friendship of Pole with great assiduity, and received great advantage from the I^egate's protection. But tlie best protection of Cecil, during the gloomy and disastrous reign of Mary, was that which he derived from his own prudence and from his own temper, — a prudence which could never be lulled into carelessness, — a temper which could never be irritated into rashness. The Papists could find no occa- sion against him. Yet he did not lose the esteem even of those sterner Pro- testants who had preferred exile to recantation. He attached himself to the persecuted heiress of the throne, and entitled himself to her gratitude and con- fidence. Yet he continued to receive marks of favour from the Queen. In the House of Commons, he put himself at the head of the party opposed to the Court. Yet, so guarded was his language that, even when some of those who acted with him were imprisoned by the Privy Council, he escaped with impunity. At length Mary died : Elizabeth succeeded ; and Cecil rose at once to great- ness. He was sworn in Privy Councillor and Secretary of State to the new sovereign before he left her prison of Hatfield ; and he continued to serve her during forty years, without intermission, in the highest employments. His abilities were precisely those which keep men long in power. He belonged to the class of the Walpoles, the Pelhams, and the Liverpools, — not to that of the St. Johns, the Carterets, the Chathams, and the Cannings. If he had been a man of original genius and of a commanding mind, it would have been scarcely possible for him to keep his power or even his head. There was not room in one government for an Elizabeth and a Richelieu. What the haughty daughter of Henry needed, was a moderate, cautious, flexible minister, skilled in the details of business, — competent to advise, but not aspiring to command. And such a minister she found in Burghley. No arts could shake the confi- BURGHLEy AND HIS TIMES. " ' 239 dence which she reposed in her old and trusty servant. The courtly graces of Leicester, the brilliant talents and accomplishments of Essex, touched the fancy, perhaps the heart of the woman ; but no rival could deprive th<» Treasurer of the place which he possessed in the favour of the Queen. Sh^ sometimes chid him sharply ; but he was the man whom she delighted to honour. For Burghley, she forgot her usual parsimony both of wealth and of dignities. For Burghley, she relaxed that severe etiquette \o wliich she was unreasonably attached. Every other person to whom she addressed her speech, or on whom the glance of her eagle eye fell, instantly sank on his knee. For Burghley alone, a chair was set in her presence ; and there the old minister, by birth only a plain Lincolnshire esquire, took his ease, while the haughty heirs of the Fitzalans and the De Veres humbled themselves to the dust around him. At length, having survived all his early coadjutors and rivals, he died full of years and honours. His royal mistress visited him on his deathbed, and cheered him with assurances of her affection and esteem ; and his power passed, with little diminution, to a son who inherited his abilities, and whose mind had been formed by his counsels. The life of Burghley was commensurate with one of the most important periods in the history of the world. It exactly measures the time during which the House of Austria held unrivalled superiority and aspired to uni- versal dominion. In the year in which Burghley was bom, Charles V. ob- tained the imperial crown. In the year in which Burghley died, the vast designs which had, during near a century, kept Europe in constant agitation, were buried in the same grave with the proud and sullen Philip. The life of Burghley was commensurate also with the period during which a great moral revolution was effected, — a revolution the consequences of which were felt, not only in the cabinets of princes, but at half the firesides in Christendom. He was bom when the great religious scliism was just com- mencing. He lived to see that schism complete, — and to see a line of demar- cation, which, since his death, has been very little altered, strongly drawn between Protestant and Catholic Europe. The only event of modern times which can be properly compared with the Reformation is the French Revolution, or, to speak more accurately, that great revolution of political feeling which took place in almost every part of the civihsed world during the eighteenth century, and which obtained in France its most terrible and signal triumph. Each of these memorable events may be described as a rising up of the human reason against a Caste, The one was a stmggle of the laity against the clergy for intellectual liberty ; the other was a struggle of the people against the privileged orders for political liberty. In both cases the spirit of innovation was at first encouraged by the class to which it was hkely to be most prejudicial. It was under the patron- age of Frederic, of Catherine, of Joseph, and of the French nobles, that the philosophy which afterwards threatened all the thrones and aristocracies of Europe with destruction first became formidable. The ardour with which men betook themselves to liberal studies, at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centviry, was zealously encouraged by the heads of that very Church to which liberal studies were destined to be fatal. In both cases, when the explosion came, it came with a violence which appalled and disgusted many of those who had previously been distinguished by the freedom of their opinions. The violence of the democratic party in France made Burke a Tory and Alfieri a coiu-tier. The violence of the chiefs of the German schism made Erasmus a defender of abuses, and turned the author of Utopia into a persecutor. In both cases, the convulsion which had over- Uuown deeply-seated errors, shook all the principles on which society rest* SiO BURG ff LEY AND HIS TIMES, to their very foundations. The minds of men were unsettled. It seemed for a time that all order and morality were about to perish with the prejudices with which they had been long and intimately associated. Frightfu' cruelties were committed. Immense masses of property were confiscated. E^ery part of Europe swarmed with exiles. In moody and turbulent spirits zeal soured into /nalignity, or foamed into madness. From the political agitation of the eighteenth century sprang the Jacobins. From the religious agitation of the sixteenth century sprang the Anabaptists. The partisans of Robespierre robbed and murdered in the name of fraternity and equality. The followers of Kniperdoling robbed and mardered in the name of Christian liberty. The feeling of patriotism was, in many parts of Europe, almost wholly extin- guished. All the old maxims of foreign policy were changed. Physical boundaries were superseded by moral boundaries. Nations made war on each other with new arms, — with arms which no fortifications, however strong by nature or by art, could resist, — with arms before which rivers parted like the Jordan, and ramparts fell down like the walls of Jericho. Those arms were opinions, reasons, prejudices. The great masters of fleets and armies were often reduced to confess, like Milton's warlike angel, how hard they found it "To exclude Spiritual substance with corporeal bar." Europe was divided, as Greece had been divided during the period concerning which Thucydides wrote. The conflict was not, as it is in ordinary times, between state and state, but between two omnipresent factions, each of which was in some places dominant and in other places oppressed, but which, openly or covertly, carried on their strife in the bosom of every society. No man asked whether another belonged to the same country with himself, but whether he belonged to the same sect. Party spirit seemed to justify and consecrate acts which, in any other times, would have been considered as the foulest of treasons. The French emigrant saw nothing disgraceful in bringing Aus- trian and Prussian hussars to Paris. The Irish or Italian democrat saw no impropriety in serving the French Directory against his own native govern- ment. So, in the sixteenth century, the fury of theological factions often suspended all national animosities and jealousies. The Spaniards were invited into France by the League ; the English were invited into France by the Huguenots. We by no means intend to underrate or to palliate the crimes and excesses which, during the last generation, were produced by the spirit of democracy. But, when we hear men zealous for the Protestant religion constantly repre- sent the French Revolution as radically and essentially evil on account of those crimes and excesses, we cannot but remember that the deliverance of our ancestors from the house of their spiritual bondage was effected " by I plagues and by signs, by wonders and by war. " We cannot but remember that, as in the case of the French Revolution, so also in the case of the ? Reformation, those who rose up against tyranny were themselves deeply ] tainted with the vices which tyranny engenders. We cannot but remember that libels scarcely less scandalous than those of Hebert, mummeries scarcely less absurd than those of Clootz, and crimes scarcely less atrocious than those of Marat, disgrace the early history of Protestantism. The Reformation is an event long past. That volcano has spent its rage. The wide waste pro- duced by its outbreak is forgotten. The landmarks which were swept away have been replaced. The ruined edifices have been repaired. The lava has covered with a rich incrustation the fields which it once devastated, and, after having turned a garden into a desert, has again turned the desert into a stiU more beautiful and fruitful garden. The second great eruptiop is not yet BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES, 841 orer. The marks of its ravages are still all around us. The ashes are still hot beneath our feet. In some directions, the deluge of fire continues to spread. Yet experience surely entitles us to believe that this explosion, like that which preceded it, will fertilise the soil which it has devastated. Already, in those parts which have suffered most severely, rich cultivation and secure dwellings have begun to appear amidst the waste. The more we read oJ the history of past ages, — the more we observe the signs of our own times, — the more do we feel our hearts filled and swelled up by a good hope for the future destinies of the human race. The history of the Reformation in England is full of strange problems. The most prominent and extraordinary phenomenon which it presents to us is the gigantic strength of the government contrasted with the feebleness of the religious parties. During the twelve or thirteen years which followed the death of Henry VIII. , the religion of the state was thrice changed. Pro- testantism was esta.Slished by Edward ; the Catholic Church was restored by Mary ; Protestantism was again established by Elizabeth. The faith of the nation seemed to depend on the personal inclinations of the sovereign. Nor was this all. An established church wat then, as a matter of course, a perse- cuting church. Edward persecuted Catholics. Mary persecuted Protestants. Elizabeth persecuted Catholics again. The father of those three sovereigns had enjoyed the pleasure of persecuting both sects at once, and had sent to death, on the same hurdle, the heretic who denied the real presence, and the traitor who denied the royal supremacy. There was nothing in England like that fierce and bloody opposition which, in France, each of the religious fac- tions in its turn offered to the government. We had neither a Coligny nor a Mayenne, — neither a Moncontoor nor an Ivry. No English city braved sword and famine for the reformed doctrines with the spirit of Rochelle, or for the Catholic doctrines with the spirit of Paris. Neither sect in England formed a League. Neither sect extorted a recantation from the sovereign. Neither sect could obtain from an adverse sovereign even a toleration. The Englisii Protestants, after several years of domination, sank down with scarcely a struggle under the tyranny of Mary. The Catholics, after having regained and aliuspd their old ascendancy, submitted patiently to the severe rule of Elizabeth Neither Protestants nor Catholics engaged in any great and well- organized scheme of resistance. A few wild and tumultuous risings, — sup- pressed as soon as they appeared, — a few dark conspiracies, in which only a small number of desperate men engaged, — such were the utmost efforts made by these two parties to assert the most sacred of human rights, attacked by the most odious tyranny. The explanation of these circumstances which has generally been given is rery simple, but by no means satisfactory. The power of the crown, it is said, was then at its height, and was, iii fact, despotic, This solution, we own, seems to us to be no solution at all. It has long been the fashion, — a fashion introduced by Mr. Hume, — to dtocribe the English monarchy in the sixteenth century as an absolute mon- archy. And such undoubtedly it appears to a superficial observer. Elizabeth, it is true, often spoke to her parliaments in language as haughty and impe- rious as that wnich the Great Turk would use to his divan. She punished with great severity members of the House of Commons who, in her opinion, carried the freedom of debate too far. She assumed the power of legislating by means of proclamations. She imprisoned her subjects without bringing them to a legal trial. Torture wns often em]^loyed, in defiance of the laws of lingland, for the pui^pose of extorting confessions from those who v/ere shut up in her dy ngcous. The authority of the Star Chamber and of the Ecclesi^ 242 BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMEi,. astical Commission was at its highest point Severe restraints were imposed on political and religious discussion. The number of presses w^ere at one time limited. No man could print without a license ; and every work had to undergo the scrutiny of the Primate, or the Bishop of London. Persf^Tia whose writings were displeasing to the Court were cruelly mutilated, hKC Stubbs, or put to death, like Penry. Nonconformity was severely punished. The Queen prescribed the exact rule of religious faith and discipline ; and whoever departed from that rule, either to the right or to the left, was in danger of severe penalties. Suck was this government. Yet we know that it was loved by the great body of those who lived under it. We know that, during the fierce contests of the sixteenth century, both the hostile parties spoke of the time of Eliza- . beth as of a golden age. That great queen has now been lying two hundred and thirty years in Henry VII. 's chapel. Yet her memory is still dear to the hearts of a free people. The truth seems to be that the government of the Tudors was, with a few occasional deviations, a popular government, under the foims of despotism. At first sight, it may seem that the prerogatives of Elizalaeth were not less ample than those of Louis XIV., — and her parliaments were as obsequious as his parliaments, — that her warrant had as much authority as his lettre-de- cachet. The extravagance with which her courtiers eulogized her personal and mental charms went beyond the adulation of Boileau and Moliere. Louis would have blushed to receive from those who composed the gorgeous circles of Marli and Versailles such outward marks of servitude as the haughty Britoness exacted of all who approached her. But the power of Louis rested on the support of his army. The power of Elizabeth rested solely on the support of her people. Those who say that her power was absolute do not sufficiently consider in what her power consisted. Her power consisted in the willing obedience of her subjects, in their attachment to her person and to her office, in their respect for the old line from which she sprang, in their sense of the general security which they enjoyed under her government. These were the means, and the only means, which she had at her command for carrying her decrees into execution, for resisting foreign enemies, and for crushing domestic treason. There was not a ward in the city, — there was not a hundred in any shire in England, which could not have overpowered the handful of armed men who composed her household. If a hostile sovereign threatened invasion, — if an ambitious noble raised the standard of revolt, — she could have recourse only to the trainbands of her capital and the array of her counties, — to the citizens and yeomen of England, conmaanded by the . merchants and esquires of England. ',, Thus, when intelligence arrived of the vast preparations which Philip was Imaking for the subjugation of the realm, the first person to whom the govem- 'ment thought of applying for assistance was the Lord Mayor of London. They sent to ask him what force the city would engage to furnish for the 'i defence of the kingdom against the Spaniards. The Mayor and Common Council, in return, desired to know what force the Queen's Highness wished them to furnish. The answer was, — fifteen ships and five thousand men. The Londoners deliberated on the matter, and, two days after, •' humbly intreated the council, in sign of their perfect love and loyally to prince and country, to accept ten thousand men, and thirty ships amply furnished." People who could give such signs as these of their loyalty were by no means to be misgoverned with impunity. The English in the sixteenth century were, beyond all doubt, a free people. They had not, indeed, the outward show of freedom ; but they had the reality. They had not as good a constitution BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. 443 8* we have ; but they had that wlthoat which the best constitution is as use- less as the king's proclamation against vice and immorality, — that which, without any constitution, keeps rulers in awe, — force, and the spirit to use it. Parliaments, it is true, were rarely held, and were not very respectfully treated. The great charter was often violated. But the people had a security against gross and systematic misgovemment, far stronger than all the parchment that was ever marked with the sign manual, and than all the wax that was ever pressed by the great seal. It is a common error in politics to confound means with ends. Constitu- tions, charters, petitions of right, declarations of right, representative assem- blies, electoral colleges, are not good government ; nor do they, even when most elaborately constructed, necessarily produce good government. Laws exist in vain for those who have not the courage and the means to defend them. Electors meet in vain where want makes them the slaves of the land* lord, or where superstition makes them the slaves of the priest Represen- tative assemblies sit in vain unless they have at their command, in the last resort, the physical power which is necessary to make their deliberations free, and their votes effectual The Irish are better represented in parliament than the Scotch, who indeed are not represented at alL But are the Irish better governed than the Scotch? Surely not. This circumstance has of late been used as an argument a^inst refonn- It proves nothing against reform. It proves only this, — that laws have no magical, no supernatural virtue ; that laws do not act like Aladdin's lamp or Prince Ahmed's apple ; that priestcraft, that ignorance, that the rage of contending factions, may make good institutions useless ; that intelligence, sobriety, industry, moral freedom, firm union, may supply in a great measu)c the defects of the worst representative system. A people whose education and habits are such, that, in every quarter of the world, they rise above the mass of those with whom they mix, as surely as oil rises to tie top of water, — a people of such temper and self-government that the wUdest popular excesses recorded in their history partake of the gravity of judicial proceed- ings, and of the solemnity of religious rites, — a people whose national pride and mutual attachment have passed into a proverb, — a people whose high and fierce spirit, so forcibly described in the haughty motto which encircles their thistle, preserved their independence, during a struggle of centuries, from the encroachments of wealthier and more powerful neighbours, — such a people cannot be long oppressed. Any government, however constituted, must respect their wishes and tremble at their discontents. It is indeed most desirable that such a people should exercise a direct influence on the conduct of affairs, and should make their wishes known through constitutional organs. But some influence, direct or indirect, they will assuredly possess. Some organ, constitutional or unconstitutional, they will assuredly find. They will be better governed under a good constitution than under a bad constitution. But they will be better governed under the worst constitutions than some other nations under the best. In any general classification of constitutions, the constitution ot Scotland must be reckoned as one of the worst, perhaps as the worst, in Christian Europe. Yet the Scotch are not ill-governed. And the reason is simply that they will not bear to be ill-governed. In some of the Oriental monarchies, in Afghanistan for example, though there exists nothing which a European publicist would call a Constitution, the sovereign generally governs in conformity with certain niles established tor the public benefit ; and the sanction of those rules is, that every Afghan approves them, and that every Afghan is a soldier. The moiiarcny of Entjland in the sixteenth century was a monarchy of thU »44 '' BURnilLEY AND HIS TIMES. kind. It is called an absolute monarchy, because little respect was paid by the Tudors to those institutions wliicli we have been accustomed to consider as the sole checks on the power of the sovereif^n. A modem Englishman can hardly understand how the people can have had any real security for good government under kings vho levied benevolences, and chid the House of Com- mons as they would have chid a pack of dogs. People do not sufificient'.y con- sider that, though the legal checks were feeble, the natural checks were t Jrong. There was one great and effectual Imitation on the royal authority, — the /no* ledge that, if the patience of the nation were severely tried, the nation would put forth its stienglh, and thai its strength would be found irresistible. If a large body of Englishmen became thoroughly discontented, instead of pre- senting requisitions, holding large meeting.^, passing resoluiions, signing peti- tions, forming associations, and unions, they rose up ; they took their halberds and their bows ; and, if the sovereign was not sufficiently popular to find among his subjects other halberds and other bows to oppose to the rebels, nothing remained for him but a repetition of the horrible scenes of Berkeley and PomfreL He had no regular army which could, by its superior arms and its superior skill, overawe or vanquish the sturdy Commons of his realm, abounding in the native hardihood of Englishmen, and trained in the simple discipline of the militia. It has been said that the Tudors were as absolute as the Caesars. ' Never was parallel so unfortunate. The government of the Tudors was the direct oppo- site to the government of Augustus and his successors. The Caesars ruled despotically, by means of a great standing army, under the decent forms of a republican constitution. Tliey called themselves citizens. They mixed un- ceremoniously with other citizens. In theory they were only the elective magistrates of a free commonwealth. Instead of arrogating to themselves despotic power, they acknowledged allegiance to the senate. They were merely the lieutenants to that venerable body. They mixed in debate. They even appeared as advocates before the courts of law. Yet they could safely indulge in the wildest freaks of cruelty and rapacity, while their legions re- mained faithful. Our Tudors, on the other hand, under the titles and forms of monarchical supremacy, were essentially popular magistrates. They had no means of protecting themselves against the public hatred ; and they were, therefore, compelled to court the public favour. To enjoy all the state and all the personal indulgences of absolute power, — to be adored with Oriental pro- strations, — to dispose at will of the liberty and even of the life of ministers and courtiers, — this the nation granted to the Tudors. But the condition on which they were suffered to be the tyrants of Whitehall was that they should be the mild and paternal sovereigns of England. They were under the same restraints with regard to their peojile under which a military despot is placed with regard to his army. They would have found it as dangerous to grind their subjects with cruel taxation as Nero would have found it to leave his praetorians unpaid. Those who immediately surrounded the royal person, and engaged in the hazardous game of ambition, were exposed to the most fearful dangers. Buckingham, Cromwell, Surrey, Sudley, Somerset, Suffolk, Nor- folk, Percy, Essex, perished on the scaffold. But in general the country gentlemen hunted and the merchant traded in peace. Even Henry, as cruel as Domitian, but far more politic, contrived, while reeking with the blood of the Lamiae, to be a favouiite with the cobblers. The Tudors committed very tyrannical acts. But in their ordinary dealings with the people they were not, and could not safely be, tyrants. Some ex- cesses were easily pardoned. For the nation was proud of the high and fiery blood of its magnificent princes, and saw, in many procopdin^'? whicn i Tn'-^,'er BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. 245 would even then have condemned, the outbreak of the same noble spirit which to manfully hurled foul scorn at Parma and at Spain. But to this endurance there was a limit. If the government ventured to adopt measures which the people really felt to be oppressive, U was soon compelled to change its course. When Henry VIII. attempted to raise a forced loan of unusual amount by pro- ceedings of unusual rigour, the opposition which he encountered was such as appalled even his stubborn and imperious spirit. The people, we are told. ;aid that, if ttiey were treated thus, "then were it worse than the taxes of i'Yance ; and England should be bond, and not free." The county of Suffolk rose in arms. The king prudently yielded to an opposition which, if he had jiersisted, would, in all probability, have taken the form of a general rebelhon. Towards the close of the reiL;n of Elizabeth, the people felt themselve* aggrieved by the monopolies. The queen, proud and courageous as she was, shrank from a contest with the nation, and, with admirable sagacity, conceded all that her subjects had demanded, while it was yet in her power to concede with dignity and grace. It cannot be imagined that a people who had in their own hands the means of cl ecking their princes would suffer any prince to impose upon them a re- ligion generally detested. It is absurd to suppose that, if the nation had been decidedly attached to the Protestant faith, Mary could have re-established the Papal supremacy. It is equally absurd to suppose that, if the nation had been zealous for the ancient religion, Elizabeth could have restored the Protestant Church. The truth is, that the ])eople were not disposed to engage m a struggle either for the new or for the old doctrines. Abundance of spirit was shown when it seemed likely that Mary would resume her father's grants of church properly, or that she would sacrifice the interests of England to the husband whom she regarded with unmerited tenderness. That queen found that it would be madness to attempt the restoration of the abbey lands. She found that her subjects would never suffer her to make her hereditary kingdom a fief of Castile. On these points she encountered a steady resistance, and was oampelled to give way. If she was able to establish the Catholic worsJiip and to persecute those who would not confoitn to it, it was evidently because the people cared far less for the Protestant religion than for the rights of property and for the independence of the English crown. In plain words, they did not think the difference between the hostile sects worth a struggle. There was un- doubtedly a zealous Protestant party and a zealous Catholic party. But both ti t-se parties were, we believe, very small. We doubt whether both together ruule up, at the time of Mary's death, the twentieth part of the nation. The remaining nineteen twentieths halted between the two opinions, and were not disposed to risk a revolutioa in the government, for the purpose of giving to eiiher of the extreme factions an advantage over the other. We possess no data which will enable us to compare with exactness the force of the two sects. Mr, Butler asserts that, even at the accession of James I., a majority of the population of England were Catholics. This is pure asser- tion ; aud is not only unsupported by evidence, but, we think, completely disproved by the strongest evidence. Dr. Lingard is of opinion that tha Catholics were one half of the nation in the middle of the reign of Elizabeth, l^ichton says that, when Elizabeth came to the throne, the Catholics were two thirds of the nation, and the Protestants only one third. The most judicious and impartial of English historians, Mr. Hallam, is, on the contrary, of opinion that two thirds were Protestants, and only one third Catholics. To us, we must confess, it seems incredible that, if the Protestants were really two to 0!ie, they shojld have borne the government of Mary, or that, if the Catholic* ftciC rv.il.'v tv/ri x<\ one. tl;cy should h?ivc borne the ?..-vcru.iUd!U ol . iili^-Jivih. 246 BURGHLEY AND IIlS TIMES. It is absolutely incredible that a sovereign who has no standing army, and whose power rests solely on the loyalty of his subjects, can continue for years to ))ersccute a relit^ion to which tbe majority of his subjects ai« sincerely attached. In fact, liie Protestants did rise up against one sistei, and the Catholics against the other. Those risings clearly .showed how small and feeble both the ])arties were. IJoth in the one case and in the other the nation ranged it.sclf on the side of the government, and the in- surgents were speedily put down and punished. The Kentish gentlemen who took up arms for the reformed doctrines against Mary, and the great l^orthern Earls who displayed the banner of the Five Wounds against Klizabeth, were alike considered by the great body of their countrymen as wicked disturbers of the public peace. The account which Cardmal Bentivoglio gave of the state of religion in England well deserves consideration. The zealous Catholics he reckoned at one thirtieth part of the nation. The people who would without the least scruple become Catholics, if the Catholic religion were established, he esti- mated ait four fifths of the nation. We believe this account to have been very near the tnith. We believe that the people, whose minds were made up on either side, who were inclined to make any sacrifice or i^n any risk for either side, were very few. Each side had a few enterprising champions, and a few stout-hearted martyrs ; but the nation, undetermined in its opinions and feelings, resigned itself implicitly to the guidance of the government, and lent to the sovereign for the time being an equally ready aid against either of the extreme parties. We are very far from saying that the English of that generation were irre- ligious. They held firmly those doctrines which are common to the Catholic and to the Protestant theology. But they had no fixed opinion as to the matters in dispute between the churches. They were in a situation resem- bling that of those Borderers whom Sir Walter Scott has described with so much spirit, " Who sought the beeves that made their broth In England and in Scotland both." And who " Nine times outlawed had been By England's king and Scotland's queen." They were sometimes Protestants, sometimes Catholics ; sometimes half Protestants, half Catholics, The English had not, for ages, been bigoted papists. In the fourteenth century the first and perhaps the greatest of the reformers, John Wickliffe, had stined the public mind to its inmost depths. During the same century a scandalous schism in the Catholic Church had diminished in many parts of Europe the reverence in which the Roman Pontiffs were held. It is clear that a hundred years before the time of Luther a great party in this kingdom was eager for a change at least as extensive as that which was subsequently effected by Henry VIII. The House of Commons, in ttie reign of Henry IV., proposed a confiscation of ecclesiastical property, more sweeping and violent even than that which took place under the adminis- tration of Thomas Cromwell ; and though defeated in this attempt they succeeded in depriving the clerical order of some of its most oppressive (privileges. The splendid conquests of Henry V. turned the attention of the nation from domestic reform. The Council of Constance removed some of the grossest of those scandals which had deprived the Church of the public respect. The authority of that venerable synod propped up the sinking Buthority of the Popedom. A considerable reaction took place. It cannor, BURGIILEY AND HIS TIMES. 247 however, be doubted, that there was still some concealed Lollardism in Eng- land ; or that many who did not absolutely dissent from any doctrine held by the Church of Rome were jealous of the wealth and power enjoyed by her ministers. At the very beginning of the reign of Henry VIII., a struggle took place between the clergy and the courts of law, in which the courts of law remained victorious. One of the bishops, on that occasion, declared that the common people entertained the strongest prejudices against his order, and that a clergyman had no chance of fair play before a lay tri- bunal. The London juries, he said, entertained such a spite to the Church that they would find Abel guilty of the murder of Cain. This was said a few months before the time when Martin Luther began to preach at Witten- burg against indulgences. As the Reformation did not find the English bigoted Papists, so neither was it conducted in such a manner as lo make them zealous I'rotestants. It was not under the direction of men Hke that fiery Saxon who swore tliat he would go to Wonns, though he had to face as many devils as there were tiles on the houses, or like that brave Swilzer who was struck down while praying in Iront of the r.inks of Zurich. No preacher of religion had the same power here which Calvin had at Geneva and Knox in Scotland. The govennnent jiut itself early at the head of the movement, and thus acquired power to re- gulate, and occasionally to arrest, the movement. To many persons it appears extraordinary that Henry VIII. should have been able to maintain himself so long in an intermediate position between the Catholic and Protestant parties. Most extraordinary it would indeed be, if we were to suppose that the nation consisted of none but decided Catholics and decided Protestants. The fact is that the great mass of the people was neither Catholic nor Protestant, but was, like its sovereign, midway between the two sects. Henry, in that very part of his conduct which has been repre- sented as most capricious and inconsistent, was probably following a policy far more pleasing to the majority of his subjects than a policy like that of Edward, or a policy like that of Mary, would have been. Down even to the very close of the reign of Elizabeth, the people were in a state somewhat resembling that in wliich, as Machiavelli says, the inhabitants of the Roman empire were, during the transition from heathenism to Christianity: "sentlo la maggior parte di loro incerti a quale Dio dovessero ricorrere." They were generally, we think, favourable to the royal supremacy. They disliked the policy of the Court of Rome. Their spirit rose against the interference of a foreign priest with their national concerns. The bull which pronounced sentence of deposition against Elizabeth, the plots which were formed against her life, the usurpation of her titles by the Queen of Scotland, the hostility of Philip, excited their strongest indignation. The cruelties of Bonner were remembered with disgust. Some parts of the new system, — the use of the English language, — in public worship, and the communion in both kinds,; were undoubtedly popular. On the other hand, the early lessons of the nurse and the priest were not forgotten. The ancient ceremonies were long remembered with affectionate reverence. A large portion of the ancient theology lingered to the last in the minds which had been imbued with it in childhood. The best proof that the religion of the people was of this mixed kind is furnished by the Drama of that age. No man would bring unpopular opinions prominently forward in a play intended for representation. And we may safely conclude, that feelings and opinions which pervade the whole Dramatic Literature of the age, are feelings and opinions of which the men of that generation generally partook. 24^ BURGHLEY AND HIS 1JME2. The greatest and most popular dramatists of the Elizabethan age trent re- ligious subjects in a very remarkable manner. They speak respectfully of the fundamental doctrines of Chiistianity, But they speak neither like Catho.ics nor like Protestants, but like persons who are wavering between the two eystems, or who have made a system for themselves out of parts selected from both. They seem to hold some of the Romish rites and doctrines in high respect. They treat the vow of celibacy, for example, so tempting, — j and, in later times, so common a subject for ribaldry, — with mysterious rever- ence. The members of a religious order whom they introauce are holy and venerable men. We remember in their plays nothing resembling the coarse ridicule with which the Catholic religion and its ministers were assailed, two generations later, by dramatists who wished to please the multitude. We remember no Friar Dominic, — no Father Foigard, — among the characters drawn by those great poets. The scene at the close of the Knight of Malta might have been written by a fervent Catholic. Massinger shows a great fondness for ecclesiastics of the Romish Church, and has even gone so far as to bring a virtuous and interesting Jesuit on the stage. Ford, in that fine play which it is painful to read and scarcely decent to name, assigns a highly credit- able part to the Friar. The partiality of Shakspeare for Friars is well known. In Hamlet, the Ghost complains that he died without extreme unction, and, in defiance of the article which condemns the doctrine of purgatory, declares that he is " Confined to fast in fires Till the foul crimes, done in his days of nature, Are burnt and purged away." These lines, we suspect, would have raised a tremendous storm in the theatre at any time during the reign of Charles II. They were clearly not written by a zealous Protestant, or for zealous Protestants. Yet the author of King John and Henry VIII. was surely no friend to papal supremacy. There is, we think, only one solution of the phenomena which we find in the history and in the drama of that age. The religion of the English was a mixed religion, like that of the Samaritan settlers, described in the second hook of Kings, who "feared the Lord, and served their graven images;" — like that of the Judaizing Christians who blended the ceremonies and doctrines of the synagogue with those of the church ; — like that of tlie Mexican Indians, who, during many generations after the subjugation of their race, continued to unite with the rites learned Irom their conquerors the worship of the grotesque idols which had been adored by Montezuma and Guatemozin. These feelings were not confined to the populace. Elizabeth herself was by no means exempt from them. A crucifix, witli wax ligiits burning round it, stood in her private chapel. She always spoke with di>gust and anger of the marriage of priests. "I was in horror," says Archbishop Parker, "to hear such words to come from her mild nature and Christian learned con- science, as she spake concerning God's holy ordinance and institution of matri- mony." Burghley prevailed on her to connive at the marriages of churchmen. But £ he would only connive ; and the children sprung from such marriages were .ilegitimate till the accession of James I. That which is, as we have said, the great stain on the character of Burghley ie also the great stain on the character of Elizabeth. Being herself an Adia. phorist, — having no scruple about conforming to the Romish Church when conlormity was necessary to her own safety, — retaining to the last moment of her life a fondnesj for much of the doctrine and much of the ceremonial of that church, — she yet subjected that church to a persecution even more odio'-s than the persecution v/itli which her sisicr had harassed the I'rotestants. \va - BURG FILEY AND HIS TIMES. 349 say more odious. For Mary had at least the plea of fanatuism. She did nothing for her religion w-hich she was not prepared to suffer for it. She had held it firmly under persecution. She fully believed it to be essential to sal- vation. If she burned the bodies of her subjects, it was in order to rescue their souls. Elizabeth had no such pretext. In opinion, she vas little more than half a Protestant. She had professed, when it suited her, to be wht)lly a Catholic. There is an excuse, — a wretched excuse, — for the massacres of Piedmont and the Autos-da-fe of Spain. But what can be said in defence of a ruler who is at once indifferent and intolerant ? If the great Queen, whose memory is still held in just veneration by r.nglislimen, had possessed sufficient virtue and sufficient enlargement of mind to adopt those principles which More, wiser in speculation than in action, had avowed in the preceding generation, and by which the excellent L'llospital regulated his conduct in her own time, how different would be the colour ofc the whole history of the last two hundred and fifty years ! She had the happiest opportunity ever vouchsafed to any sovereign of establishing perfect freedom of conscience throughout her dominions, without danger to her government, without scandal to any large party among her subjects. The nation, as it was clearly ready to profess either religion, would, beyond all doubt, have been ready to tolerate both. Unhappily for her own glory and for the public peace, she adopted a policy from the effects of which the empire is still suffering. The yoke of the Established Church was pressed down on the people till they could bear it no longer. Then a reaction came. Another reaction followed. To the tyranny of the Establishment succeeded the tumultuous conflict of sects, infuriated by manifold wrongs, and drunk y^ith unwonted freedom. To the conflict of sects succeeded again the cruel domination of one persecuting church. At length oppression put off its most horrible form, and took a milder aspect. The penal laws against dissenters were abolished. But exclusions and disabilities stQl remained. These exclu- sions and disabilities, after having generated the most fearful discontents, — after having rendered all government in one part of the kingdom impossible,— after having brought the state to the very brink of ruin, have, in our times, been removed, but, though removed, have left behind them a rankling which may last for many years. It is melancholy to think with what ease Elizabeth might have united all conflicting sects under the shelter of the same impartial laws and the same paternal throne, and thus have placed the nation in the "•me situation, as far as the rights of conscience are concerned, in which we ^ last stand, after all the heart-burnings, the persecutions, the conspiracies, the seditions, the revolutions, the judicial murders, the civil wars, of ten generations. This is the dark side of her character. Yet she surely v/as a great woman. Of all the sovereigns who exercised a power which was seemingly absolute, Iftit which in fact depended for support on the love and confidence of their subjects, she was by far the most illustrious. It has often been alleged as an excuse for the misgovernment of her successors that they only followed her example, — that precedents might be found in the transactions of her reign for persecuting the Puritans, for levying money without the sanction of the House of Commons, for confining men without bringing them to trial, for interfering with the liberty of parliamentary debate. All this may be true. But it is n* good plea for her successors : and for this plain reason, that they were her successors. She governed one generation, they governed another; and between ir.e two generations there was almost as little in common as between th« pet)ple of two different countries. It was not by looking at the particular aoCieaurts vvhicli Kli7i^«->th had adopted, but by looking at the great g^x\'::A. aSO BVRGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. {mnciples of her government, that those who followed her were liliile. She gained more honour and more love by the manner in which she r»?|jaired her errors than she would have gained by never committing errors. If such a man as Charles I. had been in her place when the whole nation was crying out against the monopolies, he would have refused all redress ; he would have dissolved the Parliament, and imprisoned the most popular members. He would have called another Parliament. He would have given some vague and delusive promises of relief in return for subsidies. When entreated to fulfil his pro- mises, he would have again dissolved the Parliament, and again imprisoned his leading opponents. The country would have become more agitated than before. The next House of Commons would have been more unmanageable than that which preceded it. The tyrant would have agreed to all that the nation demanded. He would have solemnly ratified an act abolishing monopolies for ever. He would have received a large supply in return for this concession ; and within half a year new patents, more oppressive than those which had been cancelled, would have been issued by scores. Such was the policy which brought the heir of a long line of kings, in early youth the darling of his countrymen, to a prison and a scaffold. Elizabeth, before the House of Commons could address her, took out of their mouths the words which they were about to utter in the name of the nation. Her promises went beyond their desires. Her performance followed close upon her promise. She did not treat the nation as an adverse party — as a party which had an interest opposed to hers — as a party to which she was to grant as few advantages as possible, and from which she was to extort as much money as possible. Her benefits were given, not sold ; and when once given, they were never withdrawn. She gave them too with a frankness, an effusion of heart, a princely dignity, a motherly tenderness, which enhanced their value. They were received by the sturdy country gentlemen who had come up to Westminster full of resentment, with tears of joy, and shouts of "God save the Queen." Charles I. gave up half the prerogatives of his crown to the Commons; and the Commons sent him in return the Grand Remonstrance. We had intended to say something concerning that illustrious group of which Elizabeth is the central figure — that group which the last of the bardJ saw in vision from the top of Snowdon, encircling the Virgin Queen, j "Many a baron bold, And porgcoiis dames, and statesmen old Id bearded majesty." We had intended to say something concerning the dexterous Walsingham, the impetuous Oxford, the graceful Sackville, the all-accomplished Sydney; — concerning Essex, the ornament of the court and of the camp, the mo ri\snn' a Iiappy nnd glurious life, Ic'l to an early and an ignominion* Pt^A/i OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. «5i death; — concerning Raleigh, the soldier, the sailor, the scholar, the cotirtier, the orator, the poet, the historian, the philosopher — whom we picture to ourselves sometimes reviewing the Queen's guard, sometimes giving chase to a Spanish galleon — then answering the chiefs of the country party in the House of Commons — then again murmuring one of his sweet love-songs too near tlie ears of her Highness's maids of honour — and soon after poring over the Talmud, or collating Polybius with Livy. We had intended also to say something concerning the literature of that splendid period, and esj)eciallj concerning those two incomparable men, the Prince of Poets, and the Prince of Philosophers, who have made the Elizabethan age a more glorious and important era in the history of the human mind than the age of Pericles, of Augustus, or of Leo. But subjects so vast require a space far larger than we can at present alTord. We therefore stop here, fearing that, if we proceed, our article may swell to a bulk exceeding that of all other reviews, as much as Doctor Nares's book exceeds the bulk of all other histories. WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. History of the War of the Succession in Spain. By Lord Mahon. 8vo. London. 1832. Thh days when Miscellanies in Prose and Verse by a Person of Honour, and Romances of M. Scuderi, done into English by a Person of Quality, were attractive to readers and profitable to booksellers, have long gone by. The literary privileges once enjoyed by lords are as obsolete as their right to kill the king's deer on their way to Parliament, or as their old remedy of scandaltim 7niii^iialu7?t. Yet we must acknowledge that, though our political opinions are by no means aristocratical, we always feel kindly disposed toward noble authors. Industry and a taste for intellectual pleasures are peculiarly respectable in those who can afford to be idle, and who have every temptation to be dissi- pated. It is impossible not to wish success to a man who, finding himself placed, without any exertion or any merit on his part, above the mass of society, voluntarily descends from his eminence in search of distinctions which he may justly call his own. This is, we think, the second appearance of Lord Mahon in the character of an author. His first book was creditable to him, but was in every respect inferior to the work which now lies before us. He has undoubtedly some of the most valuable qualities of an historian — great diligence in examining authorities — great judgment in weighing testimony — and great impartiality in estimating characters. We are not aware that be has in any instance foi-/ gotten the duties belonging to his literary functions in the feelings of a kins- ■ man. He does no more than justice to his ancestor Stanhope; he does full justice to Stanhope's enemies and rivals. His narrative is very perspicuous, and is also entitled to the praise, seldom, we grieve to say, deserved by modern writers, of being very concise. It must be admitted, however, that, with many of the best qualities of a literary veteran, he has some of the faults of a literary novice. He has not yet acquired a great command of words. His style is seldom easy, and is sometimes unpleasantly stiff. He is so bigoted a purist that he transforms the Abbe d'Estrees into an Abbot. We do not like to see French words introduced into English composition ; but, after all, the first law of writing, tliat law to which all other laws are subordinate, is this — that the words employed shall be such as convey to the reader tlie meaning of the writer. Now an Abbot is the head of a religious house; aa ZgJ J-VA/l OF THE SUCCESSION W SPAW. Abbe is quite a different sort of person. It is better undoubtedly o use an English word than a French word ; but it is better to use a French word than to misuse an English word. Lord Mahon is also a little too fond of uttering moral reflections in a style too sententious and oracular. We will give one instance: "Strange as it seems, experience shows that we usually feel far more animosity against those whom we have injured than against those who injure us: and this remark holds good with every degree of intellect, with every class of fortune, with a prince or a peasant, a stripling or an elder, a hero or a prince." This remark might have seemed strange at the court of Nimrod or Chedorlaomer ; but it has now been for many generations considered as a truism ratlipr than a para- dox. Every boy has written on the ihtsis ^^ Odisse qiii-m lizseris." Scarcely any lines in English Poetry are better known than that vigorous couplet; — " Forgiveness to the injured does belong ; — But they ne'er pardon who have done the wrong." The historians and philosophers have quite done with this maxim, and have abandoned it, like other maxims which have lost their gloss, to bad novelists, by whom it will very soon be worn to rags. It is no more than justice to say that the faults of Lord Mahon's book are precisely the faults which time seldom fails to cure, and that the book, in spite of faults, is a valuable addition to our historical literature. Whoever wishes to be well acquainted with the morbid anatomy of govern- ments, whoever wishes to know how great states may be made feeble and wretched, should study the history of Spain. The empire of Philip H. was undoubtedly one of the most powerful and splendid that ever existed in the world. In Europe, he ruled Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands on both sides of the Rhine, Franche Comte, Roussillon, the Milanese, and the Two Sicilies. Tuscany, Parma, and the other small states of Italy, were as com- pletely dependent on him as the Nizam and the Rajah of Berar now are on the East India Company. In Asia, the King of Spain was master of the Philippines and of all those rich settlements which the Portuguese had made on the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, in the Peninsula of Malacca, and in the Spice-islands of the Eastern Archipelago. In America, his dominions extended on each side of the equator into the temperate zone. There is reason to believe that his annual revenue amounted, in the season of his greatest power, to four millions sterling — a sum nearly eight times as large as that which England yielded to Elizabeth. He had a standing army of fifty thousand excellent troops, at a time when England had not a single battalion in constant pay. His ordinary naval force consisted of a hundred and forty J galleys. He held, what no other prince in modern times has held, the dominion both of the land and of the sea. During the greater part of his reign, he was supreme on both elements. His soldiers marched up to the capital of France ; his ships menaced the shores of England. It is no exaggeration to say that during several years his power over Europe was greater than even that of Napoleon. The influence of the French con- queror never extended beyond low-water mark. The narrowest strait was to his power what it was of old believed that a running stream was to the sorceries of a witch. While his army entered every metropolis from Moscow to Lisbon, the English fleets blockaded every port from Dantzic to Trieste. Sicily, Sardinia, Majorca, Guernsey, enjoyed security through the whole course of a war which endangered every throne on the Continent. The victorious and imperial nation which had filled its museums with the spoils of Aiitwerp, of Florence, and of Rome, was suffering painfully trom the want tVA^ OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 253 of luxuries which use had made necessaries. While pillars and arches \A-ero rising to commemorate the French conquests, the conquerors were trying to manufacture coffee out of succory, and sugar out of beetroot. The influence of Philip on the Continent was as great as that of Napoleon. The Emperor of Germany was his kinsman. France, torn by religious dissensions, was lever a formidable opponent, and was sometimes a dependent ally. At the iame time Spain had what Napoleon desired in vain — ships, colonies, and commerce. She long monopolised the trade of America and of the Indian Ocean. All the gold of the West, and all the spices of the East, were received and distributed by her. During many years of war, l.er commerce was interrupted only by the predatory enterprises of a few roving privateers. Even after the defeat of the Armada, English statesmen continued to look with great dread on the maritime power of Philip, " The King of Spain," said the Lord Keeper to the two Houses in 1593, "since he hath usurped upon the kingdom of Portugal, hath thereby grown mighty by gaining the East Indies : so as, how great soever he was before, he is now thereby mani- festly more great : . . . He keepeth a navy armed to in^ peach all trade of merchandise from England to Gascoigne and Guienne, which he attempted to do this last vintage ; so as he is now become as a frontier enemy to all the west of England, as well as all the south parts, as Sussex, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. Yea, by means of his interest in St. Maloes, a port full of shipping for the war, he is a dangerous neighbour to the Queen's isles of Jersey and Guernsey, ancient possessions of this crown, and never conquered in the greatest wars with France. " The ascendancy which Spain then had in Europe was, in one sense, well deserved. It was an ascendancy which had been gained by unquestioned superiority in all the arts of policy and of war. In the sixteenth century, Italy was not more decidedly the land of the fine arts, Gennany was not more decidedly the land of bold theological speculation, than Spain was the land of statesmen and of soldiers. The character which Virgil has ascribed to his countrymen might have been claimed by the grave and haughty chiefs who surrounded the throne of Ferdinand the Catholic and of his immediate successors. That majestic art, — "premere iinperio popjilos" — was not better understood by the Romans in the proudest days of their republic, than by Gonsalvo and Ximenes, Cortes and Alva. The skill of the Spanish diplo- matists was renowned throughout Europe. In England the name of Gon- domar is still remembered. The sovereign nation was unrivalled both in regular and irregular warfare. The impetuous chivalry of France, the serried phalanx of Switzerland, were alike found wanting when brought face to face with the Spanish infantry. In the wars of the New World, where something different from ordinary strategy was required in the general, and something different from ordinary discipline in the soldier, — where it was every day necessary to meet by some new expedient the varying tactics of a barbarous enemy, — the Spanish adventurers, sprung from the common people, displayed a fertility of resource, and a talent for negotiation and command, to which history scarcely affords a parallel. The Castilian of those times was to the Italian what the Roman, in the days of the greatness of Rome, was to the Greek. The conqueror had less ingenuity, less taste, less delicacy of perception than the conquered ; but far more pride, firmness, and courage, — a more solemn demeanour, a stronger sense of honour. The one had more subtlety in speculation, the other more energy in action. The vices of the one were those of a coward ; — the vices of the other were those of a tyrant. It may be added that the Spaniard, like tie Roman, did not dis WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. HarcDurt won over the court and the city; Porto Carrero managed the King. Never were knave and dupe better suited to each other. Chailes was sick, nervous, and extravagantly superstitious. Porto Carrero had learned in the exercise of his profession the art of exciting and soothing such minds ; and he employed that art with the calm and demure cruelty which is the cha- racteristic of wicked and ambitious priests. He first supplanted the confessor. The state of the poor King during the conflict between his two spiritual advisers was horrible. At one time he was induced to believe that his malady was the same with that of the wretches described in the New Testament, who dwelt among the tombs, whom no chains could bind and whom no man dared to approach. At another time a sorceress who lived in the mountains of the Asturias was consulted about his malady. Several persons were accused of having bewitched him. Porto Carrero recommended the appalling rite of exorcism, which was actually per- formed. The ceremony made the poor King more nervous and miserable than ever. But it served the turn of the Cardinal, who, after much secret trickery, succeeded in casting out, not the devil, but the confessor. The next object was to get rid of the ministers. Madrid was supplied with j^rovisions by a monopoly. The government looked after this most delicate concern as it looked after everything else. The partisans of the House of Bourbon took advantage of the negligence of the administration. On a sudden the supply of food failed. Exorbitant prices were demanded. The people rose. The royal residence was surrounded by an immense multitude. The Queen harangued them. The priests exhibited the Host. All was in vain. It was necessary to awaken the King from his uneasy sleep, and to carry him to the balcony. There a solemn promise was given that the unpopular advisers of the crown should be forthwith dismissed. The mob left the palace and pro- ceeded to pull down the houses of the ministers. The adherents of the Aus- trian line were thus driven from power, and the government was intrusted to the creatures of Porto Carrero. The King left the city in which he had suffered so cruel an insult for the magnificent retreat of the Escurial. Here his hypochondriac fancy took a new turn. Like his ancestor, Charles V,, he was haunted by a strange curiosity to pry into the secrets of that grave to which he was hastening. In the cemetery which Philip II. had formed beneath the pavement of the church of St. Lawrence reposed three generations of Cas- tilian princes. Into these vaults the unhappy monarch descended by torch- light, and penetrated to that superb and gloomy chamber where, round the great black crucifix, were ranged the coffins of the kings and queens of Spain. There he commanded his attendants to open the massy chests of bronze in which the relics of his predecessors decayed. He looked on the ghastly spectacle with little emotion till the coffin of his first wife was unclosed, and she appeared before him — such was the skill of the embalmer — in all her well-remembered beauty. He cast one glance on those beloved features, un- seen for eighteen years, those features over which corruption seemed to have no power, and rushed from the vault, exclaiming, " She is with God ; and I shall soon be with her." The awful sight completed the ruin of his body and mind. The Escurial became hateful to him ; and he hastened to Aranjuez, But the shades and waters of that delicious island-garden, so fondly cele- brated in the sparkling verse of Calderon, brought no solace to their unfortu- nate master. Having tried medicine, exercise, and amusement in vain, he returned to Madrid to die. He was now beset on every side by the bold and skilful agents of the House of Bourbon. The leading politicians of his court assured him that LoaiSj and Louis alone, was sufficiently powerful to preserve the Spanisb WAX OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN, zt\ monarchy undivided, and that Austria would be utterly unable to prevent the Treaty of Partition from being carried into effect. Some celebrated lawyers gave it as their opinion that the act of renunciation executed by the laie Queen of France ought to be construed according to the spirit, and not according to the letter. The letter undoubtedly excluded the French princes. The spirit was merely this, — that ample security should be taken against the union of the French and Spanish crowns on one head. In all probabihty, neither political nor legal reasonings would have sufficed to overcome the partiality which Charles felt for the House of Austria. There had always been a close connection between the two great royal lines which sprang from the marriage of Philip and Juana. Both had always regarded the French as their natural enemies. It was necessary to have recourse to religious terrors ; and Purto Carrero employed those terrors with true profes- sional skill. The King's life was drawing to a close. Would the most Catholic prince commit a great sin on the brink of the grave ? And what could be a greater sin than, from an unreasonable attachment to a family name, from an unchristian antipathy to a rival house, to set aside the rightful heir of an immense heritage ? The tender conscience and the feeble iniellect of Charles were strongly wrought upon by these appeals. At length Porto Carrero ventured on a master-stroke. He advised Charles to apply lor counsel to the Pope. The King, who, in the simplicity of his heart, considered the successor of St. Peter as an infallible guide in spiritual matters, adopted the suggestion j and Porto Carrero, who knew that his holiness was a mere tool of France, awaited with perfect confidence the result of the application. In the answer which arrived from Rome the King was solemnly reminded of the great account which he was soon to render, and cautioned against the flagrant injustice which he was tempted to commit. He was assured that the right was with the house of Bourbon, and reminded that his own salvation ought to be dearer to him than the house of Austria. Yet he still continued irreso- lute. His attachment to his family, his aversion to France, were not to be overcome even by Papal authority. At length he thought himself actually dying, when the Cardinal redoubled his efforts. Divine after divine, well tutored for the occasion, was brought to the bed of the trembling penitent. He was dying in the commission of known sin. He was defrauding his rela- tives. He was bequeathing civil war to his people. He yielded, and signed that memorable testament, the cause of many calamities to Europe. As I-e affixed his name to the instrument, he burst into tears. "God," he said, " gives kingdoms and takes them a,v\.y. I am already one of the dead." The will was kept secret during the short remainder of his life. On the 3rd of November, 1700, he expired. All Madrid crowded to the Palace. The gates were thronged. The antechamber was filled with ambassadors and grandees, eager to learn what dispositions the deceased sovereign had made. At length the folding-doors were flung open. The Duke of Abranles came ; forth, and announced that the whole Spanish monarchy was bequeathed tc y, Phi.ip, Duke of Anjou. Charles had directed that, during che interval wliich might elapse between his death and the arrival of his successor, the govern- ment should be administered by a council, of which Porto Carrero w^is the chief member. Louis acted as the English ministers might have guessed that he would act. With scarcely the show of hesitation, he broke through all the obliga- tions of the Partition Treaty, and accepted for his grandson the splendid legacy of Charles. The new sovereign hastened to take possession of his dominions. The whole court of France accompanied him to Sceaux, iiii brothers escorted hiia to iIijX frontier Vihich, as iLcy '.veakiy imaguicd, was to 26a Pf'AM OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. be a frontier no longer. *'The Pyrenees," said Louis, "have ceased to exist" Those very Pyrenees, a few years later, were the theatre of a war between the heir of Louis and the prince whom France was now sending to govern Spain. If Charles had ransacked Europe to find a successor whose moral and inteK lectual character resembled his own, he could net have chosen better. Philip was not so sickly as his predecessor, but he was quite as weak, as indolent, and as superstitious ; he very soon became quite as hypochondriacal and eccentric, and he was even more uxorious. He was, indeed, a husband of ten thousand. His first object when he became King of Spain was to procure a wife. From the day of his marriage to the day of her death his first object ■was to have her near him, and to do what she wished. As soon as his wife died his first object was to procure another. Another was found, as unlike the former as possible. But she was a wife ; — and Philip was content. Neither by day nor by night, neither in sickness nor in health, neither in time of business nor in time of relaxation, did he ever suffer her to be absent from him for half an hour. His mind was naturally feeble ; and he had received an enfeebling education. He had been brought up amidst the dull magnifi- cence of Versailles. His grandfather was as imperious and as ostentatious in his intercourse with the royal family as in public acts. All those who grew up immediately under the eye of Louis had the manners of persons who had never known what it was to be at ease. They were all taciturn, shy, and awkward. In all of them, except the Duke of Burgundy, the evil went fur- ther than the manners. The Dauphin, the Duke of Berri, Philip of Anjou were men of insignificant characters. They had no energy, no force of will. They had been so little accustomed to judge or to act for themselves that implicit dependence had become necessary to their comfort. The new King of Spain, emancipated from control, resembled that wretched German captive who, when the irons which he had worn tor years were knocked off, fell prostrate on the floor of his prison. The restraints which had enfeebled the mind of the young Prince were required to support it. Till he had a wife he could do nothing ; and when he had a wife he did whatever she chose. While this lounging, moping boy was on his way to Madrid, his grand- father was all activity. Louis had no reason to fear a contest with the Empire single-handed. He made vigorous preparations to encounter Leopold. He overawed the States-General by means of a great army. He attempted to soothe the English government by fair professions. William was not deceived. He fully returned the hatred of Louis ; and, if he had been free to act according to his own inclinations, he would have declared war as soon as the contents of the will were known. But he was bound by constitutional restraints. Both his person and his measures were unpopular in England. His secluded life and his cold manners disgusted a people accustomed to the graceful affability of Charles II. His foreign accent and his foreign attach- ments were offensive to the national prejudices. His reign had been a season of distress, following a season of rapidly increasing prosperity. The burdens of the late war and the expense of restoring the currency had been severely felt. Nine clergymen out of ten were Jacobites at heart, and had sworn allegiance to the new dynasty only in order to save their benefices. A large proportion of the country gentlemen belonged to the same party. The whole body of agricultural proprietors was hostile to that interest which the creation of the national debt had brought into notice, and v/hich was believed to be peculiarly favoured by the court — the moneyed interest. The middle classes were fully deterini, cl to keep out James and his family. B.ii they regarded William only as the less of two evils ; and, as long as tliere was no immincnJ PTAH OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 263 c^an-er of a counter-revolution, were disposed to thwart and mortify the sovereign, by whom they were, nevertheless, ready to stand, in case of neces- suy, with their lives and fortunes. They were sullen and dissati^i"led. " There was, as Somers expressed it in a remarkable letter to WiUiam, " a deadness and want of spirit in the nation universally." Everything in England was going on as Louis could have wished The poiiQT&.Qf the Whig party had retired from power, and were extremely un- lones, some oi-v.nt of the unfortunate issue of the Partition Treaty The la office, and had a decfcaVcxo.t a lingering look towards St. Germain's, were was so much embarrassed by the sta..---, ^he House of Commons. William not venture to make war on the House of Bouru..^ England that he could a complication of severe and incurable diseases. There v>__ ■^nfferinfr H believe that a few months would dissolve the fragile tie which boun. feeble body with that ardent and unconquerable soul. If Louis could succeeu in preserving peace for a short time, it was probable that all his vast designs v/ould be securely accomplished. Just at this crisis, the most important crisis of his life, his pride and his passions hurried him into an error which undid all that forty years of victory and intrigue had done, — which produced the dismemberment of the kingdom of his grandson, and brought invasion, bankruptcy, and famine on his own. James II. died at St. Germain's. Louis paid him a farewell visit, and was so much m.oved by the solemn parting, and by the grief of the exiled Queen, that, losing sight of all considerations of policy, and actuated, as it should seem, merely by compassion and a not ungenerous vanity, he acknowledged the Prince of Wales as King of England. The indignation which the Castilians had felt when they heard that three foreign powers had undertaken to regulate the Spanish succession was nothing to the rage with which the English learned that their good neighbour had taken the trouble to provide them with a king. Whigs and Tories joined in condemning the proceedings of the French court. The cry for war was raised by the city of London, and echoed and re-echoed from every comer of the realm. William saw that his time was come. Though his wasted and suf- fering body could hardly move without support, his spirit was as energetic and resolute as when, at twenty-three, he bade defiance to the combined forces of England and France. He left the Hague, where he had been en- gaged in negotiating with the States and the Emjjeror a defensive treaty against the ambitious designs of the Bourbons. He flew to London. He remodelled the Ministry. He dissolved the Parliament. The majority of the luvv House of Commons was with the King ; and the most vigorous prepara- ^^ tions were made for war. Before the commencement of active hostilities William was no more. But • the Grand Alliance of the European princes against the Bourbons was already constructed. "The master workman died," says Mr. Burke; "but the work was formed on true mechanical principles, and it was as truly wrought." On the 15th of May, 1 702, war was proclaimed by concert at Vienna, at London, and at the Hague. Thus commenced that great struggle by which Europe, from the Vistula to tne Atlantic Ocean, was agitated during twelve years. The two hostile coalitions were, in respect of territory, wealth, and population, not unequally matched. On the one side were France, Spain, and Bavaria ; on the other, England, Holland, the Empire, and a crowd of inferior Powers. That part of the war which Lord Mahon has undertaken to relate, though not the least important, is certainly the least attractive. In Ttalv, in 'Jer. $^ WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPaI:^ many, and in the Netherlands, great means were at the dispo=;al of greal cenerals. Mighty batdes were fought. Fortress after forti;ess was subciued. The iron chain of the Belgian strongholds was broken. By a regular and connected series of operations extending through several years, th-- a renca were driven back from the Danube and the Po into their own provinces. The war in Spain, on the contrary, is made up of events which seem to have no dependence on each other. The turns of fortune resemble thosft ti^ual take place in a dream. Victory and defeat are not follou-a^nothing. Yet, consequences. Armies spring out of nothin-^— ^s perhaps more interesting^ to judicious readers of histoij, tl-..<^ -"0^ l^"Sene. The fate of the Milanese Uian the campaigns of y^ "^^s clecided by military skill. The fate of Spam , r ,. p T J i.ne pecuharities of the national character. . .icn the war commenced, the young king was in a most deplorable situation. On his arnval at Madrid he found Porto Carrero at the head of affairs, and he did not think fit to displace the man to whom he ov/ed liis crown. The Cardinal was a mere intriguer, and in no sense a statesman. lie had acquired, in the court and in the confessional, a rare degree of skill in all the tricks by vvliich weak minds are jnanaged. — But of the noble science ol government, — of the sources of national prosperity, — of the causes of national decay, — he knew no more than his master. It is curious to observe the con- trast between the dexterity with which he ruled the conscience of a foolish valetudinarian, and the imbecility which he showed when placed at the head of an empire. On what grounds Lord Mahon represents the Cardinal as a man "of splendid genius," — "of vast abilities," we are unable to discover. Louis was of a very different opinion, and Louis was very seldom mistaken in his judgment of character, " Everybody," says he, in a letter to hia ambassador, " knows how incapable the Cardinal is. He is an object of con« tempt to his countrymen." A few miserable savings were made, which ruined individuals without producing any perceptible benefit to the state. The police became more and more inefficient. The disorders of the capital were increased by the arrival of French adventurers, — the refuse of Parisian brothels and gaming-houses. These wretches considered the Spaniards as a subjugated race, whom the ccuTitrymen of the new sovereign might cheat and insult with impunity. The King sate eating and drinking ail night, lay in bed all day, — yav.med at the council table, and suffered the most important papers to lie unopened for weeks. At length he was roused by the only excitement of which his slug- gish nature was susceptible. His grandfather consented to let him have a wife. The clioice was fortunate. Maria Louisa, Princess of Savoy, a beau- tiful and graceful girl of thirteen, already a woman in person and mind at an age when the females of colder climates are still children, was the person seleci(Hl. The King resolved to give her the meeting in Catalonia. He left his ca[)ilal, of which he was already thorouglily tired. At setting out he was mobbed by a gang of b ggars. He, however, made his way through them, and rejiaired to Barcelimit. Louis was perfectly aivare thnt the Queen would govern Philip. Wo, ac cordingly, looked about fur somebody to govern the Queen. lie selected the Princess Orsini to be first lady of the bedchaml)er, — no insignificant post in the household of a very young wife and a very uxorious husliand. The lady was the daughter of a French peer, and the widow of a Spanish grandee. 15hft was, therefore, admirably fitted by her position to be the instrument of the court of Versailles at the court of Madrid. The Duke of Orleans called her, in words too coarse for translation, the Lieutenant of Captain Maintenou; PVAH OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 265 end the appellation was well deserved. She aspired to play in Spa.n the part which Madame de Maintenon had played in France, But, though at least equal to bcc model in wit, information, and talents for intrigue, she h^ not that self-command, that patience, that imperturbable evenness of ten.yer, which had raised the widow of a buffoon to be the consort of the proudest of kings. The Princess was more than fifty years old, but was still vain of her fine eyes, and her fine shape; she still dressed in the style of a girl ; and she still cairied her flirtations so far as to give occasion for scandal. She was, however, polite, eloquent, and not deficient in strength of mind. The bitter Sai.it Simon owns that no person whom she wished to attach could long resist tl.e graces of her manners and of her conversation. We have not time to relate how she obtained, and how she preserved he; empire over the ycung couple in whose household she was placed, — how sht; became so powerful that neither minister of Spain nor ambassador from France could stand against her, — how Louis himself was compelled to coui! her — how she received orders from Versailles to retire — how the Queen took part with her favourite attendant — how the King took part with the Queen — and how, after much squabbling, lying, shufl3ing, bullying, and coaxing, the dispute was adjusted. We turn to the events of the war. When hostilities were proclaimed at London, Vienna, and the Hague, Philip was at Naples. He had been with great difficulty prevailed upon, by the most urgent representations from Versailles, to separate himself from his wife, and to repair without her to his Italian dominions, which were then menaced by the Emperor. The Queen acted as Regent, and, child as she was, seems to have been quite as competent to govern the kingdom as her husband or any of his ministers. In August, 1 702, an armament, under the command of the Duke of Ormond, appeared off Cadiz. The Spanish authorities had no funds and no regular troops. The national spirit, however, supplied in some degree what was wanting. The nobles and peasantry advanced money. The peasantry were formed into what the Spanish writers call bands of heroic patriots, and what General Stanhope calls a "rascally foot militia." If the invaders had acted with vigour and judgment, Cadiz would probably have fallen. But the chiefs of the expedition were divided by national and professional feelings — Dutch against English, and land against sea. Sparre, the Dutch general, was sulky and perverse — according to Lord I^Iahon, because he was a citizen of a republic. Bellasys, the English general, embezzled the stores — we suppose, because he was the subject of a monarchy. The Duke of Ormond, who had the command of the whole expedition, proved on this occasion, as on every other, destitute of the qualities which gieat emergencies require. No disci- pline was kept ; the soldiers were suffered to rob and insult those whom it v/as most desirable to conciliate. Churches were robbed; images were pulled down; nuns vv< e violated. The officers shared the spoil, ins'^ead of punishing the spoilers; and at last the armament, loaded, to use the words of Staiihj]):-, "with a great deal of plunder and infamy," quilted the scene of Essex's glory, leaving the only Spaniard of note who had declared for them to be hanged by his countrymen. The fleet was off the coast of Portugal, on the way back to England, when the Duke of Ormond received inttll'geiice that the treasure-ships from Ame- rica had just arrived in Europe, aiid had, in order to avoid his armament, repaired to tlie harbour of Vigo. The cargo consisted, it was said, of more than three millions sterling in gold and silver, besides nxuch valuable mer- chandise. The prospect uf plunder reconciled all disputes, Dutch and E;; ?• liih, admiials and generals, were equally eager for action. Tiie bpaniaids 266 IVAR OF THE SUCCLSSrON IN SPAIN. might with the greatest ease have secured the treasure by simply landing it ; but it was a fundamental law of Spanish trade that the galleons should un- load at Cadiz, and at Cadiz only. The Chamber of Commerce at Cadiz, in the true spirit of monopoly, refused, even at this conjuncture, to bate one jot of its privilege. The matter was referred to the Council of the Indies : that body deliberated and hesitated just a day too long. Some feel)le prepara- tions for defence were made. Two ruined towers at the mouth of the bay of Vigo were garrisoned by a few ill-armed and untrained rustics ; a boom was thrown across the entrance of the bnsin ; and a few French ships of war, which had convoyed the galleons from America, were moored within. Euf all was to no piu-pone. The English ships broke the boom : Ormond and his soldiers scaled the forts ; the French burned their ships, and escaped t* the shore. The conquerors shared some millions of dollars ; — some millions more were sunk. When all the galleons had been captured or destroyed came an order in due form allowing them to unload. When Philip returned to Madrid, — in the beginning of 1703, he found the finances more embarrassed, the people more discontented, and the hostile, coalition more formidable than ever. The loss of the galleons had occasioned a great deficiency in the revenue. The Admiral of Castile, one of the greatest subjects in Europe, had fled to Lisbon and sworn allegiance to the Archduke. The King of Portugal soon after acknowledged Charles as King of Spain, and prepared to support the title of the house of Austria by arms. On the other side, Louis sent to the assistance of his grandson an army of 12,000 men, commanded by the Duke of Berwick. Berwick was the son of James the Second and Arabella Churchill. He had been brought up to expect the highest honours which an English subject could enjoy ; but the whole course of his life was changed by the revolution which overthrew his infatuated father. Berwick became an exile, a man \vithout a country ; and from that time forward his camp was to him in the place of a country, and professional honour was his patriotism. He ennobled his wretched calling. There was a stern, cold, Brutus-like virtue in the manner in which he discharged the duties of a soldier of fortune. His military fidelity was tried by the strongest tempta- tions and was found invincible. At one time he fought against his uncle ; at another he fought against the cause of his brother j yet he was never suspected of treachery, or even of slackness. Early in 1 704 an army, composed of English, Dutch, and Portuguese, was assembled on the western frontier of Spain. The Archduke Charles had arrived at Lisbon, and appeared in person at the head of his troops. The military skill of Berwick held the Allies in check through the whole cam- paign. On the south, however, a great blow was struck. An English fleet, under Sir George Rooke, having on board several regiments commanded by the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, appeared before the rock of Gibraltar. That celebrated stronghold which nature has made all but impregnable, and against which all the resources of the military art have been employed in vain, was taken as easily as if it had been an open village in a plain. The garrison went to say their prayers instead of standing on their guard. A few Eng- lish sailors climbed the rock. The Spaniards capitulated; and the British fiag was placed on those ramparts from which the combined armies and na\'ies of France and Spain have never been able to pull it down. Rooke proceeded to Malaga, gave battle in the neighbourhood of that port to a French squad- ron, and after a doubtful action returned to England. But greater events were at hand. The English government had determined to send an expedition to Spain, under the command of Charles Mordaunt Earl of Peterborough. This man was, if not the greatest, yet assuredly the J^HE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. zSl cxcqjted. Indeed, Peterborough may be described as a polite, learned, and amorous Charles XII. His courage had all the French impetuosity, and all the English steadiness. His fertility and activity of mind were almost beyon'l belief. They appeared in every thing that he did, — in his campaigns, in his negoitations, in his familiar correspondence, in his lightest and most unstudied conversation. He was a kind friend, a generous enemy, and in depovtment a thorough gentleman. But his splendid talents and virtues were rendered almost useless to his country, by his levity, his restlessness, his irritability, his morbid craving for novelty and for excitement. He loved to fly round P-urope faster than a travelling courier. He was at the Hague one week, at Menna the next. Then he t(jok a fancy to see Madrid ; and he had scared \ reached Madiid, when he ordered horses and set off for Copenhagen, I\c attendants could keep up with his speed. No bodily infirmities could confiut him. Old age, disease, imminent death, produced scarcely any effect on hi.- intrepid spirit. Just before he underwent the most horrible of surgical upeia- tions, his conversation was as sprightly as that of a young man in the full vigour of hf-nlth. On the day after the operation, in spite of the entreatie.- of his medical advisers, he would set out on a journey. His figure was lliai of a skeleton. But his elastic mind supported him under fatigues and suf- ferings which seemed sufficient to bring the most rol)Ust man to the grave. Change of employment was as necessary to him as change of place, lit loved to dictate six or seven letters at once. Those who had to transail business with him complained that though he talked with great ability on every subject, he could never be kept to the point. " Lord Peterborough," said Pope, " would say very pretty and lively things in his letters, but they would be rather too gay and wandering ; whereas, were Lord Bolingbroke to write to an emperor, or to a statesman, he would fix on that point which was the most material, would set it in the strongest and finest light, and manafi it so as to make it the most serviceable to his purpose." What Peterborougii was to Bolingbroke as a writer, he was to Marlborough as a general, lie wa.s, in truth, the last of the knights-errant, — brave to temerity, — liberal lo profusion, — courteous in his dealings with enemies, — the protector of the oppressed, — the adorer of women. His virtues and vices were those of the Round Table. Indeed, his character can hardly be better summed up than in the lines in whii-h the author of that clever little p.x-m, Monks and Giant:, has dcscribea Sir Tristram. " His birth, it seems, by Merlin's calculation. Was under Venus, Mercury, and Mars ; His mind with all their attributes was mix'd, And, like those planets, wandering and unfix'd. " From realm to realm he ran, and never staid : Kingdoms and crowns he won, and gave away : It seem'd as if his labours were repaid By the mere noise and movement of the fray : No conquests nor acquirements had he made ; His chief delight was, on some festive day, To ride triumphant, prodigal, and proud. And shower his wealth amidst the shouting crowd. •• His schemes of war were sudden, unforeseen. Inexplicable both to friend and foe ; It seem'd as if some momentary spleen Inspired the prqiect, and impelled the blow ; And most his fortune and success were seen With means the mo.st inadequate and low ; Most master of himself, and least encuniber'd. When overmatch'd, entangled, and outnumber' J." a68 LORD MAHON'S WAR OF In June, 1705, this remarkable man arrived in Lisbon with five thousanl Dutch and English soldiers. There the Archduke embarked with a large train of attendants, whom Peterborough entertained magnificently during the voyage at his own expense. From Lisbon the armament proceeded to Gib- raltar, and, having taken the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt on board, steered towards the north-east along the coast of Spain. The first place at which the expedition touched, after leaving Gibraltar, was Altea in Valencia. Tlie wretched misgovemment of Philip had excited gre.it discontent throughout this province. The invaders were eagerly wel- comed. The peasantry (locked to the sliore, bearing provisions, and shouting, — " Long live Charles III." The neighbouring fortress of Denia surrenderai without a blow. The imagination of Peterborough took fire. He conceived the hope of finishing the war at one blow. Madrid was but a hundred and fifty miles distant There was scarcely one fortified place on the road. The troops of Philip were either on the frontiers of Portugal or on the coast of Catalonia. At the cajjit.nl there w.is no military force, except a few horse who formed a guard of honour round the person of Philip. But the scheme of pushing into the heart of a great kiuj^dom with an army of only seven thousand men, was too tlaring to please the Archduke. The Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, who, in the reign of the late King of Spain, had been Governor of Catalonia, and who overrated his own influence in that province, was of opinion that they ought instantly to proceed thither, and to attack Barcelona. Peterborough, was hampered by his instructions, and found it necessary to submit On the sixteenth of August the fleet arrived before Barcelona ; and Peter- borough found that the task assigned to him by the Archduke and the Prince was one of almost insuperable difficulty. One side of the city was protected by the sea ; the other by the strong fortifications of Monjuich. The walls were so extensive, that thirty thousand men would scarcely have been suffi- cient to invest them. The garrison was as numerous as the besieging army. The best officers in the Spanish service were in the town. The hopes which the Prince of Darmstadt had formed of a general rising in Catalonia were grievously disappointed. The invaders were joined only by about fifteen hundred armed peasants, whose services cost more than they were worth. No general was ever in a more deplorable situation than that in which Peterborough was now placed. He had always objected to the scheme of besieging Barcelona. His objections had been overruled. He had to execute a project which he had constantly represented as impracticable. His camp was divided into hostile factions, and he was censured by all. The Archduke and the Prince blamed him for not proceeding instantly to take the town ; but sugt^ested no plan by which seven thousand men could be enabled to do the work of thirty thousand. Others blamed their general for giving up his own opinion to the childish whims of Charles, and for sacrificing his men in an attempt to perform what was impossible. The Dutch commander positively declared that his soldiers should not stir : Lord Peterborough might give what orders he chose ; but to engage in such a siege was madness ; and the met should not be sent to certain deatli when tliere was no chance of obtaining ariy advantage. At length, after three weeks of inaction, Peterborough announced his fixed determination to raise the siege. The heavy cannon were sent on board. Preparations were made for re-embarking the troops. Charles and the Prince of Hesse were furious; but most of the oflTicers blamed their general for having delayed so long the measure which he had at last found it necessary to take. On the 1 2th of September there were rejoicings and public entertainments ia rrm succession in spain. 2^9 Eitrcelona for this great deliverance. On the following morning the English flag was flying on the ramparts of Monjuich. The genius and energy of one man had supplied the place of fory battalions. At midnight Peterborough had called on the Prince of Hesse, with whom he had not for some time been on speaking terms. ' ' I have resolved, sir, " said the Earl, "to attempt an assault: you may accompany us, if you think fit, and see whether I and my men deserve what you have been pleased to eay of us." The Prince was stiirtled. The attempt, he said, was hopeless; Dut he was ready to take his share; and, without further discussion, he called for his horse. Fifteen hundred English soldiers were assembled under the Earl. A honsand more had beer, posted as a body of reserve, at a neighbouring convent, under the command of Stanhope. After a winding march along the foot of the hills, Peterborough and his little army reached the walls of Monjuich. There they baited till daybreak. As soon as they were descried, the enemy advanced into the outer ditch to meet them. This was the event on which Peterborough had reckoned, and for which his men were prepared. The English received the fire, rushed forward, leaned into the ditch, put the Spaniards to fi'.ght, and entered the works together with the fugitives. Before the garrison had recovered from their first surprise, the Earl was master of the outworks, had taken several pieces of cannon, and had thrown up a breastwork to defend his men. He then sent off for Stanhope's reserve. While he was waiting for this reinforcement, news arrived that three thousand men were marching from Barcelona towards Monjuich. He instantly rode out to take a view of them ; but no sooner had he left his troops than they were seized with a panic. Theii situation was indeed full of danger; they had been brought into Monjuich, they scarcely knew how; their numbers were small; their general was gone ; their hearts failed them, and they were proceeding to evacuate the fort. Peterborough received information of these occurrences in time to stop the retreat. He galloped up to the fugitives, addressed a few words to them, and put himself at their head. The sound of his voice and the sight of his face restored all their courage, and they marched back to their former position. The Prince of Hesse had fallen in the confusion of the assault ; but every- thing else went. welL Stanhope arrived ; the detachment which had marched out of Barcelona retreated ; the heavy cannon were disembarked, and broug^it to bear op the inner fortifications of Monjuich, which speedily fell. Peter- borough, ^th his usual generosity, rescued the Spanish soldiers from the ferocity of his victorious army, and paid the last honours with great pomp t9 his rival the Prince of Hesse. The reduction of Mocjuich was the first of a series of brilliant exploits. Barcelona fell ; and Peterborough had the glory of taking, with a handfull ol men, one of the largest and strongest towns of Europe. He had also the glory, not less dear to his chivalrous temper, of s&' ng the life and honour JJ the beautiful Duchess of Popoli, whom he met flying with dishevelled halt from the fury of the soldiers. He availed himself dexterously of the jealousy with which the Catalonians regarded the inhabitants of Castile. He guaran« teed to the province in the capital of which he was now quartered all its ancient rights and liberties, and thus succeeded in attaching the population to the Austrian cause. The open country declared in favour of Charles, Tarragona, Tortosa, Geiona, Lerida, San Mat?o, threw open their gates. The Spanish Govern- ment sent the Count of .T^as Torres with seven thousand men to reduce San Mateo. The Earl of Peterborough, with only twelve hundred men, raised the siege. HL= officers advised him to be content with this extraordinary success. 870 LORD MAHON'S WAR OF Charles urged him to return to Barcelona; but no remonstrances could itop such a spirit in the midst of such a career. It was the depth of winter. The country was mountainous. The roads were almost impassable. The men were ill-clothed. The horses were knocked up. The retreating army was far more numerous than the pursuing army. But difficulties and dangers vanished before the energy of Peterborough. He pushed on, driving Las Torres before him. Nules surrendered to the mere terror of his name ; and, on the 4th of February, 1706, he arrived in triumph at Valencia, There he learned that a body of four thousand men was on the march to join Las Torres. He set 04t at dead of night from Valencia — passed the Xucar — came unexpectedly on the encampment of the enemy, and slaughtered, dispersed, or took the whole reinforcement. The Valencians, as we are told by a person who was present, could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw the prisoners brought in. In the meantime, the Courts of Madrid and Versailles, exasperated and alarmed by the fall of Barcelona and by the revolt of the surrounding country, determined to make a great effort. A large army, nominally commanded b/ Philip, but really under the orders of Marshal Tesse, entered Catalonia. A fleet under the Count of Toulouse, one of the natural children of Louis XIV., appeared before the port of Barcelona. The city was attacked at once by sea and land. The person of the Archduke was in considerable danger. Peter- borough, at the head of about three thousand men, marched with great rapidity from Valencia. To give battle, with so small a force, to a great regular army under the conduct of a Marshal of France, would have been madness. The Earl therefore took his post on the neighbouring mountains, harassed the enemy with incessant alarms, cut off their stragglers, intercepted their communications with the interior, and introduced supplies, both of men and provisions, into the town. He saw, however, that the only hope of the besieged was on the side of the sea. His commission from the British government gave him supreme power not only over the army, but, whenever he should be actually on board, over the navy also. He put out to sea at night in an open boat, without com- municating his design to any person. He was picked up, several leagues from the shore, by one of the ships of the English squadron. As soon as he was on board, he announced himself as first in command, and sent a pinnace with his orders to the Admiral. Had these orders been given a few hours earlier, it is probable that the whole French fleet would have been taken. As it was, the Count of Toulouse put out to sea. The port was open. The town was relieved. On the following night the enemy raised the siege and retreated to Rouisillon. Peterborough returned to Valencia ; and Philip, who had been .some weeks absent from his wdfe, could endure the misery of separation no l«nger, and flew to rejoin her at Madrid. At Madrid, however, it was impossible for him or for her to remain. The splendid success which Peterborough had obtained on the eastern coast of the Peninsula had inspired the sluggish Galway with emulation. He advanced into the heart of Spain. Berwick retreated. Alcantara, Ciudad Rodrigo, and SiUamanca fell, and the conquerors marched towards the capital. Philip was earnestly pressed by his advisers to remove the seat of govern- ment to Burgos. The advanced guard of the allied army was already seen on the heights above Madrid. It was known that the main body was at hand. The unfortunate Prince fled with his Queen and his household. The royal wanderers, after travelling eight days on bad roads, under a burning sun, and sleeping eight nights in miserable hovels, one of which fell down and nearly crushed them both to death, reached the metropolis of Old Castile. In the meantime, the invaders had entered Madrid in triumph, and had proclaimed the Archduke in the streets of thfi imperial city. Arragon, ever jealous of ija THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. VJ\ Castilian ascendency, followed the example of Catalonia. Saragossa revolted without seeing an enemy. The governor whom Philip had set over Carthagera betrayed his trust, and surrendered to the Allies the best arsenal and the last ships which Spain possessed. Toledo had been for some time the retreat of two ambitious, turbulent, and vindictive intriguers, the Queen Dowager and Cardinal Porto Carrero. They had long been deadly enemies. They had led the adverse factions of Austria and France. Each had in turn domineered over the weak and disordered mind of the late King. At length the impostures of the priest had triumphed over the blandishments of the woman ; Porto Carrero had remained victorious; and the Queen had fled in shame and mortification from tl e court where she had once been supreme. In her retirement she was soon joined by him whose arts had destroyed h«r influence. The Cardinal, having held power just long enough to convince all parties of his incompetency, had been dismissed to liis See, cursing his own folly and the ingratitude of the House which he had served too well. Common interests and common enmities reconciled the falleu rivals. The Austrian troops were admitted into Toledo without opposition. The Queen Dowager flung off" that mournful garb which the widow of a King of Spain wears through her whole life, and blazed forth in jewels. The Car- dinal blessed the standards of the invaders in his magnificent cathedral, and lighted up his palace in honour of the great deliverance. It seemed that the struggle had terminated in favour of the Archduke, and that nothing remained for Philip but a prompt flight into the dominions of his grandfather. So judged those who were ignorant of the character and habits of the Span- ish people. There is no country in Europe which it is so easy to overrun a? Spain : — there is no country in Europe which it is more difficult to conquer. Nothing can be more contemptible than the regular military resistance which it offers to an invader: — nothing more formidable than the energy which it puts forth when its regular military resistance has been beaten down. Its armief have long borne too much resemblance to mobs ; but its mobs have had, in an unusual degree, the spirit of armies. The soldier, as compared with other soldiers, is deficient in military qualities ; but the peasant has as much of those qualities as the soldier. In no country have such strong fortresses been taken by a mere coup-de-niain: in no country have unfortified towns made so furious and obstinate a resistance to great armies. War in Spain has, from the days of the Romans, had a character of its own ; it is a fire which cannot be raked out ; it burns fiercely under the embers ; and long after it has, to all seeming, been extinguished, bursts forth more violently than ever. This was seen in the last war. Spain had no army which could have looked in the face an equal number of French or Prussian soldiers; but one day laid the Prussian monarchy in the dust ; one day put the crown of France at the disposal of invaders. No Jena, no Waterloo, would have enabled Joseph to reign in quiet at Madrid. The conduct of the Castihans throughout the War of the Succession was most characteristic. With all the odds of number and situation on their side, they had been ignominiously beaten. All the European dependencies of the Spanish crown were lost. Catalonia, Arragon, and Valencia had acknow- ledged the Austrian Prince. Gibraltar had been taken by a few sailors; Barcelona stormed by a few dismounted dragoons. The invaders had pene- trated into the centre of the Peninsula, and were quartered at Madrid and Toledo. While these events had been in progress, the nation had scarcely given a sign of life. The rich could hardly be prevailed on to give or to lend for the support of war; the troops had shown neither discipline nor courage; and now, at last, when it seemed that all was lost — when it seemed that tha most sanguine must relinquish all hope — the national spirit awoke, fierct:. 27a LORD MAHON'S WAR OB f roud, an<3 unconquerable. The people had been sluggish when the circuni" stances night well have inspired hope ; they reserved all their energy for what appeared to be a season of despair. Castile, Leon, Andalusia, Estremadura, rose at once; every peasant procured a firelock or a pike; the Allies were masters only of the ground on which they trod. No soldier tould wander a hundred yards from the main body of the invading army withou imminent risk of being poniarded ; the country through which the conquerors had passed to Madrid, and which, as they thought, they had subdued, was all in arms behind them ; their communications with Portugal were cut off. In the meantime, money bet;an, for the first time, to flow rapidly into the treasury of the fugitive king. "The day before yesterday,'' says the Princess Orsini, in a letter written at this time, "the priest of a village which contains only a hundred and twenty houses brought a hundred and twenty pistoles to the Queen. 'My flock,' said he, 'are ashamed to send you so little; but thev beg you to believe that in this purse there are a hundred and twenty hearts faithful even to the death.' The good man wept as he spoke; and indeed we wept too. Yesterday another small village, in which there are only twenty houses, sent us fifty pistoles." While the Castilians were everywhere arming in the cause of Philip, the A.llies were serving that cause as effectually by their mismanagement. Galway stayed at Madrid, where his soldiers indulged in such boundless licentiousness that one half of them were in the hospitals. Charles remained dawdhng in Catalonia. Peterborough had taken Requena, and wished to march towards Madrid, and to eff'ect a junction with Galway; but the Archduke refused his consent to the plan. The indignant general remained accordingly in his favourite city, on the beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, reading Don Quixote, giving balls and suppers, trying in vain to ^iet some good sport out of the Valencia bulls, and making love, not in vain, to the Valencian women. At length the Archduke advanced into Castile, and ordered Peterborough to join him. But it was too late. Berwick had already compelled Galway to evacuate Madrid ; and, when the whole force of the Allies was collected at Guadalaxara, it was found to be decidedly inferior in numbers to that of the enemy. Peterborough formed a plan for regaining possession of the capital. His plan was rejected by Charles. The patience of the sensitive and vainglorious hero was worn out. He had none of that serenity of temper which enabled Marlborough to act in perfect harmony with Eugene, and to endure the vexa- tious interference of the Dutch deputies. He demanded permission to leave the army. Permission was readily granted; and he set out for Italy. That there might be some pretext for his departure, he was commissioned by the Archduke to raise a loan in Genoa on the credit of the revenues of Spain. From that moment to the end of the campaign the tide of fortune ran strong against the Austrian cause. Berwick had placed his army between the Allies and the frontiers of Portugal. They retreated on Valencia, and arrived in that province, leaving about ten thousand prisoners in the hands of the enemy. In January, 1707, Peterborough arrived at Valencia from Italy, no longer bearing a public character, but merely as a volunteer. Hi^ advice was asked, and it seems to have been most judicious. He gave it as his decided opinion that no offensive operations against Castile ought to be undertaken. It would be easy, he said, to defend Arragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, against Philip. The inhabitants of those parts of Spain were attached to the cause of the Arch, duke • and the armies of the House of Bourbon would be resisted by the whole population. In a short time the enthusiasm of the Castilians might abate. The iioverameut of Philip might commit unpopular acts. Defeats in the THE SUCCESSIOISr. 273 Netherlanos might compel Louis to withdraw the succours which he had furnished to 'lis grandson. Then would be the time to strike a decisive blow. This excellen; advice was rejected. Peterborough, who had now received formal letters o'i recall from England, departed before the opening of the cam- paign; and with him departed the good fortune of the Allies. Scarcely any general had ever done so much with means so small. Scarcely any geseral had ever displayei equal originality and boldness. He possessed, in the highest degree, the art of conciliating those whom he had subdued. But he was not equally successful in winning the attachment of those with whom he acted. He was adorei by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated by the prince whom he had all but made a great king, and by the generals whose fortune and reputation were staked on the same venture with his own. The English government could not understand him. He was so eccentric that they gave him no credit for the judgment which he really possessed. One day he took towns with horse-soldiers; then again he turned some hundreds of infantiy into cavalry at a minute's notice. He obtained his political intelli- gence chiefly by means of love affairs, and filled his despatches with epigrams. The ministers thought that it would be highly impolitic to intrust the conduct of the Spanish war to so volatile and romantic a person. They therefore gave the command to Lord Galway, an experienced veteran — a man who was in war what Moliere's doctors were in medicine, who thought it much more honourable to fail according to rule than to succeed by innovation, and who would have been very much ashamed of himself if he had taken Monjuich by means so strange as those which Peterborough employed. This great commander con- ducted the campaign of 1707 in the most scientific manner. On the plam of Almanza he encountered the army of the Bourbons. He drew up his troops according to the methods prescribed by the best writers, and in a few hours lost eighteen thousand men, a hundred and twenty standards, all his baggage, and all his artillery. Valencia and Arragon were instantly conquered by the French, and, at the close of the year, the mountainous province of Catalonia was the only part of Spain which still adhered to Charles. "Do you remember, child," says the foolish woman in the Spectator to her husband, "that the pigeon-house fell the very afternoon that our careless wench spilt the salt upon the table?" — " Yes, my dear," replies the gentleman, "and the next post brought us an account of the battle of Almanza." The approach of disaster in Spain had been for some time indicated by omens much clearer than the mishap of the salt-cellar; — an ungrateful prince, an undisci- plined army, a divided council, envy triumphant over merit, a man of genius recalled, a pedant and a sluggard intrusted with supreme command. The battle of Almanza decided the fate of Spain. The loss was such as Marl- borough or Eugene could scarcely have retrieved, and was certainly not to be retrieved by Stanhope and Staremberg. Stanhope, who took the command of the English army in Catalonia, was a man of respectable abilities, both in military and civil affairs, but fitter, we conceive, for a second than for a first place. Lord Mahon, with his usual candour, tells us, what we believe, was not known before, that his ancestor's most distinguished exploit, the conquest of Minorca, was suggested by Marl- borough, Staremberg, a cold, methodical tactician of the German school, was sent by the emperor to command in Catalonia. Two languid campaigns fol- lowed, during which neither of the hostile armies did anything memorable, but during which both were nearly starved. At length, in 1710, the chiefs of the Allied forces resolved to venture on bolder measures. They began the campaign with a daring move — pushed into Arragon, defeated the troops of Phihp at Ahnenara, defeated them again 274 LORD MAHON'S WAR OP / at Saragossa, and advanced to Madrid. The King was again a fuj?i'tiva The Castilians sprang to arms with the same enthusiasm which they had displayed in 1 706. The conquerors found the capital a desert. The peo.^le shut them- selves up in their houses, and refused to pay any mark of respect to the Aus- trian prince. It was necessary to hire a few children to shout before him in the streets. Meanwhile, the court of Philip at Valladolid was thronged by nobles and prelates. Thirty thousand people followed their king from Madrid to hrs new residence. Women of rank, rather than remaii behind, performed the journey on foot. The peasants enlisted by thousands Money, arms, and provisions were supplied in abundance by the zeal of the people. The country round Madrid was infested by small parties of irregular horse. The Allies could not send off a despatch to Arragon, or introduce a supply of provisions into the capital. It was unsafe for the archduke to hunt in the immediate vicinity of the palace which he occupied. The wish of Stanhope was to winter in Castile. But he stood alone in the council of war ; and, indeed, it is not easy to understand b,ow the Allies could have maintained themselves, through so unpropiUous a s( *son, in the midst of so hostile a population. Charles, whose person -d safety \ jas the first object of the generals, was sent with an escort of cavslry to Catt.lonia in November; and in December the army commenced its retreat towards Arragon. But the Allies had to do with a master-spirit. The King of France had lately sent the Duke of Vendome to command in Spain. This man was dis- tinguished by the filthiness of his person, by the brutality of his demeanour, by the gross buffoonery of his conversation, and by the impudence with which he abandoned himself to the most nauseous of all vices. His sluggishness was almost incredible. Even when engaged in a campaign, he often passed whole days in his bed. His strange torpidity had been the cause of some of the most severe defeats which the French had sustained in Italy and Flanders, But when he was roused by any great emergency, his resources, his energy, and his presence of mind were such as had been found in no French general since the death of Luxembourg. At this crisis, Vendome was all himself. He set out from Talavera vnth his troops, and pursued the retreating army of the Allies with a speed perhaps never equalled in such a season and in such a country. He marched night and day. He swam, at the head of his cavalry, the flooded stream of Henares, and, in a few days, overtook Stanhope, who was at Brihuega with the left wing of the Allied army. "Nobody with me," says the English general, "imagined that they had any foot within some days' march of us; and our misfortune is owing to the incredible diligence which their army made." Stanhope had but just time to send off a messenger to the centre of the army, which was some leagues from Brihuega, before Vendome was upon him. The town was invested on every side. The walls were battered with canron. A mine was sprung under one of the gates. The English kept up a terrible fire till their powder was spent. They then fought desperately with the bayonet against overwhelming odds. They burned the houses which the assailants had taken. But all was to no purpose. The British general saw that resistance could produce only a useless carnage. He concluded a capitulation; and his gallant little army became prisoners of war on honourable terms. Scarcely had Vendome signed the capitulation, when he learned that Star- emberg was marching to the relief of Stanhope. Preparations were instantly made for a general action. On the day following that on which the English had delivered up their arms, was fought the obstinate and bloody fight of Villa- Viciosa. Staremberg remained master of the field. Vendome reaped all the f^its of the engagement. The Allies spiked their cannon, and retired towards THE SUCCESSION. 475 Arragon. Bust even in Arragon they found no place to rest. Vendome was behind them. The guerilla parties were around them. They fled to Cata- lonia ; but Catalonia was invaded by a French army from Rouissillon. At length, the Austrian general, with six thousand harassed and dispirited men, the remains of a great and victorious army, took refuge in Barcelona, almost the only place in Spain which still recognised the authority of Charles. Philip was now much safer at Madrid than his grandfather at Paris. All hope of conquering Spain in Spain was at an end. But in other quarters the House of Bourbon was reduced to the last extremity. The French armies had undergone a series of defeats in Germany, in Italy, and in the Netherlands, An immense force, flushed with victory, and commanded by the greatest generals of the age, was on the borders of France. Louis had been forced to humble himself before the conquerors. He had even offered to abandon the cause of his grandson; and his offer had been rejected. But a great turn in affairs was approaching. The English administration which had commenced the war against the House of Boutbon was an administration composed of Tories. But the war was a Whig war. It was the favourite scheme of William, the Whig king. Louis had provoked it by recognising, as sovereign of England, a prince peculiarly hateful to the Whigs. It had placed England in a position of marked hostility to that power from which alone the Pretender could expect efficient succour. It had joined England in the closest union to a Protestant and republican state — to a state which had assisted m bringing about the Revolution, and which was willing to guarantee the execution of the Act of Settlement. Marlborough and Godolphin found that they were more zealously supported by their old opponents than by their old associates. Those minis- ters who were zealous for the war were gradually converted to Whiggism. The rest dropped off, and were succeeded by Whigs. Covvper became Chan- cellor. Sunderland, in spite of thts very just antipathy of Anne, was made Secretary of State. On the death of the Prince of Denmark a more extensive change took place. Wharton became Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Somers President of the Council. At length the administration was wholly in the hands of the Low Church party. In the year 1710 a violent change took place. The Queen had always been a Tory at heart. Her religious feelings were all on the side of the Established Church. Her family feelings pleaded in favour of her exiled brother. Her interest disposed her to favour the zealots of prerogative. The affection which she felt for the Duchess of Marlborough was the great security of the Whigs. That affection had at length turned to deadly aversion. While the great party which had long swayed the destinies of Europe was undermined by bed- chamber women at St. James's, a violent storm gathered in the country. A foolish parson had preached a foolish sermon against the principles of the Revolution. The wisest members of the government were for letting the man alone. But Godolphin, inflamed with all the zeal of a new-made Whig, and exasperated by a nickname which was applied to him in this unfortunate dis- course, insisted that the preacher should be impeached. The exhortations of the mild and sagacious Somers were disregarded. The impeachment was brought; the doctor was convicted; and the accusers were ruined. The clergy came to the rescue of the persecuted clergyman. The country gentry came to the rescue of the clergy. A display of Tory feelings, such as England had not witnessed since the closing years of Charles II. 's reign, appalled the Ministers and gave boldness to the Queen. She turned out the Whigs, called Harley and St. John to power, and dissolved the Parliament. The elections went strongly against the late government. Stanhop«, who bad in 87« LORD MAHON'S WAR OP his absence been put in nomination for Westminster, was defeated by a Tjry candidate. The new Ministers, finding themselves masters of the new Par- liament, were induced by the strongest motives to conclude a peace with France. The whole system of alliance in which the cour.try was engaged was a Whig system. The general by whom the English armies had con- stantly been led to victory, and for whom it was impossible to find a substi- tute, was now, whatever he might formerly have been, a Whig general. If Marlborough were discarded, it was probable that some great disaster would follow. Vet, if he were to retain his command, ever)' great action which he might perform would raise the credit of the party in opposition, A peace was therefore concluded between England and the Princes of the House of Bourbon. Of that peace Lord Mahon speaks in terms of the severest reprehension. He is indeed an excellent Whig of the time of the first Lord Stanhope. "I cannot but pause for a moment," says he, "to observe how much the course of a century has inverted the meaning of our party nicknames — how much a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne's reign, and a Tory of Queen Anne's reign a modem Whig." We grant one half of Lord Mahon's proposition : from the other h^lf we altogether dissent. We allow that a modern Tory resembles, in many things, a Whig of Queen Anne's reign. It is natural that such should be the case. The worst things of one age often resemble the best things of another. The livery of an English footman outshines the royal robes of King Pomarre. A modem shopkeeper's house is as well furnished as the house of a considerable merchant in Anne's reign. Very plain people now wear finer cloth than Beau Fielding or Beau Edgeworth could have procured in Queen Anne's reign. We would rather trast to the apothecary of a modem village than to the physician of a large town in Anne's reign. A modem boarding-school miss could tell the most learned Professor of Anne's reign scwne things in geography, astronomy, and chemistry, which would surprise him. The science of government is an experimental science; and therefore it is, like all other experimental sciences, a progressive science. Lord Mahon would have been a very good Whig in the days of Harley. But Harley, whom Lord Mahon censures so severely, was very Whiggish when compared even with Clarendon ; and Clarendon was quite a democrat when compared with Lord Burleigh. If Lord Mahon lives, as we hope he will, fifty years longer, we have no doubt that, as he now boasts of the resemblance which the Tories of our time bear to the Whigs of the Revolution, he will then boast of the resemblance borne by the Tories of 1882 to those immortal patriots, the Whigs of the Reform Bill. Society, we believe, is constantly advancing in knowledge. The tail is now where the head was some generations ago. But the head and the tail still keep their distance. A nurse of this century is as wise as a justice of the quorum and custalomm in Shallow's time. The wooden spoon of this year would puzzle a senior wrangler of the reign of George the Second. A boy from the National School reads and spells better than half the knights of the shire in the October Club. But there is still as wide a difference as ever between justices and nurses, senior wranglers and wooden spoons, members of Parlia- ment and children at charity schools. In the same way, though a Tory may now be very like what a Whig was 120 years ago, the Whig is as much in advance of the Tory as ever. The stag, in the Treatise on the Bathos, who " feared his hind feet would o'ertake the fore," was not more mistaken than Lord Mahon, if he thinks that he has really come up with the Whigs. The absolute position of the parties has been altered ; the relative position remaini unchanged. Through the whole of that great movement, which began before THE SUCCESSION. 87? these party-names existed, and which will continue after they have become ebsolete — through the whole of that great movement of which the Charter of John, the institution of the House of Commons, the extinction of Villanage, the separation from the See of Rome, the expulsion of the Stuarts, the reform of the Representative System, are successive stages — there have been, und-r some name cr other, two sets of men — those who were before their age, and those who were behind it — those who were the \visest among their contempo- raries, and those who gloried in being no wiser than their great-grandfathers. It is delightful to think that, in due time, the last of those who straggle in the ear of the great march will occupy the place now occupied by the advanced guard. The Tory Parliament of 1 710 would have passed for a most liberal Parliament in the days of Elizabeth ; and there are at present few members of the Conservative Club who would not have been fully qualified to sit with Halifax and Somers at the Kit-cat. Though, therefore, we admit that a modem Tory bears some resemblance to a Whig of Queen Anne's reign, we can by no means admit that a Tory of Anne's reign resembled a modem Whig. Have the modem Whigs passed law: for the purpose of closing the entrance of the House of Commons against the new interests created by trade ? Do the modem W' higs hold the doctrine of divine right ? Have the modem Whigs laboured to exclude all dissenters from office and power ? The modem WTiigs are, indeed, at the present moment, like the Tories of 1712, desirous of peace, and of close union with France. But is there no difference between the France of 17 12 and the France of 1832? Is France now the strongiiold of the "Popish t5rranny" and the "arbitrary power" against which our ancestors fought and prayed? Lord Mahon will find, we think, that his parallel is, in all essential circumstances, as incorrect as that which Fluellen drew between Macedon and Monmouth, or as that which an ingenious Tory lately discovered between Archbishop Williams and Archbishop Vernon. We agree with Lord Mahon in thinking highly of the WTiigs of Queen Anne's reign. But that part of their conduct which he selects for especial praise is precisely the part which we think most objectionable. We revere them as the great champions of political and of intellectual liberty. It is true that, when raised to power, they were not exempt from the faults which power naturally engenders. It is tme that they were men born in the seventeenth century, and that they were therefore ignorant of many truths which are familiar to the men of the nineteenth century. But they were what the reformers of the Church were before them, and what the reformers of the House of Corr.mons have been since — the leaders of their species in a right direction. I1 is true that they did not allow to political discussion that lati- tude which appears to us reasonable and safe ; but to them we owe the removal of the Censorship. It is true that they did not carry the principle of religious liberty to its full extent ; but to them we owe the Toleration Act. Though, however, we think that the Whigs of Anne's reign were, as a body, far superior in vidsdom and public virtue to their contemporaries, the Tories, we by no means hold ourselves bound to defend all the measures of our favourite party. A life of action, if it is to be useful, must be a life of compromise. But speculation admits of no compromise. A public man is often under the necessity of consenting to measures which he dislikes, lest he should endanger the success of measures which he thinks of vital importance. But the historian lies under no such necessity. On the contrary, it is one of his most sacred duties to point out clearly the errors of those whose general conduct he admires. It seems to us, then, that, on the great question which divided England during the last four years of Anne's reign, the Tories vrere in the right and the Whigi 278 LORD MAHON'S WAR OP in the wrong. That question was, whether England ought to conclude peace without exacting from Philip a resignation of the Spanish crown ? No Parliamentary struggle, from the time of the Exclusion Bill to the time of the Reform Pill, has been so violent as that which took place between the authors of the Treaty of Utrecht and the War Party. The Commons were for peace ; the Lords were for vigorous hostilities. The Queen was compelled to choose which of her two highest prerogatives she would exercise — whether she would create Peers, or dissolve the Parliament. The ties of party superseded the ties of neiglibourhowl and of blood ; the members of the hostile factions would scarcely speak to each other, or bow to each other ; the women appeared at the theatres bearing the badges of their political sect. The schism extended to the most remote counties of England. Talents, such as had never before been displayed in political controversy, were enlisted in the service of the hostile parties. On one side was Steele, gay, lively, drunk with animal spirits and with factious animosity, and Addison, with his polished satire, his in- exiiaustible fertility of fancy, and his graceful simplicity of style. In the front of the opposite ranks api)cared a darker and fiercer spirit — the apostate poli- tician, the ribald priest, the perjured lover — a heart burning with hatr*»d agaiast the whole human race — a mind richly stored with images from the dun|;li:ll and the lazar-house. The Ministers triumphed, and the peace was concluded Then came the reaction. A new sovereign ascended the throne. The Whigs enjoyed the confulence of the King and of the Parliament. The unjust severity with which the Tories had treated Marlborough and Walpole was more than retaliated. Harley and Prior were thrown into prison ; Bolingbroke and OiTnond were compelled to take refuge in a foreign land. The wounds in- flicted in this desperate conflict continued to rankle for many years. It was long before the members of either party could discuss the question of the Peace of Utrecht with calmness and impartiality. That the Whig Ministers had sold us to the Dutch ; that the Tory Ministers had sold us to the French ; that the war had been carried on only to fill the pockets of Marlborough ; that the peace had been concluded only to facilitate the return of the Pretender ; — these imputations and many others, utterly unfounded, or grossly exaggerated, were hurled backward and forward by the political disputants of the last century. In our time the question may be discussed without irritation. We will state, as concisely as possible, the reasons which have led us to the con- clusion at which we have arrived. The dangers which were to be apprehended from the Peace were two : First, the danger that Philip might be induced, by feelings of private affection, to act in strict concert with the elder branch of his house — to favour the French trade at the expense of England — and to side vidth the French Government in future wars ; secondly, the danger that the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy might become extinct — that Philip might become heir by blood to the French crown — and that thus two great monarchies might be imited xmder one sovereign. The first danger appears to us altogether chimerical. Family aflfection has seldom produced much effect on the policy of princes. The state of Europe at the time of the Peace of Utrecht proved that in politics the ties of interest are much stronger than those of consanguinity. The Elector of Bavaria had been driven from his dominions by his father-in-law ; Victor Amadeus was in arms against his sons-in-law ; Anne was seated on a throne from which she had assisted to push a most indulgent father. It is true that Philip had been accustomed from childhood to regard his grandfather with profound veneration. It was probable, therefore, that the influence of Louis at Madrid would b« very great But Louis was more than seventy years old ; he could not liv« THE SUCCESSION. 279 long ; his heir was an infant in the cradle. There was surely no reason to think that the policy of the King of Spain would be swayed by his regard for a nephew whom he had never seen. In fact, soon after the peace, the two branches of the House of Bourbon began to quarrel. A close alliance was formed between Philip and Charles, lately competitors for the Castilian crown. A Spanish princess, bethrothed to the King of France, was sent back in the most insulting manner to her native country; and a decree was put forth by the Court of Madrid com- manding every Frenchman to leave Spain. It is true that, fifty years after the Peace of Utrecht, an alliance of peculiar strictness was formed between the French and Spanish governments. But it is certain that both governments were actuated on that occasion, not by domestic affection, but by common interests and common enmities. Their compact, though called the Family Compact, was as purely a political compact as the league of Cambrai, or tlie league of Pilnitz. The second danger was that Philip might have succeeded to the crown of his native country. This did not happen. Put it might have happened ; and at one time it seemed very likely to happen. A sickly child alone stood between the King of Spain and the heritage of Louis the Fourteenth. Philip, it is true, solemnly renounced his claim to the P'rench crown. But the manner in which he had obtained possession of the Spanish crown had proved the inefficacy of such renunciations. The French law)'ers declared Philip's renun- ciation null, as being inconsistent with the fundamental law of the monarchy. The French people would probably have sided with him whom they would have considered as the rightful heir. Saint Simon, though much less the slave of prejudice than most of his countrymen, and though strongly attached to tlie regent, declared, in the presence of that prince, that he never would support the claims of the House of Orleans, against those of the King of Spain. " If such," he said, "be my feelings, what must be the feelings of others?" Bolingbroke, it is certain, was fully convinced that the renunciation was worth no more than the paper on which it was wTitten, and demanded it only for the purpose of blinding the English Parliament and people. Yet, though it was at one time probable that the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy would become extinct, and though it is almost certain that, if the posterity of the Duke of Burgundy had become extinct, Philip would have successfully preferred his claim to the crown of France, we still defend the principle of the Treaty of Utrecht. In the first place, Charles had, soon after the battle of Villa- Viciosa, inherited, by the death of his elder brother, all the dominions of the House of Austria. It might be argued that if to these dominions he had added the whole monarchy of Spain, the Balance of Power Kould have been seriously endangered. The union of the Austrian dominions and Spain would not, it is true, have been so alarming an event as the union of France and Spain. But Charles was actually emperor. Philip was not, and never migl t be. King of France. The certainty of the less evil might well be set against the chance of the greater evil. But, in fact, we do not believe that Spain would long have remained under the goveniment either of an Emperor or of a King of France. The character of the Sp^inish people was a better security to the nations of Europe than any will, any instrument of renunciation, or any treaty. The same energy which the people of Castile had put forth when Madrid was occupied by the Allied armies, they would have again put forth as soon as it appeared that their country was about to become a province of France. Though they were no longer masters abroad, they were by no means disposed to see foreigners set ftirer them at home. If Philip had become King ef France, and had attempted figo LORD M AEON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. lo govern Spain by mandates from Versailles, a second Grand Alliance would easily have effected what the first had failed to accomplish. The Spanish nation would have rallied against him as zealously as it had before rallied round him. And of this he seems to have been fully aware. For many years the favourite hope of his heart was that he might ascend the throne of his grand- father ; but he seems never to have thought it possible that he could reign at once in the country of his adoption and in the country of his birth. These were the dangers of the peace ; and they seem to us to be of no very formidable kind. Against these dangers are to be set off the evils of war and the risk of failure. The evils of the war, — the waste of life, the suspension of trade, the expenditure of wealth, the accumulation of debt, — require no illus- tration. The chances of failure it is difficult at this distance of time to calcu- late with accuracy. But we think that an estimate approximating to the tru'.h may, without much difficulty, be formed. The Allies had been victorious in Germany, Italy, and Flanders. It was by no means improbable that they might fight their way into the very heart of France. But at no time since the commencement of tlie war had their prospects been so dark in that country which was the very object of the struggle. In Spain they held only a few square leagues. The temper of the great majority of the nation was decidedly hostile to them. If they had persisted, — if they had obtained success equal to their highest expectations, — if they had gained a series of victories as splendid as those of Blenheim and Ramilies, — if Paris had fallen, — if Lewis had beea a prisoner — we still doubt whether they would have accomplished their object They would still have had to carry on interminable hostilities against the whol* population of a country which affords peculiar facilities to irregular warfare, and in which invading armies suffer more from famine than from the sword. We are, therefore, for the peace of Utrecht. It is true that we by no means admire the statesmen who concluded that peace. Harley, we believe, was a solemn trifler, — St. John a brilliant knave. The great body of their followers consisted of the country clergy and the country gentry — two classes of men who were then immeasurably inferior in respectability and intelligence to decent shopkeepers or farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas, Parson Trulliber, Sir Wilful Witwould, Sir Francis Wronghead, Squire Western, Squire Sullen, such were the people who composed the main strength of the Tory party during the sixty years which followed the Revolution. It is true that the means by which the Tories came into power in 1710 were most disreputable. It is true that the manner in which they used their power was often unjust and cruel. It is true that, in order to bring about their favourite project of peace, they resorted to slander and deception, without the slightest scruple. It is true that they passed off on the British nation a renunciation which they knew to be invalid. It is true that they gave up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip, in a manner inconsistent with humanity and national honour. But on the great question of Peace or War, we cannot but think that, though their motives may have been selfish and malevolent, their decision was beneficial to the state. But we have already exceeded our limits. It remains only for us to bid Lord Mahon heartily farewell, and to assure him that, whatever dislike we may feel for his political opinions, we shall always meet him with pleasure on the neutral ground of literature. WALFOLE'S LETTERS TO SIH HORACE MANN. 281 „^^-.^ii WALPOLE. (October, 1833.) ..^oj Horace Walpole, Earl of Or/ord, to Sir Horace Mann, Britilk Envoy at thi Cmirt of Tuscany. Now first publibhed from the Originals in the Possession of the Earl of Waldegrave. Edited by Lord Dover. 3 vols. 8vo. London : 1833. We cannot transcribe this title-page without strong feelings of regret. The editing of these volumes was the last of the useful and modest services rcn* dered to literature by a nobleman of amiable manners, of untarnished public and private character, and of cultivated mind. On this, as on other occasions. Lord Dover performed his part diligently, judiciously, and without the slightest ostentation. He had two merits which are rarely found together in a com- mentator. Ke was content to be merely a commentator — to keep in the back- ground, and to leave the foreground to ihe author whom he had undertaken 10 illustrate. Yet, though willing to be an attendant, he was by no means a slave ; nor did he consider it as part of his editorial duty to see no faults in the writer, to whom he faithfully and assiduously rendered the humblest literar}' offices. The faults of Horace Walpole's head and heart are indeed sufficiently glaring. His writings, it is true, rank as high among the delicacies of intellectual epicures as the Strasburg pies among the dishes described in the Almanack des Gourmands. But, as the pate- de foie-gras owes its excellence to the diseases of the wretched animal which furnishes it, and would be good for nothing if it were not made of livers preternaturally swollen, so none but an unhealthy and disorganised mind could have produced such literary luxuries as the work of Walpole. He was, unless we have formed a very erroneous judgment of his character, the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious oi men. His mind was a bundle of inconsistent whims and affectations. His features were covered by mask within mask. When the outer disguise of obvious affectation was removed, you were still as far as ever from seeing the real man. He played innumerable parts, and over-acted them all. When he talked misanthropy, he out-Timoned Timon. When he talked philanthropy, he left Howard at an immea.surable distance. He scoffed at Courts, and kept a chronicle of their most trifling scandal — at Society, and was blown about by its slightest veerings of opinion — at Literary fame, and left fair copies of his private letters, with copious notes, to be published after his decease — at Rank, and never for a moment forgot that he was an Honourable — at the practice of Entail, and tasked the ingenuity of conveyancers to tie up his villa in the strictest settlement. The conformation of his mind was such that whatever was little seemed to him great, and whatever was great seemed to him little. Serious business was a trifle to him, and trifles were his serious business. To chat with blue stockings — to write little copies of complimentary verses on little occasions — to superintend a private press — to preserve from natural decay the perishable topics of Ranelaghand White's — to record divorces and bets. Miss Chudleigh's absurdities and George Selvvyu's good sayings — to decorate a grotesque house with pie-crust battlements — to procure rare engravings and antique chimney- boards — to match old gauntlets — to lay out a maze of walks within five acres of ground — these were the grave emplo}Tnents of his long life. From these he turned to politics as to an amusement. After the labours of the print-shop and the auction room, he unbent his mind in the House of Commons. And having indulged in the recreation of making laws, and voting millions, he re- turned to more important pursuits — to researches after Queen Mary's comb, 282 WALPOLE'a LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. Wolsey's red hat the pipe wm... .7 ^ ^^^^^^ ^^^j his last sea-fight, and the spur which King Wilham struck inifi .^. a^^y ^^ Sorrel In everything in which he busied himself— in the hne .... , • '];. public affairs — he was drawn by some strange attraction from tne 'g?c2i "''^' /" K'iltJe, and from the useful to the odd. The politics Ip (vhich he took the keenest interests, were politics scarcely deserving of the name. The growlings of George the Second — the flirtations of Princess Emily with the Duke of Grafton — the amours of Prince Frederic and Lady Middlesex — the squabbles between Gold Stick and the Master of the liuckhuunds — the disagreements be- tween the tutors of Prince George — these matters engaged almost all the atten- tion which Walpole could spare from matters more important still — from bidding for Zinckes and Petitots — from cheapening fragments of tapestry and handles of old lances — from joining bits of painted gla.ss, and from setting up memorials of departed cats and dogs. While he was fetching and carrying the gossip of Kensington Palace and Carlton House, he fancied that he was engaged in politics, and when he recorded that gossip, he fancied that he was writing history. lie was, as he himself has told us, fond of faction as an amusement. H« loved mischief : but he loved quiet ; and he was constantly on the watch for opportunities of gratifying both his tastes at once. He sometimes contrived, without showing himself, to disturb the course of ministerial negotiations and to spread confusion through the political circles. He does not himself pre- tend that, on these occasions, he was actuated by public spirit ; nor does he appear to have had any private advantage in view. He thought it a good practical joke to set public men together by the ears ; and he enjoyed their perplexities, their accusations, and their recriminations, as a malicious boy enjoys the embarrassment of a misdirected traveller. About politics, in the high sense of the word, he knew nothing, and cared nothing. He called himself a Whig. His father's son could scarcely assume any other name. It pleased him also to affect a foolish dislike of kings as kings, and a foolish love and admiration of rebels as rebels : and perhaps, while kings were not in danger, and while rebels were not in being, he really believed that he held the doctrines which he professed. To go no further than the letters now before us, he is perpetually boasting to his friend Mann of his aversion to royalty and to royal persons. He calls the crime of Damien — that least bad of murders — the murder "of a king." He hung up in his villa a facsimile oi the death-warrant of Charles, with the inscription, " Major Charta." Yet the most superficial knowledge of history might have taught him that the Restora- tion, and the crimes and follies of the twenty-eight years which followed the Restoration, were the effects of this Greater Charter. Nor was there much in the means by which that instrument was obtained that could gratify a judicious lover of liberty. A man must hate kings very bitterly before he can think it de- siraole that the representatives of the people should be turned out of doors by dragoons, in order to get at a king's head. Walpole's Whiggism, however, was of a very harmless kind. He kept it, as he kept the old spears and helnets at Strawberry Hill, merely for show. He would just as soon have thought of taking down the arms of the ancient Templars and Hospitallers from the walls of his hall, and setting off on a crusade to the Holy Land, as of acting in the spirit of those daring warriors and statesmen, great even in their errors, whose names and seals were affixed to the warrant which he prized so highly. He liked revolution and regicide only when they were a hundred years old. His republicanism, like the courage of a bully, or the love of a fribble, was strong and ardent when there was no occasion for it, and subsided when he had an opportunity of bringing it to the proof. As soon as the revo- WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 2S3 lutionary spirit really began to stir in Europe — as soon as the hatred of kings became something more than a sonorous phrase — he was frightened into a fanatical royahst, and became one of the most extravagant alarmists of those wretched times. In truth, his talk about liberty, whether he knew it or not, was from the beginning a mere cant — the remains of a phraseology which had meant something in the mouths of those from whom he had learned it, but which, in his mouth, meant about as much as the oath by which the Knights of the Bath bind themselves to redress the wrongs of all injured ladies. He had been fed in his boyhood with Whig speculations on government. He must have often seen, at Houghton or in Downing Street, men who had been Whigs when it was as dangerous to be a Whig as to be a highwayman — men who had voted for the exclusion bill, who had been concealed in garrets and ce'Iars after the battle of Sedgmoor, and who had set their names to the declaration that they would live and die with the Prince of Orange. He had acquired the language of these men, and he repeated it by rote, though it was at variance with all his tastes and feelings — ^just as some old Jacobite families persisted in praying for the Pretender and in passing their glasses over the water-decanter when they drank the King's health, long after they had become loyal supporters of the government of George the Third. He was a Whig by the accident of hereditary connexion ; but he was essentially a courtier ; and not the less a courtier because he pretended to sneer at the objects which excited his admira- tion and envy. His real tastes perpetually show themselves through the thin disguise. While professing all the contempt of Bradshaw or Ludlow for crowned heads, he took the trouble to write a book concerning Royal Authors. He pryed with the utmost anxiety into the most minute particulars relating to the Royal Family. When he was a child, he was haunted with a longing to see George the First, and gave his mother no peace till she had found a way of gratifying his curiosity. The same feeling, covered with a thousand disguises, attended him to the grave. No observation that dropped from the lips of Majesty seemed to him too trifling to be recorded. The French songs of Prince Frederic — compositions certainly not deserving of preservation on account of their intrinsic merit — have been carefully preserved for us by this contemner of royalty. In truth, every page of Wal pole's works bewrays him. This Diogenes, who would be thought to prefer his tub to a palace, and who has nothing to ask of the masters of Windsor and Versailles but that they will stand out of his light, is a gentleman-usher at heart. He had, it is plain, an uneasy consciousness of the frivolity of his favourite pursuits ; and this consciousness produced one of the most diverting of his ten thousand affectations. His busy idleness, — his indifference to matters which the world generally regards as important, — his passion for trifles, — he thought fit to dignify with the name of philosophy. He spoke of himself as of a man whose equanimity was proof to ambitious hopes and fears, who had learned to late power, wealth, and fame at their true value, and whom the conflict of parlies, the rise and fall of statesmen, the ebb and flow of public opinion, moved only to a smile of mingled companion and disdain. It was owing to the peculiar elevation of his character that he cared about a pinnacle of lath and plaster more than about the Middlesex election, and about a miniature of Grammont more than about the American Revolution, Pitt and Murray might talk themselves hoarse about trifles. But questions of government and war were too insignificant to detain a mind which was occupied in recording the scandal of club-rooms and the whispers of the back-stairs, and which was even capable of selecting and disposing chairs of ebony and shields o' rhinoceros-skin. One of his innumerable whims was an extreme dislike to be considered ■ 284 WALPOLE*S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANtf. man of letters. Not that he was indifferent to literary fame. Far from it. Scarcely any writer has ever troubled himself so much about the appearance which his works were to make before posterity. But he had set his heart oa incompatible objects. He wished to be a celebrated author, and yet to be a mere idle gentleman — one of those epicurean gods of the earth who do nothinp at all, and who pass their existence in the contemplation of their own per* fections. He did not like to have anything in common with the wretches who lodged in the little courts behind St. Martin's Church, and stole out on Sundays to dine with their bookseller. He avoided the societj of authors. He spoke with lordly contempt of the most distinguished among them. He tried to find out some way of writing books, as M. Jourdain's father sold cloth, without derogating from his character of Gentilhonwie. ' ' Lui, marchaud ? C'est pure medisance : il ne I'a jamais ete. Tout ce qu'il faisait, c'est qu'il etait fort obligeant, fort of^cieux ; et comme il se connaissait fort bien en etoffes, il en allait choisir de tous les cotes, les faisait apporter chez lui, et en donnait a ses amis pour de I'argent." There are several amusing instances of his feeling on this subject in the letters now before us. Mann had compli mented him on the learning which appeared in the " Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors ; " and it is curious to see how impatiently Walpole bore tl-e imputation of having attended to anything so unfashionable as the improve- ment of his mind. "I know nothing. How should I? I who have always lived in the big busy worid ; who lie a-bed all the morning, call it morning as long as you please ; who sup in company ; who have played at faro half my life, and now at loo till two and three in the morning ; who have always loved pleasure; haunted auctions Howl have laughed when some of the Magazines have called me the learned gentleman. Pray don't be like the Magazines." This folly might be pardoned in a boy. But a man of forty- three, as Walpole then was, ought to be quite as much ashamed of playing at loo till three every morning as of being so vulgar a thing as a learned gentleman. The literary character has undoubtedly its full share of faults, and of very serious and offensive faults. If Walpole had avoided those faults, we could have pardoned the fastidiousness with which he declined all fellowship with men of learning. But from those faults Walpole was not one jot more free than the garreteers from whose contact he shrank. Of literary meannesses nnd literary vices, his life and his works contain as many instances as the life and the works of any member of Johnson's club. The fact is, that Walpole had the faults of Grub Street, with a large addition from St. James's Street — • . he vanity, the jealousy, the irritability of a man of letters — the affected super- ciliousn :ss and apathy of a man of ton. liis judgment of literature — of contemporaiy literature especially — was alto- gether perverted by his aiistocratical feelings. No writer surely was ever guilty of so much false and absurd criticism. He almost invariably speaks with contempt of those books which are now universally allowed to be the best that appeared in his time ; and, on the other hand, he speaks of writers of rank and fashion as if they were entitled to the same precedence in literature which would have been allowed to them in a drawing-room. In these letters, for example, he says that he would rather have written the most absurd lines in Lee than Thomson's Seasons. The periodical paper called "The World," on the other hand, was by "our fust writers." Who, then, were the first writers of England in the year 1753? Walpole has told us in a note. Our readers will probably guess that Hume, Fielding, Smollett, Richardson, Johnson, Warbunon, Collins, Akenside Gray, Dyer, Young, Warton, Mason, or some of those distinguished men, were in the list. Not one of them. Out "irst writers, it seem;, wcie Lord Che itn held, Lord Bath, Mr. W. W'jithed, tVALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 285 Sir Charles Williams, Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Coventry. Ol these seven personages, Whithed v/as the lowest in station, but vpas the most accomplished tuft-hunter of his time. Coventry was of a noble family. The other five had among them two Peerages, two seats in the House of Commons, three seats in the Privy Council, a baronetcy, a blue riband, a red riband, about a hundred thousand pounds a year, and not ten pages that are worth reading. The writings of Whithed, Cambridge, Coventry, and Lord Bath are forgotten. Soame Jenyns is remembered chiefly by Johnson's review of the foolish Essay on the Origin of Evil, Lord Chesterfield stands much lower in the estimation of posterity than he would have done, if his letters had never been published. The lampoons of Sir Charles Williams are now read only by the curious, and, though not without occasional flashes of wit, have always seemed to us, we must own, very poor performances. Walpole judged of French literature after the same fashion. He understood and loved the French language. Indeed, he loved it too well. His style is more deeply tainted mth Gallisms than that of any other English writer with whom we are acquainted. His composition often reads, for a page together, like a rude translation from the French. We meet every minute with such sentences as these, '* One knows what temperaments Annibal Carracci painted." "The impertinent personage!" "She is dead rich." "Lord Dalkeith is dead of the small-pox in three days." "What was ridiculous, the man who seconded the motion happened to be shut out." " It will now be seen whether he or they are most patriot." His love for the French language was of a peculiar kind. He loved it as having been for a century the vehicle of all the polite nothings of Europe, as che sign by which the freemasons of fashion recognised each other in every capital from Petersburg to Naples, as the language of raillery, as the language of anecdote, as the language of memoirs, as the language of correspondence. Its higher uses he altogether disregarded. The literature of France has been to ours what Aaron was to Moses — the expositor of great truths which would else have perished for want of a voice to utter them with distinctness. The relation which existed between Mr. Bentham and M. Dumont is an exact illus- tration of the intellectual relation in which the two coimtries stand to each other. The great discoveries in physics, in metaphysics, in political science, are ours. But no foreign nation except France has received them from us by direct communication. Isolated by our situation — isolated by our manners, we found truth, but we did not impart it. France has been the interpreter between England and mankind. In the time of Walpole, this process of interpretation was in full activity. The great French writers were busy in proclaiming through Europe the names of Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke. The English principles of toleration, the English respect for personal liberty, the English doctrine that all power is a trust for the public good, were making rapid progress. There is scarcely anything in history so interesting as that great stirring up of the mind of France — that shaking of the foundations of all established opinions — that up- rooting of old truth and old error. It was plain that mighty principles were at work, whether for evil or for good. It was plain that a great change in the whole social system was at hand. Fanatics of one kind might anticipate a golden age, in which men should live under the simple dominion of reason, in perfect equality and perfect amity, without property, or marriage, or king, or God. A fanatic of another kind might see nothing in the doctrmes of the philosophers but anarchy and atheism, might cling more closely to every old abuse, and might regret the good old days when St. Dominic and Simon de Moatfort put down the growing heresies of Provence. A wise man would 280 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, have seen with legret the excesses into which the reformers were running ; but he would have done justice to their genius and to their philanthropy. He would have censured their errors ; but he would have remembered that, as Milton has said, error is but opinion in the making. While he condemned their hostility to religion, he would have acknowledged that it was the natural effect of a system under which religion had been constantly exhibited to thera in forms which common sense rejected and at which humanity shuddered. "While he condemned some of their political doctrines as incompatible with all law, all property, and all civilisation, he would have acknowledged that the subjects of Louis XV. had every excuse which men could have for being eager to pull down, and for being ignorant of the far higher art of setting up. While anticipating a fierce conflict — a great and wide-waiting destruction — he would yet have looked forward to the final close witn a good hope for France and for mankind. Walpole had neither hopes nor fears. Though the most Frenchified Eng« lish writer of the eighteenth century, he troubled himself little about the por- tents which were daily to be discerned in the French literature of his time. While the most eminent Frenchmen were studying with enthusiastic delight English politics and English philosophy, he was studying as intently the gossip of the old court of France. The fashions and scandal of Versailles and Marli — fashions and scandal a hundred years old — occupied him infinitely more than a great moral revolution which was taking place in his sight. He took a prodigious interest in every noble sharper whose vast volume of wig, and infinite length of riband, had figured at the dressing or at the tucking up of Louis XIV., and of every profligate woman of quality who had carried her train of lovers backward and forward from king to parliament, and from parlia- ment to king, during the wars of the Fro7ide. These were the people of whom he treasured up the smallest memorial, of whom he loved to hear the most trifling anecdote, and for whose likenesses he would have given any price. Of the great French writers of his own time, Montesquieu is the only one of whom he speaks with enthusiasm. And even of Montesquieu he speaks with less enthusiasm than of that abject thing, Crebillon the younger, a scribbler as licentious as Louvet and as dull as Rapin. A man must be strangely con. stituted who can take interest in pedantic journals of the blockades laid by the Duke of A. to the hearts of the Marquise de B. and the Comtessede C. This trash Walpole extols in language sufficiently high for the merits of " Don Quixote." He wished to possess a likeness of Crebillon; and Liotard, the first painter of miniatures then living, was employed to preserve the features of the profligate twaddler. The admirer of the Sopha and of the Lettres Athe- niennes had little respect to spare for the men who were then at the head of French literature. lie kept carefully out of their way. He tried to keep other people from paying them any attention. He could not deny that Voltaire and Rousseau were clever men ; but he took every opportunity of depreciating them. Of D'Alembert he spoke with a contempt which, when the intellectual powers of the two men are compared, seems exquisitely ridiculous. D'Alem- bert complained that he was accused of having written Walpolc's squib against Rousseau. " I hope," says Walpole, "that nobody will attribute D'Alembert'a works to me." He was in little danger. It is impossible to deny, however, that Walpole's writings have real merit, and merit of a very rare, though not of a very high kind. Sir Joshua Reynolds used to say that, though nobody would for a moment compare Claude to Raphael, tliere would be another Rajihael before there was another Claude. And we own that we expect to see fresh Humes and fresh Burkes before we a^ain fall in with that peculiar combination of moral and intellectual qualitiet o wb^fih the writings of Walpole owe ib<.Jr't;xlraori.Unarv u-^pularity. WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 28 J It is easy to describe him by negatives. He had not a creative imagination. Ele had not a pure taste. lie was not a great reasoner. There is indeed scarcely any writer in whose v/orks it would be possible to find so many contra- dictory judgments, so many sentences of extravagant nonsense. Nor was it only in his familiar correspondence that he wrote in this flighty and inconsistont manner, but in long and elaborate books — in books repeatedly transcribed and intended for the public eye. We will give an instance or two ; for, without instances, readers not very familiar with his works, will scarcely understand our meaning. In the "Anecdotes of Painting," he states, very truly, that the art declined after the commencement of the civil wars. He proceeds to inquire why this happened. The explanation, we should have thought, would have been easily found. The loss of the most munificent and judicious patron that the fine arts ever had in England^for such undoubtedly was Charles — ■ the troubled state of the country — the distressed condition of many of the aristocracy — perhaps also the austerity of the victorious party. These circum- stances, we conceive, fully account for the phenomenon. But this solution was not odd enough to satisfy Walpole. He discovers another cause for the decline of the art — the want of models. Nothing worth painting, it seems, was left to paint. *• How picturesque," he exclaims, "was the figure of an Anabaptist !" ■ — As if puritanism had put out the sun and withered the trees ; — as if the civil wars had blotted out the expression of character and passion from the human lip and brow ; — as if many of the men whom Vandyke painted had not been living in the time of the Commonwealth, with faces a little the worse for wear ; — as if many of the beauties afterwards portrayed by Lely were not in their prime before the Restoration ; — as if the costume or the features of Cromwell and Milton were less picturesque than those of the round-faced peers, as like each other as eggs to eggs, who look out from the middle of the periwigs of Kneller. In the Memoirs, again, Walpole sneers at the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Third, for presenting a collection of books to one of the American colleges during the Seven Years' War, and says that, instead of books, his Royal Highness ought to have sent arms and ammunition — as if a war ought to suspend all study and all education — or as if it were the business of the Prince of Wales to supply the colonies with military stores out of his own pocket. We have perhaps dwelt too long on these passages ; but we have done so because they are specimens of Waipole's manner. Everybody who reads his works with attention will find that they swarm with loose and foolish observations like those which we have cited ; — observations which might pass in conversation or in a hasty letter, but which are unpardonable in buoks deliberately written and repeatedly corrected. He appears to h?ve thought- tVi^t he saw very far into men ; but we are under the necessity of altogether dissenting from his opinion. We do not conceive that he had any power of discerning the finer shades of character. He practised an art, however, which, though easy, and even vulgar, obtains for those who practise it the reputation of discernment with ninety-nine people out of a hun- iSred. He sneered at everybody, put on every action the worst construction it would bear, "spell every man backwaid," to borrow the Lady Hero's phrase, " Turned every man the wrong side out, And never gave to truth and virtue that Which simpleness and merit purchaseth." In this way any man may, with little sagacity and little trouble, be considered by those whose good opinion is not worth having as a great judge of character. It is said that the hasty and rapacious Kneller used to send away the ladies Wiio sat to hiiii as soob as he had sketched their faces, and to ptinl th£ figure and j,5?8 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. hanf^s from his houseinaid. It was in much the same way that Walpole portrayed the minds of others. He copied from the life only those glaring and obvious peculiarities which could not escape the most superficial observation. The rest of the canvass he filled up, in a careless dashing way, with knave find fool, mixed in such proportions as pleased Heaven. What a difference between these daubs and the masterly portraits of Clarendon ! There are contradictions without end in the sicetches of character which abound in Walpole's works. But if we were to foim our opinion of his eminent contemporaries from a general survey of what he has written con- cerning them, we should say that Pitt was a strutting, ranting, mouthing actor, . — Cliarles ToviTisend an impudent and voluble jack-pudding, — Murray a demure, cold-blooded, cowardly hypocrite, — Hardwick an insolent upstart, w-th the understanding of a pettifogger and the heart of a hangman, — Temple an im- pertinent poltroon, — Egmont a solemn coxcomb, — Lyttelton a poor creature whose only wish was to go to heaven in a coronet, — Onslow a pompous proser, — Washington a braggart, — Lord Camden sullen, — LordTownsend malevolent, — Seeker an atheist who had shammed Christian for a mitre, — Whitefield an impostor who swindled his converts out of their watches. The Walpoles fare little better than their neighbours. Old Horace is constantly represented as a coarse, brutal, niggardly buffoon, and his son as worthy of such a father. In short, if we are to trust this discerning judge of human nature, England in his time contained little sense and no virtue, except what was distributed between himself, Lord Waldgrave, and Marshal Conway. Of such a writer it is scarcely necessary to say that his works are destitute of every charm which is derived from elevation or from tenderness of senti- ment. When he chose to be humane and magnanimous, — for he sometimes, by way of variety, tried this affectation, — he overdid his part most ludicrously. None of his many disguises sat so awkwardly upon him. For example, he tells us that be did not choose to be intimate with Mr. Pitt. — And why? Because Mr. Pitt had been among the persecutors of his father ? Or because, as he repeatedly assures us, Mr. Pitt was a disagreeable man in private life ? Not at all ; but because Mr. Pitt was too fond of war, and was great with too little reluctance. Strange that a habitual scoffer like Walpole should imagine that this cant could impose on the dullest reader ! If Moliere had put such a speech into the mouth of Tartuffe, we should have said that the fiction was unskilful, and that Orgon could not have been such a fool as to be taken in by it. Of the twenty-six years during which Walpole sat in Parlia- ment, thirteen were years of war. Yet he did not, during all those thirteen years, utter a single word or give a single vote tending to peace. His most intimate friend, — the only friend, indeed, to whom he appears to have been sincerely attached, — Conway — was a soldier, was fond of his profession, and was perpetually entreating Mr. Pitt to give him employment. In this Wal- pole saw nothing but what was admirable. Conway was a hero for soliciting the command of expeditions which Mr. Pitt was a monster for sending out. W^hat then is the charm, the irresistible charm, of Walpole's writings ? It consists, we think, in the art of amusing without exciting. He never convinces the reason, or fills the imagination, or touches the heart ; but he keeps the mind of the reader constantly attentive, and constantly entertained. He had a strange ingenuity peculiarly his own, — an ingenuity which appeared in ail that he did, — in his building, in his gardening, iii his upholstery, in the matter and in the manner of his writings. If we were to adopt the classification, — not a very accurate classification, — which Akenside has given of the pleasures of the imagination, we should say that vdth the Sublime and the Beautiful AValpole had nothing to do, but that the third province, the Odd, was his WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. sSg peculiar domain. The motto which he prefixed to his " Catalogue of Royal a«d Noble Authors" might have been inscribed with perfect propriety over the door of every room in his house, and on the title-page of every one of his books ; " Dove diavolo, Messer Ludovico, avete pitjliate tante coglionerie ? " In his villa, every apartment is a museum ; every piece of furniture is a curiosity ; there is something strange in the form of the shovel ; there is a long story belonging to the bell-rope. We wander among a profusion of rarities, of trifling intrinsic value, but so quaint in fashion, or connected with such re- markable names and events, that they may well detain our attention for a moment A moment is enough. Some new relic, some new unique, some new carved work, some new enamel, is forthcoming in an instant One cabinet of trinkets is no sooner closed than another is opened. It is the same with Walpole's writings. It is not in their utility, it is not in their beauty, that their attraction lies. They are to the works of great historians and poets what Strawberry Hill is to t!ie Museum of Sir Hans Sloane or to the Gallery of Florence. Walpole is constantly showing us things, — not of very great value indeed, — yet things which we are pleased to see, and which we can see nowhere else. They are baubles ; but they are made curiosities either by his grotesque workmanship or by some association belonging to them. His style is one of those peculiar styles by which everybody is attracted, and wiiich nobody can safely venture to imitate. He is a mannerist whose manner has become perfectly easy to him. His affectation is so habitual and so universal that it can hardly be called affectation. The affectation is the essence of the man. It pervades all his thoughts and all his expressions. If it were taken away, nothing would be left. He coins new words, distorts the senses of old words, and twists sentences into forms which make grammarians stare. But all this he does, not only with an air of ease, but as if he could not help doing it His wit was, in its essential properties, of the same kind with that of Cowley and Donne. Like theirs, it consisted in an exquisite perception ol points of analogy and points of contrast too subtile for common observation. Like them, Walpole perpetually startles us by the ease with which he yokes together ideas between which there would seem, at first sight, to be no con- nection. But he did not, like them, affect the gravity of a lecture, and draw his illustrations from the laboratory and from the schools. His tone was light and fleering ; his topics were tlie topics of ..he club and the ball-room ; and therefore his strange combinations and far-fetched illusions, though very closely resembling those which tire us to death in the poems of the time of Charles the First, are read with pleasure constantly new. No man who has written so much is so seldom tiresome. In his books there are scarcely any of those passages which, in our school days, we used to call skip. Yet he often wrote on subjects which are generally considered as dull, — on subjects which men of great talents have in vain endeavoured to render popular. When we compare the Historic Doubts about Richard the Third with Whitaker's and Chalmers's books on a far more interesting ques- tion, — the character of Mary Queen of Scots ; — when we compare the Anec- dotes of Painting with Nichols's Anecdotes, or even with Mr, D'Israeli's Quarrels of Authors and Calamities of Authors, we at once see Walpole's superiority, not in industry, not in learning, not in accuracy, not in logical power, but in the art of writing what people will like to read. He rejects all but the attractive parts of his subject He keeps only what is in itself amusing, or what can be made so by the artifice of his diction. The coarser morsels of antiquarian learning he abandons to others, and sets out an entertainment worthy of a Roman epicure, — an entertainment consisting of nothing but deli- cacies, — the brains of singing-birds, the roe of mullets, the sunny halves of L 290 WALPOLES LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANlf, peaclies. This, we think, is the great merit of his romance. There is little skill in the delineation of the characters. Manfred is as commonplace a tyrant, Jerome as commonplace a confessor, Theodore as commonplace a yourg gentleman, Isabella and Matilda as commonplace a pair of young ladies, as are to be found in any of the thousand Italian castles in which condoltieri have revelled or in which imprisoned duchesses have pined. We cannot say that we much admire the big man whose sword is dug up in one quarter of the globe, whose helmet drops from the clouds in another, and who, after clattering and rustling for some days, ends by kicking the house dowa. But the story, whatever its value may be, never flags for a single moment. There are no digressions, or unseasonable descriptions, or long speeches. Every sentence carries the action forward. The excitement is constantly renewed. Absurd as is the machinery, insipid as are the human actors, no reader probably ever thought the book dull. Walpole's Letters are generally considered as his best performances, and, we think, with reason. His faults are far less offensive to us in his corre- sjiondence than in his books. His wild, absurd, and ever-changing opinions about men and things are easily pardoned in familiar letters. His bitter, scofling, depreciating disposition does not show itself in so unmitigated a manner as in his " Memoirs." A writer of letters must in general be civil and friendly to his correspondent at least, if to no other person. He loved letter-writing, and had evidently studied it as an art. It was, in truth, the very kind of writing for such a man, — for a man very ambitious to rank among wits, yet nervously afraid that, while obtaining the reputation of a wit, he might loose caste as a gentleman. There was nothing vulgar in writing a letter. Not even Ensign Northerton, not even the Captain de- scribed in Hamilton's Baron, — and Walpole, though the author of many quartos, had some feelings in common with those gallant officers, — would have denied that a gentleman might sometimes correspond with a friend. Whether Walpole bestowed much labour on the composition of his letters, it is impossible to judge from internal evidence. There are passages which seem perfectly unstudied. But the appearance of ease may be the effect of labour. There are passages which have a very artificial air. But they may have been produced without effort by a mind of which the natural ingenuity had been improved into morbid quickness by constant exercise. We are never sure that we see him as he was. We are never sure that what appears to be nature is not an efifect of art. We are never sure that what appears to be art is not merely habit which has become second nature. In wit and animation the present collection is not superior to those which have preceded it. But it has one great advantage over them all. It forms a connected whole, — a regular journal of what appeared to Walpole the most important transactions of the last twenty years of George the Second's reign. It contains much new information concerning the history of that time, — the portion of English history of which common readers know the least. The earlier letters contain the most lively and interesting account which we possess of that "great W^alpolean battle," to use the words of Junius, which terminated in the retirement of Sir Robert. Horace entered the House ol Commons just in time to witness the last desperate struggle which his father, surrounded by enemies and traitors, maintained, with a spirit as brave as that of the column of Fontenoy, first for victory, and then for honourable retreat. Horace was, of course, on the side of his family. Lord Dover seems to have been enthusiastic on the same side, and goes so far as to call Sir Robert " the glory of the Whigs. " Sir Robert deserved this high eulogium, we think, as little as he deserved WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 291 the abusive epithets which have often been couple4 with his name. A fair character of him still remains to be drawn : and, WLenever it shall be drawn, it will be equally unlike the portrait by Coxe and Vhe portrait by Smollett. He had, undoubtedly, great talents and great vii tues. He was not, indeed, like the leaders of the party which opposed his Government, — a brilliant orator. He was not a profound scholar, like Carteret, or a wit and a fine gentleman, like Chesterfield. In all these respects his deficiencies were remarkable. His literacure consisted of a scrap or two of Horace and an anecdote or two from the end of the Dictionary. His knowledge of history was so limited that, in the great debate on the Excise Bill, he was forced to ask Attorney-General Yorke who Empson and Dudley were. His manners were a little too coarse and boisterous even for that age of Westerns and Topehalls. When he ceased to talk of politics, he could talk of nothing but women ; and he dilated on his favourite theme with a freedom which shocked even that plain-spoken generation, and which was quite unsuited to his age and scation. The noisy revelry of his summer festivities at Houghton gave much scandal to grave people, and annually drove his kinsman and colleague, Lord Townshend, from the neighbouring mansion of Rainham. But, however ignorant Walpole might be of general history and of general literature, he was better acquainted than any man of his day with what it concerned him most to know, mankind, the English nation, the Court, the House of Commons, and his own ofiice. Of foreign affairs he knew little ; but his judgment was so good that his little knowledge went very far. He was aa excellent parliamentary debater, an excellent parliamentary tactician, and an excellent man of business. No man ever brought more industry or more method to the transacting of affairs. No minister in his time did so much j yet no minister had so much leisure. He was a giod-natured man who had during thirty years seen nothing but the worst parts of human nature in other men. He was familiar with the malice of kind people, and the perfidy of honourable people. Proud men haa licked the dust before him. Patriots had begged him to come up to the price of their puffed and advertised integrity. He said after his fall that it was a dangerous thing to be a minister, — that there were few minds which would not be injured by the constant spectacle of meanness and depravity. To his honour it must be confessed that few minds have come out of such a trial so little damaged in the most important parts. He retired, after more than Iv/enty years of power, with a temper not soured, with a heart not hardened, with simple tastes, with frank manners, and with a capacity for friendship. No stain of treachery, of ingratitude, or of cruelty rests on his memory. Factious hatred, while flinging on his name every other foul aspersion, was compelled to own that he was not a man of blood. This would scarcely seem a high eulogium on a statesman of our times. It was then a rare and honourable distinction. The contests of parties in England had long been carried on with a ferocity unworthy of a civilised people. Sir Robert Walpole was the minister who gave to our Government that character of lenity which it has .since generally preserved. It was perfectly known to him that many of his oppo- nents had dealings with the Pretender. The lives of some were at his mercy. He warned neither Whig nor Tory precedents for using his advantage un- sparingly. But with a clemency to which posterity has never done justice, he suffered himself to be thwarted, vilified, and at last overthrown, by a party which included many men whose necks were in his power. That he practised corruption on a large scale is, we think, indisputable. But whether he deserves all the invectives which have been uttered against him on that account may be questioned. No man ought to be severely cejj • 292 ^ALPOLES LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANi7, sured for not being beyond his age in virtue. To buy the votes of constituenti is as immoral as to buy the votes of representatives. The candidate who gives five guineas to the freeman is as culpable as the man who gives three hundred guineas to the member. Yet we know tliat, in our own time, no man is thouf^ht wicked or dishonourable, — no man is cut,— no man is black-balled, because, under the old system of election, he was re'.t/rned, in the only way in which he could be returned, for East Retford, for Liverpool, ' r for Stafford. Walpole governed by corruptioi because, in his time, it was impossible to govern otherwise. Corruption was unnecessary to tlie Tudors ; for their I'arliaments were feeble. Tiie publicity which has of late years been given to parliamentary proceedings has raised the standard of morality among public men. The power of public opinion is so great that, even I efore the reform of the representation, a faint suspicion that a mini ter had given pecuniary gratifications to Members of Pauiament in return for their votes would have been enough to ruin him. But, during the century which followed the Restoration, the House of Commons was in that situation in which assemblies must be mana^'ed by corruption or cannot be mana;^ed at all. It was not held in awe, as in the sixteenth century, by the throne. It was not held in awe, as in the nineteenth century, by the opinion of the people. Its constitution was oligarchical. Its deliberations were secret. Its power in the State was immense. The Government had every conceivable motive to offer bribes. Many of the members, if they were not men of strict honour and probity, had no conceivable motive to refuse what the Government offered. In the reign of Charles the Second, accordingly, the practice of buying voles in the House of Commons was commenced by the daring Clifford, and carried to a great extent by the crafty and shameless Danby. The Revolution, great and manifold as were the blessings of which it was directly or remotely the cause, at first aggravated this evil. The importance of the House of Commons was now greater than ever. The prerogatives of the Crown were more strictly limited that ever ; and those associations in which, more than in its legal prerogatives, its power had consisted, were completely broken. No prince was ever in so helpless and distressing a situation as "William the Third. The party which defended his title was, on general grounds, disposed to curtail his prerogative. The party, which was, on general grounds, friendly to prerogative, was adverse to his title. There was no quarter in which both his office and his person could find favour. But while the influence of the House of Commons in the Government was becoming paramount, the influence of the people over the House of Commons was declining. It mattered little in the time of Charles the First whether that House were or were not chosen by the people : — it was certain to act for the people, because it would have been at the mercy of the Court but for the support of the people. Now that the Court was at the mercy of the House of Commons, — that large body of members who were not returned by popular election had nobody to please but themselves. Even those who wer*^ returned by popular election did not live, as now, under a constant sense of responsibility. The constituents were not, as now, daily apprised of the votes and speeches of their representatives. The privileges which had in old times been indispensably necessary to the security and efficiency of Parliaments were now superfluous. But they were still carefully maintained, — by honest legislators from superstitious veneration, — by dishonest legislators for their own selfish ends. They had been a useful defence to the Commons during a long and doubtful conflict vrith powerful sovereigns. They were now no longer necessary for that purpose ; and they became a defence to the members against their constituents. That secrecy which had betu absolutely Qtcessary in times when the Privy Council wa.s ia WALFOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 293 the habit of sending the leaders of Opposition to the Tower was preserved in times when a vote of the House of Commons was sufficient to hurl tht most powerful minister from his post. The Government could not go on unless the Parliament could be kept in order. And how was the Parlirjuent to be kept in order ? Three hundxed years ago it would have been enough for a statesman to have the support of the Crown. It would now, we hope and believe, be enough for him to enjoy the confidence and approbation of the great body of the middle class. A hundred years ago it would not hsve been enough to have both Crown and people on his side. The Parliament had shaken off the control of tl£ Royal prerogative. It had not yet fallen under tlie control of public opinion. A large proportion of the members had absolutely no motive to support any administration except their own interest, in the lowest sense of the word- Under these circumstances, the country could be governed only by corruption. Bolingbroke, who was the ablest and the most vehement of those who raised the cry against corruption, had no better remedy to propose than that the Royal prerogative should be strengthened. The remedy would no doubt have been efficient. The only question is, whether it would not have been worse than tlie disease. The fault wa.* in the constitution of the Legislature ; and to blame those ministers who managed the Legislature in the only way in which it could be managed is gross injustice. They submitted to extortior because they could not help themselves. We might as well accuse the poor Lowland farmers who paid "black mail" to " Rob Roy" of corrupting the virtue of the Highlanders, as accuse Sir Robert Walpole of corrupting the virtue of Parliament. His crime was merely this, — that he employed his money more dexterously, and got more support in return for it, than any of those who preceded or followed him. He was himself incorruptible by money. His dominant passion was the love of power : and the heaviest charge which can be brought against him is that to this passion he never scrupled to sacrifice the interests of his country. One of the maxims which, as his son tells us, he was most in the habit of repeating was, qiiieta non mcvert. It was indeed the maxim by which he generally regulated his public conduct. It is the maxim of a man more solicitous to hold power long than to use it well. It is remarkable tliat, though he was at the head of affairs during more than twenty years, not one great measure, not one important change for the better or for the worse in any part of our institutions, mprlcs the period of his supremacy. Nor was this because he did not clearly see that many changes were very desirable. He had been brought up in the school of toleration, at the feet of Somers and of Burnet. He disliked the shameful laws against Dissenters. But he never could be induced to bring forward a proposition for repealing them. The sufTerers represented to him the injustice with which they were treated, boasted of their firm attachment to the House of Bnmswick and to the Whig party, and reminded him of his own repeated declarations of good will to their cause. He listened, assented, promised, and did nothing. At length, the question was brought forward by others, and the Minister, after a hesitating and evasive speech, voted against it. The truth was that he remembered to the latest day of his life that terrible explosion of high church feeling which the foolish prosecution of a foolish parson had occasioned in the days ol Queen Anne. If the Dissenters had been turbulent he would probably have relieved them : but while he apprehended no danger from them, he would no» run the slightest risk for their sake. He acted in the same manner with respect to other questions. He knew the state of the Scotch Highlands. He was constantly predicting another insurrection in that part of the empire 294 Vl^ALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. Yet, during his long tenure of power, he never attennpted to perform what was then the most obvious and pressing duty of a British Statesman, — to break the power of the Chiefs, and to establish the authority of law through the furthest corners of the Island. Nobody knew better than he that, if this were not done, great mischiefs would follow. But the Highlands were tolerably quiet in his time. He was content to meet daily emergencies by daily expedients ; and he left the rest to his successors. They had to conquer the Highlands in the midst of a war with France and Spain, because he had not regulated the Highlands in a time of profound peace. Sometimes, in spite of all his caution, he found that measures which he had hoped to carry through quietly had caused great agitation. When this was the case he generally modified or withdrew them. It was thus that he cancelled Wood's patent in compliance with the absurd outcry of the Irish. It was thus that he frittered away the Porteous Bill to nothing, for fear of exasperating the Scotch. It was thus that he abandoned the Excise Bill, as soon as he found that it was offensive to all the great towns of England. The language which he held about that measure in a subsequent session is strikingly characteristic. Pukeney had insinuated that the scheme would be again brought forward. " As to the wicked scheme," said Walpole, " as the gentleman is pleased to call it, which he would persuade gentlemen is not yet laid aside, I for my part assure this House I am not so mad as ever again to engage in anything that looks like an Excise ; though, in my private opinion, I still think it was a scheme that would have tended very much to the interest of the nation." The conduct of Walpole with regard to the Spanish war is the great blemish of his public life. Archdeacon Coxe imagined that he had discovered one grand principle of action to which the whole public conduct of his hero ought to be referred. " Did the administraton of Walpole," says the bio- grapher, "j)resent any uniform principle which maybe traced in every part, and which gave combination and consistency to the whole ? Yes, and that principle was The Love of Peace." It would be difficult, we think, to bestow a higher eulogium on any statesman. But the eulogium is far too high for the merits of Walpole. The great ruling principle of his public conduct was indeed a love of peace, but not in the sense in which Archdeacon Coxe uses the phrase. The peace which Walpole sought was not the peace of the country, but the peace of his own administration. During the greater part of his public life, indeed, the two objects were inseparably connected. At length he was reduced to the necessity of choosing between them — of plunging the State into hostilities for which there was no just ground, and by which nothing was to be got, or of facing a violent opposition in the country, in Parliament, and even in the royal closet. No person was more thoroughly convinced than he of the absurdity of the cry against Spain. But his darling power was at stake, and his choice was soon made. He preferred an unjust war to a stonny session. It is imposible to say of a Minister who acted thus that the lore of peace was the one grand principle to which all his conduct is CO be referred. The governing principle of his conduct was neither love of peace nor love of war, but love of power. The praise to which he is fairly entitled is this, that he understood the true interest of his country better than any of his contemporaries, and that he pursued that interest whenever it was not incompatible with the interest of his own intense and grasping ambition. It vvas only in matters of public moment that he shrank from agitation and had recourse to compromise. In his contests for personal influence there was no timidity, no flinching. He would have all or none. Every member of the Government who would not WALPOLES LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 295 tubmit to his ascendency was turned out or forced to resign. Lberal of everything else, he was avaricious of nothing but power. Cautious every- where else, when power was at stake he had all the boldness of Wolsey or Chatham. He might easily have secured his authority if he could have been induced to divide it with others. But he would not part with one fragment of it to purchase defenders for all the rest. The effect of this policy was that he had able enemies and feeble allies. His most distinguished coadjutors left him one by one, and joined the ranks of the Opposition. He faced the increasing array of his enemies with unbroken spirit, and thought it far better that they should inveigh against his power than that they should share it. The Opposition was in every sense formidable. At its head were two royal personages, — the exiled head of the House of Stuart, the disgraced heir of the House of Brunswick. One set of members received directions from Avignon. Another set held their consultations and banquets at Norfolk House. The majority of the landed gentry, — the majority of the parochial clergy, — one of the universities, — and a strong party in the City of London and in the other great towns were decidedly adverse to the Government. Of the men of letters, some were exasperated by the neglect with which the Minister treated them, — a neglect which was the more remarkable, because his predecessors, both Whig and Tory, had paid court with emulous munificence to the wits and the poets ; — others were honestly inflnrnt-d by party zeal ; almost all lent their aid to the Opposition. In truth, all that was alluring to ardent and imaginative minds was on that side ; — old associations — new visions of political improvement — high-flown theories of loyalty — high- flown theories of liberty — the enthu txsm of the Cavalier — the enthu- siasm of the Roundhead. The Tory gentleman, fed in the common-rooms of Oxford with the doctrines of Filmer and Sacheverell, and proud of the exploits of his great-grandfather, who had charged with Ruper Marston — who had held out the old manor-house against Fairfax, and who, after the king's return, had been set down for a Knight of the Royal Oak — flew to that section of the opposition which, under pretence of assailing the existing administration, was in truth assailing the reigning dynasty. The young republican, fresh from his Livy and his Lucan, and flowing with admiration of Hampden, of Russell, and of Sydney, hastened with equal eagerness to those benches from which eloquent voices thundered nightly against the tyranny and perfidy of courts. So many young politicians were caught by these declamations that Sir Robert, in one of his best speeches, observed that the Opposition consisted of three bodies — the Tories, the discontented Whigs, who were known by the name of the Patriots, and the Boys. In fact almost every young man of warm temper and lively imagina- tion, whatever his political bias might be, was drawn into the party adverse to the Government ; and some of the most distinguished among them — Pitt, for example, among public men, and Johnson among men of letters — afterwards openly acknowledged their mistake. The aspect of the opposition, even while it was still a minority in the House of Commons, was very imposing. Among those who, in Parliament or out of Parliament, assailed the administration of Walpole were Boling- broke, Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyle, Pulteney, W^yndham, Doddington, Pitt, Lyttleton, Barnard, Pope, Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, Fielding, Johnson, Thomson, Akenside, Glover. The circumstance that the opposition was divided into two partiej diametrically opposed to each other in political opinions was long the safety of Waloole. It was at la:>t his ruin. The leaders of tke minority knef »96 tVALPOLErS LETTERS TO Slk HORACE MANN. that it would be diflicult for them to bring forward any important measure without producing an immediate schism in tiieir party. It was with very great difficulty that the Whigs in opposition had been induced to give a sullen and silent vote for the repeal of the Septennial Act. The Tories, on the other hand, could not be induced to support Pulteney's motion for an addition to the income of Prince Frederic. The two parties had cordially joined in calling out for a war with Spain ; but they now had their war. Hatred of Walpole was almost the only feeling which was common to them. On this one point, therefore, they concentrated their whole strength. With g-K)ss ignorance, or gross dishonesty, they represented the minister as the main grievance of the state. His dismissal, — nis punishment, — would prove the certain cure for all the evils which the nation suffered. What was to be done after his fall, — how misgovernment was to be prevented in future, — were questions to which there were as many answers as there were noisy and ill-informed members of the Opposition. The only cry in which all could join was, "Down with Walpole ! " So much did they narrow the disputed ground, — so purely personal did they make the question, — that they threw out friendly hints to the other members of the Administration, and declared that they refused quarter to the Prime Minister alone. His tools might keep their heads, their fortunes, "even liieir places, if only the great father of corruption were given up to the just vengeance of the nation. If the fate of Walpole's colleagues had been inseparably bound up with his, he probably would, even after the unfavourable elections of I74i> have been able to weather the stoma. But as soon as it was understood that the attack was directed against him alone, and that if he were sacrificed, his associates might expect advantages and honourable terms, the ministerial ranks began to waver, and the mxumur of sauve qui pcut was heard. That Walpole had foul play is almost certain, but to what extent it is difficult to say. Lord Islay was suspected ; the Duke of Newcastle something more than suspected. It would have been strange, indeed, if his Grace had been idle when treason was hatching. " Che Gan fu traditor prima che nato." "His name," said Sir Robert, "is perfidy." Never was a battle more manfully fought out than the last struggle of the old statesman. His clear judgment, his long experience, and his fearless spirit, enabled him to maintain a defensive war through half the session. To the last his heart never failed him ; and when at last he yielded, he yielded not to the threats of his enemies, but to the entreaties of his dispirited and refractory followers. When he could no longer retain his power, he com- pounded for honour and securi'y, and retired to his garden and his paintings, leaving to those who had overthrown him — shame, discord, and ruin. Everything was in confusion. It had been said that the confusion was pro- duced by the dexterous policy of Walpole ; and, undoubtedly, he did his best to sow dissension amongst his triumphant enemies. But there was little for him to do. Victory had completely dissolved the hollow truce, which the two sections of the opposition had but imperfectly observed, even while the event of the contest was still doubtful. A thousand questions were opened in a moment. A thousand conflicting claims were preferred. It was impossible to follow any line of policy which would not have been offensive to a large portion of the successful party. It was impossible to find places for a tenth part of those who thought that they had a right to be considered. While the parliamentary leaders were preaching patience and confidence, — while their followers were clamouring for reward, a still louder voice was heard from Ritliout, — the terrible cry of a people angry, they hardly knew with whom, — WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MaJ'dent youth to noblest manners framed. See us achieve whate'er was sought by you, If Curio — only Curio — will be true." It was Pulteney's business, it seems, to abolish faro and masquerades, to 6tint the young Duke of Marlborough to a bottle of brandy a day, and to prevail on Lady Vane to be content with three lovers at a time. WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIJi HORACE MANN. 299 Whatever the people wanted, they certainly got nothing. Walpole retired in safety ; and the multitude were defrauded of the expected show on Tower HilL The Septennial Act was not repealed. The Placemen were not turned out of the House of Commons, Wool, we believe, was still exported. "' Private life" afforded as much scandal as if the reign of Walpole and cor- niption had continued; and "ardent youth" fought with watchmen and betted with blacklegs as much as ever. The colleagues of Walpole had, after his retreat, admitted some of the chiefs of the opposition into the Government. They soon found themselves compelled to submit to the ascendency of one of their new allies. This was Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl Granville. No public man of that age had greater courage, greater ambition, greater activity, greater talents for debate, or for declamation. No public man had such profouud and extensive learning. He was familiar with the ancient writers. His knowledge of modern languages was prodigious. The privy council, when he was present, needed no interpreter. He spoke and wrote French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, even Swedish. He had pushed his researches into the most obscure nooks of literature. He was as familiar with Canonists and Schoolmen as with orators and poets. He had read all that the universities of Saxony and Holland had produced on the most intricate questions of public law. Harte, in the preface to the second edition of his History of Gustavus Adolphus, bears a remarkable testimony to the extent and accuracy of Lord Carteret's knowledge. " It was my good fortune or prudence to keep the main body of my army (or in other words my matters of fact) safe and entire. The late Earl of Granville was pleased to declare himself of this opinion ; especially when he found that I had made Chemnitius one of my principal guides ; for his Lordship was apprehensive I might not have seen that valuable and authentic book, which is extremely scarce. I thought myself happy to have contented his Lordship even in the lowest degree : for he understood the German and Swedish histories to the highest perfection." With all this learning, Carteret was far from being a pedant. His was nn/^ one of those cold spirits of which the fire is put out by the fuel. In council, in debate, in society, he was all life and energy. His measures were strong, prompt, and daring, his oratory animated and glowing. His spirits were con- stantly high. No misfortune, public or private, could depress him. He was at once the most unlucky and the happiest public man of his time. He had been Secretary of State in Walpole's administration, and had ac- quired considerable influence over the mind of George the First. The other Ministers could speak no German. The King could speak no English. All the communication that Walpole held with his master was in very bad Latin. Carteret dismayed his colleagues by the volubility with which he addressed his Majesty in German. They listened with envy and terror to the mysterious giitterals which might possibly convey suggestions very little in unison with their wishes. Walpole was not a man to endure such a colleague as Carteret. The King was induced to give up his favourite. Carteret joined the opposition, and signalised himself at the head of that party till, after the retirement of his old rival, he again became Secretary of State. During some months he was chief Minister, — indeed sole Minister, He gained the confidence and regard of George the Second. He was at the same time in high favour with the Prince of Wales. As a debater in the House of Lords, he had no equal among his colleagues. Among his opponents, Chesterfield alone could be considered as his match. Confident in his talents, and in the royal favour, he neglected all those means by which the power q{ 300 WALPOLES LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. Walpole had been created and maintained. His head was full of treaties and expeditions, of schemes for supporting the Queen of Hungary and for humbling the Mouse of Bourbon. He contemptuously abandc^ned to others all the drudgery, and, with the drudgery, all the fruits of corruption. The patronage ■>f the Church and of the Bar he left to the Pelhams as a trifle unworthy of his «are. One of the judges, — Chief Justice Willes, if we icniember rightly, — went to him to beg some ecclesiastical preferment for a friend. Carteret said, that he was too much occupied with continental politics to think about the disposal of places and benefices. "You may rely on it, then," said the Chief Justice, " that people who want places an i benefices will go to those who have more leisure." The prediction was accomplished. It would have been a busy time indeed in wliich the Pelhams had wanted leisure for jobbing ; and to the Pelhams the whole cry of place-hunters and pension-hunters resorted. The parliamentary influence of the two brothers became stronger every day, till at length they were at the head of a decided majority in the House of Commons. Their rival, meanwhile, consciuu:!. of his powers, .sanguine in his hopes, and proud of the storrn which he had conjured upon the Continent, would brook neither superior nor equal. " His rants," says Horace Walpoic, "are amazing ; so are his parts and his spirits." He encountered the opposition of his colleagues, not with the fierce haughtiness of the first Pitt, or the cold unbending arrogance of the second, but with a gay vehemence, a good- humoured imperiousness, that bore everything down before it. The period of his ascendency was known by the name of the " Drunken Administration ;" and the expression was not altogether figurative. Hi;; habits were extremely convivial ; and champagne probably lent its aid to keep him in that state of joyous excitement in which his life was passed. That a rash and impetuous man of genius like Carteret should not have been able to maintain his ground in Parliament against the crafty and selfish Pelhams is not strange. But it is less easy to understand why he should have been generally unpopular throughout the country. His brilliant lal*;nts, his bold and open temper, ought, it should seem, to have made him a favourite with the public. But the people had been bitterly disappointed : and he had to face the first burst of their rage. His close connection with Pulteney, now the most detested man in the nation, was an unfortunate circumstance. He had, indeed, only three partisans, — Pulteney, the King, and the Prince of Wales, — a most singular assemblage. He was driven from his office. He shortly after made a bold, indeed a des- perate, attempt to recover power. The attempt failed. From that time he relinquished all ambitious hopes, and retired laughing to his books and his bottle. No statesman ever enjoyed success with so exquisite a relish, or sub- mitted to defeat with so genuine and unforced a cheerfulness. Ill as he had been used, he did not seem, says Horace WaJpole, to have any resentment, or indeed any feeling except thirst. These letters contain many good stories, — some of them no doubt grossly exaggerated, about Lord Carteret ;— how, in the height of his greatness he fell in love at fifst sight on a birthday with Lady Sophia Fermor, the handsome daughter of Lord Pomfret ; — how he plagued the Cabinet every day with reading to them her ladyship's letters ; — how strangely he brought home his bride ; — what fine jewels he gave her ; — how he fondled her at Ranelagh ; — and what queen-like state she kept in Arlington Street. Horace Walpole has spoken less bitterly of Carteret than of any public man of that time, Fox, perhaps, excepted ; and this is the more remarkable, because Carteret was one of the most inveterate enemies of Sir Robert. In the Memoirs, Horace Walpole, after passing in review all the great men whom Ensrlaad had pro- WALPOLE 'S LBTlf.RS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 301 duced within his memory, concludes by saying, that in genius none of them quailed Lord Granville. Smollett, in Humphrey Clinker, pronoimces a similar judgment in coarser language. " Since Granville was turned out, there has been no minister in this nation worth the meal that whitened his periwig." Carteret fell ; and the reign of the Pelhams commenced. It was Carteret's misfortune to be raised to power when the public mind was still smarting from recent disappointment. The nation had been duped, and was eager for re- venge. A victim was necessary, — and on such occasions the victims of popular rage are selected like the victim of Jephthah. The first person who comes in the way is made the sacrifice. The wrath of the people had now spent itself; and the unnatural excitement was succeeded by an unnatural calm. To an irrational eagerness for something new, succeeded an equally irrational dis- position to acquiesce in everything established. A few months back the people had been disposed to impute every crime to men in power, and to lend a ready ear to tlie high professions of men in opposition. They were now disposed to surrender themselves implicitly to the management of Ministers, and to look with suspicion and contempt on all who pretended to public spirit. The name of patriot had become a by-word of derision. Horace Walpole scarcely exaggerated when he said that, in those times, the most popular de- claration which a candidate could make on the Hustings was that he had never been and never would be a patriot. At this conjuncture took place the re- bellion of the Highland clans. The alarm produced by that event quieted the strife of internal factions. The suppression of the insurrection crushed for ever the spirit of the Jacobite party. Ror to was made in the Government for a few Tories. Peace was patched up with France and Spain. Death removed the Prince of Wales, who had -"OPtrived to keep together a small portion of that formidable opposition of which he had been the leader in the time of Sir Robert Walpole. Almost every man of weight in the House of Commons was officially connected with the Government. The even tenor of the session of Parliament was ruffled only by an occasional harangue from Lord Egmont on the army estimates. For the first time since the accession of the Stuarts there was no opposition. This singular good fortune, denied to the ablest statesmen, — to Salisbury, to Stafford, to Clarendon, to Walpole, — had been reserved for the Pelhams, Henry Pelham, it is true, was by no means a contemptible person. His understanding was that of Walpole on a somewhat smaller scale. Though not a brilliant orator, he was, like his master, a good debater, a good parlia- mentary tactician, a good man of business. Like his master, he distinguished himself by the neatness and clearness of his financial expositions. Here the resemblance ceased. Their characters were altogether dissimilar. Walpole was good-humoured, but would have his way : his spirits were high, and his manners frank even to coarseness. The temper of Pelham was yielding, bu* peevish : his habits were regular, and his deportment strictly decorous. Wal pole was constitutionally fearless, Pelham constitutionally timid. Walpole had to face a strong opposition ; but no man in the Government durst wag a finger against him. Almost all the oppos'tion which Pelham had to en« counter was from members of the Government of which he was the head. His own paymaster spoke against his estimates. His own secretary-at-wai spoke against his Regency Bill In one day Walpole turned Lord Chester- field, Lord Burlington, and Lord Clinton out of the royal household — dis- missed the highest dignitaries of Scotland from their posts — and took away the regiments of the Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham, because he suspected them of having encouraged the resistance to the Excise Bill. He would {xt rather have contended with the strongest minority, under the ablest leaders, 3oa WALrOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. than have tolerated mutiny in his own party. It would have gone hard with any of his colleagues who had ventured to divide the House of Commons against him. Pelham, on the other hand, was disposed to bear anything rather than drive from office any man round whom a new opposition could form. He therefore endured with fretful patience the insubordination of Pitt and Fox. He thought it far better to connive at their occasional infractions of discipline than to hear them, night after night, thundering against corrup- tion and wicked ministers from the other side of the house. We wonder that Sir Walter Scott never tried his hand on the Duke of Newcastle. An interview between his Grace and Jeannie Deans would have been delightful, and by no means unnatural. There is scarcely any public man in our history of whose manners and conversation so many particulars have been preserved. Single stories may be unfounded or exaggerated, but all the stories about him, whether told by people who were perpetually see- ing him in Parliament and attending his levee in Lincoln's Jnn Fields, or by Grub Street writers who never had more than a glimpse of his star through the windows of his gilded coach, are of the same character. Horace Wal- pole and Smollet differed in their tastes and opinions as much as two human beings could differ. They kept quite different society. The one played at cards with countesses, and corresponded with ambassadors. The other jiassed liis life surrounded by printers' devils and famished scribblers. Yet Wal- pole's Duke and Smollett's Duke are as like as if they were both from one hand. Smollett's Newcastle runs out of his dressing-room, with his face covered with soap-suds, to embrace the Moorish envoy. Walpole's New- castle pushes his way into the Duke of Grafton's sick room to kiss the old nobleman's plasters. No man was ever so unmercifully satirised. But in tmth he was himself a satire ready made. Al Ithat the art of the satirist does for other ridiculous men, nature had done for him. Whatever was absurd about him stood out with grotesque prominence from the rest of his character. He was a living, moving, talking, caricature. His gait was a shuffling trot ; his utterance a rapid stutter ; he was always in a hurry ; he was never in time ; he abounded in fulsome caresses and in hysterical tears. His oratory resembled that of Justice Shallow. It was nonsense effervescent with animal spirits and impertinence. Of his ignorance many anecdotes remain, some well authenticated, some probably invented at coffee-houses, but all exquisitely characteristic. "Oh — yes — yes — to be sure — Annapolis must be defended — troops must be sent to Annapolis — Pray where is Annapolis?" — " Cape Breton an island ! wonderful ! — show it me in the map. So it is, sure enough. My dear sir, — you always bring us good news. I must go and tell the King that Cape Breton is an island." And this man was, during near thirty years, Secretary of State, — and, during near ten years, first Lord of the Treasury ! His large fortune, his strong hereditary connection, his great parliamentary interest, will not alone explain this extraordinary fact. His success is a signal instance of what may be effected by a man who devotes his whole heart and soul without reserve to one object. He was eaten up by ambition. His love of influence and authority resembled the avarice of the old usurer in the Fortunes of Nigel. It was so intense a passion that it supplied the place of talents, that it inspired even fatuity with cunning. " Have no money dealings with my father," says Martha to Lord Glenvarloch," for dotard as he is, he will make an ass of you." It was as dangerous to have any political connec- tion with Newcastle as to buy and sell with old Trapbois. He was greedy after power with a greediness all his own. He was jealous of all his colleagues, and ev^n of his own broti^er. Under the disguise of levity he WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 303 was false beyond all example of political falsehood. All the able men of his time ridiculed him as a dunce, a driveller, a child who never knew his own mind for an hour together ; and he overreached them all round. If the country had remained at peace, it is not impossible that this man would have continued at the head of affairs without admitting any otlier person to a share of his authority until the throne was filled by a new Prince, who brought with him new maxims of government, new favourites, and a strong will. But the inauspicious commencement of the Seven Years' Wat brought on a crisis to which Newcastle was altogether unequal. After a calm of fifteen years the spirit of the nation was again stirred to its inmost depths. In a few days the whole aspect of the political world was changed. But that change is too remarkable an event to be discussed at the end of an article already too long. It is probable that we may, at no remote time, resume the subject. THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM. (January, 1834.) A History of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, containing hii Speeches in Parliament, a considerable portion of his Correspondence ivhen Secretary of State, upon French, Spanish, and A merican Affairs, never before published ; and an Account of the principal Events ami Persons of his Time connected with his Life, Sentiments, and Administration, By the Rev. Francis Thackbray, A.M. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1837. Though several years have elapsed since the publication of this work, it is still, we believe, a new publication to most of our readers. Nor are we sur- prised at this. The book is large, and the style heavy. The information which Mr. Thackeray has obtained from the State Paper Office is new ; but much of it is very uninteresting. The rest of his narrative is very little better than Gifford's or Tomline's Life of the second Pitt, and tells us little or nothing that may not be found quite as well told in the Parliamentary History, the Aimual Register, and other works equally common. Almost every mechanical employment, it is said, has a tendency to injure some one or other of the bodily organs of the artisan. Grinders of cutlery die of consumption ; weavers are stunted in their growth ; smiths become blear-eyed. In the same manner almost every intellectual employment has a tendency to produce some intellectual malady. Biographers, translators, editors, all, in short, who employ themselves in illustrating the lives or the writings of others, are peculiarly exposed to the Lt4es Boswelliana, or disease of admiration. But we scarcely remember ever to have seen a patient so far gone in this distemper as Mr. Thackeray. He is not satisfied with forcing us to confess that Pitt was a great orator, a vigorous minister, an honourable and high-spirited gentleman. He will have it, that all virtues and all accomplish- ments met in his hero. In spite of Gods, men, and columns, Pitt must be a poet, — a poet capable of producing a heroic poem of the first order ; — and wc are assured that we ought to find many charms in such lines as these : — " Midst all the tumults of the warring sphere. My light-charged bark may haply glide ; Some gale may waft, some conscious thought shall cheer, And the small freight unanxious ^/zV«. " Pitt was in the «irmy for a few months in time of peace. Mr. Thaclceray 304 THACKERA Y'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM. accordingly insists on our confessing that, if the young comet had remained in the service, he would have been one of the ablest commanders that ever lived. But this is not all. Pitt, it seems, w^as not merely a great poet in esse, and a great general in posse, but a finished example in moral excellence, — the just man made perfect. He was in the right when he attempted lo estab- lish an inquisition, and to give bounties for perjury, in order to get V/alpoles head. He was in the right when he declared Walpole to have been an ex- cellent minister. He was in the right when, being in Opposition, he main- tained that no peace ought to be made with Spain, till she should formally renounce the right of search. He was in the right when, being in office, he silently acquiesced in a treaty by which Spain did not renounce the right of search- When he left the Duke of Newcastle, — when he coalesced with the Duke of Newcastle, — when he thundered against subsidies, — when he lavished subsidies with unexampled profusion, — when he execrated the Hanoverian connection, — when he declared that Hanover ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire, he was still invariably speaking the language of a virtuous and enlightened statesman. The truth is, that there scarcely ever lived a person who had so little claim to this sort of praise as Pitt. He was undoubtedly a great man. But Ids was not a complete and well-proportioned greatness. The public life of Hampden or of Somers resembles a regular drama, which can be criticized as a whole, and every scene of which is to be viewed in connection with the main action. The public life of Pitt, on the other hand, is a rude though striking piece, — a piece abounding in incongruities, — a piece without any unity of plan, but re- deemed by some noble passages, the effect of which is increased by the tame- ness or extravagance of what precedes and of what follows. His opinions were unfixed. His conduct at some of the most important conjunctures of his life was evidently determined by pride and resentment. He had one fault, which of all human faults is most rarely found in company with true greatness. He was extremely affected. He was an almost solitary instance of a man of real genius, and of a brave, lofty, and commanding spirit, without simplicity of character. He was an actor in the Closet, an actor at Council, an actor in Parliament ; and even in private society he could not lay aside his theatrical tones aiid attitudes. We know that one of the most distinguished of his par- tisans often complained that he could never obtain admittance to Lord Chatham's room till everything was ready for the representation, — till the dresses and properties were all correctly disposed, — till the light was thrown with Rembrandt-like effect on the head of the illustrious performer, — till the flannels had been arranged with the air of a Grecian drapery, and the crutch placed as gracefully as that of Belisarius or Lear. Yet, with all his faults and affectations, Pitt had, in a very extraordinary degree, many of the elements of greatness. He had splendid talents, strong passions, quick sensibility, and vehement enthusiasm for the grand and the beautiful. There was something about him which ennobled tergiversation itself. He often went wrong, — very wrong. But, to quote the lajiguage of Wordsworth, " He still retained, 'Mid such abasement, what he had received From nature, an intense and glowing mind." In an age of low and dirty prostitution, — in the age of Doddington and Sandys, — it was something to have a man who might perhaps, under some strong ex- citement, have been tempted to ruin his country, but who never would have stooped to pilfer from her, — a man whose errors arose, not from a sordid desire of gain, but frora a fierce thirst for power, for glory, and for vengeance. Hia* TIIA CKERA TS HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM. 3C3 tory owes to him this attestation, — that, at a time when anything short of direct embezzlement of the public money was considered as quite fair in public men, he showed the most scrupulous disinterestedness, — that, at a time when it seemed to be generally taken for granted that Government could be upheld only by the basest and most immoral arts, he appealed to the better and nobler parts of human nature, — that he made a brave and splendid attempt to do, by means of public opinion, what no other statesman of his day thought it possible to do, except by means of corruption, — that he looked for support, not, like the Pelhams, to a strong Aristocralical connection, not, like Bute, to the per- sonal favour of the sovereign, but to the middle class of Englishmen, — that he inspired that class with a firm confidence in his integrity and ability, — that, backed by them, he forced an unwilling court and an unwilling oligarchy to admit him to an ample share of power, — and that he used his power in such a manner as clearly proved him to have sought it, not for the sake of profit or patronage, but from a wish to establish for himself a great and durable repu- tation by means of eminent services rendered to the state. The family of Pitt was wealthy and respectable. His grandfather was Governor of Madras ; and brought back from India that celebrated diamond which the Regent Orleans, by the advice of Saint-Simon, purchased for up- wards of three millions of livres, and which is still considered as the most precious of the crown jewels of France. Governor Pitt bought estates and rotten boroughs, and sat in the House of Commons for Old Sarum. His son Robert was at one time member for Old Sarum, and at another for Oakhamp- ton. Robert had two sons. Thomas, the elder, inherited the estates and the Parliamentary interest of his father. The second was the celebrated William Pitt. He was bom in November, 1708. About the early part of his life little more is known than that he was educated at Eton, and that at seventeen he was entered at Trinity College, Oxford. During the second year of his resi- dence at the University, George the First died ; and the event was, after the fashion of that generation, celebrated by the Oxonians in many very middling copies of verses. On this occasion Pitt published some Latin lines, which Mr. Thackeray has preserved. They prove tliat the young student had but a very limited knowledge even of the mechanical part of his art. All true Etonians will hear with concern that their illustrious schoolfellow is guilty of making the first syllable in labenti short. The matter of the poem is as worthless as that of any college exercise that was ever written before or since. There is, of course, much about Mars, Themis, Neptune, and Cocytus. The Muses are earnestly entreated to weep for Csesar, for Caesar, says the Poet, loved the Muses ; — Caesar, who could not read a line of Pope, and who loved nothing but punch and fat women. Pitt had been, from his school-days, cruelly tormented by the gout, and was at last advised to travel for his health. He accordingly left Oxford without taking a degree, and visited France and Italy. He returned, however, with- eut having received much benefit from his excursion, and contmued, till the close of his life, to suffer most severely from his constitutional malady. His father was now dead, and had left very little to the younger children. It was necessary that William should choose a profession. He decided foi the army, and a comet's commission was procured for him in the Blues. But, small as his fortune was, his family had both the power and the in- clination to serve him. At the general election of 1734, his elder brother, Thomas, was chosen both for Old Sarum and for Oakhampton. When Parlia* iwent met in 1735. Thomas made his election to serve for Oakhampton, acd /illiaro was returned for Old Sarum. 3o6 7 HA CKERA Y 'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THA M. Walpole had now been, during fourteen years, at the head of affairs. He had risen to power under the most favourable circumstances. The whole of the Whig party, — of that party which professed peculiar attachment to the principles of the Revolution, and which exclusivel/y enjoyed the confidence ot the reigning house, — had been united in support of his administration. Hap- pily for him, he had been out of office when the South-Sea Act was passed ; and, though he does not appear to have foreseen all the consequences of that measure, he had strenuously opposed it, as he opposed all the measures, goofl and bad, of Sunderland's administration. When the South-Sea Company were voting dividends of fifty per cent, — when a hundred pounds of their slock were selling for eleven hundred pounds, — when Threadneedle Street was daily crowded with the coaches of dukes and prelates, — when divines and philoso- phers turned gamblers, — when a thousand kindred bubbles were daily blown into existence, — the periwig company, and the Spanish-jackass company, and the quicksilver-fixation company, — Walpole's calm good sense pieserved him from the general infatuation. He condemned the prevailing madness in public, and turned a considerable sum by taking advantage of it in private. When the crash came, — when ten thousand families were reduced to beggary in a day, — when the people in the frenzy of their rage and despair, clamoured, not only against the lower agents in the juggle, but against the Hanoverian favourites, against the English ministers, against the King himself, — when Par- liament met, eager for confiscation and blood, — when members of the House of Commons proposed that the directors should be treated like parricides in ancient Rome, tied up in sacks, and throwTi into the Thames, Walpole was the man on whom all parties turned their eyes. Four years before he had been driven from power by the intrigues of Sunderland and Stanhope, ami the lead in the House of Commons had been intrusted to Craggs and Aislabie, Stanhope was no more. Aislabie was expelled from Parliament on account of his disgraceful conduct regarding the South-Sea scheme. Craggs was saved by a timely death from a similar mark of infamy. A large minority in the House of Commons voted for a severe censure on Sunderland, who, finding it impossible to withstand the force of the prevailing sentiment, retired from office, and outlived his retirement but a very short time. The schism which had divided the Whig party was now completely healed. Walpole had no opposition to encounter except that of the Tories ; and the Tories were naturally regarded by the King with the strongest suspicion and dislike. For a time business went on with a smoothness and despatch such as had not been known since the days of the Tudors. During the session of 1724, for example, there was hardly a single division. It is not impossible that, by taking the course which Pelham afterwards took, — by admitting into the ■. Government all the rising talents and ambition of the Whig party, and by I making r« om here and there for a Tory not unfriendly to the House of Bruns- wick, — \1 alpole might have averted the tremendous conflict in which he passed the later jears of his administration, and in which he was at length van- quished. The Opposition which overthrew him was an Opposition created by his own policy, — by his own insatiable love of power. In the very act of forming his ministry he turned one of the ablest and most attached of his supporters into a deadly enemy. Pulteney had strong public and private claims to a high situation in the new arrangement. His fortune was immense. His private character was respectable. He was already a distinguished speaker. He had acquired official experience in an important post. He had been, through all changes of fortune, a consistent Whig. When the Whig party was split into two sections, Pulteney had re- signed a valuable place, and had followed the fortunes of Walpole. Yet, THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. 307 wb«i Walpole returned to power, Pulteney was not invited to take office. An angry discussion took place between the friends. The minister offered a peerage. It was impossible for Pulteney not to discern the motive of such an offer. He indignantly refused to accept it. For some time he continued to brood over his wrongs, and to watch for an opportunity of revenge. As soon as a favourable conjuncture arrived he joined the minority, and became the greatest leader of Opposition that the House of Commoni had ever seen. Of all the members of the Cabinet, Carteret was the most eloquent and accomplished. His talents for debate were of the first order ; his knowledge of foreign affairs superior to tliat of any living statesman ; his attachment to the Protestant succession was undoubted. But there was not room in one Government for him and Walpole. Carteret retired, and was, from that time forward, one of the most persevering and formidable enemies of his old colleague. If there was any man with whom Walpole could have consented to make a partition of power, that man was Lord Townshend. They were distant kins- men by birth, near kinsmen by marriage. They had been friends from child- hood. They had been school-fellows at Eton. They were country neighbours in Norfolk. They had been in office together under Godolphin. They had gone into Opposition together when Ilarley rose to power. They had been persecuted by the same House of Commons. They had, after the death of Anne, been recalled together to office. They had again been driven out together by Sunderland, and had again come back together when the influence of Sunderland had declined. Their opinions on public affairs almost always coincided. They were both men of frank, generous, and compassionate natures ; their intercourse had been for many years affectionate and cordial. But the ties of blood, of marriage, and of friendship, the memory of mutual services, the memory of common persecutions, were insufficient to restrain that ambition which domineered over all the virtues and vices of Walpole. He was resolved, to use his own metaphor, that the firm of the house should be, not Townshend and Walpole, but Walpole and Townshend. At length the rivals proceeded to personal abuse before witnesses, seized each other by the collar, and grasped their swords. The women squalled. The men parted the combatants.* By friendly intervention the scandal of a duel between cousins, brothers-in-law, old friends, nnd old colleagues, was prevented. But the dis- putants could not long continue to act together. Townshend retired, and, with rare moderation and public spirit, refused to take any part in politics. He could not, he said, trust his temper. He feared that the recollection of his private wrongs might impel him to follow the example of Pulteney, and to oppose measures which he thought generally beneficial to the country. He therefore never visited London after his resignation, but passed the closing years of his life in dignity and repose among his trees and pictures at Rainham. Next went Chesterfield. He too was a Whig and a friend of the Protes- tant succession. He was an orator, a courtier, a wit, and a man of letters. He was at the head of ton in days when, in order to be at the head of ton, it was not sufficient to be dull and supercilious. It was evident that he sub- mitted impatiently to the ascendency of Walpole. He murmured against the Excise Bill. His brothers voted against it in the House of Commons. The Minister acted with characteristic caution and characteristic energy ; — caution in the conduct of public affairs ; energy where his own administration was • The scene of this extraordinary quarrel was, we believe, a house ui Cleveland Square, now occupiod by Mr. Ellice, the Secretary at War. It was then the residence of Colons) Schryn- 3o8 THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. concerned. He withdrew his Bill, and turned out all his hostile or wavering colleagues. Chesterfield was stopped on the great staircase of St, James's, and summoned to deliver up the stafif which he bore as Lord Steward of the Household. A crowd of noble and powerful functionaries, — the Dukes of. Montrose and Bolton, Lord Burlington, Lord Stair, Lord Cobham, Lord Marchmont, Lord Clifton, — were at the same time dismissed from the service of the Crown. Not long after these events the Opposition was reinforced by the Duke of Argyle, a man vainglorious indeed and fickle, but brave, eloquent and popular. It was in a great measure owing to his exertions that the Act of Settlement had been peaceably carried into effect in England immediately after the death of Anne, and that the Jacobite rebellion which, during the following year, broke out in Scotland, was suppressed. He too carried over to the minority the aid of his great name, his talents, and his paramount influence in his native country. In each of these cases taken separately, a skilful defender of Walpole might perhaps make out a case for him. But when we see that during a long (ourse of years all the footsteps are turned the same way, — that all the most eminent of those public men who agreed with the Minister in their general \ lews of policy left him, one after another, with sore and irritated minds, we find it impossible not to believe that the real explanation of the pHenomenon ii to be found in the words of his son, ** Sir Robert Walpole loved power so m ich that he would not endure a rivaL " * Hume has described this famous minister with great felicity in one short sentence — "moderate in exercising power, not equitable in engrossing it." Kind-hearted, jovial, and placable as Walpole was, he was yet a man with whom no persons of high pretensions and high spirit could long continue to act. He had, therefore, to stand against an Opposition containing all the most accomplished statesmen of the age, with no better support than that which he received from persons like his brother Horace or Henry Pelham, whose industrious mediocrity gave him no cause for jealousy, or from clever adventurers, whose situation and character diminished the dread which their talents might have inspired. To this last class belonged Fox, who was too poor to live without office ; Sir William Yonge, of whom Walpole himself said, that nothing but such parts could buoy up such a character, and that nothing but such a character could drag down such parts ; and Winnington, whose private morals lay, justly or un- justly, under imputations of the worst kind. The discontented Whigs were, not perhaps in number, but certainly in ability, experience, and weight, by far the most important part of the Oppo- sition. The Tories furnished little more than rows of ponderous foxhunters, fat with Staffordshire or Devonshire ale, — men who drank to the King over the water, and believed that all the fundholders were Jews, — men whose reli- gion consisted in hating the Dissenters, and whose political researches had led them to fear, like Squire Western, that their land might be sent over to Hanover to be put in the sinking-fund. The eloquence of these patriotic squires, the remnant of the once formidable October Club, seldom went beyond a hearty Ay or No. Very few members of this party had distin- guished themselves much in Parliament, or could, under any circumstances, have been called to fill any high office ; and those few had generally, like Sir William Wyndham, learned in the company of their new associates the doc- trines of toleration and political liberty, and might indeed with strict propriety be called Whigs. * Memoirs, Vol. i, p. aoi. THA CKERA Y'S HISTOR V OF EARL CHA THAM. 309 It was to the Whigs in Opposition, the patriots as they were called, that the most distinguished of the English youth who at this season entered into public life, attached themselves. These inexperienced politicians felt all the enthusiasm which the name of liberty naturally excites in young and ardent minds. They conceived that the theory of the Tory Opf«osition and the practice of Walpole's Government were alike inconsistent with the principles of liberty. They accordingly repaired to the standard which Puiteney had set up. While opposing the Whig minister, they professed a firm adherence to the purest doctrines of Whiggism. He was the schismatic ; they were the true Catholics, the peculiar people, the depositaries of the orthodox faith of Hampden and Russell, the one sect which, amidst the corruptions g\;nerated by time and by the long possession of power, had preserved inviolate the principles of the Revolution . Of the young men who attached themselves to 'Jiis portion of the Opposition the most distinguished were Lyttelton and Pitt. When Pitt entered Parliament, the whole political world was attentively watching the progress of an event which soon added great strength to the Opposition, and particularly to that section of the Opposition in which the young statesman enrolled himself. The Fiince of Wales was gradually be- coming more and more estranged from his father and ti is father's ministers, and more and more friendly to the patriots. Nothing is more natural than that, in a monarchy where a constitutional Opposition exists, the heir-apparent of the throne should put himself at the head of that Opposition. He is impelled to such a course by every feeling of ambition and of vanity. He cannot be more than second in the estima- tion of the party which is in. He is sure to be the first member of the party which is out. The highest favour which the existing administration can ex- pect from him is that he will not discard them. But, if he joins the Oppo- sition, all his associates expect that he will promote them ; and the feelings which men entertain towards one from whom they hope to obtain great ad- vantages which they have not are far warmer than the feelings with which they regard one who, at the very utmost, can only leave them in possession of what they already bad. An heir-apparent, therefore, who wishes to enjoy, in the highest perfection, all the pleasure that can be derived from eloquent flattery and profound respect will always join those who are struggling to force themselves into power. This is, we believe, the true explanation of a fact which Lord Granville attributed to some natural peculiarity in the illus- trious House of Brunswick. " This family," said he at Council, we suppose after his daily half-gallon of Burgundy, " always has quarrelled, and always will quarrel, from generation to generation." He should have known some- thing of the matter ; for he had been a favourite with three successive genera- tions of the royal house. We cannot quite admit his explanation ; but the fact is indisputable. Since the accession of George the First, there have been four Princes of Wales, and they have all been almost constantly in Opposition. Whatever might have been the motives which induced Prince Frederick to join the party opposed to Sir Robert Walpole, his support infused into many members of that party a courage and an energy of which they stood greatly in need. Hitherto it had been impossible for the discontented Whigs not to feel some misgivings when they found themselves dividing, night after night, with uncompromising Jacobites who were known to be in constant communication with the exiled family, or with Tories who had impeached Somers, who had murmured against Harley and St. John as too remiss in the cause of the Church and the landed interest, and who, if they were not in« ciiaed to attack the reigning family, yet considered the introductioa of that 3IO THACKERA Y'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. family as, at best, only the less of two great evils, — as a necessary but painful and humiliating preservative against Popery. The Minister might plausibly say that Pulteney and Carteret, in the hope of gratifying their own appetite for office and for revenge, did not scruple to serve the purposes ol a faction hostile to the Protestaut succession. The appearance of Frederick at the head of the patriots silenced this reproach. The leaders of the Opposition might now boast that their proceedings were sanctioned by a person as deeply interested as the King himself in maintaining the Act of Settlement, and that, instead of serving the purposes of the Tory party, they had brought that party over to the side of Whiggism. It must indeed be admitted that, though both the King and the Prince behaved in a manner little to their honour, — though the father acted harshly, the son disrespectfully, and both childishly, — the royal family was rather strengthened than weakened by the disagreement of its two most distinguished members. A large class of politicians, who had considered themselves as placed under sentence of perpetual exclusion from office, and who, in their despair, had been almost ready to join in a counter- revolution as the only mode of removing the proscription under which they lay, now saw with pleasure an easier and s.afer road to power opening before them, and thought it far better to wait till, m the natural course of things, the Crown should descend to the heir of the House of Brunswick, than to risk their lands and their necks in a rising for the House of Stewart. The situation of the royal family resembled the situation of those Scotch families in which father and son took opposite sides during the rebellion, in order that, come what might, the estate might not be forfeited. In April, 1 736, Frederick was married to the Princess of Saxe Gotha, with whom he afterwards lived on terms very similar to those on which his father had lived vnth Queen Caroline. The Prince adored his wife, and thought her in mind and person the most attractive of her sex. But he thought that conjugal fidelity was an unprincely virtue ; and, in order to be like Henry the Fourth and the Regent Orleans, he affected a libertinism for which he had no taste, and frequently quitted the only woman whom he loved for ugly and disagreeable mistresses. The address which the House of Commons presented to the King on the occasion of the Prince's marriage was moved, not by the Minister, but by Pulteney, the leader of the Whigs in Opposition. It was on this motion that Pitt, who had not broken silence during the session in which he took his seat, addressed the House for the first time. " A contemporary historian," says Mr. Thackeray, " describes Mr. Pitt's first speech as superior even to the models of ancient eloquence. According to Tindal, it was more ornamented than the speeches of Demosthenes and less diffuse than those of Cicero." This unmeaning phrase Jia.s been a hundred times quoted. That it should ever have been quoted, oKcept to be laughed at, is strange. The vogue which it has obtained may serve to show in how slovenly a way most people are cot • tent to think. Did Tindal, who first used it, or Archdeacon Coxe and Mr. Thackeray, who have borrowed it, ever in their lives hear any speaking which did not deserve the same compliment ? Did they ever hear speaking less ornamented than that of Demosthenes, or more diffuse than that of Cicero ? We know no living orator, from Lord Brougham down to Mr. Hunt, who is not entitled to the same magnificent eulogy. It would be no very flattering compliment to a man's figure to say, — that he was taller than the Polish Count, and shorter than G-ant O'Brien, — fatter than the Anaiomie Vivante, and more slender than Danidi Lambert. Pitt's speech, as it is reported in the Gentleman's Magazine, certainly de* serves Tindai's compliment, and deserves no other. It is just as empty and THA CKERA Y'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM. 311 wordy as a maiden speech on such an occasion might be expected to be. But the fluency and the personal advantages of the young orator instantly caught the ear and eye of his audience. He was, from the day of hif 5'st appearance, al-.vays heard with attention ; and exercise soon developed the great powers which he possessed. In our time, the audience of a member of Parliament is the nation. The three or four hundred persons who may be present while a speech is delivered may be pleased or disgusted by the voice and action of the orator ; bat, in the reports which are read the next day by hundreds of thousands, the dififer- ence between the noblest and the meanest figure, between the richest and the shrillest tones, between the most graceful and the most uncouth gesture^ altogether vanishes. A hundred years ago, scarcely any report of what passtd within the walls of the House of Commons was suffered to get abroad. In those times, therefore, the impression which a speaker might make on the persons who actually heard him was every thing. The impression out of doors was hardly worth a thought. In the Parliaments of that time, therefore, as in the ancient commonwealths, those qualifications which enhance the immediate effect of a speech, were far more important ingredients in the composition of an orator than they would appear to be in our time. All those qualifications Pitt possessed in the highest degree. On the stage, he would have been the finest Brutus or Coriolanus ever seen. Those who saw him in his decay, when his health was broken, when his mind was jangled, when he had been removed from that stormy assembly of which he thoroughly knew the temper, and over which he possessed unbounded influence, to a small, a torpid, and an unfriendly audience, say that his speaking was then, for the most part, a low, monotonous muttering, audible only to those who sat lose to him, — that when violently excited, he sometimes raised his voice for a few minutes, but that it soon sank again into an unintelligible murmur. Such was the Earl of Chatham ; but such was not William Pitt. His figure, when he first appeared in Parliament, was strikingly graceful and commanding, his features high and noble, his eye full of fire. His voice, even when it sank to a whisper, was heard to the remotest benches ; and when he strained it to its full extent, the sound rose like the swell of the organ of a great cathedral, shook the house with its peal, and was heard through lobbies and down staircases, to the Court of Requests and the precincts of Westminster Hall. He cultivated all these eminent advantages with the most assiduous care. His action is described by a very malignant observer as equal to that of Garrick. His play of countenance was wonderful : he frequently dis- concerted a hostile orator by a single glance of indignation or scorn. Every tone, from the impassioned cry to the thrilling aside was perfectly at his command. It is by no means improbable that the pains which he took to improve his great personal advantages had, in some respects, a prejudicial operation, and tended to nourish in him that passion for theatrical effect which, as we have already remarked, was one of the most conspicuous blemishes in his character. But it was not solely or principally to outward accomplishments that Pitt owed the vast influence which, during nearly thirty years, he exercised over the House of Commons. He was undoubtedly a great orator ; and from the descriptions of his contemporaries, and the fragments of his speeches which stiU remain, it is not diihcult to discover the nature and extent of his oratorical powers. He was no speaker of set speeches. His few prepared discourses were complete failures. The elaborate panegyric which he pronounced on General WolJFe was considered as the very worst of aU his performances. " No man," 3H TffA CKERA Y'S HtSTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM. says a critic who had often heard him, "ever knew so little what he was going to say." Indeed his facility amounted to a vice. He was not the master, but the slave of his own speech. So little self-command had he when once he felt the impulse, that he did not like to take part in a debate when his mind was full of an important secret of state. "I must sit still," he once said to Lord Shelburne on such an occasion ; " for, when once I am up, every thing that is in my mind comes out." Yet he was not a great debater. That he should not have been so when first he entered the Ilouse of Commons is not strange. Scarcely any person has ever become so without long practice, and many failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that the late Mr. P'ox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever Parliament saw. Mr. Fox himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night. " During five whole sessions," he used to say, " I spoke every night but one; and I regret only that I did not speak on that night too." Indeed, it would be difficult to name any great debater, with the exception of Mr. Stanley, whose knowledge of the science of parliamentary defence resembles an instinct, who has not made himself a master of his art at the expense of his audience. But as this art is one which even the ablest men have seldom acquired without long practice, so it is one which men of respectable abilities, with assiduous and intrepid practice, seldom fail to acquire. It is singular that in such an art, Pitt, a man of splendid talents, of great fluency, of great boldness, — a man whose whole life was passed in parliamentary conflict, — a man who, during several years, was the leading minister of the Crown in the House of Commons, — should never have attained to high excellence. He spoke without premeditation ; but his speech followed the course of his own thoughts and not the course of the previous discussion. He could, indeed, treasure up in his memory some detached expression of a hostile orator, and make it the text for sparkling ridicule or burning invective. Some of the most celebrated bursts of his eloquence were called forth by an unguarded word, a lacgh, or a cheer. But this was the only sort of reply in which he appears to have excelled. He was perhaps the only great English orator who did not think it any advantage to have the last word, and who generally spoke by choice before his most formidable opponents. His merit was almost entirely rhetorical. He did not succeed either in exposition or in refutation ; but his speeches abounded with lively illustrations, striking apophthegms, well told anecdotes, happy allusions, passionate appeals. Hi^ invective and sarcasm were terrific. Perhaps no English orator was ever so much feared. But that which gave most effect to his declamation was the air of sincerity, of vehement feeling, of moral elevation, which belonged to all that he said. His style was not always in the purest taste. Several contemporary judges pronounced it too florid. Walpole, in the midst of the rapturous eulogy which he pronounces on one of Pitt's greatest orations, owns that some of the metaphors were too forced. The quotations and classical stories are sometimes too trite for a clever schoolboy. But these were niceties for which the audience cared little. The enthusiasm of the orator infected all w ..o heard him ; his ardour and his noble bearing put fire into the most frigid conceit, and gave dignity to the most puerile allusion. His powers soon began to give annoyance to the Government ; and Wal- pole determined to make an example of the patriotic comet. Pitt wjj accordingly dismissed from the service. Mr. Thackeray absurdly says that the Minister took this step, because he plainly saw that it would have been THACKERA Y'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. 313 rain to think of buying over so honourable and disinterested an opponent. We do not dispute Pitt's integrity ; but we do not know what proof he had given of it when he was turned out of the army ; and we are sure that Wal- pole was not likely to give credit for inflexible honesty to a young adventurer who had never had an opportunity of refusing anything. The truth is, that it was not Walpole's practice to buy ofT enemies. Mr. Burke truly says, in the Appeal to the Old Whigs, "Walpole gained very few over from the Opposition." He knew his business far too well. He knew that for one mouth, which is stopped with a place, fifty other mouths will be instantly opened. He knew that it would have been very bad policy in him to give the world to understand that more was to be got by thwarting his measures than by supporting them. These maxims are as old as the origin of parlia- mentary corruption in England. Pepys learned them, as he tells us, from the counsellors of Charles the Second. Pitt was no loser. He was made Groom of the Eedchamber to the Prince of Wales, and continued to declaim against the ministers with unabated vio- lence and with increasing ability. The question of maritime right, then agitated between Spain and England, called forth all his powers. He cla- moured for war with a vehemence which it is not easy to reconcile with reason or humanity, but which appears to Mr. Thackeray worthy of the highest admiration. We will not stop to argue a point on which we had long thought that all well informed people were agreed. We could easily show, we think, that, if any respect be due to international law, — if right, where societies of men are concerned, be anything but another name for might, — if we do not adopt the doctrine of the Bucaniers, which seems to be also the doctrine of Mr. Thackeray, that treaties mean nothing within thirty degrees of the line, — the war with Spain was altogether unjustifiable. But the truth is, that the promoters of that war have saved the historian the trouble of trying them : they have pleaded guilty. " I have seen," says Burke, "and with some care examined, the original documents conoeming certain im- portant transactions of those times. They perfectly satisfied me of the extreme injustice of that war, and of the falsehood of the colours which Walpole, to his ruin, and guided by a mistaken policy, suffered to be daubed over that measure. Some years after, it was my fortune to converse with many of the principal actors against that minister, and with those who prin- cipally excited that clamour. None of them, no not one, did in the least defend the measure, or attempt to justify their conduct. They condemned it as freely as they would have done in commenting upon any proceeding in history in which they were totally unconcerned."* Pitt, on subsequent occasions, gave ample proof that he was one of those tardy penitents. The elections of 1741 were unfavourable to Walpole ; and after a long and obstinate struggle he found it necessary to resign. The Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke opened a negotiation with the leading patriots, in the hope of forming an administration on a Whig basis. At this conjuncture, Pitt, L)rttleton, and those persons who were most nearly connected with them acted in a manner very little to their honour. They attempted to come to an understanding v'th Walpole, and offered, if he would use his influence with the King in thtir favour, to screen him from prosecution. They even went so far as to engage for the concurrence of the Prince of Wales. But Walpole knew that the assistance of the Boys, as he called the young patriots, would avail him nothing if Pulteney and Carteret should prove intractable, and wouJd be superfluous if the great leaders of the Opposition could be gained. • LsUerj on a Rsftidde Peace. 314 TH ACKER A Y'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA i BAM. He, therefore, declined the proposal. It is remarkable that Mr. Thackeray, who has thought it worth while to preserve Pitt's bad college verses, has not even alluded to this story, — a siory which is supported by strong testi- mony, and which may be found in so common a book as Coxe's Life of Walpole. The new arrangements disappointed almost every member of the Oppo- sition, and none more than Pitt. He was not invited to bec'vie a place- man ; and he therefore stuck firmly to his old trade of patriot. Fortunate it was for him that he did so. Had he taken office at this time, he would in all probability have shared largely in the unpopularity of Pulteney, Sandys, and Carteret. He was now the fiercest and most implacable of those who called for vengeance on Walpole. He spoke with great energy and ability in favour of the most unjust and violent propositions which the enemies of the fallen minister could invent. He urged the House of Commons to appoint a secret tribunal for the purpose of investigating the conduct of the late First Lord of the Treasury. This was done. The great majority of the inquisitors were notoriously hostile to the accused statesman. Yet they were compelled to own that they could find no fault in him. They therefore called for new powers, for a bill of indemnity to witnesses, — or, in plain words, for a bill to reward all who who might give evidence, true or false, against the Earl of Orford. This bill Pitt supported, — Pitt, who had himself offered to be a screen between Lord Orford and public justice. These are melancholy facts. Mr. Thackeray omits them, or hurries over them as fast as he can ; and, as eulogy is his business, he is in the right to do so. But, though there are many parts of the life of Pitt which it is more agreeable to contemplate, we know none more instructive. What must have been the general state of political morality, when a young man, considered, and justly considered, as the most public-spirit«d and spotless statesman of his time, could attempt to force his way into office by means so disgraceful ! The Bill of Indemnity was rejected by the Lords. Walpole withdrew himself quietly from the public eye ; and the ample space which he had left vacant was soon occupied by Carteret. Against Carteret Pitt began to thunder with as m-ach zeal as he had ever manifested against Sir Robert. To Carteret he transferred most of the hard names which were familiar to his eloquence, sole minister, wicked minister, odious minister, execrable minister. The great topic of his invective was the favour shown to the German dominions of King George. He attacked with great violence, and with an ability which raised him to the very first rank among the parliamentary speakers, the practice of paying Hanoverian troops with English money. The House of Commons had lately lost some of its most distinguished ornaments. Walpole and Pulteney had accepted peerages ; Sir William Wyndham was dead ; and among the rising men none could be considered as, on the whole, a match for Pitt. During the recess of 1744, the old Duchess of Marlborough died. She carried to her grave the reputation of being decidedly the best hater of her time. In the time of Queen Anne, her temper had ruined the party to which she belonged and the husband whom she adored. Time had made her neither wiser nor kinder. Whoever was at any moment great and prosperous was the object of her fiercest detestation. She had hated Walpole; she now hated Carteret. Pope, long before her death, predicted the fate of her vast property t " To heirs unknown descends the unguarded storo^ Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor." TH ACKER A Y'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. 315 Pitt was poor enough ; and to him heaven directed a portion of the wealth of the haughty dowager. She left him a legacy of ten thousand pounds, in consideration of " the noble defence he had made for the support of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of his country." The will was made in August. The Duchess died In October. In November Pitt was a courtier. The Pelhams had forced the King, much against his will, to part with Lord Carteret, now Earl Granville. They pro- ceeded, after this victory, to form the Government on that basis called by the name of " the broad bottom." Lytrelton had a seat at the Treasury, and several other friends of Pitt were provided for. But Pitt himself was, for the present, forced to be content with promises. The King resented most high/y some expressions which the ardent orator had used in the debate on the Hanoverian troops. But Newcastle and Pelham expressed the strongest confidence that time and their exertions would soften the royal displeasure. Pitt, on his part, omitted nothing that might facilitate his admission to office. He resigned his place in the household of Prince Frederick, and, when Parliament met, exerted his eloquence in support of the Government. The Pelhams were really sincere in their endeavours to remove the strong prejudices which had taken root in the King's mind. They knew that Pitt was not a man to be deceived with ease or offended with impunity. They were afraid that they should not be long able to put him off with promises. Nor was it their interest so to put him off. There was a strong tie between him and them. He was the enemy of their enemy. The brothers hated and dreaded the eloquent, aspiring, and imperious Granville. They had traced his intrigues in many quarters. They knew his influence over the royal mind. They knew that, as soon as a favourable opportunity should arrive, he would be recalled to the head of affairs. They resolved to bring things to a crisis ; and the question on which they took issue with their master was, whether Pitt should or should not be admitted to office. They chose their time with more skill than generosity. It was when rebellion was actually raging in Britain, when the Pretender was master of the northern extremity of the island, that they tendered their resignations. The King found himself deserted, in one day, by the whole strength of that party which had placed his family on the throne. Lord Granville tried to form a government ; but it soon appeared that the parliamentary interest of the Pelhams was irresis- tible, and that the King's favourite statesman could count only on about thirty Lords and eighty members of the House of Commons. The scheme was given up. Granville went away laughing. The ministers came back stronger than ever ; and the King was now no longer able to refuse anything that they might be pleased to demand. All that he could do was to mutter that it was very hard that Newcastle, who was not fit to be Chamberlain to the most insignificant prince in Germany, should dictate to the King of England. One concession the ministers graciously made. They agreed that Pirt should not be placed in a situation in which it would be necessary for him to have frequent interviews with the King. Instead, therefore, of making their new ally Secretary-at-War, as they had intended, they appointed him Vice-Treasurer of Ireland, and in a few months promoted him to the office of Paymaster of the Forces. This was, at that time, one of the most lucrative offices in the Government. The salary was but a small part of the emolument which the Paymaster de- rived from his place. He was allowed to keep a large sum, — seldom less than one hundred thousand pounds, constantly in his hands ; — and the interest on this sum, — probably about four thousand pounds a year, — he might appropriate Si6 THACKERAY'S HISTORY OP EARL CHATHAM. to his own use. This practice was not secret, nor was it considered as dis« reputable. It was the practice of men of undoubted honour, both before and after the time of Pitt. He, however, refused to accept one farthing beyond the salary which the law had annexed to his office. It had been usual for foreign princes who received the pay of England to give to the Paymaster ol the Forces a small per ceutage on the subsidies. These ignominious vails Pitt resolute'^y declined. Disinterestedness of this kind was, in his days, very rare. His conduct surprised and amused politicians. It excited the warmest admiration through- out the body of the people. In spite of the inconsistencies of which Pitt had been guilty, — in spite of the strange contrast between his violence in Oppo- sition and his tameness in office, — he still possessed a large share of the public confidence. The motives which may lead a politician to change his con- nections or his general line of conduct are often obscure ; but disinterested- ness in money matters everybody can understand. Pitt was thenceforth con- sidered as a man who was proof to all sordid temptations. If he acted ill, it might be from an error in judgment ; it might be from resentment ; it might be from ambition. But poor as he was, he had vindicated himself from all suspicion of covetousness. Eight quiet years followed, — eight years during which the minority, feeble from the time of Lord Granville's defeat, continued to dwindle till it became almost invisible. Peace was made with France and Spain in 1748. Prince Frederick died in 1751 ; and with him died the very semblance of opposition. All the most distinguished survivors of the party which had supported Walpole and of the party which had opposed him were united under his successor. The fiery and veheuient spirit of Pitt had for a time been laid to vest. He silently acquiesced in that very system of Continental measures which he had lately condemned. He ceased to talk disrespectfully about Hanover. He did not object to the treaty with Spain, though that treaty left us exactly where we had been when he uttered his spirit-stirnng harangues against the pacific policy of Walpole. Now and then glimpses of his former self appeared ; but they were few and transient. Pelham knew with whom he had to deal, and felt that an ally, so little used to control, and so capable of inflicting injury, might well be indulged in an occasional fit of waywardness. Two men, little, if at all, inferior to Pitt in powers of mind, held, like him, subordinate offices in the government. One of these, Murray, was successively Solicitor-General and Attorney-General. This distinguished person far sur- passed Pitt in correctness of taste, in power of reasoning, in depth and variety of knowledge. His parliamentary eloquence never blazed into sudden flashes of dazzling brilliancy ; but its clear, placid, and mellow splendour was never \ for an instant overclouded. Intellectually he was, we believe, fully equal to Pitt ; but he was deficient in the moral qualities to which Pitt owed most of ■ his success. Murray wanted the energy, the courage, the all-grasping and all- risking ambition, wliich make men great in stirring times. His heart was a little cold, his temper cautious even to timidity, his manner decorous even to formality. lie never exposed his fortunes or his fame to any risk whicli he could avoid. At one time he might, in all probability, have been Prim.e Minister. But the object of all his wishes was the judicial bench. The situa- tion of Chief Justice might not be so splendid as that of First Lord of the Treasury ; but it was dignified ; it was quiet ; it was secure ; and therefore it was the favourite situation of Murray. Fox, the father of the great man whose mighty efforts in the cause of peace, of truth, and of liberty, have made that name immortal, was Secretary-at-War, He was a favourite with the King, with the Duke of Cirniberiand, and with THA CKERA Y'S HIST OR Y OP EARL CHA THAM. 317 some of the most powerful individuals of the great Whig comiection. His parliamentary talents were of the highest order. As a speaker he was in almost all respects the very opposite to Pitt. His figure was ungraceful ; his face, as Reynolds and Roubiliac have preserved it to us, indicated a strong anderstanding ; but the features were coarse, and the general aspect dark and lowering. His manner was awkward ; his delivery was hesitating ; he was often at a stand for want of a word ; but as a debater, — as a master of that keen, weighty, manly logic, which is suited to the discussion of political ques- tions, — he has perhaps never been surpassed except by his son. In reply he was as decidedly superior to Pitt as in declamation he was his inferior. Intellectually the balance was nearly even between the rivals. But here, again, the moral qualities of Pitt turned the scale. Fox had undoubtedlj many virtues. In natural disposition as well as in talents, he bore a great resemblance to his more celebrated son. He had the same sweetness of temper, the same strong passions, the same openness, boldness, and im- petuosity, the same cordiality towards friends, the same placability towards enemies. No man was more warmly or justly beloved by his family or by his associates. But unhappily he had been trained in a bad political school, — in a school the doctrines of which were, that political virtue is the mere coquetry of political prostitution, — that every patriot has his price, — that Government can be carried on only by means of corruption, — and that the state is given as a prey to statesmen. These maxims were too much in vogue throughout the lower ranks of Walpole's party, and were too much encouraged by Walpole himself, who, from contempt of what is in our day called humbug, often ran Bctravagantly and offensively into the opposite extreme. The loose political moralicy of Fox presented a remarkable contrast to the ostentatious purity of Pitt. The nation distnisted the former, and placed implicit confidence in the latter. But almost all the statesmen of the age had stiU to learn that the confidence of the nation was worth having. While tilings went on quietly, while there was no opposition, while everything was given by the favour of a small ruling junto, Fox had a decided advantage over Pitt ; but when dangerous times came, when Europe was convulsed with war, when Parlia- ment was broken up into factions, when the public mind was violently excited, the favourite of the people rose to supreme power, while his rival sank into insignificance. Early in the year 1 754 Henry Pelham died unexpectedly. "Now I shall have no more peace," exclaimed the old King, when he heard the news. He was in the right. Pelham had succeeded in bringing together and keeping together all the talents of the kingdom. By his death the highest post to which an English subject can aspii^e was left vacant; and at the same moment, the influence which had yoked together and reined in so many turbulent and ambitious spirits was withdrawn. Within a week after Pelham's death, it was determined that the Duke of Newcastle should be placed at the head of the Treasury ; but the arrangement was still far from complete. Who was to be the leading Minister of the Crown in the House of Commons ? Was the office to be intrusted to a man of eminent talents ? And would not such a man in such a place demand and obtain a larger share of power and patronage than Newcastle would be disposed to concede ? Was a mere drudge to be employed ? And what probability Was there that a mere drudge would be able to manage a large and stormy assemblj, abounding with able and experienced men ? Pope has said of that wretched miser Sir John Cutler, " Cutler saw tenants break and houses fall For vory want : — he could not bui'.d a wan^ 2^11 ACKER AY'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. Newcastle's love of power resembled Cutler's love of money. It was an avarice which thwarted itself, — a penny-wise and pound-foolish cupidity. An immediate outlay was so painful to him that he would not venture to make the most desirable improvement. If he could have found it in his heart to cede at once a portion of his authority, he might probably have ensured the continuance of what remained ; but he thought it better to construct a weak and rotten government, which tottered at the smallest breath, and fell in the first storm, than to pay the necessary price for sound and durable materials. He wished to find some person who would be willing to accept the lead of the House of Commons on terms similar to those on which Secretary Craggs had acted under Sunderland, five-and-thirly years before. Craggs could hardly be called a minister. He was a mere agent for the Minister. He was not trusted v/ith the higher secrets of state, but obeyed implicitly the directions of his superior, and was, to use Doddington's expression, merely Lord Sunderland's man. But times were changed. Since the days of Sunderland, the importance of the House of Commons had been constantly on the increase. During many years the person who conducted the business of the Government in that House had almost always been Prime Minister. Under these circumstances, it was not to be supposed that any person who possessed the talents necessary for the situation, would stoop to accept it on such terms as Newcastle was disposed to offer. Pitt was ill at Bath ; and, had he been well and in London, neither the King nor Newcastle would have been disposed to make any overtures to him. The cool and wary Murray had set his heart on professional objects. Negotiations were opened with Fox. Newcastle behaved like himself, — that is to say, childishly and basely. The proposition which he made was, that Fox should be Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons ; that the disposal of the secret-service-money, or, in plain words, the business of buying members of Parliament, should be left to the First Lord of the Treasury ; but that Fox should be exactly informed of the way in which this fund was employect. To these condiiions Fox assented. But the next day every thing was in confusion. Newcastle had changed his mind. The conversation which took place between Fox and the Duke is one of the most curious in English history. "My brother," said Newcastle, "when he was at the Treasury, never told anybody what he did with the secret-service-money. No more will I." The answer was obvious. Pelham had been, not only First Lord of the Treasury, but also manager of the House of Commons ; and it was therefore unneces- sary for him to confide to any other person his dealings with the members of that House. " But how," said Fox, "can I lead in the Commons with- out information on this head ? How can I talk to gentlemen when I do not know which of them have received gratifications and which have not ? And who," he continued, " is to have the disposal of places?'' — "I myself," said the Duke. — " How then am I to manage the House of Commons?" — "Oh, .let the members of the House of Commons come to me." Fox then mentioned the general election which was approaching, and asked how the ministerial burghs were to be filled up. " Do not trouble yourself," said Newcastle, "that is all settled." This was too much for human nature to bear Fox refused to accept the Secretaryship of St?t« on such terms ; and the Duke confided the management of the House o^ ^lommons to a duli, harmless man, whose name is almost forgotten in O., time, — Sir Thomas Robinson. When Pitt returncrl from Bath he affected great moderation, though hi« haughty soul was foiling with resentment. He did not complain of the THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. 319 manner in which he had been passed by, but said openly that, in his opinion, Fox was the fittest man to lead the House of Commons. The rivals, reconciled by their common interest and their common enmities, con- certed a plan of operations for the next session. " Sir Thomas Robinson lead us !" said Pitt to Fox. "The Duke might as well send his jack-boot to lead us. " The elections of 1754 were favourable to the administration. But the aspect of foreign affairs was threatening. In India the English and the French had been employed, ever since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in cutting each other's throats. They had lately taken to the same practice in America. It might have been foreseen that stirring times were at hand, — tirces which would call for abilities very diff'erent from those of Newcastle and Robinson. In November the Parliament met ; and before the end of that month the new Secretary of State had been so unmercifully baited by the Paymaster of the Forces and the Secretary at War that he was thoroughly sick of his situation. Fox attacked him with great force and acrimony. Pitt affected a kind of contemptuous tenderness for Sir Thomas, and directed his attacks principally against Newcastle. On one occasion, he asked in tones of thunder whether Parliament sat only to register the edicts of one too-powerful subject ? The Duke was scared out of his wits. He was afraid to dismiss the mutineers ; he was afraid to promote them ; but it was absolutely neces- sary to do something. Fox, as the less proud and intractable of the refrac- tory pair, was preferred. A seat in the Cabinet was offiered to him on con- dition that he would give efficient support to the ministry in Parliament. In an evil hour for his fame and his fortunes he accepted the offer, and abandoned his connection with Pitt, who never forgave this desertion. Sir Thomas, assisted by Fox, contrived to get through the business of the year without much trouble. Pitt was waiting his time. The negotiations pending between France and England took every day a more unfavourable aspect. Towards the close of the session the King sent a message to inform the House of Commons that he had found it necessary to make preparations for war. The House returned an address of thanks, and passed a vote of credit. During the recess, the old animosity of both nations was inflamed by a series of disastrous events. An English force was cut off in America ; and several French merchantmen were taken in the West Indian Seas. It was plain that an appeal to arms was at hand. The first object of the King was to secure Hanover ; and Newcastle was disposed to gratify his master. Treaties were concluded, after the fashion of those times, with several petty German princes, who bound themselves to find soldiers if England would find money ; and, as it was suspected that Frederick the Second had set his heart on the electoral dominions of his uncle, Russia was hired to keep Prussia in awe. When the stipulations of these treaties were made known, there arose throughout the kingdom a murmur from which a judicious oliserver might easily prognosticate the approach of a tempest, Newcastle encountered strong opposition, even from those whom he had always considered as his tools. Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, refused to sign the Treasury warrants which were necessary to give effect to the treaties. Those persons who were supposed to possess the confidence of the young Prince of Wales and of his mother, held very menacing language. In this perplexity Newcastle sent for Pitt, hugged him, patted him, smirked at him, wept over him, and lisu«i out the highest compliments, and the most splendid promises. The Kuig, who had hitherto been as sulky as possible, would be civil to him at Ihe levee, — he should be brought into the Cabinet, — he should be consulted about 320 THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. every thing, — if he would only be so good as to support the Hessian sul»«i»i« in the House of Commons. Pitt coldly declined the proffered seat in iiietween Fox and Newcastle was the arrangement which the King wished to bring about. But the Duke was too cunning to fall into such a snare. As a speaker in Parliament, Fox might perhaps be, on the whole, as useful to an administration as his great rival ; but he was one of tlie most unpopular men in England. Then, again, Newcastle felt all that jealousy of Fox which, according to the proverb, generally exists between two of a trade. Fox would certainly intermeddle with that department which the Duke was most de- sirous to reserve entire to himself,— the jobbing department. Pitt, on the other hand, was quite willing to leave the drudgery of corruption to any who might be inclined to undertake it During eleven weeks England remained without a ministry ; and in the meantime Parliament was sitting, and a war was raging. The prejudices of the King, the haughtiness of Pitt, the jealousy, levity, and treachery of Newcastle, delayed the settlement. Pitt knew the Duke too well to trust him without security. The Duke loved power too much to be inclined to give security. While they were haggling, the King was in vain attempting to produce a final rupture bet' een them, ix to form a Government without them. At one time he applied to Lord WalJegrave, an honest and sensible man, but unpractised in affairs. Lord Waldegrave had the courage to accept the 7 .easury, but soon found that no administration formed by him had the •mallest chance of standing a single week. Al length the King's pertinacity yielded to the necessity of the case. After exclaiming with great bitterness, and with some justice, against the Whigs, who ought, he said, to be ashamed to talk about liberty while they sub- mitted to be the footmen of the Duke of Newcastle, he notified submission. The influence of the Prince of Wales prevailed on Pitt to abate a little, and but a little, of his high demands ; and all at once, out of the chaos in which parties had for some time been rising, falling, meeting, separating, arose a government as strong at home as that of Pelham, as successful abroad as that of Godophin. Newcastle took the Treasury. Pitt was Secretary of State, with the leao in the House of Commons, and with the supreme direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Fox, the only man who could have given much annoyance to the new government, was silenced with tiie office of Paymaster, which, during the continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place ir the whole Government. He was poor, and the situation was tempting : yel it cannot but seem extraordinary that a man who had played a first part in politics, and whose abilities had been found not unequal to that part,— who had sat in the Cabinet, who had led the House of Commons, who h«d been twice intrusted by the King with the office of forming a ministry, who was regarded as the rival of Pitt, and who at one time seemed likely to be i successful rival, — should have consented, for the sake of emolument, to take a subordinate place and to give silent votes for all the measures of a govern" ment to the deliberations of which he was not summoned. The first measures of the new administration were characlt;rised rather by vigour than by judgment. Expeditions were sent against different parts of 326 THACKERATS mSTORY OF EARL C HATHA M. the French coast wiih little success. The smnll islnnd of Aix was taken, Rocheloil ihrealened, a few ships burned in the harbour of St. Maloes, and a few guns and moitars brouj^hl home as trophies from tlie fortifications of Cherbourg, Hut before long conquests of a very diffr.reat kind filled the kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories undout fdly l)riliiant, and, as it was tliouglu, not barren, raised to the highest point the fame of tlie minister to whiun the comJucl of the war had been intrusted. In July, 1758, Louisbouig fell. 1 he whole island of Cape IJreton was re- duced ; the fleet to which the Court of Versailles had confided the defence of French America was destroyed. The captured standards were borne in triumph from Kensington Palace to the city, and were suspended in St. Paul's Church, amidst the roar of guns and kettle-drums, and the shouts of an immeiise multitude. Aildresses of congratulation came in from all the great towns of England. Parliament met only to decree thanks and monuments, and to bestovv, without v.ne murmur, supplies more than double of those which had be<-n givt-n during the war of the Grand Alliance. The year 1759 djiened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell Guada- loupe ; then Ticonderoga ; then Niagara. The Toulon squadron was com- pletely defeated by Boscawen off Cape Lagos. But the greatest exploit of the year was the achievement of Wolfe on the heights of Abraham. The news of his glorious death and of the fall of Quebec reached London in the very week in which the Houses met. All was joy and triumph ; envy and faction were forced to join in the general applause. Whigs and Tories vied with each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues were never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, the colonies, our allies, our enemies, had their eyes fixed on him alone. Scarcely had Parliament voted a monument to Wolfe when another great event called (or fresh rejoicings. The Bre>t fleet, under the command of Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron under Hawke. Conflans attempted to take shelter close under the French coast. The shore was rocky, — the night was black, — the wind was furious, — the Bay of Biscay ran high. But Pitt had infused into every branch of the service a spirit which had long been unknown. No British seaman was dis- posed to err on the same side with Byng. The pilot told Hawke that the attack could not be made without the greatest danger. " You have done your duty in remonstrating," answered Hawke ; " I will answer for every thing. I command you to lay me alongside the French admiral." The result was a complete victory. The year 1760 came; an J still triumph followed triumph. Montreal was taken ; the whole province of Canada was subjugated ; the Prench fleets uiiderwent a succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and America. In the mean time corquesls equalling in rapidity, and far surpassing in magnitude, those of Cortes and Pizarro, had been achieved in the east. In the space of three years the English had founded a mighty empire. The French ) ad been ileteated in every part of India. Chandernagore had surrendered to Clive, Pondicherry to Coote. Throughout Bengal, Bahar, Orissa, and the Camatic, the authority of the East India Company was more absolute than that of Acbar or Aurungzebe had ever been. On the continent of Europe the odds were against England. We had hut one important ally, the King of Prussia ; and he was attacked, not only by France, but also by Russia and Austria. Yet even on the Continent the energy of Pitt triumphed over all difficulties. Vehemently as he had con- demned the practice of subsidising foreign princes, he now carried that prac- tice farther than Carteret himself would have ventured to do. The active THACKERA Y'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. ga? *nd able Sovereign of Prussia received such pecuniary assistance as enabled him to maintain the conflict on equal terms against his powerful enemies. On no subject had Pitt ever spoken with so much eloquence and ardour as on the mischiefs of the Hanoverian connection. He now declared, not with- out much show of reason, that it would be unworthy of the English peoj-Je to suffer their King to be deprived of his electoral dominions in an English Quarrel. He assured his countrymen that they should be no losers, and that e would conquer America for them in Germany. By taking this line he con- ciliated the King, and lost no part of his influence with the nation. In Parliament, such was the ascendancy which his eloquence, his success, liis Ikigh situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for him, that he took liberties witl the House of which there had been no example, and which have never since been imitated. No orator could there venture to reproach him with inconsistency. One unfr)rtunate man made the attempt, and was so much disconcerted by the scornful demeanour of the Minister, that h(» stammered, stopped, and sat down. Even the old Tory country gentlemen, to whom the very name of Hanover had been odious, gave their hearty ayes to sub.-iidy after subsidy. In a lively contemporary satire, — much more lively indeed than delicate, — this remarkable conversion is not unhappily described : " No more they make a fiddle-fa''dle About a Hessian horse or saddle. No more of continental measures ; No more of wasting British treasures. Ten millions and a vote of credit, — 'Tis right. He can't be wrong who did it." The success of Pitt's continental measures was such as might have been expected from their vigour. When he came into power, lianuver was in imminent danger ; and before he had been in office three months, the whole electorate was in the hands of France. But the face of affairs was speedily changed. The invaders were driven out. An army, partly English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed of soldiers furnished by the petty princes of Germany, was placed under the command of Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick. The French were beaten in 1758 at Crevelt. In 1759 they received a still more complete and humiliating defeat at Minden. In the meantime, the nation exhibited all the signs of wealth and pros- perity. The merchants of London had never been more thriving. The im- portance of several great commercial and manufacturing towns, — of Glasgow in particular, — dates from this period. The fine inscrijjtion on the monument of Lord Chatham in Guildhall records the general opinion of the citizens o( London, that under his administration commerce had been "united with and made to flourish by war." It must be owned that these signs of prosperity were in some degree de- lusive. It must be owned that some of our conquests were rather splendid than useful. It must be owned that the expense of the war never entered into Pitt's consideration. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that the cost of his victories increased the pleasure with which he contemplated them. Unlike other men in his situition, he loved to exaggerate the sums which the nation was laying out under his direction. He was proud of the sacrifices and efforts which his eloquence and his success had induced his counti^men to make. The price at which he purchased faithful service and complete victory, though far smaller than that which his son, the most profuse and Incapable of war ministers, paid for treachery, defeat, and shame, was long tnd ^pverely fell by the nation. Even Aa a war minister, Pitt is scarcely entitled t!3 a'l "h^ iiraics v,l,i..i( 328 THA CKERA TS HISTOR V OF EARL CffA TEAM. his cori^emporaries lavished on him. We, perliaps. from 'gnoraiice, cannot discern in his arrangements any appearance of profound or dexterous com- bination. Several of his expeditions, particularly those which were sent to the coast of France, were at once costly and absurd. Our Indian conquests, though they add to the splendour of the period during which he was at the head of affairs, were not planned by him. He had undoubtedly great energy, great determination, great means at his command. His temper was enter- prising ; and, situated as he was, he hnd only to follow his temper. The Wealth of a rich nation, the valour of a brave nation, were ready to support him in every attem]it. In one respect, however, he deserved all the praise that he has ever re- ceived. The success of our arms was perhaps owing less to the skill of his dispositions than to the national resources and the national spitit. But that the national spirit rose to the emerrency, — that the national resources were contributed with unexampled cheerfulness, — this was undoubtedly his work. The ardour of his spirit had set the whole kingdom on fire. It inflamed every soldier who dragged the cannon up the heights of Quebec, and every sailor who boarded the French ships among the rocks of Brittany. The Minister, before he had been long in office, had imparted to the commanders whom he employed his own imiietuous, adventurous, and defying character. They, like him, were disjjosed to risk everything, — to play double or quits to the last, — to think nothing done while anything remained, — to fail rather than not to attempt. For the errors of rashness there might be indulgence. For over- caution, for faults like those of Lord George Sackville, there was no mercy. In other times, and against other enemies, this mode of warfare might have failed. But the state of the French government and of the French nation gave every advantage to Pitt. The fops and intriguers of Versailles were appalled and bewildered by his vigour. A panic sjuead through all ranks of society. Our enemies soon considered it as a settled thing that they were always to be beaten. Thus victory begot victory ; till, at last, wherever the forces of the two nations met, they met with disdainful confidence on the one side, and with a craven fear on the other. The situation wliich Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George the .Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in English hist ny. He had conciliated the King ; he domineered over the House of Commons ; he was adored by the people ; he was admired by all Europe. He was the first Englishman of his time, and he had made Flngland the first country in the world. The "Great Commoner," — the name by which he was often designated, — might look down with scorn on coronets and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride. The Parliament was as quiet as it had been under Pelham. The old party distinctions were almost effaced ; nor was their place yet supplied by distinctions of a still more important kind. A new generation of country squires and rectors had arisen, who knew not the Stuarts. Tiie Dissenters were tolerated ; the Catholics not cruelly perse- cuted. Tiie Church was drowsy and indulgent. The great civil and re- ligious conflict wliich began at the Reformation seemed to have terminated in universal repose. Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and Puritans, spoke with equal reverence of the constitution, and with equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, and services of the Minister. A few years sufficed to change the whole aspect of affairs, A nation con- vulsed by faction, a throne assailed by the fiercest invective, a House of Commons hated and des[)ised by the nation, England set against Scotland, Britain set against America, a rival legislature silting beyond the Aifantic, Erglish blood shed by English bayonets, our armies capitulating, our con* MA CKINTOSWS HISTOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTION. 329 quests wrested from us, our enemies hastening to take vengeance for past humiliation, our flag scarcely able to maintain itself in our own seas, — such was the spectacle which Pitt lived to see. Bi>*: ♦Jie history of this great revo lution requires far more space than we can at j.'^^^sent bestow. We leave the " Great Commotier " in the zenith of his glory. It >- not impossible that we m.ay take some other opportunity of tracing his life to its melancholy, yet not inglorious close. SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. (July, 1835.) History of iJu Revolution in Englami, in i6S8. Comprising a View of the Reign of James the Seconii,/rom his Accession to the Enterprise of tlie Prince of Orange, by late Kighl Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, and completed to thif Settlement oj tlie Cro'wn, by the Editor. To which is prefixed a Notice of tlu Life, Writings, and Speeches of Sir Jam^s Mackintosh, 410, Loudon : 1834. It is with unfeigned diffidence that we venture to give our opinion of the last work of Sir James Mackintosh. We have in vain tried to perform what ought to be to a critic an easy and habitual act. We have in vain tried to separate the book from the writer, and to judge of it as if it bore some un- known name. But it is to no purpose. All the lines of that venerable coun- tenance are before us. AH the little peculiar cadences of that voice fron'- which scholars and statesmen loved to receive the lessons of a serene and benevolent wisdom are in our ears. We will attempt to preserve strict im- partiality. But we are not ashamed to own that we approach this relic of a virtuoun and most accomplished man with feelings of respect and gratitude which may possibly pervert our judgment. It is hardly possible to avoid instituting a comparison between this work and another celebrated Fragment. Our readers will easily guess that we allude to Mr. Fox's History of James the Second. The two books relate to the same subject. Both were posthumously published. Neither had received the last corrections. The authors belonged to the same political party, and held the same opinions concerninj^ the merits and defects of the English con- stitution, and concerning most of the prominent characters and events in English history. They had thought much on the principles of government ; yet they were not mere speculators. They had ransacked the archives of rival kingdoms, and pored on folios which had mouldered for ages in deserted libraries ; but they were not mere antiquaries. They had one eminent quali- fication for writing history : — they had spoken history, acted history, lived history. The turns of political fortune, the ebb and flow of popular feeling, the hidden mechanism by which parties are moved, all these things were the .-\iiled some inaccuracies ; — he might have enriched his iv.'tes with a greater number of references ; but he would never have proJu^-ed so lively Ji pirtu»'e of the court, the cnmr). and the s«uate' 33C MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. house. In tliis respect Mr. Fox and Sir James Mackintosh had great advan« tages over almost every English historian who has written since the time of Burnet. Lord Lyttelton had indeed the same advantages, but he was in- capable of using them. Pedantry was so deeply fixed in his nature that the Hustings, the Treasury, the Exchequer, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, left him the same dreaming schoolboy that they found him. When we compare the two interesting works of which we have been speak- ing, we have little difficulty in awarding the superiority to that of Sir Jaraes Mackintosh. Indeed, the superiority of Mr. Fox to Sir James as an orator is hardly more clear than the superiority of Sir James to Mr. Fox as a his- torian. Mr. F'ox with a pen in his hand, and Sir James on his legs in the House of Commons, were, we think, each out of his proper element. They were men, it is true, of far too much judgment and ability to fail scandal- ously in any undertaking to which they brought the whole power of tlieir minds. The History of James the Second will always keep its place in our libraries as a valuable book ; and Sir James Mackintosh succeeded in win- ning and maintaining a high place among the parliamentarv speakers of his time. Yet we could never read a page of Mr. Fox's writing. We could never listen for a quarter of an hour to the speaking of Sir James, without feeling that there was a constant effort, a tug up hill. Nature, or habit which had become nature, asserted its rights. Mr. Fox wrote debates. Sir James Mackintosh spoke essays. As far as mere diction was concerned, indeed, Mr. Fox did his best to avoid those faults which the habit of public speaking is likely to generate. He was so nervously apprehensive of sliding into some colloquial incorrect- ness, of debasing his style by a mixture of Parliamentary slang, that he ran intc the opposite error, and purified his vocabulary with a scrupulosity un- known to any purist. " Ciceronem AUobroga dixit." He would not allow Addison, Bolingbroke, or Middleton to be a sufficient authority for an ex- pression. He declared he would use no word which was not to be found in Dryden. In any other person we should have called this solicitude mere foppery ; and, in spite of all our admiration for Mr. Fox, we cannot but think that his extreme attention to the petty niceties of language was hardly worthy of so manly and so capacious an understanding. There were purists of this kind at Rome ; and their fastidiousness was censured by Horace, with that perfect good sense and good taste which characterise all his writings. There were purists of this kind at the time of the revival of letters ; and the two greatest scholars of that time raised their voices, the one from withm, the other from without the Alps, against a scrupulosity so unreasonable. " Ca- rent," said Politian, "quae scribunt isti viribus et vita, carent actu, carent tffectu, carent indole. . . . Nisi liber ille prsesto sit ex quo quid excer- pant, colligere tria verba non possunt. . . , Horum semper igitur oratio tremula, vacillans, infirma. . . . Quseso ne ista superstitione te alliges. . . . Ut bene currere non potest qui pedem ponere studet in alienis tan- tum vestigiis, iha nee bene scribere qui tanquam de prsescripto non audet egredi." — " Posthac," exclaims Erasmus, "non licebit episcopos appellare patres reverendos, nee in calce literarum scribere annum a Christo nato, quod id nusquam faciat Cicero. Quid autem ineptius quam, toto seculo novato, religione, imperils, magistratibus, locorum vocabulis, ffiditiciis, cultu, moribus, non aliter audere loqui quam locutus est Cicero? Si revivisceret ipse Cicero, rideret hoc Ciceronianorum genus." While Mr. Fox winnowed and sifted his phraseology with a care which seems hardly consistent with the simplicity and elevation of his mind, and of which the effect really was to debase and enfeeble his style, he was littk AUCAYJVTOSff'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 331 on his guard against those more serious improprieties of manner into which a greit orator who undertakes to write history is ia danger of faUing. There is about the whole book a vehement, contentious, replying manner. Almost every argument is put in the form of an interrogation, an ejaculation, or a sarcasm. The writer seems to be addressing himself to some imaginary audience : — to be tearing in pieces a defence of the Stuarts which has just beta pronounced by an imaginary Tory. Take, for example, his answer to Hume's remarks on the execution of Sydney ; and substitute "the honour- able gentleman," or "the noble Lord" for the name of Hume. The whole passage sounds like a powerful reply, thundered at three in the morning fnim the Opposition Bench. While we read it, we can almost fancy that we see and hear the great English debater, such as he has been described to us by the few who can still remember the Westminster Scrutiny and the Oczakow Negotiations, in the full paroxysm of inspiration, foaming, screaming, choked by the rushing multitude of his words. It is true that the passage to which we have referred, and several other passages which we could point out, are admirable, when considered merely as exhibitions of mental power. We at once recognise in them that con- summate master of the whole art of intellectual gladiatorship, whose Speeches, imperfectly as they have been transmitted to us, should be studied day asid night by every man who wishes to learn the science of logical defence. We find in several parts of the History of James the .Second fine specimens of that which we conceive to have been the great characteristic of Demosthenes among the Greeks, and of Fox among the orators of England, — reason pene- trated, and, if we may venture on the expression, made red hot by passion. But this is not the kind of excellence proper to histor)' ; and it is hardly too much to say that whatever is strikingly good in Mr. Fox's Fragment vs out of place. With Sir James Mackintosh the case was reversed. His proper place was his library, a circle of men of letters, or a chair of moral and political philo- .sophy. He distinguished himself highly in Parliament. But nevertheless Parliament was not exactly the sphere for him. The effect of his most suc- cessful speeches was small when compared with the quantity of ability and learning which was expended on them. We could easily name men who, not possessing a tenth part of his intellectual powers, hardly ever address the House of Commons without producing a greater impression than was pro- duced by his most splendid and elaVjorate orations. His luminous and philo- sophical disquisition on the Reform Bill was spoken to empty benches. Those, indeed, who had the wit to keep their seats, picked up hints which, skilfully used, made the fortune of more than one speech. But "it was caviare to the general." And even those who listened to Sir James with pleasure and admiration could not but acknowledge that he rather lectured than deba'ed. An artist who should waste on a panorama, on a scene, or on a transparency, the exquisite finishing which we admire in some of the small Dutch interiors, would not squander his powers more than this eminent man too often did. His audience resembled the boy in the Heart of Mid- Lothian, who pushes away the lady's guineas with contempt, and insists on having the white money. They preferred the silver with which they were familiar, and which they were constantly passing about from hand to hand, to the gold which they had never before seen, and with the value of which they were unacquainted. It is much to be regretted, we think, that Sir James Mackintosh did not wholly devo'e his later years to philosophy and hterature. His talents were not those which enable a speaker to produce with rapidity a series of striking 332 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE RE VOLUTION, but transitory impressions, — and to exci»e the minds of five hundred gentle« men at midnight, without saying anything that any one of them will be abU to remember in the morning. His arguments were of a very different texture from tliose which are produced in Parliament at a moment's notice, — which puzzle a plain man, who, if he had them before him in writing, would soon detect their fallacy, and which the great debater who employs them forgets within half an hour, and never thinks of again. Whatever was valuable in the compositions of Sir James Mackintosh was the ripe fruit of study and of meditation. It was the same with his conversation. In his most familiar talk there was no wildness, no inconsistency, no amusing nonsense, no exaggeration for the sake of momentary effect. His mind was a vast magazine, admirably arranged ; everything was there ; and everything was in its place. His judgments on men, on sects, on books, had been often and carefully tested and weighed, and had then been committed, each to its proper receptacle, in the most capacious and accurately constructed memory that any human being ever possessed. It would have been strange indeed if you had asked for anything that was not to be found in that immense store- house. The article which you required was not only there. It was ready. It was in its own proper compartment. In a moment it was brought down, unpacked, and displayed. If those who enjoyed the privilege, — for a privi- lege indeed it was, — of listening to Sir James Mackmtosh, had been disposed to find some fault in his conversation, they might perhaps have observed that he yielded too little to the impulse of the momenta He seemed to be recol- lecting, not creating. He never appeared to catch a sudden glimpse of a subject in a new light. You never saw his opinions in the making, — still rude, still inconsistent, and requiring to be fashioned by thought and dis- cussion. They came forth, like the pillars of that temple in which no sound of axes or hammers was heard, finished, rounded, and exactly suited to their places. What Mr. Charles Lamb has said, with much humour and some truth, of the conversation of Scotchmen in general, was certainly true of this eminent Scotchman. He did not find, but bring. You could not cry halves to anything that turned up while you were in his company. The intellectual and moral qualities which are most important in a historian, he possessed in a very high degree. He was singularly mild, calm, and im- partial in his judgments of men, and of parties. Almost all the distinguished writers who have treated of English history are advocates. Mr. Hallam and Sir James Mackintosh alone are entitled to be called judges. But the ex- treme austerity of Mr. Hallam takes away something from the pleasure of reading his learned, eloquent, and judicious writings. He is a judge, but a hanging judge, the Page or Buller of the High Court of Literary Justice. His black cap is in constant requisition. In the long calendar of those whom he has tried, there is hardly one who has not, in spite of evidence to character and recommendations to mercy, been sentenced and left for execu- tion. Sir James, perhaps, erred a little on the other side. He liked a maiden assize, and came away with white gloves, after sitting in judgment on batches jf the most notorious offenders. He had a quick eye for the redeeming parts of a character, and a large toleration for the infirmities of men exposed to strong temptations. But this lenity did not arise from ignorance or neglect of moral distinctions. Though he allowed perhaps too much weight to every extenuating circumstance that could be urged in favour of the transgressor, he never disputed the authority of the law, or showed his ingenuity by refining away its enactments. On every occasion he showed himself firm where principles were in question, but full of charity towards individuals. We have no hesitation in pronouncing this Fragment decidedly the best MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 333 history now extant of the reign of James the Second. It contains much ne^v and curious information, of which excellent use has been made. The accuracy of the narrative is deserving of high admiration. We have noticed only one mistake of the smallest importance, and that, we believe, is to be laid to the charge of the editor, who has far more serious blunders to answer for. The pension of 60,000 livres, which Lord Sunderland received from France, is said to have been equivalent to ;^2,5oo sterling. Sir James had perhaps for a moment forgotten, — his editor had certainly never heard, — that a great depre- ciation of French coin took place after 1688. When Sunderland was in power the livre was worth about eighteen-pence, and his pension consequently amounted to ;^4,500. This is really the only inaccuracy of the slightest moment that we have been able to discover in several attentive perusals. We are not sure that the book is not in some degree open to the charge which the idle citizen in the Spectator brought against his pudding ; " Mem. too many plums, and no suet." There is perhaps too much disquisition and too little narrative ; and indeed this is the fault into which, judging from the habits of Sir James's mind, we should have thought him most likely to fall. What we assuredly did not anticipate was, that the narrative would be better executed than the disquisitions. We expected to find, and we have found, many just delineations of character, and many digressions full of interest, — such as the account of the order of Jesuits, and of the state of prison discipline in England a hundred and fifty years ago. We expected to find, and we have found, many reflections breathing the spirit of a calm and benignant philosophy. But we did not, we ovra, expect to find that Sir James could tell a story as well as Voltaire or Hume. Yet such is the fact ; and if any person doubts it, we would advise him to read the account of the events which foUowed the issuing of King James's declaration, — the meeting of the clergy, the violent scene at ihe privy coimcil, the commitment, trial, and acquittal of the bishops. The most superficial reader must be charmed, we think, by the liveliness of the narrative. But no person who is not acquainted with that vast mass of intract- able materials of which the valuable and interesting part has been extracted and condensed can fully appreciate the skill of the writer. Here, and indeed throughout the book, we find many harsh and careless expressions which the author would probably have removed if he had lived to complete his work. But, in spite of these blemishes, we must say that we should find it difficult to point out, in any modem history, any passage of equal merit. We find in it the diligence, the accuracy, and the judgment of Hallam, united to the viva- city and the colouring of Southey. A history of England, written throughout in this manner, would be the most fascinating book in the language. It would be more in request at the circulating libraries than the last novel. Sir James was not, we think, gifted vidth poetical imagination. But that lower kind of imagination which is necessary to the historian he had in large measure. It is not the business of the historian to create new worlds, and to people them with new races of beings. He is to Homer and Shakspeare, to Dante and Milton, what NoUekins was to Canova, or Lawrence to Michael Angelo. The object of the historian's imitation is not within him ; it is furnished from without. It is not a vision of beauty and grandeiu: discernible only by the eye of his own mind, but a real model' which he did not make, and which he cannot alter. Yet his is not a mere mechanical imitation. Tlie triumph of his skill is to select such parts as may produce the effect of the whole, to bring out strongly all the characteristic features, and to throw the light and shade in such a manner as may heighten the effect. This skill, as far as we can judge from the unfinished work now before tis, Sir James Mackint ish possessed in an eminent degree. 334 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION The style of this Fragment is weighty, manly, and unaffected. There arc, as we have said, some expressions which seem to us harsh, and some whicli we think inaccurate. These would probably have been corrected, if Sir James had lived to superintend the publication. We ought to add that the printer has by no means done his duty. One misprint in particular is so serious as to require notice. Sir James Mackintosh has paid a high and just tribute to the genius, the integrity, and the courage of a good a"id great man, a distinguished ornament of English literature, a fearless champion of English liberty, Thomas Burnet, Master of the Charter House, and author of that most eloquent and imaginative work, the Telluris Theoria Sacra. Wherever the name of this celebrated man occurs, it is printed " Bennet," both in the text and in the index. This cannot be mere negligence. It is plain that Thomas Burnet and his writings were never heard of by the gentleman who has been employed to edit this volume, and who, not content with deforming Sir James Mackintosh's text by such blunders, has prefixed to it a bad Memoir, has appended to it a bad Contitiuation, and has thus succeeded in expanding the volume into one of the thickest, and debasing it into one of the worst that we ever saw. Never did we fall in with so admirable an illustration of the ola Greek proverb, which tells us that half is sometimes more than the whole. Never did we see a case in which the increase of the bulk was so evidently a diminution of the value. Why such an artist was selected to preface so fine a Torso, we cannot pretend to conjecture. We read that, when the Consul Mummius, after the taking of Corinth, was preparing to send to Rome some works of the greatest Grecian sculptors, he told the packers that if they broke his Venus or his Apollo, he would force them to restore the limbs which should be wanting. A head by a hewer of mile-stones joined to a bosom by Praxiteles would not surprise or shock us more than this supplement. The Memoir contains much that is worth reading ; for it contains many extracts from the compositions of Sir James Mackintosh. But when we pass from what the biographer has done with his scissors to what he has done with his pen, we can find nothing wortky of approbation. Instead of conlining himself to the only work which he is competent to perform, — that of relating facts in plain words, — he favours us with his opinions about Lord Bacon, and about the French literature of the age of Louis XIV. ; and with opinions, more absurd still, about the poetry of Homer, whom it is evident, from his criticisms, that he cannot read in the original. He affects, and for aught we know, feels something like contempt for the celebrated man whose life he has undertaken to write, and whom he was incompetent to serve in the capacity even of a corrector of the press. Our readers may form a notion of the spirit in which the whole narrative is composed, from expressions which occur at the beginning. This biographer tells us that Mackintosh, on occasion of taking his medical degree at Edinburgh, " not only put off the writing of his Thesis to the last moment, but was an hour behind his time on the day of examination, and kept the Academic Senate waiting for him in full conclave. " This irregularity, which no sensible jjrofessor would have thought deserving of more than a slight reprimand, is described by the biographer, after a lapse of neariy half a century, as an incredible instance " not so much of inrlolcnce as of gross negligence and bad taste." But this is not all. Our biographer has contrived lo procure a copy of the Thesis, and has sate down with his As in prtesenti and his Propria qute fnaribtis at his side, to pick out blunders in a compusition written by a youth of twenty-one, on the occasion alluded to. Me fuids one mistake, — such a mistake as the greatest scholar might commit when in haste, and as the veriest schoolboy would detect when at leisure. He glories over tills precious dis« MACA'LYTOSirS HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 335 covery with all the exultation of a pedagogue. "Deceived by the passive termination of the deponent verb defiingor. Mackintosh misuses it in a passive sense." He is not equally fortunate in his other discovery. " Laude con spurcare" whatever he may think, is not an improper phrase. Mackintosh meant to say that there are men whose praise is a disgrace. Nc person, we are sure, who has read this Memoir, wilJ doubt that there are men whose abase is an honour. But we »iust proceed to more important matters. This writer evidently wishes to impress his readers with a belief that Sir James Mackintosh, from interested motives, abandoned the doctrines of the Vindicise Gallicse. Had his statements appeared in their natural place, we should leave them to their natural fate. We would not stoop to detend Sir James Mackintosh from the attacks of fourth-rate magazines and pothouse newspapers. But here his own fame is turned against him. A book of which not one copy would ever have been bought but for his name in the titlepage is made the vehicle of the slander. Under such circumstances we cannot help exclaiming, in the words of one of the most amiable of Homer's heroes, — " NCj' Tts ivrjeirji UaTpoKKijos 5et\o*o 'M.vrjadadw' irao a service of ho.'.our? It is easy eBo«gh, after the ramparts are carried, to find men ta 340 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. plant tlic flag on the highest tower. The difficulty is to find men who are ready to go first into the breach ; and it would be bad policy indeed to insult their remains because they fell in the breach, and did not live to penetrate to the citadel. Now here we have a book written by a man, who is a very bad specimen of the English of the nineteenth century, — a man who knows nothing but what it is a scandal to know. And, if we were to judge by the self-complacent pity with which the writer speaks of the great statesmen and philosophers of a former age, we should guess that he was the author of the most original and important inventions in political science. Yet not so : — for men who are able to make discoveries are generally disposed to make allowances. Men who are eagerly pressing forward in pursuit of truth are grateful to everyone who has cleared an inch of the way for them. It is, for the most part, the man below mediocrity, the man who has just capacity enough to pick up and repeat the commonplaces which are fashionable in his own time, — it is he, we say, who looks with disdain on the very intellects to which it is owing that those commonplaces are not still considered as startling paradoxes or d?.mnable heresies. This writer is just the man who, if he had lived in the seventeenth century, would have devoutly believed that the Papists burned London, — who would have swallowed the whole of Oates' story about the for»y thousand soldiers, disguised as pilgrims, who were to meet in Gallicia, and sail thence to invade England, — who would have carried a Protestant flail under his coat, — and who would have been furious if the story of the warming-pan had been questioned. It is quite natural that such a man should speak with contempt of the great reformers of that time, because they did not know some things which he never would have known but for the salutary effects of their exer- tions. The men to whom we owe it that we have a House of Commons arc sneered at because they did not suffer the debates of the House to be published. The authors of the Toleration Act are treated as bigots, because they did not go the whole length of Catholic Emancipation. Just so we have heard a baby, mounted on the shoulders of its father, cry out, ' ' how much taller I am than Papa !" This gentleman can never want matter for pride, if he finds it so easily. He may boast of an indisputable superiority to all the greatest men of all past ages. He can read and write : Homer probably did not know a letter. He has been taught that the earth goes round the sun : Archimedes held that the sun went round the earth. He is aware that there is a place called New Hol- land : Columbus and Gama went to their graves in ignorance of the fact. He has heard of the Georgium Sidus : Newton was ignorant of the existence of such a planet He is acquainted with the use of gunpowder : Hannibal and Csesar won their victories with sword and spear. We submit, however, that this is not the way in which men are to be estimated. We submit that a wooden spoon of our day would not be justified in calling Galileo and Napier ■ blockheads, because they never heard of the differential calculus. We submit' that Caxton's preriJ in Westminster Abbey, rude as it is, ought to be looked at with quite as much respect as the best constructed machinery that ever, in our time, impressed the clearest type on the finest paper. Sydenham first discovered that the cool regimen succeeded best in cases of small-pox. By this discovery he saved the lives of hundreds of thousands : and we venerate his memory for it, though he never heard of inoculation. Lady Mary Mon- tague brought inoculation into use ; and we respect her for it, though she never heard of vaccination. Jenner introduced vaccination : we admire him for it, and we shall continue to admire him for it, although some still safer acd more agreeable preservative should be discovered. It is thus that we MACKINTOSH'S UISTORV OF THE REVOLUTION, 34I ought to judge of the events and the men of other times. They were behind as. It could not be otherwise. But the question with respect to them is not where they were, but which way they were going. Were their faces set in the right or in the wrong direction ? Were they in the front or in the rear of their generation? Did they exert themselves to help onward the great move- ment of the human race, or to stop it? This is not charity, but simple jus- tice and common sense. It is the fundamental law of the world in which we live that truth shall grow, — first the blade, then the ear, after that the full cirn in the ear. A person y.-ho complains of the men of 1688 for not having been men of 1835 n^'ght just as well complain of a projectile for describing a para- bola, or of quicksilver for being heavier than water. Undoubtedly we ought to look at ancient transactions by the light of modem knowledge. Undoubtedly it is among the first duties of a historian to point out the faults of tlie eminent men of fonner generations. There are no errors which are so likely to be drawn into precedent, and therefore none which it is so necessary to expose, as the errors of persons who have a just title to thr gratitude and admiration of posterity. In politics, as in religion, there are devotees who show their reverence for a departed saint by converting his tomb into a sanctuary for crime. Receptacles of wickedness are suffered to remain undisturbed in the neighbourhood of the church which glories in the relics of some martyred apostle. Because he was merciful, his bones give security to assassins. Because he was chaste, the precinct of his temple is filled with licensed stews. Privileges of an equally absuid kind have been set up against the jurisdiction of political philosophy. Vile abuses cluster thick round every glorious event, — round every venerable name ; and this evil assuredly calls for vigorous measures of literary police. But the proper course is to abate the nuisance without defacing the shrine, — to drive out the gangs of thieves and prostitutes without doing foul and cowardly wrong to the ashes of the illus- trious dead. In this respect, two historians of our own time may be proposed as models, Sir James Mackintosh and Mr, MiU. Differing in most things, in this they closely resemble each other. Sir James is lenient — Mr. Mill is severe. But neither of them ever omits, in the apportioning of praise and of censure, to make ample allowance for the state of political science and political moralit;;; in former ages. In the work before us, Sir James Mackintosh speaks with iust respect of the Whigs of the Revolution, while he never fails to condemn the conduct of that parly towards the members of the Church of Rome. His doctrines are the liberal and benevolent doctrines of the nineteenth century. But he never forgets that the men whom he is describing were men of the seventeenth century. From Mr. Mill this indulgence, or, to speak more properly, this justice, was less to be expected. That gentleman, in some of his works, appears to consider politics not as an experimental, and therefore a progressive science, but as a science of which all the difficulties may be resolved by short syn- thetical arguments drawn from truths of the most vulgar notoriety. Were this opinion well founded, the people of one generation would have little or no advantage over those of another generation. But though Mr, Mill, in some of his Essays, has been thus misled, as we conceive, by a fondness for neat and precise forms of demonstration, it v.ould be gross injustice not to admit that, in his history, he has employ«l a very different method of investi- gation with eminent ability and success. We know no writer who takes so much pleasure in the truly useful, noble, and philosophical employment d tracing the progress of sound opinions from their embryo state to their full matnrity, lie eagerly culls from old Despafches and Minutes every expression 342 MACKINTOSH'S HTSTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. in which he can discern the imperfect germ of any great truth which has alnce been fully developed. He never fails to bestow praise on those who, though far from coming up to his standard of perfection, yet rose in a small degree al)ove the common level of their contemporaries. It is thus that the annals of past times ought to be written. It is thus, especially, that the annals of our own country ought to be written. The history of England is emphatically the history of progress. It is the history of a constant movement of the public mind, of a constant chi^nge in the institutions of a great society. We see that society, at the begii ning of the twelfth century, in a state more miserable than the state in which the most degraded nations of the East now are. We see it subjected to the tyranny of a handful of armed foreigners. We see a strong distinction of caste separating the victorious Norman from the vanquished Saxon. We see the great body of the population in a state of personal slavery. We see the most debasing and cruel superstition exercising boundless dominion over the most elevated and benevolent minds. We see the multitude sunk in brutal ignorance, and the studious few engaged in acquiring what did not deserve the name of knowledge. In the course of seven centuries the wretched and degraded race have become the greatest and most highly civilized people that ever the world saw, — have spread their dominion over every quarter of the globe, — have scattered the seeds of mighty empires and republics over vast continents of which no dim intimation had ever reached Ptolemy or Strabo, — have created a maritime power which would annihilate in a quarter of an hour the navies of Tyre, Athens, Carthage, Venice, and Genoa toge- ther, — have carried the science of healing, the means of locomotion and correspondence, every mechanical art, every manufacture, every thing that promotes the convenience of life, to a perfection which our ancestors would h.ave thought magical, — have produced a literature abounding with works not inferior to the noblest which Greece has bequeathed to us, — have discovered the laws which regulate the motions of the heavenly bodies, — have speculated with exquisite subtilty on the operations of the human mind, — have been the acknowledged leaders of the human race in the career of political improve- ment. The history of England is the history of this great change in the moral, intellectual, and physical state of the inhabitants of our own island. There is much amusing and instructive episodical matter ; but this is the main action. To us, we will own, nothing is so interesting and delightful as to contemplate the steps by which the England of Domesday Book, — the England of the Curfew and the Forest Laws, — the England of crusaders, monks, schoolmen, astrologers, serfs, outlaws, — became the England which wc know and love, — the classic ground of liberty and philosophy, the school of all knowledge, the mart of all trade. The Charter of Henry Beauclerk, — the great Charter, — the first assembling of the House of Commons, — the ex- tinction of personal slavery, — the separation from the see of Rome, - the Petition of Right. — the Habeas Corpus Act, — the Revolution, — the establish- ment of the liberty of unlicensed printing, — the abolition of religious dis- abilities, — the reform of the representative system, — all these seem to us to be the successive stages of one great revolution ; nor can we fully comprehend anv one of these memorable events unless we look at it in connection with those which preceded and with those which followed it. Each of those great and ever-memorable struggles, — Saxon against Norman, — Villein against Lord, — Protestant against Papist, — Roundhead against Cavalier, — Dissenter again.st Churchman,— Manchester against Old Sarum, was, in its own order and season, a stru^'gle oti the result of which were staked the dearest interests of Uio human race; and every man who, in the coulcbt which, iu his tiiuef MACKINTOSirS HISTORY OF THE RR VOLUTTON. 345 divided our country, distinguished himself on the right side, is entitled to our gi-atitude and respect Whatever the conceited editor of this book may think, those persons who estimate most correctly the value of the improvements which have recently been made in our institutions are precisely the persons who are .east disposed to speak slightingly of wnat was done in 1688. Such men consider the Revolution as a reform, imperfect, indeed, but still most benencial to the English people and to the human race, — as a reform which has been the fruitful parent of reforms, — as a reform, the happy effects of which are at this moment fell, not only throughout cur own country, but in the cities of France and in the depth of the forests of Ohio. We shall be pardoned, we hope, if we call the attention of our readers to the causes and to the conse- quences of that great event. We said that the history of England is the history of progress ; and, when we take a comprehensive view of it, it is so. But when examined in smaU separate portions, it may with more propriety be called a history of actions and re-actions. We have often thought that the motion of the public mind in our country resembles that of the sea when the tide is rising. Each suc- cessive wave rushes forward, breaks, and rolls back ; but the great flood is steadily coming in. A person who looked on the waters only for a moment might fancy that they were retiring, or that they obeyed no fixed law, but were rushing capriciously to and fro. But when he keeps his eye on them for a quarter of an hour, and sees one sea-mark disappear after another, it is im- possible for him to doubt of the general direction in which the ocean is moved. Just such has been the course of events in England. In the history of the national mind, which is, in truth, the history of the nation, we must carefully distinguish between that recoil which regularly follows every ad- vance from a great general ebb. If we take short intervals, — if we compare 1640 and 1660, 1680 and 1685, 1708 and 1712, 1782 and 1794, we find a retrogression. But if we take centuries, — if, for example, we compare 1794 with 1660 or with 1685, — we cannot doubt in which direction society is pro- ceeding. The interval which elapsed between the Restoration and the Revolution naturally divides itself into three periods. The first extends from 1660 to 1679, the second from 1679 to 1681, the third from 1681 to 1688. In 1660 the whole nation was mad with loyal excitement. If we had to choose a lot from among all the multitude of those which men have drawn since the beginning of the world, we would select that of Charles the Second on the day of his return. He was in a situation in which the dictates of ambition coin- cided with those of benevolence, in which it was easier to be virtuous than to be wicked, to be loved than to be hated, to earn pure and imperishable glory than to become infamous. For once the road of goodness was a smooth descent. He had done nothing to merit the affection of his people. But they had paid him in advance without measure. Elizabeth, after the rout of the Armada, or after the abolition of Monopolies, had not excited a thousandth part of the enthusiasm with which the young exile was weloomed home. He was not, like Louis the Eighteenth, imposed on his subjects by foreign conquerors ; nor did he, hke Louis the Eighteenth, come back to a country which had undergone a complete change. The house of Bourbon was placed in Paris as a trophy of the victory of the European confederation. Their return was inseparably associated in the public mind with the cession of extensive provinces, with the payment of an immense tribute, with the devastation of flourishing departments, with the occupation of the kingdom by hostile armies, with the emptiness of those niches in which the Gods of Athens and 344 -^-4 CKINTOSirS HIS TOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTION. Rome had been the objects of a new idolatiy, with the nakedness of those walls on which the Transfiguration had shown with light as glorious as that which overhung Mount Tabor. They came back to a land in which they could recognize nothing. The seven sleepers of the legend, who closed their eyes when the Pagans were persecuting the Christians, and woke when the Christians were persecuting each other, did not find themselves in a world More completely new to them. Twenty years had done the work of twenty 'lenerations. Events had come thick. Men had lived fast. The old instila- lions and the old feelings had been torn up by the roots. There was a new Church founded and endowed by the usurper ; a new nobility whose titles were taken from fields of battle, disastrous to the ancient line; a new chivalry whose crosses had been won by exploits which had seemed likely to make the banishment of the emigrants perpetual. A new code was administered by a new magistracy. A new body of proprietors held the soil by a new tenure. The m(jsl ancient local distinctions hod been effaced. The most familiar names had become obsolete. There was no longer a Normandy or a Bur- gundy, a Brittany or a Guienne. The France of Louis the Sixteenth had passed away as completely as one of the Preadamite worlds. Its fossil remains might now and then excite curiosity. But it was as impossible to put life into the old institutions as to animate the skeletons which are embedded in th.° depths of primeval strata. It was as absurd to think that France could again be placed under the Feudal system, as that our globe could be overrun by mammoths. The revolution in the laws and in the form of government was but an outward sign of that mightier revolution which had taken place in the heart and brain of the people, and which affected every transaction of life, — trading, farming, studying, marrying, and giving in mar- riage. The French whom the emigrant Prince had to govern were no more like the French of his youth, than the French of his youth were like the French of the Jaquerie. He came back to a people who knew not him nor his house, — to a people to whoin a Bourbon was no more than a Carlovingian or a Merovingian. He might substitute the white flag for the tricolor ; he might put lilies in the place of bees ; he might order the initials of the Em- peror to be carefully effaced. But he could turn his eyes nowhere without meeting some object which reminded him that he was a stranger in the palace of his fathers. He returned to a country in which even the passing traveller is every moment reminded that there has lately been a great dissolution and reconstruction of the social system. To win the hearts of a people under such circumstances would have been no easy task even for Henry the Fourth, in the English Revolution the case was altogether different. Charles was not imposed on his countrymen, but sought by them. His restoration was not attended by any circumstance which could inflict a wound on their national pride. Insulated by our geographical position, insulated by our character, we had fought out our quarrels and effected our reconciliation among ourselves. Our great internal questions had never been mixed up with the still greater question of national independence. The political doctrines of the Roundheads were not, like those of the French philosophers, doctrines of universal application. Our ancestors, for the most part, took their stand, not on a general theory, but on the particular constitution of the realm. They asserted the rights, not of men, but of Englishmen. Their doctrines tlierefore were not contagious ; and, had it been otherwise, no neighbouring country was then susceptible of the contagion. The language in which our discussions were generally conducted was scarcely known even to a single man of letters out of the islands. Our local situation made it almost impossible that we should eilfect great conquests on the Continent, The kings of Europe MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OP THE REVOLUTION. 345 hsd, then fore, no rpR=;on to ff^ar that their subject? would follow the example of the English Puritans. They looked with indifference, perhaps with com- placency, on the death of the monarch and the abolition of the monarchy. Clarendon complains bitterly of their apathy. But we believe that this apathy was of the greatest service to the royal cause. If a French or Spanish aroiy had invaded England, and if that army had been cut to pieces, as we have no doubt that it would have been, on the first day on which it came face to face with the soldiers of Preston and Dunbar, — with Colonel Fight- the-good-Fight, and Captain Smite-them-hip-and -thigh, — the House of Crom- well would probably nov/ have been reigning in England. The nation would have forgotten all the misdeeds of the man who had cleared the soil of foreign invaders. Happily for Charles, no European state, even when at war with the Com- monwealth, chose to bind up its cause with that of the wanderers who were playing in the garrets of Paris and Cologne at being Princes and Chancellors. Under the administration ol Cromwell, England was more respected and dreaded than any power in Christendom ; and, even under the ephemeral governments which followed his death, no foreign state ventured to treat her with contempt. Thus Charles came back, not as a mediator between his people and a victorious enemy, but as a mediator between internal factions. He was heir to the conquests and to the influence of the able usurper who had excluded him. The old government of England, as it had been far milder than the old government of France, had been far less violently and completely subverted. The old institutions had been spared, or imperfectly eradicated. The laws had undergone little alteration. The tenures of the soil were still to be learned from Littleton and Coke. The great charter was mentioned with as nu.ch reverence in the parliaments of the Commonwealth as in those of any earlier or of any later age. A new Confession of Faith and a new Ritual had been introduced into the church. But the bulk of the ecclesiastical property still remained. The colleges still held their estates. The parson still received his lithes. The Lords had, at a crisis of great excitement, been exiluded by military violence from their House ; but they retained their titles and an ample share of the public veneration. When a nobleman mnde his appearance in the House of Commons he was received with ceremonious respect. Those few Peers who consented to assist at the inauguration of the Protector were placed next to himself, and the most honourable offices of the day were assigned to them. We learn from the debates of Ricliard's Parliament how strong a hold the old aristocracy had on tlie affections of the people. One member of the House of Commons went so far as to say that, unless their Lordships weie peaceably restored, the country might soon be convulsed by a war of the Barons, There was indeed at that time no great party hostile to the Upper House. There was nothing exclusive in the constitution of that body. It was regularly recruited from among the most distinguished of the country gentlemen, the lawyers, and the clergy. Thv Host powerful nobles of the century which preceded the civil war, the Duke ol Somerset, the Duke of Northunnbeilarid, Lord Sudley, the Earl of Leicester, Lord Burleigh, the Earl of Salisbury, the Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Strafford, had all been commoners, and had all raised themselves, by courtly arts, or by parha- meniary talents, not merely to seats in the House of Lords, but to the first influence in that assembly. Nor had the general conduct of the Peers been such as to make them unpopular. They had not, indeed, in opposing arbi- trary measures shown so much eagerness and pertinacity as the Commons. But still they had opposed those measures. They had, at the beginning of 346 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, the discontents, a common interest with the people. If Charles had suc- ceeded in his scheme of governing without parliaments, the consequence ol the Peers would have been grievously diminished. If he had been able to raise taxes by his own authority, the estates of the Peers would have been oj, much at his mercy as those of the merchants or the farmers. If he had obtained the power of imprisoning his subjects at his pleasure, a Peer ran far greater risk of incurring the royal displeasure, and of being accommodated with apartments in the Tower, than any city trader or country squire. Accordingly Charles found that the Creat Council of J-'eers which he con- voked at York would do nothing for him. In the most useful retorms which were made during the first session of the Long Parliament, tlie Peers con- curred heartily with the Lower House ; and a large minority of the English nobles stood by the popular side through the first years of the war. At Edgehill, Newbury, Marston, and Naseby, the army of the houses was commanded by members of the aristocracy. It was not forgotten that a Peer had imitated the example of Hampden in refusing the payment of the ship- money, or that a Peer had been among the six members of the legislature whom Charles illegally impeached. Thus the old constitution of England was without difficulty re-established ; and of all the parts of the old constitution the monarchical part was, at the time, dearest to the body of the people. It had been injudiciously depressed, and it was in consequence unduly exalted. From the day when Charles the First became a prisoner had commenced a reaction in favour of his person md of his office. From the day when the axe fell on his neck before the windows of his palace, that reaction became rapid and violent. At the Re. ^itoration it had attained such a point that it could go no further. The people were ready to place at the mercy of their Sovereign all their most ancient and precious rights. The most servile doctrines were publicly avowed. The most moderate and constitutional opposition was condemned. Resistance was spoken of with more horror than any crime which a human being can commit. The Commons were more eager than the King himself to avenge the wrongs of the royal house ; more desirous than the bishops themselves to restore the church ; more ready to give money than the ministers to ask for it. They abrogated some of the best laws passed in the first session of the Long Parliament, — laws which Falkland had supported, and which Hyde had not opposed. They might probably have been induced to go further, and to restore the High Commission and the Star Chamber. All the con- temporary accounts represent the nation as in a state of hysterical excitement, of drunken joy. In the immense multitude which crowded the beach at Dover, and bordered the road along which the King travelled to London, there was not one who was not weeping. Bonfires blazed. Bells jingled. The streets were thronged at night by boon-companions, who forced all the passers-by to swallow on bended knees brimming glasses to the health of his Most Sacred Majesty, and the damnation of Red-nosed Noll. That tender- ness to the fallen which has, through many generations, been a marked feature of the national character, was for a time hardly discernible. All London crowded to shout and laugh round the gibjjet where hung the rotting remains of a Prince who had made England the dread of the world, — who had been the chief founder of her maritime greatness and of her colonial emjiire, — who had conquered Scotland and Ireland, — who had humbled Holland and Spain,— the terror of whose name had been as a guard round every English traveller in remote countries, and round every Protestant con- gregation in the heart of Catholic em]>ires, When some of those brave and honest though misguided men who had sate in judgmcut on their King wer« MACKINTOSH'S ITTSTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 34? dragged on hurdles to a death of prolonged torture, their last prayers ivere interrupted by the hisses and execrations oi thousands. Such was England in 1660. In 1679 ihe whole face of things had changed. At the former of those epochs twenty years of commotion had made the majority of the people ready to buy repose at any price. At the latter epc h twenty years of misgovemment had m.ide the same majority desirous to obtain security for theit liberties at any risk. The fury of their returning loyalty had spent itself in its first outbreak. In a very few months they had hanged and half-hanged, quartered and embowelled enough to satisfy them. The Roundhead party seemed to be not merely overcome, but too much broken and scattered ever to rally again. Then commenced the reflux of public opinion. The nation began to find out to what a man it had intrusted, without conditions, all its dearest interests, — on what a man it had lavished all its fondest affection. On the ignoble nature of the restored exile, adver- sity had exhausted all her discipline in vain. He had one immense advantage over most other princes. Though born in the purple, he was far better ac- quainted with the vicissitudes of life and the diversities of character tlian most of his subjects. He had knov/n restraint, danger, penury, and dependence. He had often suffered from ingratitude, insolence, and treachery. He had received many signal proofs of faithful and heroic attachment. He had seen, if ever man saw, both sides of human nature. But only one side remained in his memory. He had learned only to despise and to distrust his species, — to consider integrity in men, and modesty in women, as mere acting ; — nor did he think it worth while to keep his opinion to himself. He was incap- able of friendship ; yet he was perpetually led by favourites without being in the smallest degree duped by them. He knew that their regard to his in- terests was all simulated ; but, from a certain easiness which had no connec- tion with humanity, he submitted, half- laughing at himself, to be made the tool of any woman whose person attracted him, or of any man whose tattle diverted him. He thought little and cared less about religion. He seems to have passed his life in dawdling suspense between Hobbism and Popery. He was crowned in his youth with the Covenant in his hand ; he died at last with the Host sticking in his throat ; and, during most of the intermediate years, was occupied in persccutmg both Covenanters and Catholics. He was not a tyrant from the ordinary motives, lie valued power for its own sake liwle, and fame still less. He does not appear to have been vindictive, or to have found any pleasing excitement in cruelty. What he wanted was to be amused, — to get through the twenty-four hours pleasantly without silting down to dry business. Sauntering was, as Sheffield expresses it, the true Sultana Queen of his Majesty's affections. A sitting in council woidd have been in- supportable to liini if the Duke of Buckingham had not been there to make mouths at the Chancellor. It has been said, and is highly probable, that in his exile, he was quite disposed to sell his rights to Cromwell for a good round sum. To the last, his only quarrel with his Parliaments was that they often gave him trouble and would not always give him money. If there was a person for whom he felt a real regard, that person was his brother. If there was a point about which he really entertained a scruple of conscience or of honour, it was the descent of the crown. Yet he was willing to consent to the F.xciusion Bill for ^600,000 ; and the negotiation was broken off only because he insisted on being paid beforehand. To do him justice, his temper was good ; his manners agreeable ; his natitral talents above mediocrity, liut he was sensual, frivolous, false, and cold-hearted, beyond almost any Prince of whom history makes mention. Under the government of such a man, the English people could not be 348 MA CKINTOSH'S HISTOR V OF THE RE VOL UTION. long in recovering from the intoxication of loyalty. They were then, as they are still, a brave, proud, and high-spirited race, unaccustomed to defeat, to fihame, or to servitude. The splendid administration of Oliver had taught them to consider their country as a match for the greatest empires of the earth, as the first of maritime powers, as the head of the Protestant interest. Though, in the day of their affectionate enthusiasm, they might sometimes extol the royal prerogative in terms which would have better become the courtiers of Aunmgzebe, they were not men whom it was quite safe to take at their word. They were much more perfect in the theory than in the practice of passive obedience. Though they might deride the austere man- ners and scriptural phrases of the Puritans, they were still at heart a religious people. The majority saw no great sin in field-sports, stage- plays, promis- cuous dancing, cards, fairs, starch, or false hair. But gross profaneness and licentiousness were regarded with general horror ; and the Catholic religion was held in utter detestation by nine-tenths of the middle class. Such was the nation which, awaking from its rapturous trance, found itself sold to a foreign, a despotic, a Popish court, — defeated on its own seas and rivers by a state of far inferior resources, — and placed under the rule of pandars and buffoons. Our ancestors saw the best and ablest divines of the age turned out of their benefices by hundreds. They saw the prisons filled with men guilty of no other crime than that of worshipping God according to the fashion generally prevailing throughout Protestant Europe. They saw a Popish Queen on the throne, and a Popish heir on the steps of the throne. They saw unjust aggression followed by feeble war, and feeble war ending in disgraceful peace. They saw a Dutch fleet riding trium[jhant in the Thames. They saw the triple alliance broken, the Exchequer shut up, the public credit shaken, the arms of England employed, in shameful sub- ordination to France, against a country which seemed to be the last asylum of civil and religious liberty. They saw Ireland discontented, and Scotland in rebellion. They saw, meantime, Whitehall swarming with sharpers and courtesans. They saw harlot after harlot, and bastard after bastard, not only raised to the highest honours of the peerage, but supplied out of the spoils of the honest, industrious, and ruined public creditor, with ample means of supporting the new dignity. The government became more odious every day. Even in the bosom of that very House of Commons which had been elected by the nation in the ecstasy of its penitence, of its joy, and of its hope, an opposition sprang up and became powerful Loyalty which had been proof E^ainst all the disasters of the civil war, which had survived the routs of Naseby and Worcester, which had never flinched from sequestration and exile, which the Protector could never intimidate or seduce, began to fail in this last and hardest trial. The storm had long been gathering. At length it burst with a fury which threatened the whole frame of society with dissolution, W^hen the general election of January, 1679, took place, the nation had retraced the path which it had been describing from 1640 to 1660. It was again in the same mood in which it had been when, after twelve years of misgove nment, the Long Parliament assembled. In every part of the country, the name of courtier had becom.e a by-word of reproach. The old warriors of the Covenant again ventured out of those retreats in which they had, at the time of the Restoration, hidden themselves from the insults oJ ike triumphant malignants, and in which, during twenty years, they had pre- served in full vigour " The unconquerable wiJl And study of revenge, immortal hate. With courage never to submit or y>e: J, A.tiJ ^•-'i?t K pl^!". tint to be uvtircome," MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 349 Then were again seen in the streets faces which called up strange and terrible recollections of the days when the saints, with the high praises of God in their mouths, and a two-edged sword in their hands, had bound kings with chains, and nobles with links of iron. Then were again heard voices which had shouted "Privilege" by the coach of Charles I. in the time of his tyranny, and had called for "Justice" in Westminster Hall on the day of his trial. It has been the fashion to represent the excitement of this period as the effect of the Popish plot. To us it seems clear that the Popish plot was rather the effect than the cause of the general agitation. It was not the disease, but a symptom, though, like many other symptoms, it aggravated the severity of the disease. In 1660 or 1661 it would have been utterly out of the power of such men as Oates or Bedloe to give any serious disturbance to the Government. They would have been laughed at, pil- loried, well pelted, soundly whipped, and speedily forgotten. In 1678 or 1679 there would have been an outbreak, if those men had never been born. For years things had been steadily tending to such a consummation. Society was one vast mass of combustible matter. No mass so vast and so combus- tible ever waited long for a spark. Rational men, we suppose, are now fully agreed that by far the greater part, if not the whole, of Gates' story was a pure fabrication. It is indeed highly probable that, during his intercourse with the Jesuits, he may have heard much wild talk about the best means of re-establishing the Catholic religion in England, and that from some of the absurd daydreams of the lealots with whom he then associated he may have taken hints for his nar. rative. But we do not believe that he was privy to anything which deserved the name of conspiracy. And it is quite certain that, if there be any small portion of truth in his evidence, that portion is so deeply buried in falsehood that no human skill can now effect a separation. We must not, however, forget, that we see his story by the light of much information which his con. temporaries did not at first possess. We have nothing to say for the wit- nesses, but something in mitigation to offer on behalf of the public. We own that the credulity which the nation showed on that occasion seems to us, though censurable indeed, yet not wholly inexcuFable. Our ancestors knew, from the experience of several generations at home and abroad, how restless and encroaching was the disposition of the Church of Rome. The heir-apparent of the crown was a bigoted member of that church. The reigning King seemed far more inclined to show favour to that church than to the Presbyterians. He was the intimate ally, or rather the hired servant, of a powerful King, who had already given proofs of his de- termination to tolerate within his dominions no other religion than that of Rome. The Catholics had begun to talk a bolder language than formerly, and to anticipate the restoration of their worship in all its ancient dignity and splendour. At this juncture, it is rumoured that a Popish plot has been discovered. A distinguished Catholic is arrested on suspicion. It appears that he has destroyed almost all his papers. A few letters, how- ever, have escaped the flames ; and these letters are found to contain much alarming matter, strange expressions about subsidies from France, allusions to a vast scheme which would "give the greatest blow to the Protestant religion that it had ever received, " and which ' ' would utterly subdue a pestilent heresy." It was natural that those who saw these expressions, in letters which had been overlooked, should suspect that there was some horrible villany in those which had been carefully destroyed. Such was the feeling of the House of Commons : "Question, question, Coleman's letters !'' was the cry which drowned the voices of the minority. 350 MACKTNTOSfrS HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. Just after the discovery of these papers, a magistrate who had been distin- guished by his independent spirit, and who had taken the deposition of the informer, is found murdered, under circumstances which make it almost incredi- ble that he should have fallen either by robbers or by his own hands. Many of our readers can remember the state of London just after the murders of Mar and Williamson, — the terror which was on every face, — the careful barring of doors, — the providing of blunderbusses and watchmen's rattles. We know of a shopkeeper who on that occasion sold three hundred rattles in about ten hours. Those who remember that panic may be able to form some notion of the state of England after the death of Godfrey. Indeed, we must say that, after having read and weighed all the evidence now extant on that mysterious subject, we incline to the opinion that he was assassinated, and assassinated by Catholics, — not assuredly by Catholics of the least weight or note, but by some of those crazy and vindictive fanatics who may be found in every large sect, and who are peculiarly likely to be found in a persecuted sect. Some of the violent Cameronians had recently, under similar exaspera- tion, committed similar crimes. It was natural that there should be a panic ; and it was natural that the people should, in a panic, be unreasonable and credulous. It must be re- membered also that they had not at first, as we have, the means of comparing the evidence which was given on different trials. They were not aware ol one tenth part of the contradictions and absurdities which Oates had com- mitted. The blunders, for example, into which he fell before the Council, his mistake about the person of Don John of Austria, and about the situation of the Jesuits' College at Paris, were not publicly known. He was a bad mnn ; but the spies and deserters by whom governments are informed of con- spiracies are generally bad men. His story was strange and frightful ; but it was not more strange and frightful than a well-authenticated Popish plot, which some few people then living might remember, — the Gunpowder treason. Gates' account of the burning of London was in itself by no means so improb- able as the project of blowing up King, Lords, and Commons, —a project which had not only been entertained by very distinguished Catholics, but which had very narrowly missed of success. As to the design on the King s jicrson, all the world knew that, within a century, two kings of France and a ])rince of Orange had been murdered by the Catholics, purely from religious enthusiasm, — that Elizabeth had been in constant danger of a similar fate,-- and that such atfem|)ts, to say the least, had not been discouraged by the highest authority of the Church of Rome. The characters of some of the accused persons stood high ; but so did that of Anthony Babington, and that of Everard Digby. Those who suffered denied their guilt to the last ; but no persons versed in criminal proceedings would attach any importance to this circumstance. It was well known also that the most distinguished Catholic casuists had written largely in defence of regicide, of mental reservation, and of equivocation. It was not quite impossible that men whose minds had been nourished with the writings of such casuists might think themselves ;uslified in denying a charge which, if acknowledgecl, would bring great Bcandal on the Church. The trials of the accused Catholics were exactly like all the slate trials of those days ; that is to say, as infamous as 'hey could be. They were neither fairer nor less fair than those of Algernon Sydney, of Rose- well, of Cornish, — of all the unhappy men, in short, whom a predominant party brought to what was then facetiously called justice. Till the Revolu- tion purified our institutions and our manners, a state trial was a murder pre- ceded by the uttering of certain gibberish and the performance of certain mummeries. MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 351 Wlie'n the Houses met in the autumn of 1678, the Opposition had now the great body of the nation with them. Thrice the King dissolved the Parlia- ment ; and thrice the constituent body sent him back representatives fully determined to keep strict watch on all his measures, and to exclude his brother from the throne. Had the character of Charles resembled that of his father, this intestine discord would infallibly have ended in a civil war. Obstinacy end passion would have been his ruin. His levity and apathy were his security. He resembled one of those light Indian boats which are safe because they are pliant, which yield to the impact of every wave, and which therefore bound without danger through a serf in which a vessel ribbed with heart of oak would inevitably perish. Tlie orily thing about which his mind was unalterably made up was that, to use his own ptirase, he would not go on his travels again for anybody, or for anything, iiis easy, indolent be- haviour produced all the effects of the most artful policy. He suffered things to take their course ; and if Achitophel had been at one of his ears, and Machiavel at the other, they could have given him no better advice than to let things take their course. He gave way to the violence of the move- ment, and waited for the corresponding violence of the rebound. He exhi- bited himself to his subjects in the interesting character of an oppressed king, who was ready to do anything to please them, and who asked of them, in return, only some consideration for his conscientious scruples and for his feelings of natural affection,— who was ready to accept any ministers, — to grant any guarantees for public liberty, but who could not find it in his heart to take away his brother's birthright. Nothing more was necessary. He bad to deal with a people whose noble weakness it has always been not to press too hardly on the vanquished, — with a people the lowest and most brutal of whom cry " Shame ! " if they see a man struck when he is on the ground. The resentment which the nation had felt towards the Court began to abate as soon as the Court was manifestly unable to offer any resistance. The panic which Godfrey's death had excited gradully subsided. Every day brought to light some new falsehood or contradiction in the stories of Oates and Bedloe. The people were glutted with the blood of Papists, as they had, twenty years before, been glutted with the blood of regicides. When the first sufferers in the plot were brought to the bar, the witnesses for the defence were in danger of being torn in pieces by the mob. Judges, jurors, and spectators seemed equally indifferent to justice, and equally eager for revenge. Lord Stafford, the last sufferer, was pronounced not guilty by a large minority of his peers ; and when he protested his innocence on the scaffold, the people cried out, " God bless you, my lord ; we believe you, my lord." The extreme folly of the Opposition in setting up the feeble and pusillanimous Monmouth as a claimant to the throne did them great harm. The story about the box and the marriage contract was an absurd romance ; and the attempt to make a son of Lucy Waters King of England was alike offensive to the pride of the nobles and to the moral feeling of the middle class. The old Cavalier party, the great majority of the landed gentry, the clergy and the universities almost to a man, began to draw together, and to form :r. close array round the throne. A smiilar reaction had begun to take place in favour of Charles the First duiing the second session of the Long Parliament ; and, if that prince had been honest or sagacious enough to keep himself strictly within the limits of the law, we have not the smallest doubt that he would in a few months have found himself at least as powerful as his best friends, Lord Falkland, Cul- peper, or Hyde, would have wished to see him. By illegally impeaching the leaders of the Opposition, and by making in ^^erson a wicked attempt on 3S2 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OP THE REVOLUTION. the House of Commons, he stopped and turned back that tide of loyal feel- ing which was just beginning to run strongly. The son, quite as little re» strained by law or by honour as the father, was, luckily for himself, a man of a lounging, careless temper, and from temper, we believe, rather than from policy, escaped that great error which cost the father so dear. Instead of trying to pluck the fruit before it was ripe, he lay still till it fell meUow into his very mouth. If he had arrested Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Russell in a manner not warranted by law, it is not improbable that he would have ended his Hfe in exile. He took the sure course. He employed only his legal pre- rogatives, and he found them amply sufficient for his purpose. During the first eighteen or nineteen years of his reign, he had been play- ing the game of his enemies. From 1678 to 1681, his enemies had played his game. They owed their power to his misgovemment. He owed the recovery of his power to their violence. The great body of the people came back to him after their estrangement with impetuous affection. He had scarcely been more popular when he landed on the coast of Kent than when, after several years of restraint and humiliation, he dissolved his last Parliament. Nevertheless, while this flux and reflux of opinion went on, the cause of public liberty was steadily gaining. There had been a great reaction in favour of the throne at the Restoration. But the Star Chamber, the High Com- mission, the Ship-money, had for ever disappeared. There was now another similar reaction. But the Habeas-Corpus Act had been passed during the short predominance of the Opposition, and it was not repealed. The King, however, supported as he was by the nation, was quite strong enough to inflict a terrible revenge on the party which had lately held him in bondage. In 168 1 commenced the third of those periods into which we have divided the history of England from the Restoration to the Revolution. During this period a third great reaction took place. The excesses of tyi'anny restored to the cause of liberty the hearts which had been alienated from tliat cause by the excesses of faction. In 1681, the King had almost all his enemies at his feet. In 16S8, the King was an exile in a strange land. The whole of that machinery which had lately been in motion against the Papists was now put in motion against the Whigs, — browbeating judges, packed juries, lying witnesses, clamorous spectators. The ablest chief of the party fled to a foreign country and died there. The most virtuous man of the l-«arty was beheaded. Another of its most distinguished members preferred a voluntary death to the shame of a public execution. The boroughs on which the government could not depend were, by means of legal quibbles, deprived of their charters ; and their constitution was remodelled in such a manner as almost to insure the return of representatives devoted to the Court. All parts of the kingdom emulously sent up the most extravagant assurances of the love , which they bore to their sovereign, and of the abhorrence with which they ('•regarded those who questioned the divine origin of the boundless extent of i his power. It is scarcely necessary to say that, in this hot competition ol bigots and slaves, the University of Oxford had the unquestioned preeminence. The glory of being farther behind the age than any other portion of the British people, is one which that learned body acquired early, and has never lost. Charles died, and his brother came to the throne ; but, though the person of the sovereign was changed, the love and awe with which the office was regarded were undiminished. Indeed, it seems that, of the two princes, James was, in spile of his religion, rather the favourite of the High Church party. He b?d been specially singled out as the mark of the Whigs ; and this circumstance sufficed to make him the idol of the Tories, He called a parliai-'icut. The loyal (ienlry <»f the counties and the packed voters of the MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 353 remodelled boroughs gave him a parliament such as England had not seen for a century, — a parliament beyond all comparison the most obsequious that ever sat under a prince of the House of Stuart. One insurrectionary move- m»nt, indeed, took place in England, and another in Scotland. Both were put down with ease, and punished with tremendous severity. Even after that bloody circuit, which will never be forgotten while the English race exists in any part of the globe, no member of the House of Commons ven- tured to whisper even the mildest censure on Jeffries. Edmund Waller, emboldened by his great age and his high reputation, attacked the cruelty ol the irtilitary chiefs ; and this is the brightest part of his long and checkered public life. But even Waller did not venture to arraign the still more odious cruelty of the Chief Justice. It is hardly too much to say that James, at that time, had little reason to envy the extent of authority possessed by Louis XIV. By what means this vast power was in three years broken down, — by what perverse and frantic misgovernment the tyrant revived the spirit of the van- quished Whigs, turned to fixed hostility the neutrality of the trimmers, and drove from him the landed gentry, the Church, the army, his own creatures, his own children, — is well known to our readers. But we wish to say some- thing about one part of the question, which in our own time has a little puzzled some very worthy men, and about which the author of the " Con- tinuation " before us pours forth, as might be expected, much nonsense. James, it is said, declared himself a supporter of toleration. If he violated the constitution, he at least violated it for one of the noblest ends that any statesman ever had in view. His object was to free millions of his country- men from penal laws and disabilities which hardly any person now considers as just. He ought, therefore, to be regarded as blameless, or, at worst, as guilty only of employing irregular means to effect a most praiseworthy pur- pose. A very ingenious man, whom we believe to be a Catholic, Mr. Banim, has written an historical novel, of the literary merit of which we oannot speak very highly, for the purpose of inculcating this opinion. The editor of Sir James Mackintosh's Fragment assures us that the standard of James bore the nobler inscription, and so forth ; — the meaning of which is, that William and the other authors of the Revolution were vile Whigs, who drove out James for being a Radical ; — that the crime of the King was his going farther in liberality than his subjects ; — that he was the real champion of freedom ; and that Somers, Locke, Newton, and other narrow-minded people of the same sort, were the real bigots and oppressors. Now, we admit that if the premises can be made out, the conclusion fol- lows. If it can be shown that James did sincerely wish to establish perfect freedom of conscience, we shall think his conduct deserving not only of indul- gence but of praise. We shall applaud even his illegal acts. We conceive that so noble and salutary an object would have justified resistance on the part of subjects. We can, therefore, scarcely deny that it would at least justify encroachment on the part of a king. But it can be proved, we think, by the strongest evidence, that James had no such object in view ; and that, under the pretence of establishing perfect religious liberty, he was trying to establish the ascendency and the exclusive dominion of the Church of Rome. It is true that he professed himself a supporter of toleration. Every sect clamours for toleration when it is down. We have not the smallest doubt that, when Bonner was in the Marshalsea, he thought it a very hard thing that a man should be locked up in a gaol for not being able to understand the words, "This is my body," in the same way with the lords of the council. It would aot be very wise to conclude that a beggar is full of Christiaa N 354 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. charity, because he assures you that God will reward you if you give him a penny ; or that a soldier is humane, because he cries out lustJTy for quarter when a bayonet is at his throat. The doctrine which, from the very first origin of religious dissensions, has been held by all bigots of all sects, when condensed into a few words, and stripped of rhetorical disguise, is simply this : — I am in the right, and you are in the wrong. When you are the stronger, you ought to tolerate me ; for it is your duty to tolerate truth. '.But when I am the stronger, I shall persecute you ; for it is my duty to perse« I cute error. ,' The Catholics lay under severe restraints in England. James vdshed to \emove those restraints; and therefore he held a language favourable to liberty of conscience. But the whole history of his life proves that this was a mere pretence. In 1679 he held similar language, in a conversation with the magistrates of Amsterdam ; and the author of the " Continuation " refers to tins circumstance as a proof that the King had long entertained a strong feeling on the subject. Unhappily it proves only the utter insincerity of all the King's later professions. If he had pretended to be converted to the doctrines of toleration after his accession to the throne, some credit might have been due to his professions. But we know most certainly that, in 1679, and long after that year, James was a most bloody and remorseless persecutor. After 1679, he was placed at the head of the government of Scotland. And what had been his conduct in that country ? He had hunted down the scattered remnant of the Covenanters with a barbarity of which no other prince of modern times, Philip the Second excepted, had ever shown himself capable. He had indulged himself in the amusement of seeing the torture of the ** Boot" inflicted on the wretched enthusiasts whom persecution had driven to resist- ance. After his accession, almost his first act was to obtain from the servile parliament of Scotland a law for inflicting death on preachers at conventicles held within houses, and on both preachers and hearers at conventicles held in the open air. All this he had done for a religion which was not his own. All this he had done, not in defence of truth against error, but in defence of one damnable error against another, — in defence of the Episcopalian against the Presbyterian apostacy, Louis XIV. is justly censured for trying to dragoon his subjects to heaven. But it was reserved for James to torture and murder for the difference between two roads to hell. And this man, so deeply imbued with the poison of intolerance that, rather than not persecute at all, he would persecute people out of one heresy into another, — this man is held up as the champion of religious liberty 1 This man, who persecuted in the cause of the unclean panther, would not, we are told, have persecuted for the sake of the milk-white and immortal hind. And what was the conduct of James at the very time when he was pro- fessing zeal for the rights of conscience ? Was he not even then persecuting to the very best of his power? Was he not employing all his legal preroga- tives, and many prerogatives which were not legal, for the purpose of forcing his subjects to conform to his creed ? While he pretended to abhor the laws which excluded Dissenters from office, was he not himself dismissing from office his ablest, his most experienced, his most faithful servants, on accounf of their religious opinions? For what offence was Lord Rochester driven from the Treasury ? He was closely connected with the Royal House. Hft was at the head of the Tory party. He had stood firmly by James in the most trying emergencies But he would not change his religion, and he was dismissed. That we ma^ rot be suspected of overstating the case. Dr. Lingard, a very competent, and assuredly not a very vrilling vritness, shall speak for us. "The King," says that able W "partial writer, " was disappointed : he comi MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 355 plained to Barillon of the obstinacy and insincerity of the treasurer ; and the latter received from the P'lench envoy a very intelligible hint that the loss of office would result from his adhesion to his religious creed. He was, how- ever, inflexible; and James, after a long delay, communicated to him, but with considerable embarrassment and many tears, his final determination. lie had hoped, he said, that Rochester, by conforming to the Church of Rome, would have spared him the unpleasant task ; but kings must s.aciifice their feelings to their duty." And this was the King who wished to have all men of all sects rendered alike capable of holding office. These proceedings were alone sufficient to take away all credit from his liberal professions ; and such, as we learn from the despatches of the Papal Nuncio, was really the effect. "Pare," says D'Adda, writing a few days after the retirement of Rochester, "pare che gli animi sono inaspriti della voce che corre tra il popolo, d' esser cacciato il detto ministro per non essere Cattolico, percio tirarsi al esterminio de Protestanti." Was it ever denied that the favours of the Crown were constantly bestowed and withhold purely on account of the religious opinions of the claimants ? And if these things were done in the green tree, what would have been done in the dry ? If James acted thus when he had the strongest motives to court his Protestant subjects, what course was he likely to follow when he had obtained from them all that he asked ? Who again was his closest ally ? And what was the policy of that ally ? The subjects of James, it is true, did not know half the infamy of their sovereign. They did not know, as we know, that, while he was lecturing them on the btessings of equal toleration, he was constantly congratulating his good brother Louis on the success of that intolerant policy which had turned the fairest tracts of France into deserts, and driven into exile myriads of the most peaceful, industrious, and skilful artizans in the world. But the inglish did know that the two princes were bound together in the closest union. They saw their sovereign with toleration on his lips separating him- self from those states which had first set the example of toleration, and con- necting himself by the strongest ties with the most faithless and merciless persecutor who could then be found on any continental throne. By what advice, again, was James guided ? Who were the persons in whom he placed the greatest confidence, and who took the warmest interest in his schemes? The ambassador of France, — the Nuncio of Rome, — and Father Petre, the Jesuit. These were the people who showed the greatest anxiety that the King's plan might succeed. And is this not enough to prove that the establishment of equal toleration was not his plan ? Was Louis for toleration ? Was the Vatican for toleration? Was the order of Jesuits for toleration ? We know that the liberal professions of James were highly approved by those very governments, by those very societies, whose theory and practice it noto- riously was to keep no faith \vith heretics, and to give no quarter to heretics. And are we, in order to save James's reputation for sincerity, to believe that all at once those governments and those societies had changed their nature, — had discovered the criminality of all their former conduct, — had adopted prin- ciples far more liberal than those of Locke, of Leighton, or of Tillotson ? W^hich is the more probable supposition, — that the King who had revoked the edict of Nantes, the Pope under whose sanction the Inquisition was then im- prisoning and burning, the religious order which, in every controversy in which it had ever been engaged, had called in the aid either of the magis- trate or of the assassin, should have become as thorough-going friends to religious liberty as Dr. F"ranklin ami Mr. Jefferson afterwards were,— or that a Jesuit- ridden bigot should be induced to disse'nble for the good of the Chu -:h? 555 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. The game which the Jesuits were playing was no new game. A hundred years before they had preached up political freedom, just as they were now preaching up religious freedom. They had tried to raise the republicans against Henry the Fourth and Elizabeth, just as they were now trying to raise the Protestant Dissenters against the Church establishment. In the sixteenth century, the tools of Philip the Second were constantly teaching doctrines that bordered on Jacobinism, — constantly insisting on the right of the people to cashier kings, and of every private citizen to plurge his dagger into the heart of a wicked ruler. In the seventeenth century the persecutors of the Huguenots were crying out against the tyranny of the Established Church of England, and vindicating with the utmost fervour the right of all men to adore God after his own fashion. In both cases they were alike insincere. In both cases the fool who had trusted them would have found himself miserably duped. A good and wise man would doubtless disapprove of the arbitrary measures of Elizabeth, But would he have really served the interests of political liberty if he hnd put faith in the professions of the Romish casuists, joined their party, and taken a share in Northumberland's revolt, or in Bab' ington's conspiracy? Would he not have been assisting to establish afar worse tyranny than that which he was trying to put doviTi? In the same manner, a good and wise man would doubtless see very much to condemn in the conduct of the Church of England under the Stuarts. But was he there- fore to join the King and the Catholics against that Church ? And was it not plain that, by so doing, he would assist in setting up a spiritual despotism, compared with which the despotism of the establishment was as a little finger to the loins, — as a chastisement of whips to a chastisement of scorpions? Louis had a far stronger mind than James. He had at least an equally high sense of honour. He was in a much less degree the slave of his priests. He had promised to respect the edict of Nantes as solemnly as James had promised to respect the religious liberty of the English people. Had Louis kept his word ? And was not one such instance of treachery enough for one generation ? The plan of James seems to us perfectly intelligible. The toleration which, with the concurrence and applause of all the most cruel persecutors in Eui'ope, he was offering to his people, was meant simply to divide them. This is the most obvious and vulgar of political artifices. We have seen it employed a hundred times within our own memory. At this moment we see the Carlists in France hallooing on the "extreme left" against the " centre left." Four years ago the same trick was practised m England. We heard old buyers and sellers of boroughs, — men who had been seated in the House of Com- mons by the unsparing use of ejectments, and who had, through their whole lives, opposed every measure which tended to increase the power of the de- mocracy, — abusing the Reform BUI as not democratic enough, appealing to the labouring classes, execrating the tyranny of the ten-pound householders, and exchanging compliments and caresses with the most noted incendiaries of our time. The ciy of universal toleration was employed by James, just as the cry of universal suffrage was lately employed by some veteran Tories. The object of the mock democrats of our time was to produce a conflict between the middle classes and the multitude, and thus to prevent all reform. The object of James was to produce a conflict between the Church and the Protestant dissenters, and thus to facilitate the victory of the Catholics over both. We do not believe that he could have succeeded. But we do not think his plan so utf ^rly frantic and hopeless as it has generally been thought ; and ti'C are sure lha.t, if he had been allowed to gain his first point, the peoplf MA CKINTOSH'S HISTOR Y OF THE RE VOL VTION. 3 $? would have had no remedy left but an appeal to physical force, — %v!iich v.-t'-uld have been made under most unfavourable circumstances. He conceived ihat the Tories, hampered by their professions of passive obedience, would have submitted to his pleasure, and that the Dissenters, seduced by his delusive promises of relief, would have given him strenuous support. In this way he hoped to obtain a law, nominally for the removal of all re \gious dis- abilities, but really for the excluding of all Protestants from all offices. It is never to be forgotten that a prince who has all the patronage of the state in his hands can, without violating the letter of the law, establish whatever test he chooses. And, from the whole conduct of James, we have not the smallest doubt that he would have availed himself of his power to the utmost. The statute-book might declare all Englishmen equally capable of holding office ; but to what end, if all offices were in the gift of a sovereign resolved not to employ a single heretic ? We firmly believe that not one post in the government, in the army, in the navy, on the bench, or at the bar, — not one peerage, nay not one ecclesiastical benefice in the royal gift, would have been bestowed on any Protestant of any persuasion. Even while the King had still strong motives to dissemble, he had made a Catholic Dean of Christ Church and a Catholic President of Magdalen College. There seems to be no doubt that the See of York was kept vacant for another Catholic. If James had been suffered to follow this course for twenty years, every mili- tarj' man from a general to a drummer, every officer of a ship, every judge, every King's counsel, every lord -lieutenant of a county, every justice of t)ie peace, every ambassador, every minister of state, every person employed in the royal household, in the custom-house, in the post-office, in the excise, would have been a Catholic. The Catholics would have had a majority in the House of Lords, even if that majority had bee* made, to use Sunderland's threat, by calling up a whole troop of the guards to that house. Catholics would have had, we believe, the chief weight even in the Convocation. Every bishop, every dean, every holder of a crown living, every head of every college which was subject to the royal power, would have belonged to the Church of Rome. Almost all the places of liberal education would have been under the direction of Catholics. The whole power of licensing books would have been in the hands of Catholics. All this immense mass ol power would have been steadily supported by the arnis and by the gold of France, a>id would have descended to an heir whose whole education would have been conducted with a view to one single end, — the complete re-establishment of the Catholic religion. The House of Commons would have been the only legal obstacle. But the rights of a great portion of the electors were at the mercy of the courts of law ; and the courts of law were absolutely dependent on the Crown. We cannot, therefore, think it altogether impossible that a house might have been packed which would have restored the days of Mary. We certainly do not believe that this would have been tamely borne. Bui we do believe that, if the nation had been deluded by the King's pro- fessions of toleration, all this would have been attempted, and could have been averted only by a most bloody and destructive contest, in which the v.hdle Protestant population would iiave been opposed to the Catholics. On the one side would have been a vast numerical superiority. But on the other side would have been the whole organization of government, and two great (disciplined armies, that of James and that of Louis. We do not doubt that the nation would have achieved its deliverance. But we believe that the s'.rjggle would have shaken the whole fabric of society, and that the ven- geance of the conquerors would have been terrible and unsparing. Bit Tames was stopped at the outset. He thought himself secure of th« i5« MACKINTOSH'S niSTORY OF THE REVOLUTlok. Tories, because they professed to consider all resistance as sinful, — and of th« Protestant Dissenters, because he offered them relief. He was in the wrong as to both. The error into which he fell about the Disi-enlers was very natural. Hut tlie confidence which he placed in the loyal assurances of the High Church party was the most exquisitely ludicrous proof of folly that a politician ever gave. Only imagine a man acting for one single day on the supposition that all his neighbours believe all that they profess, and act up) to all that they believe. Imagine a man acting on the su|)posili<)n that he may safely offer the dead- liest injuries and insults to everybody who says that revenge is sinful ; or that he may safely intrust all his property without security to any person who says that it is wrung to steal. Such a character would be too absurd for the wildest farce. Yet the folly of James did not stop short of this in- credible extent. Because the clergy had declared that resistance to oppres- sion was in no case lawful, he conceived that he might oppress them exactly as much as he chose, without the smallest danger ot resistance. He quite foii^ot that, when they magnified the royal prerogative, the prerogative was exerted on their side, — that, when they preached endurance, they had nothing to endure, — that, when they declared it unlawful to resist evil, none but Whigs and Dissenters suffered any evil. It had never occurred to him that a man feels the calamities of his enemies with one sort of sensibility, and his own with quite a different sort. It had never occurred to him as possible that a reverend divine might think it the duty of Baxter and Bunyan to bear insults and to lie in dungeons without murmuring, and yet, when he saw the smallest chance that his o\vn prebend might be transferred to some sly Father from Italy or Flanders, might begin to discover much matter for useful meditation in the texts touching Ehud's knife and Jael's hammer. His Majesty was not aware, it should seem, that people do sometimes reconsider their opinions ; and that nothing more disposes a man to reconsider his opinions than a suspicion, that, if he adheres to them, he is very likely to be a beggar or a martyr. Yet it seems strange that these truths should have escaped the royal mind. Those Churchmen who had signed the Oxford declaration in favour of passive obedience had also signed the thirty-nine articles. And yet the very man who confidently expected that, by a little coaxing and bullying, he should induce them to renounce the articles, was thunderstruck when he found that they were disposed to soften down the doctrines of the declaration. Nor did it necessarily follow that even if the theory of the Tories had undergone no modification, their practice would coincide with their theory. It might, one should think, have crossed the mind of a man of fifty, who had seen a great deal of the world, that people some- times do what they think wrong. Though a prelate might hold that Paul directs us to obey even a Nero, it might not on that account be perfectly safe to treat the Right Reverend Father in God after the fashion of Nero, in the hope that he would continue to obey on the principles of Paul. The King indeed had only to look at home. He was at least as much attached to the Catholic Church as any Tory gentleman or clergyman could be to the Church of iLngland. Adultery was at least as clearly ami as strongly condemned by his Church as resistance by the Church of England. Yel his priests could not Keep him from Arabella Sedley. While he was risking his crown for the sake of his soul, he was risking his soul for the sake of an ugly, dirty mistress. There is something delightfully grotesque in the spectacle of a man who, while living in the habitual violation of his own known duties, i» unable to believe that any temptation can draw any other person aside frora the path of virtue. MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 359 James was disappointed in all his calculations. His hope was that the Tories would follow their principles, and that the Non-conformists would follow their interests. Exactly the reverse took place. The Tories sacri- ficed the principle of non-resistance to their interests ; the Non-conformists rejected the delusive offers of the King, and stood firmly by their principles. The two parties whose strife had convulsed the empire during half a century were united for a moment ; and all that vast royal power which three years before had seemed immovably fixed vanishr 1 at once like chaff in a hurricane. The very great length to which this article has already been extended renders it impossible for us to discuss, as we had meant to do, the characters and conduct of the leading English statesmen at this crisis. But we must offer a few remarks on the spirit and tendency of the Revolution of 1688. The editor of this volume quotes the Declaration of Right, and tells us that, by looking at it, we may "judge at a glance whether the authors of the Revolution achieved all they might and ought, in their position, to have achieved; — whether the Commons of England did their duty to their con- stituents, their country, posterity, and universal freedom." We are at a loss to imagine how this writer can have read and transcribed the Declaration of Right, and yet have so utterly misconceived its nature. That famous document is, as its very name imports, declaratory, and not remedial. It was never meant to be a measure of reform. It neither contained, nor was designed to contain, any allusion to those innovations which the authors of the Revolution considered as desirable, and which they speedily proceeded to make. The Declaration was merely a recital of certain old and wholesome laws which had been violated by the Stuarts, and a solemn protest against the validity of any precedent which might be set up in opposition to those laws. The words as quoted by this writer himself run thus: "They do claim, demand, and insist upon all and singular the premises as their un- doubted rights and liberties." Before a man begins to make improvements on his estate, he must know its boundaries. Before a legislature sits down to reform a constitution, it is fit to ascertain what that constitution really is. This is all that the Declaration was intended to do ; and to quarrel with it because it did not directly introduce any beneficial changes is to quarrel with meat for not being clothing. The principle on which the authors of the Revolution acted cannot be mistaken. They were perfectly aware that the English institutions stood in need of reform. But they also knew that an important point was gained if they could settle once for all, by a solemn compact, the matters which had, during several generations, been in controversy between the parliament and the crown. They therefore most judiciously abstained from mixing up th« irritating and perplexing question of what ought to be the law with the plaii- question of what -was the law. As to the claims set forth in the Declara tion of Right, there was little room for debate. Whigs and Tories were generally agreed as to the illegality of the dispensing power and of taxation imposed by the royal prerogative. The articles were therefore adjusted in a very few days. But if the Parliament had determined to revise the whole constitution, and to provide new securities against misgovemment, before proclaiming the new sovereign, months would have been lost in disputes. The coalition which had delivered the country would have been instantly dissolved. The Whigs would have quarrelled with the Tories, the Lords with the Commons, the Church with the Dissenters ; and all this storm of conflicting interests and conflicting theories would have been raging round a vacant throne. In the meantime, the greatest power on the Contmen was attacking our allies, and meditating a descent on our own terrltori«s l6o MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. Dundee was raising the Highlands. The authority of James was still owned by the Irish. If the authors of the Revolution had been fools enough to take this course, we have little doubt that Luxembourg would have been upon them in the midst of their constitution-making. They might probably have been interrupted in a debate on Filmer's and Sydney's theories of government by the entrance of the musqueteers of Louis's household, and have been marched off, two and two, to frame imaginary monarchies and commonwealths in the Tower. We have had in our own time abundant experience of the effects of such folly. We have seen nation after nation enslaved, because the friends of liberty wasted in discussions upon abstract juestions the time which ought to have been employed in preparing for ngorous national defence. This editor, apparently, would have had the English Revolution of 1688 end as the Revolutions of Spain and Naples ;nded in our days. Thank God, our deliverers were men of a very different order from the Spanish and Neapolitan legislators. They might, on many .jubjects, hold opinions which, in the nineteenth century, would not be con- sidered as liberal. But they were not dreaming pedants. They were statos- Jiien accustomed to the management of great affairs. Their plans of reform were not so extensive as those of the lawgivers of Cadiz ; but what they planned, that they effected ; and what they effected, that they maintained against the fiercest hostility at home and abroad. Their first object was to seat William on the throne ; and they were right. We say this without any reference to the eminent personal qualities of William, or to the follies and crimes of James. If the two princes had interchanged characters, our opinion would still have been the same. It was even more necessary to England at that time that her king should be a usurper than that he should be a hero. There could be no security for good government without a change of dynasty. The reverence for hereditary right and the doctrine of passive obedience had taken such a held on the minds of the Tories, that, if James had been restored to power on any con- ditions, their attachment to him would in all probability have revived, as the indignation which recent oppression had produced faded from their minds. It had become indispensable to have a sovereign whose title to his throne was strictly bound up with the title of the nation to its liberties. In the compact between the Prince of Orange and the Convention, there was one most important article which, though not expressed, was perfectly under- stood by both parties, and for the performance of which the country had securities far better than all the vows that Charles I. or Ferdinand VII, ever took in the day of their weakness, and broke in the day of their power. The articie was this, — that William would in all things conform himself to what should appear to be the fixed and deliberate sense of his Parliament. The security for the performance was this, — that he had no claim to the throne except tlie choice of Parliament, and no means of maintaining himself on the throne but the support of Parliament. All the great and inestimable reforms which speedily followed the Revolution were implied in those simple words:— "The Lords Sj)iritual and Temporal, and Commons, assembled at Westminster, do resolve that Willi;iin and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, be, and be declared King and Queen of England." And what were the reforms of which we speak? We will shortly recount some which we think the most important ; and we will then leave our readers to judge whether those who consider the Revolution as a mere change of dynasty, beneficial to a few aristocrats, but useless to the body of the people, or those who consider it as a happy era in the history of the British nation and of the human species, have judged more coirectly of its nature. MA CKINTOSH 'S Hi^TOk ¥ OF THE RE VOL UTION. 36 1 Foremost in the list of the benefits which our country owes to the Revolu- tion we place the Toleration Act. It is true that this measure fell short of th« wishes of the leading Whigs, It is true also that, where Catholics were con« earned, even the most enlightened of the leading Whigs held opinions by no means so liberal as those which are happily common at the present day. Those distinguished statesmen did however make a noble, and, in some respects, a successful struggle for the rights of conscience. Their wish was to bring the great body of the Protestant Dissenters within the pale of the Church by judicious alterations in the Liturgy and the Articles, and to grant to those who still remained without that pale the most ample toleration. They framed a plan of comprehension which would have satisfied a great majority of the seceders ; and they proposed the complete abolition of that absurd and odious test which, after having been, during a century and a half, a scandal to the pious and a laughing-stock to the profane, was at length removed in our own time. The immense power of the Clergy and of the Tory gentry frustrated these excellent designs. The Whigs, however, did much. They succeeded in obtaining a law in the provisions of which a philosopher will doubtless find mucli to condemn, but which had the practical effect of enabling almost every Protestant Non-conformist to follow the dictates of his own conscience without molestation. Scarcely a law in the statute-book is theoretically more objectionable than the Toleration Act. But we question whether in the whole of that vast mass of legislation, from the Great Charter downwards, there be a single law which has so much diminished the sum of human suffering, — which has done so much to allay bad passions, — which has put an end to so much petty tyranny and vexation, — which has brought gladness, peace, and a sense of security to so many private dwellings. The second of those great reforms which the Revolution produced was the final establishment of the Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland. We shall not now inquire whether the Episcopal or the Calvinistic form of Church government be more agreeable to primitive practice. Far be it from us to disturb with our doubts the repose of any Oxonian Bachelor of Divinity who conceive that the English prelates, with their baronies and palaces, their purple and their fine linen, their mitred carriages and their sumptuous tables, are the true successors and exact resemblances of those ancient bishops who lived by catching fish and mending tents. We say only that tlie Scotch, doubtless from their own inveterate stupidity and malice, were not Episcopalians ; that they could not be made Episcopalians ; that K\\t whole power of government had been in vain employed for the purpose of converting them ; that the fullest instruction on the mysterious questions of the Apostolical succession and the imposition of hands had been imparted by the very logical process of putting the legs of the students into wooden boots, and driving two or more wedges between their knees ; that a coui'se of divinity lectures, of the mosl edifying kind, had been given in the Grass-market of Edinburgh ; yet that, in spite of all the exertions of those great theological professors, Lauderdale and Dundee, the Covenanters were as obstinate as ever. The contest between the Scotch nation and the Anglican Church had produced nearly thirty years of the most frightful misgovernment ever seen in any part of Great Britain, If the Revolution had produced no other effect than that of freeing the Scotch from the yoke of an establishment which they detested, and giving them one to which they were attached, it would have been one of the happiest events in our history. The third great benefit which the country derived from the Revolntion was the alte -ation in the mode of granting the supplies. It had been the practic* |n2 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. to settle on every prince, at the commencement of his reign, the produce o< certain taxes which, il was supposed, would yield a sum sufficient to defray the ordinary expenses of government. The distribution of the revenue was left wholly to the sovereign. He might be forced by a war, or by his owp profusion, to ask for an extraordinary grant. But, if his policy were econo mical and pacific, he might reign many years without once being under the necessity of summoning his Parliament, or of taking their advice when he had summoned them. This was not all. The natural tendency of every society in which property enjoys tolerable security is to increase in wealth. With the national wealth, the produce of the customs, of the excise, and of the post- office, would of course increase ; and thus it might well happen that taxes which, at the beginning of a long reign, were barely sufficient to support a frugal government in time of peace, might, before the end of that reign, en- able the sovereign to imitate the extravagance of Nero or Heliogabalus, — to raise great armies, — to carry on expensive wars. Something of this sort had actually happened under Charles the Second, though his reign, reckoned from the Restoration, lasted only twenty-five years. His first Parliament settled on him taxes estimated to produce ;^i, 200,000 a year. This they thought sufficient, as they allowed nothing for a standing army in time of peace. At the time of Charles's death, the annual produce of these taxes considerably exceeded a million and a half ; and the King who, during the years which immediately followed his accession, was perpetually in distress, and perpetually asking his Parliaments for money, was at last able to keep a body of regular troops without any assistance from the House of Commons. If his reign had been as long as that of George the Third, he would probably, before the close of it, have been in the annual receipt of several millions over and above what the ordinary expenses of the state required ; and of those millions he would have been as absolutely master as the King now is of the sum allotted for his privy-purse. He might have spent them \i /uxury, in corruption, in paying troops to overawe his people, or in carrying into effect wild schemes of foreign conquest. The authors of the Revolution applied a remedy to this great abuse. They settled on the King, not the fluctuating produce of certain fixed taxes, but a fixed sum sufficient for the support of his own royal state. They established it as a rule that all the expenses of the army, the navy, and the ordnance should be brought annually under the review of the House of Commons, and that every sum voted should be applied to the service specified in the vote. The direct effect of this change was important. The indirect effect has been more important still. From that time the House of Commons has been really the paramount power in the state. It has, in truth, appointed and removed ministers, declared war, and concluded peace. No combination of the King and the Lords has ever been able to effect anything against the Lower House, backed by its constituents. Three or four times, indeed, the sovereign has been able to break the force of an opposition by dissolving the Parliament. But if that experiment should fail, if the people should be of the same mind with their representatives, — he would clearly have no course left but to yield, to abdicate, or to fight. The next great blessing which we owe to the Revolution is the purification of the administration of justice in political cases. Of the importance of this change no person can judge who is not well acquainted with the earlier volumes of the State Trials. Those volumes are, we do not hesitate to say, the most frightful record of baseness and depravity that is extant in the world. Our hatred is altogether turned away from the crimes and the criminals, and directed against the law and iis ministers. We see villanies as black as ever were MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 363 imputed to any prisoner at any bar daily committed on the bench and in the jury box. The worst of the bad acts which brought discredit on the old par- liaments of France, — the condemnation of Lally, for example, or even that of Galas, — may seem praiseworthy when compared with those which follow each other in endless succession as we turn over that huge chronicle of the shame of England. The magistrates of Paris and Toulouse were blinded by prejudice, passion, or bigotry. But the abandoned judges of our own country committed murder with their eyes open. The cause of this is plain. In France there was no constitutional opposition. If a man held language offen- sive to the government, he was at once sent to the Bastile or to Vincennes. But in England, at least after the days of the Long Parliament, the King could not, by a mere act of his prerogative, rid himself of a troublesome politician. He was forced to remove those who thwarted him by means of perjured witnesses, packed juries, and corrupt, hard-hearted, brow-beating judges. I'he Opposition naturally retaliated whenever they had the upper hand. Every time that the power passed from one party to the other, took place a proscription and a massacre, thinly disguised under the forms of judicial procedure. The tribunals ought to be sacred places of refuge, where, in all the vicissitudes of public affairs, the innocent of all parties may find .shelter. They were, before the Revolution, an unclean public shambles, to which each party in its turn dragged its opponents, and where each found the same venal ferocious butchers waiting for its custom. Papist or Protestant, Tory or Whig, Priest or Alderman, all was one to those greedy and savage natures, provided only there was money to earn and blood to shed. Of course, these worthless judges soon created around them, as was natural, a breed of informers more wicked, if possible, than themselves. The trial by jury afforded little or no protection to the innocent. The juries were nominated by the sheriffs. The sheriffs were in most parts of England nominated by the Crown. In London, the great scene of political conten- tion, those officers were chosen by the people. The fiercest parliamentary election of our time will give but a faint notion of the stonn which raged in the city on the day when two infuriated parties, each bearing its badge, met to se'tect the men in whose hands were to be the issues of life and death for the coming year. On that day, nobles of the highest descent did not think it beneath them to canvass and marshal the livery, to head the pro- cession, and to watch the poll. On that day, the great chiefs of parties waited in an agony of suspense for the messenger who was to brin^ from Guildhall the news whether their lives and estates were, for the next twelve months, to be at the mercy of a friend or a foe. In 1681, Whig sheriffs were chosen ; and Shaftesbury defied the whole power of the government. In 1682 the sheri '3 were Tories. Shaftesbury fl-^d to Holland. The other chiefs of the party broke up their councils, and retired in baste to their country-seats. Sidney on the scaffold told those sheriffs that his blood was on their heads. Neither of them could deny the charge ; and one of them wept with shame and remorse. Thus every man who then meddled with public affairs took his life in his hand. The consequence was that men of gentle natures stood aloof from con- tests in which they could not engage without hazarding their own necks and the fortunes of their children. This was the course adopted by Sir William Temple, by Evelyn, and by many other men who were, in every respect, ad- mirably qualified to serve the State. On the other hand, those resolute and enterprising spirits who put their heads and lands to hazard in the game of politics naturally acquired, from the habit of playing for so deep a stake, 364 MACKINTOSH'S IIISTOKY OP THE REVOLUTION. % reckless and desperate turn of mind. It was, we seriously belieye, as safe to be a highwayman as to be a distinguished leader of Opposition, This may serve to explain, and in some degree to excuse, the violence with which the factions of that age are justly reproached. They were fighting, not for office, but for life. If they reposed for a moment from the work of agitation, if they suffered the public excitement to tlag, they were lost men. Hume, in describing this state of things, has emi>loyed an image which seems hardly to suit the general simplicity of his style, but which is by no means too strong for the occasion. "Thus," says he, " the two parties actuated by mutual rage, but cooped up within the naiTow limits of the law, levelled with poisoned doggers the most deadly blows against each other's breast, and buried in their factious divisions all regard to truth, honour, and humanity." From this terrible evil the Revolution set us free. The law which secured to the judges tlieir seats during life or good behaviour did something. The law subsequently passed for regulating trials in cases of treason did much more. The provisions of that law show, indeed, very little legislative skill. It is not framed on the principle of securing the innocent, but on the prin- ciple of giving a great chance of escape to the accused, whether innocent or guilty. This, however, is decidedly a fault on the right side. The evil produced by the occasional escape of a bad citizen is not to be compared with the evils of the Reign of Terror, for such it was, which preceded the Revo- lution. Since the passing of this law scarcely one single person has suffered death in England, as a traitor, who had not been convicted on overwhelming evidence, to the satisfaction of all parties, of a really great crime against the State. Attempts have been made in times of great excitement, to bring in persons guilty of high treason for acts which, though sometimes highly blamable, did not necessarily imply a design of altering the government by physical force, AU those attempts have failed. For a hundred and forty years no statesman, while engaged in constitutional opposition to a govern- ment, has had the axe before his eyes. The smallest minorities, struggling against the most powerful majorities, in the most agitated times, have felt themselves perfectly secure, Pulteney and Fox were the two most distin- guished leaders of Opposition since the Revolution, Both were personally obnoxious to the Court But the utmost hann that the utmost anger of the Court could do to them was to strike off the " Right Honourable " from before their names. But of all the reforms produced by the Revolution, perhaps the most im- portant was the full establishment of the liberty of unlicensed printing. The Censorship which, under some form or other, had existed, with rare and short intermissions, under every government, monarchical or republican, from the time of Henry the Eighth downwards, expired, and has never since been renewed. We are aware that the great improvements which we have recapitulated were, in many respects, imperfectly and unskilfully executed. The authors of those improvements sometimes, while they removed or mitigated a great practical evil, continued to recognise the erroneous principle from which that evil had sprung. Sometimes, when they had adopted a sound principle, they shrank from following it to all the conclusions to which it would have led them. Sometimes they failed to perceive that the remedies which they applied to one disease of the State were certain to generate another disease, and to render another remedy necessary. Their knowledge was inferior to ours ; nor were they always able to act up to their knowledge. The pressure of circumstancrs, the necessity of comproniii'.ng differences of opir-ion, the pcv?er ard vIolcaG* MA CKINTOSH 'S HISTOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTION. 365 of the party which was altogether hostile to the new settlement, murt be taken into the account. When these things are fairly weighed, there will, we think, be little difference of opinion among liberal and right-minded men as to the real value of what the great events of l688 did for this country. We have recounted what appear to us the most important of those change? which the Revolution produced on our laws. The changes which it pro duced in our laws, however, were not more important than the change which it indirectly produced in the public mind. The Whig paity had, during seventy years, an almost uninterrupted possession of power. It had always been the fundamental doctrine of that party, that power is a trust for the people ; that it is given to magistrates, not for their own, but for the public advantage ; that, where it is abused by magistrates, even by the highest of all, it may lawfully be withdrawn. It is perfectly true that the Whigs were not more exempt than other men from the vices and infirmities of our nature, and that, when they had power, they sometimes abused it. But still they stood firm to their theory. That theory was the badge of their party. It was something more. It was the foundation on which rested the power of the houses of Nassau and Brunswick. Thus, there was a government interested in propa- gating a class of opinions which most governments are interested in dis- couraging, — a government which looked with complacency on all speculations tending to democracy, and with extreme aversion on all speculations favour- able to arbitrary power. There was a King who decidedly preferred a repub- lican to a believer in the divine right of Kings ; who considered every attempt to exalt his prerogative as an attack on his title ; and who reserved all his favours for those who declaimed on the natural equality of men, and the popular origin of government. This was the state of things from the Revolu- tion till the death of George the Second. The effect was what might have been expected. Even in that profession which has generally been most dis- posed to magnify the prerogative, a great change took place. Bishopric after bishopric and deanery after deanery were bestowed on Whigs and Latiludi- narians. The consequence was that Whiggism and Latitudinarianism were professed by the ablest and most aspiring churchmen. Hume complained bitterly of this at the close of his history. "The Wliig party," says he, "for a course of near seventy years, has almost without interruption enjoyed the whole authority of government, and no honours or offices could be obtained but by their countenance and protection. But this event, which in some particulars has been advantageous to the state, has proved destructive to the truth of history, and has established many gross falsehoods, which it >s unaccountable how any civihzed nation could have embraced with regard to its domestic occurrences. Compositions the most despicable, both for style and matter," — in a note he instances the writings of Locke, Sydney, Hoadley, and Rapin, — " have been extolled and propa- gated and read as if they had equalled the most celebrated remains of anti- quity. And forgetting that a regard to liberty, though a laudable passion, ought commonly to be subservient to a reverence for established government, the prevailing faction has celebrated only the partisans of the former." We will not here enter into an argument about the merit of Rapin's History, or Locke's political speculations. We call Hume merely as evidence to a fact well known to all reading men, that the hterature patronised by the English Court and the English ministry, during the first half of the eighteenth cen- tury was of that kind which courtiers and ministers generally do all in their pow r to discountenance, and tended to inspire zeal for the liberties of the people rather that respect for the authority of the government. There was still a very strong Tory party in England. But that party was in 366 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, opposition. Many of its members still held the doctrine of passive obedience. But they did not admit that the existing dynasty bad any claim to such obedi- ence. They cundemned resistance. But by resistance they meant the keep- ing out of James the Third, and not the turning out of George the Second, No Radical of our times could grumble more at the expenses of the royal household, could exert himself more strenuously to reduce the military estab- lishment, could oppose with more earnestness every proposition for arming the executive with extraordinary powers, or could pour more unmitigated abuse on placemen and courtiers. If a writer were now, in a massive Dic- tionary, to define a Pensioner as a traitor and a slave, the Excise as a hateful tax, the Commissioners of the Excise as wretches, — if he were to write a satire full of reflections on men who receive "the price of boroughs and of souls," who "explain their country's dear-bought rights away," or "Whom pensions can incite To vote a patriot black, a courtier white," we should set him down for something more dem.ocratic than a Whig, Yet this was the language which Johnson, the most bigoted of Tories and High Churchmen, held under the administration of Walpole and Pelham, Thus doctrines favourable to public liberty were inculcated alike by those who were in power and by those who were in opposition. It was by means of these doctrines alone that the former could prove that they had a King dt jure. The servile theories of the latter did not prevent them from offering every molestation to one whom they considered as merely a King de facto. The attachment of one party to the House of Hanover, of the other to that of Stuart, induced both to talk a language much more favourable to popular rights than to monarchical power. What took place at the first representation of " Cato " is no bad illustration of the way in which the two great sections of the community almost invariably acted. A play, the whole merit of which consists in its stately rhetoric, — a rhetoric sometimes not unworthy of Lucan, — about hating tyrants and dying for freedom, is brought on the stage in a time of great political excitement. Both parties crowd to the theatre. Each affects to consider every line as a compliment to itself, and an attack on its opponents. The curtain falls amidst an unanimous roar of applause. The Whigs of the " Kit Cat " embrace the author, and assure him that he has rendered an inestimable service to liberty. The Tory secretary of state pre- sents a purse to the chief actor for defending the cause of liberty so welL The history of that night was, in miniature, the history of two generations. We well know how much sophistry there was in the reasonings, and how much exaggeration in the declamations of both parties. But when we com- pare the state in which political science was at the close of the reign of George the Second with the state in which it had been when James the Second came to the throne, it is impossible not to admit that a prodigious improvement had taken place. We are no admirers of the political doctrines laid down in Blackstone's Commentaries, But if we consider that those Commentaries were read with great applause in the very schools where, within the memory of some persons then living, books had been publicly burned by order of the University of Oxford for containing the " damnable doctrine" that the English monarchy is limited and mixed, we cannot deny that a salutary change had taken place. " The Jesuits," says Pascal, in the last of his incomparable letters, " have obtained a Papal decree, condemning Galileo's doctrine about the motion of the earth. It is all in vain. If the world is really turning round, all mankind together will not be able to keep it from turning, or to keep themselves from turning with it." The decrees of Oxford were as ia* MA CklNTOSH'S HISTOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTWN. ^ effectual to stay the great moral and political revolution as those of the Vati- can to stay the motion of our globe. That learned University found itself not only unable to keep the mass from moving, but unable to keep itself from moving along with the mass. Nor was the effect of the discussions and speculations of that period confined to our own country. While the Jacobite party was in the last dotage and weakness of its paralytic old age, the poli- tical philosophy of England began to produce a mighty effect on France, and, through France, on Europe. Here another vast field opens itself before us. But we must resolutely turn away from it. We will conclude by earnestly advising all our readers to study Sir James Mackintosh's valuable Fragment, and by expressing the satisfaction we have received from learning, since this article was written, that the intelligent publishers of the volume before us have resolved to re- print the Fragment in a separate form, without those accompaniments which have hitherto impeded its circulation. The resolution is as creditable to them as t^ie publication is sure to be acceptable to the lovers of KngUsh Ilistoi^. 368 LORD BACON. LORD BACON. (July, 1837.) The Worht of Francis Bacon, Lord Chancellor of England. A New Edition. By Basil Montagu, Esq. i6vols., 8vo. London, 1825-1834. We return our hearty thanks to Mr. Montagu, as well for his very valuable edition of Lord Bacon's works, as for the instructive life of the immortal aaithor contained in the last volume. We have much to say on the subject of this life, and will often find ourselves obliged to dissent from the opinions of the bio- grapher. But about his merit as a collector of the materials out of which opinions are formed, there can be no dispute ; and we readily acknowledge that we are in a great measure indebted to his minute and accurate researches for the means of refuting what we cannot but consider as his errors. The labour which has been bestowed on this volume has been a labour of love. The writer is evidently enamoured of the subject. It fills his heart. It constantly overflows from his lips and his pen. Those who are acquainted vdth the Courts in which Mr. Montagu practices with so much ability and success well know how often he enliv-ens the discussion of a point of law by citing some weighty aphorism, or some brilliant illustration, from the " De Augmentis" or the " No\-um Organum." The Life before us doubtless owes much of its value to the honest and generous enthusiasm of the writer. This feeling has stimulated his activity, has sustained his perseverance, has called forth all his ingenuity and eloquence ; but, on the other hand, we must frankly say that it has, to a. great extent, perverted his judgment. We are by no means without sympathy for Mr. Montagu, even in what we consider as his weakness. There is scarcely any delusion which has a better claim to be indulgently treated than that under the influence of which a man ascribes every moral excellence to those who have left imperishable monuments of their genius. The causes of this error lie deep in the inmost recesses of human nature. We ar.e all inclined to judge of others as we find them. Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions. We find it difficult to think well of those by whom we are thwarted or depressed ; and we are ready to admit every excuse for the vices of those who are useful or agreeable to us This is, we believe, one of those illusions to which the whole human race is subject, and which experience and reflection can only partially remove. It is, in the phraseology of Bacon, one of the zWo/a tribus. Hence it is that the moral character of a man eminent in letters or in the fine arts is treated, often by contemporaries — almost always by posterity — with extraordinary tenderness. The world derives pleasure and advantage from the performances of such a man. The number of those who sufi'er by his personal xdces is small, even in his own time, when compared with the number of those to whom his talents are a source of gratification. In a few years all those whom he has injured disappear. But his works remain, and are a source of delight to millions. The genius of Sallust is still with us. But the Numidians whom he plundered, and the unfortunate husbands who caught him in their houses at unseasonable hours, are forgotten. We suffer ourselves to be delighted by the keenness of Clarendon's observation, and by the sober majesty of his style, till we forget the oppressor and the bigot in the historian. Falstaff and Tom Jones have survived the gamekeepers whom Shakspeare cudgelled and the landladies whom Fielding bilked. A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his readers, and they cannot but judge of him under the deluding influence of friendship and gratitude. We all \.w\\\' how unwilling we are to admit the truth of any disgraceful story LORD BACON> 369 f-bout a person whose society we like, and from whom we have received favours : how long we struggle against evidence ; how fondly, when the facts cannot be dis- puted, we cling to the hope that that there may be some explanation or some extenuating circumstance with which we are unacquainted. Just such is the feel- ing which a man of liberal education naturally entertains towards the great minds of former ages. The debt which he owes to them is incalculable. They have guided him to truth. They have filled his mind with noble and graceful images. They have stood by him in all vicissitudes — comforters in sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in solitude. These friendships are exposed to no danger from the occurrences by which other attachments are weakened or dissolved. Time glides by ; fortune is inconstant ; tempers are soured ; bonds which seem indissoluble are daily sundered by interest, by emulation, or by caprice. But no such cause can affect the silent converse which we hold with the highest of human intellects. That placid intercourse is disturbed by no jealousies or resentments. These are the old friends who are never seen with new faces, who are the same in wealth and in poverty, in glory and in obscurity. W th the dead there is no rivalry. In the dead there is no change. Plato is never sullen. Cervantes is never petulent. Demosthenes never comes un- seasonably. Dante never stays too long. No difference of political opinion can alienate Cicero. No heresy can excite the horror of Rossuet. Nothing, then, can be more natural than that a person endowed with sensi- bility and imagination should entertain a respectful and affectionate feeling towards those great men with whose minds he holds daily communion. Yet nothing can be more certain than that such men have not always deserved in their own persons to be regarded with respect or affection. Some writers, whose works will continue to instruct and delight mankind to the remotest ages, have been placed in such situations that their actions and motives are as well known to us as the actions and motives of one human being can be known to another ; and unhappily their conduct has not always been such as an im- partial judge can contemplate with approbation. But the fanaticism of the devout worshipper of genius is proof against all evidence and all argument. The character of his idol is matter of faith ; and the province of faith is not to be invaded by reason. He maintains his superstition with a credulity as boundless, and a zeal as unscrupulous, as can be found in the most ardent partisans of religious or political factions. The most overwhelming proofs are rejected ; the plainest rules of morality are explained away ; extensive and important portions of history are completely distorted. The enthusiast misrepresents facts with all the effrontery of an advocate, and confounds right and . wrong with all the dexterity of a Jesuit — and all this only in order that some man who has been in his grave for ages may have a fairer character than he deserves. Middleton's "Life of Cicero" is a striking instance of the influence of this sort of partiality. Never was there a character which it was easier to read than that of Cicero. Never was there a mind keener or more critical than that of IMiddleton. Had the Doctor brought to the examination of his favourite statesman's conduct but a very small part of the acuteness and severity which he displayed when he was engaged in investigating the high pretensions of Epiphanius and Justin Martyr, he could not have failed to pro- duce a most valuable history of a most interesting portion of time. But this most ingenious and learned man, though " So wary held and wise That, as 'twas said, he scarce received For gospel what the church believed," had a superstition of his own. The great iconoclast was himself an idolator. The great Axrvocato del Diavolo, while he disputed, with no small ability, th« 376 LORD BACON. claims of Cyprian and Anthanasius to a place in the Calendar, was himself composing a lying legend in honour of St. Tuliy ! He was holding up as a model of every virtue a man whose talents and acquirements, indeed, can never be too highly extolled, and who was by no means destitute of amiable qualities, but whose whole soul was under the dominion of a girlish vanit} and a craven fear. Actions for which Cicero himself, the most eloquent and skilful of advocates, could contrive no excuse, actions which in his confidential correspondence he mentioned with remorse and shame, are represented by his biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of that great revolu- ' tion which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, the character of every public man, is elaljorately misrepresented, in order to make out something which may look like a defence of one most eloquent and accom- plished trimmer. The volume before us reminds us now and then of the " Life of Cicero." But there is this marked difference. Dr. Middleton evidently had an uneasy consciousness of the weakness of his cause, and, therefore, resorted to the most disengcnuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions and suppressions of facts. Mr. Montagu's faith is sincere and implicit. lie practices no trickery. He conceals nothing. He puts the facts before us in the full confidence that they will produce on our minds the effect which they have produced on his own. It is not till he comes to reason from facts to motives that his partiality shows itself; and then he leaves Middleton himself far behind. His work proceeds on the assumption that Bacon was an eminently virtuous man. From the tree Mr. Montagu judges of the fruit. He is forced to relate many actions which, if any man but Bacon had committed them, nobody but Bacon would have dreamed of defending^actions which are readily and completely ex- plained by supposing Bacon to have been a man whose principles were not strict, and whose spirit was not high, actions which can be explained in no other way without resorting to some grotesque hypothesis for which there is not a tittle of evidence. But any hypothesis is, in Mr. Montagu's opinion, more probable than that his hero should ever have done anything very wrong. This mode of defending Bacon seems to us by no means Baconian. To take a man's character for granted, and then from his character to infer the moral quality of all his actions, is surely a process the very reverse of that which is recommended in the " NovTim Organum." Nothing, we are sure, could have led Mr. Montagu to depart so far from his master's precepts, except zeal for his master's honour. We shall follow a different course. We shall attempt, with the valuable assistance which Mr. Montagu has afforded us, to frame such an account of Bacon's life as may enable our readers correctly to estimate his character. It is hardly necessary to say that Francis Bacon was the son of Sir Nicholas Bacon, who held the great seal of England during the first twenty years of the reign of Elizabeth. The fame of the father has been thrown into shade by that of the son. But Sir Nicholas was no ordinary man. He belonged to a set of men whom it is easier to describe collectively than separately, whose minds were formed by one system of discipline, who belonged to one rank in society, to one university, to one party, to one sect, to one administration, and who resembled each other so much in talents, in opinions, in habits, in for- tunes, that one character, we had almost said one life, may, to a considerable extent, serve for them all. They were the first generation of statesmen by profession that England pro- duced. Before their time the division of labour had, in this respect, been very imperfect. Those who had directed pubUc affairs had been, with few excep- LORD BACON. 371 tions, warriors or priests ; warriors whose rude courage was neither guided by science nor softened l)y humanity — priests whose learning and abilities were habitually devoted to the defence of tyranny and imposture. The Hotspurs, the Nevilles, the Cliffords — rough, illiterate and unreflecting — brought to the council-board the fierce and imperious disposition which they had acquired amidst the tumult of predatory war, or in the gloomy repose of the garrisoned and moated castle. On the other side was the calm and subtle prelate — versed in all that was then considered as learning— trained in the Schools to manage words and in the Confessional to manage hearts — seldom superstitious, but skilful in practising on the superstition of others — false, as it was natural that a man should be whose profession imposed on all who were , not saints the necessity of being hypocrites — selfish, as it was natural that a man should be who could form no domestic ties and cherish no hope of legiti- mate posterity — more attached to his order than to his country, and guiding the politics of England with a constant side glance at Rome. But the increase of wealth, the progress of knowledge, and the reformation of religion produced a great change. The nobles ceased to be military chieftains ; the priests ceased to possess a monopoly of learning ; and a new and remarkable species of politicians appeared. These men came from neither of the classes which had, till then, almost ex clusively furnished ministers of state. They were all laymen ; yet they were all men of learning ; and they were all men of peace. They were not mem- bers of the aristocracy. They inherited no titles, no large domains, no armies of retainers, no fortified castles. Yet they were not low men, such as those whom princes, jealous of the power of a nobility, have sometimes raised from forges and cobblers' stalls to the highest situations. They were all gentlemen by birth. They had all received a liberal education. It is a remarkable fact that they were all members of the same university. The two great national seats of learning had even then acquired the characters which they still retain. In intellectual activity and in readiness to admit improvements, the superiority was then, as it has ever since been, on the side of the less ancient and splendid institution. Cambridge had the honour of educating those celel)rated Protes- tant Bishops whom Oxford had the honour of burning ; and at Cambridge were formed the minds of all those statesmen to whom chiefly is to be attributed the secure establishment of the reformed religion in the north of Europe. The statesmen of whom we speak passed their youth surrounded by the in- cessant din of theological controversy. Opinions were still in a state of chaotic anarchy, intermingling, separating, advancing, receding. Sometimes the stub- born ])igotry of the Conservatives seemed likely to prevail. Then the impet- uous onset of the Reformers for a moment carried all before it. Then again the resisting mass made a desperate stand, arrested the movement, and forced it slowly back. The vacillation which at that time appeared in English legis- lation, and which it has been the fashion to attribute to the caprice and to the power of one or two individuals, was truly a national vacillation. It was not only in the mind of Henry that the new theology obtained the ascendant one day, and that the lessons of the nurse and of the priest regained their influence at another. It was not only in the House of Tudor that the husband was ex- asperated by the opposition of the wife — that the son dissented from the opinions of the father — that the brother persecuted the sister — that one sister persecuted another. The principles of Conservation and Reform carried on fheir warfare in e%'ery part of society, in every congregation, in every school of learning, round the hearth of every private family, in the recesses of every re- flecting mind. It was in the midst of this ferment that the minds of the persons whom we 572 LORD BACON. are describing were developed. They were born Reformers. They belonged by nature to thai order of men who always form the front ranks in the great intellectual progress. They were, therefore, one and all, I'rotestants. In religious matters, however, though there is no reason to dcen expected to succeed. Nor indeed did he wholly fail. Once, however. LORD BACON. 375 he indulged in a burst of patriotism which cost him a long and biKer remorse, and which he never ventured to repeat. The Court asked for large subsidies and for speedy payment. The remains of Bacon's speech breathe all the spirit of the Long Parliament. "The gentlemen," said he, " must sell their plate, and the farmers their brass pots, ere this will be paid ; and for us, we are here to search the wounds of the realm, and not to skim them over. The dangers are these. First, we shall breed discontent and endanger her Majesty's safety, which must consist more in the love of the people than their wealth. Secondly, this being granted in this sort, other princes hereafter will look for the like ; so that we shall put an evil precedent on ourselves and ouri {wsterily ; and in histories, it is to be observed, of all nations the English are not to be subject, base, or taxable." The Queen and her ministers resented this outbreak of jiublic spirit in the highest manner. Indeed, many an honest member of the House of Commons had, for a much smaller matter, been sent to the Tower by the proud and hot-blooded Tudors. The young patriot condescended to make the most abject apologies. He adjured the Lord Treasurer to show some favour to his poor servant and ally. He bemoaned himself to the Lord Keeper in a letter which may keep in countenance the most unmanly of the epistles which Cicero wrote during his banishment. The lesson was not thrown away. Bacon never oft'ended in the same manner again. He was now satisfied that he had little to hope from the patronage of those powerful kinsmen whom he had solicited during twelve years with such meek pertinacity, and he began to look towards a difierent ([uarter. Among the courtiers of Elizabeth had lately appeared a new favourite — young, noble, wealthy, accomplished, eloquent, brave, generous, aspiring — a favourite who had obtained from the grey-headed Queen such marks of regard as she had scarce vouchsafed to Leicester in the season of the passions ; who was at once the ornament of the palace and the idol of the city ; who was the common patron of men of letters and of men of the sword ; who was the common refuge of the persecuted Catholic and of the jiersecuted Puritan. The calm prudence which had enaljled Burleigh to shape his course through so many dangers, and the vast experience which he had acquired in dealing with two generations of colleagues and rivals, seemed scarcely sufficient to support him in this new competition ; and Robert Cecil sickened with fear and envy as he contemplated the rising fame and influence of Essex. The history of the factions which, towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, divided her court and her council, though pregnant with instruction, is by no means interesting or pleasing. Both parties employed the means which are familiar to unscrupulcjus statesmen ; and neither hatl, or even pretended to have, any important end in view. The public mind was then reposing from one great effort, and collecting strength for another. That impetuous and appalling rush with which the human intellect had moved forward in the career of truth and liberty, during the fifty years which followed the separation of Luther from the communion of the Church of Rome, was now over. The boundary between Protestantism and Pojiery had been fixed very nearly where it still remains. England, Scotland, the Northern kingdoms were on one side ; Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, on the other. The line of demarcation ran, as it still runs, through the midst of the Netherlands, of Germany and of Switzerland, dividing province from province, electorate from electorate, and canton from canton. France might be considered as a debatable land, in which the contest was still undecided. Since that time, the two religions have done little more than maintain their ground. A few occasional incursions have been made. But the general frontier remains the same. During two hundred and fifty years no great society has risen up like one man and 3Bo LORD BACON. emancipated itself by one mighty effort from the enthralling superstition of ages. This spectacle was common in the middle of the sixteenth century. Why has it ceased to be so ? Why has so violent a movement been followed by so long a repose ? The doctrines of the reformers are not less agreeable to reason or to revelation now than formerly. The public mind is assuredly not less enlightened now than formerly. Why is it that Protestantism, after carrying every thing liefore it in a time of comparatively little knowledge and little freedom, should make no perce])tible progress in a reasoning and tolerant age — that the Luthers, the Calvins, the Knoxes, the Zwingles, should had left no successors — that during two centuries and a half fewer converts should have been brought over from the Church of Rome than at the time of the Reformation were sometimes gained in a year ? This has always appeared tc us one of the most curious and interesting problems in history. On some other occasion we may perhaps attempt to solve it. At present it is enough to .say that, at the close of Elizaljeth's reign, the Protestant party, to borrow the language of the Apocalypse, had left its first love and had ceased to do it first works. Ti le great struggle of the sixteenth century was over. The great struggle of the seventeenth century had not commenced. The confessors of Mary's reign wen; dead. The members of the Long Parliament were still in their cradles. The. Papists had been deprived of all power in the state. The Puritans had not yet attained any formidable extent of power. True it is that a student, well acquainted with the history of the next generation, can easily discern in the proceedings of the last Parliaments of Elizabeth the germ of great and ever memoraV)le events. But to the eye of a contemporary nothing of this appeared. The two sections of ambitious men who were struggling for power differed from each other on no important public question. Both belonged to the Established Church. Both professed boundless loyalty to the Queen. Both approved the war with Spain. There is not, as far as we are aware, any reason to behave that they entertained different views concerning the succession x> the Crown. Certainly neither faction had any great measure of reform in view. Neither attempted to redress any public grievance. The most odious and pernicious grievance under which the nation then suffered was a source of profit to both, and was defended by both with equal zeal. Raleigh held a monopoly of cards, Essex a monopoly of sweet wines. In fact, the only ground of quarrel bel\\een the parties was that they could not agree as to their respective shares of power and patronage. Nothing in the political conduct of Essex entitles him to esteem ; and the pity with which we regard his early and terrible end is diminished by the consideration that he put to hazard the lives and fortunes of his most attached friends, and endeavoured to throw the whole country into confusion, for objects ' purely personal. Still, it is impossible not to be deeply interested for a man so brave, high-spirited and generous ; for a man who, while he conducted himself towards his sovereign with a boldness such as was then found in no other subject, conducted himself towards his dependents with a delicacy such as has rarely been found in any other patron. Unlike the \idgar herd of benefactors, he desired to inspire, not gratitude, but affection. He tried to make those whom he befriended feel towards him as towards an eoual. His mind, ardent, susceptil)Ie, naturally disposed to admiration of all that is great and beautiful, was fascinated by the genius and the accomplishments of Bacon. A close friendship was soon formed between them — a friendship destined to have a dark, a mournful, a shameful end. In 1594 the oftice of Attorney-General became vacant, and Bacon hoped to obtain it. Essex made his friend's cause his own — sued, expostulated, promised, threatened — but all in vain. It is probable that the dislike felt by LORD BACON. z%\ the Cecils for Bacon had been increased by the connection which he had lately formed with the Earl. Robert was then on the point of being made Secretary of State. He happened one day to be in the same coach with Essex, and a remarkable conversation took place between them. " My Lord," said Sir Robert, "the Queen has determined to appoint an Attorney-General without more delay. I pray your Lordship to let me know whom you will favour." " I wonder at your question," replied the Earl. " Vou cannot but know that resolutely, against all the world, I stand for your cousin, Francis Bacon.'' "Good Lord!" cried Cecil, unable to bridle his temper, "I wonder your Lordship should spend your strength on so unlikely a matter. Can you name one precedent of so raw a youth promoted to so great a place ? " This objection came with a singularly bad grace from a man who, though younger than Bacon, was in daily expectation of being made Secretary of State. The bfot was too obvious to be missed by Essex, who seldom forbore to speak his mind. " I have made no search," said he, " for precedents of young men who have filled the office of Attorney-General. But I could name to you. Sir Robert, a man younger than Francis, less learned and equally inexperienced, who is suing and striving with all his might for an office of far greater weight." vSir Robert had nothing to say but that he thought his own abilities equal to the place which he hoped to obtain, and that his father's long services deserved such a mark of gratitude from the Queen — as if his abilities were comparable to his cousin's, or as if Sir Nicholas Bacon had done no service to the State. Cecil then hinted that, if Bacon would be satisfied with the Solicitorship, that might be of easier digestion to the Queen. " Digest me no digestions," said the generous and ardent Earl. "The Attorneyship for Francis is that I must have ; and in that I will spend all my power, might, authority and amity ; and with tooth and nail procure the same for him against whomsoever ; and whosoever getteth this office out of my hands for any other, before he have it, it shall cost him the coming by. And this be you assured of, Sir Robert, for now I fully declare myself; and for my own part. Sir Robert, I think strange both of my Lord Treasurer and you, that can have the mind to seek the preference of a stranger before so near a kinsman ; for if you v^reigh in a balance the parts everj^ way of his competitor and him, only excepting five poor years of admitting to a house of court before Francis, you shall find in all other respects whatsoever no comparison between them." When the office of Attorney-General was filled up, the Earl pressed the Queen to make Bacon Solicitor-General, and, on this occasion, the old Lord Treasurer professed himself not unfavourable to his nephew's pretensions. But after a contest which lasted more than a year and a half, and in which Essex, to use his own words, "spent all his power, might, authority and amity," the place was given to another. Essex felt this disappointment keenly, but found consolation in the most munificent and delicate liberality. He presented Bacon with an estate worth near two thousand pounds, situated at Twickenham ; and this, as Bacon owned many years after, " with so kind and noble circumstances as the manner was worth more than the matter." It was soon after these events that Bacon first appeared before the public as a writer. Early in 1597 he published a small volume of " Essays," which was afterwards enlarged by successive additions to many times its original bulk. This little work was, as it well deserved to be, exceedingly popular. It was reprinted in a few months ; it was translated into Latin, French and Italian ; and it seems to have at once established the literary reputation of its author. But though Bacon's reputation rose, his fortunes were still depressed. He was in great pecuniary difficulties; and, on one occasion, was arrested in the street 382 LORD BACON. at ihc suit of a goldsmith for a debt of ;£^300, and was carried to a sponging* house in Coleman Street. The kindness of Essex was in the meantime indefatigable. In 1 596 he sailed on his memorable expedition to the coast of Spain. At the very moment of his embarlvation, he wrote to several of his friends, commending to ihcm, during his own absence, the interests of Bacon. He returned, after perform- ing the most brilliant military exploit that was achieved on the Continent by English arms during the long interval which elapsed between the battle of Agincourt and that of Blenheim. His valour, his talents, his humane and' genennis disposition had made him the idol of his countr^'men, and had extorted praise fr(jm the enemies whom he had conquered." lie had always been proud and headstrong ; and his splendid success seems to have rendered his faults more offensive than ever. But to his friend Francis he was still the same. Bacon had some thoughts of making his fortune by marriage, and had begun to pay court to a widow of the name of Hatton. The eccentric manners and violent temper of this woman made her a disgrace and a torment to her connections. But Bacon was not aware of her faults, or was disposed to over- look them for the sake of her ample fortune. Essex pleaded his friend's cause with his usual ardour. The letters which the Earl addressed to Lady Hatton and to her mother are still extant, and are highly honourable to him. "If," he wrote, " she were my sister or my daughter, I protest I would as confi- dently resolve to further it as I now persuade you : " and again, " If my faith be anything, I protest, if I had one as near me as she is to you, I had rather match her with him than with men of far greater titles." The suit, happily for Bacon, was unsuccessful. The lady indeed was kind to him in more ways than one. She rejected him ; and she accepted his enemy. She married that narrow-minded, bad-hearted pedant. Sir Edward Coke, and did her best to make him as miserable as he deserved to be. The fortunes of Essex had now reached their height, and began to decline. He possessed indeed all the qualities which raise men to greatness rapidly. But he had neither the virtues nor the vices which enable men to retain great- ness long. His frankness, his keen sensibility to insult and injustice, were Ijy no means agreeable to a sovereign naturally impatient of opposition, and accustomed, during forty years, to the most extravagant flattery and the most abject submission. The daring and contemptuous manner in which he bade defiance to his enemies excited their deadly hatred. His administration in Ireland was unfortunate, and in many respects highly blamable. Though his brilliant courage and his impetuous activity fitted him admirably for such enterprises as that of Cadiz, he did not possess the caution, patience and reso- Itttion necessary for the conduct of a protracted war in which difficulties were to be gradually surmounted, in which much discomfort was to be endured, and in which few splendid exploits could be achieved. For the civil duties of his high place he was still less qualified. Though eloquent and accomplished, he was in no sense a statesman. The multitude indeed still continued to regard even his faults with fondness. But the Court had ceased to give him credit, even for the merit which he really possessed. The person on whom, during the decline of his influence, he chiefly depended — to whom he confided his per- plexities, whose advice he solicited, whose intercession he employed — was his friend Bacon. The lamentable truth must be told. This friend, so loved, so trusted, bore a principal part in ruining the Earl's fortunes, in shedding his blood, and in blackening his memorj'. But let us be just to Bacon. We believe that, to the last, he had no wish * See Cei v:;n'es's Novela de la Espanola Inglesa. LORD BACON. 383 to injure Essex. Nay, we believe that he sincerely exerted himself to serve Essex, as long as he thought that he could serve Essex without injuring him- self. The advice which he gave to his noble benefactor was generally most judicious. He did all in his power to dissuade the Earl from accepting the Government of Ireland. " For," says he, " I did as plainly see his overthrow chained as it were by destiny to that journey, as it is possible for a man to ground a judgment upon future contingents. "' The prediction was accomplished. Essex returned in disgrace. Bacon attempted to mediate between his friend and the Queen ; and, we believe, honestly employed all his address for that purpose. But the task which he had undertaken was too difficult, delicate and perilous even for so wary and dexterous an agent. He had to manage two spirits equally proud, resentful and ungovernable. At Essex House, he had to calm the rage of a young hero incensed by multiplied wrongs and humiliations, and then to pass to WTiitehall for the purpose of soothing the peevishness of a sovereign, whose temper, never very gentle, had been rendered morbidly irritable by age, by declining health, and by the long habit of listening to flattery and exacting implicit obedience. It is hard to serve two masters. Situated as Bacon was, it was scarcely possible for him to shape his course so as not to give one or both of his employers reason to complain. For a time he acted as fairly as, in circumstances so embarrassing, could reasonably be expected. At length he found that, while he was trj-ing to prop the fortunes of another, he was in danger of shaking his own. He had disobliged both the parties whom he wished to reconcile. Essex thought him wanting in zeal as a friend — Elizabeth thought him wanting in duty as a subject. The Earl looked on him as a spy of the Queen — the Queen as a creature of the Earl. The reconciliation which he had laboured to effect appeared utterly hopeless. A thousand signs, legible to eyes far less keen than his, announced that the fall of his patron was at hand. He shaped his course accordingly. \\Tien Essex was brought before te contented with It had power to reconcile him to those whom he had most offended and provoked, and continued to his age with that rare felicity, that his company was acceptable where his spirit was odious, and he was at least pitied where he was most detested. " Much of this, with some softening, might, we fear, be applied to Bacon. The influence of Waller's talents, manners and accomplishments died with him ; and the world has pronounced an unbiassed .sentence on his character. A few flowing lines are not bribe sufficient to pervert the judgment of posterity. But the influence of Bacon is felt, and will long be felt, over the whole civilised world. Leniently as he was treated by his contemporaries, posterity has treated him more leni- ently still. Turn where we rnay, the trophies of that mighty intellect are full in view. We are judging Manlius in sight of the Capitol. Under the reign of James, Bacon grew rapidly in fortune and favour. In 1604 he was appointed King's Counsel with a fee of forty pounds a year, and a pension of sixty pounds a year was settletl upon him. In 1607 he became Solicitor-General, m 1612 Attorney-General. He continued to distinguish himself in Parliament, particularly by his exertions in favour of one excellent measure on which the King's heart was set, the union of England and Scut- land. It was not difiicult f(jr such an intellect to discover rfiany irresistible arguments in favour of such a scheme. He conducted the great case of the Post Natl in the Exchec|uer Chamber ; and the decision of the judges — a deci- sion the legality of which may be ((uestioncd, but the beneficial effect of which LORD BACON. ^ 391 must be acknowledged — was in a great measure attributed to his dexterous management. While actively engaged in the House of Commons and in the courts of law, he still found leisure for letters and philosophy. The noble treatise on the "Advancement of Learning," which at a later period was ex- panded into the " De Augmentis," appeared in 1605. The " Wisdom of the Ancients," a work which, if it had proceeded from any other writer would have been considered as a masterpiece of wit and learning, but which adds little to the fame of Bacon, was printed in 1609. In the meantime the " Novum Organum " was slowly proceeding. Several distinguished men of learning had been permitted to see sketches or detached portions of that extraordinar)' book; and, though they were not generally disposed to admit the soundness of the author's views, they spoke with the greatest admiration of his genius. Sir Thomas Bodley, the founder of one of the most magnificent of Pmglish libra- ries, was among those stubborn Conservatives who considered the hopes with which Bacon looked forward to the future destinies of the human race as utterly chimerical, and who regarded with distrust and aversion the innovating spirit of the new schismatics in philosophy. Yet even Bodley, after perusing the " Cogitata et Visa," one of the most precious of those scattered leaves out of which the great oracular volume was afterwards made up, acknowledged that in ' ' those very points, and in all proposals and plots in that book, Bacon showed himself a master-workman ;" and that "it could not be gainsaid but all the treatise over did abound with choice conceits of the present state of learning, and with worthy contemplations of the means to procure it." In 1612 a new edition of the " Essays" appeared, with additions surpassing the original col- lection both in bulk and quality. Nor did these pursuits distract Bacon's attention from a work, the most arduous, the most glorious and the most useful that even his mighty powers could have achieved, "the reducing and recom- piling," to use his own phrase, "of the laws of England." Unhappily he was at that very time employed in perverting those laws to the vilest purposes of tyranny. When Oliver .St. John was brought before the Star Chamljer for maintaining that the King had no right to levy benevolences, and was for his manly and constitutional conduct sentenced to imprisonment during the royal pleasure and to a fine of five thousand pounds. Bacon appeared as counsel for the prosecution. About the same time he was deeply engaged in a still more disgraceful transaction. An aged clergyman, of the name of Peacham, was accused of treason on account of some passages of a sermon which was found in his study. The sermon, whether written by him or not, had never been preached. It did not appear that he had any intention of preaching it. The most servile lawyers of those servile times were forced to admit that there were great difficulties both as to the facts and as to the law. Bacon was employed to remove those difficulties. He was employed to settle the question of law by tampering with the Judges and the question of fact by torturing the prisoner. Three judges of the Court of King's Bench were tract- able. But Coke was made of different stuff. Pedant, bigot and l^rute as he' was, he had qualities which bore a strong, though a very disagreeable, resem- blance to some of the highest virtues which a public man can possess. He was an exception to a maxim which we believe to be generally true — that those who trample on the helpless are disposed to cringe to the powerful. He behaved with gross rudeness to his juniors at the bar, and with execrable cruelty to prisoners on trial for their lives. But he stood up manfully against the King and the King's favourites. No man of that age appeared to so little advantage when he was opposed to an inferior and was in the wrong. But, on the other hand, it is but fair to admit that no man of that age made so creditalile a figiue when he was opposed to a superior and happened to be in 39'^ LORD BACON. the right. On such occasions, his half-suppressed insolence and his impractic- able obstinacy had a respectable and interesting appearance, when compared with the abject servility of the bar and of the bench. On the present occasion he was stul^born and surly. He declared that it was anew and highly improper practice in the Judges to confer with a law-officer of the Crown about capital cases which they were afterwards to try, and for some time he resolutely kept aloof. But Bacon was equally artful and persevering. " I am not wholly out of hope," said he in a letter to the King, " that my Lord Coke himself, when I have in some dark manner put him in doubt that he shall be left alone, will not be singular." After some time Bacon's dexterity was successful, and Coke, sullenly and reluctantly, followed the example of his brethren. But in order to convict Peacham it was necessary to find facts as well as law. Accordingly, this wretched old man was put to the rack, and, while undergoing the horrible infliction, was examined by Bacon, but in vain. No confession could be wrung out of him, and Bacon wrote to the King, complaining that Peacham had a dumb devil. At length the trial came on. A conviction was obtained ; but the charges were so obviously futile that the government could not, for very shame, carry the sentence into execution, and Peacham was suffered to languish away the short remainder of his life in a prison. All this frightful story Mr. Montagu relates fairly. He neither conceals nor distorts any material fact. But he can see nothing deserving of condemnation in Bacon's conduct. He tells us most truly that we ought not to try the men of one age by the standard of another ; that Sir Matthew Hale is not to be pronounced a bad man because he left a woman to be executed for witchcraft ; that posterity will not be justified in censuring judges of our time for selling offices in their courts, according to the established practice, bad as that prac- tice was — and that Bacon is entitled to similar indulgence. " To persecute the lover of truth," says Mr. Montagu, " for opposing established customs, and to censure him in after ages for not having been more strenuous in opposition, are errors which will never cease until the pleasure of self-elevation from the depression of superiority is no more." We have no dispute with Mr. Montagu about the general proposition. We assent to every word of it. But does it apply to the present case ? Is it true that in the time of James I. it was the established practice for the law-officers of the Crown to hold private consultations with the judges touching capital cases which those judges were afterwards to try ? Certainly not. In the very page in which Mr. Montagu asserts that " the influencing a judge out of court seems at that period scarcely to have been considered as improper," he gives the very words of Sir Edward Coke on the subject. " I will not thus declare what may be my judgment by these auricular confessions of nnv and pernicious tendency, and not according to the customs of the realm." Is it possible to imagine that Coke — who had himself been Attorney-General during thirteen years, who had conducted a far greater number of important state-prosecutions than any other lawyer named in English history, and who had passed with scarcely any interval from the Attorney-Generalship to the first seat m the first criminal court in the realm — could have been startled at an invitation to confer with the crown-lawyers, and could have pronounced the practice new, if it had really been an established usage ? We well know that, where property only was at stake, it was then a common, though a most culpable, practice in the judges to listen to private solicitation. But the practice of tampering with judges in order to procure capital convictions we believe to have been new, first, because Coke, who understood those matters better than any man of his time, asserted it to be new ; and secondly, because neither Bacon nor Mr, Montagu has shown a single precedent. LORD BACON. 393 How then stands the case ? Even thus : Bacon was not conforming to an usage then generally admitted to be proper. He was not even the last linger- ing adherent of an old abuse. It would have been sufficiently disgraceful to such a man to be in this last situation. Yet this last situation would have been honourable compared with that in which he stood. He was guilty of attempt- ing to introduce into the courts of law an odious abuse for which no precedent could be found. Intellectually, he was better fitted than any man that England has ever produced for the work of improving her institutions. But, unhappily, we see that he did not scruple to exert his great powers for the purpose of introducing into those institutions new corruptions of the foulest kind. The same, or nearly the same, may be said of the torturing of Peacham. If it be true that in the time of James I. the propriety of torturing prisoners was generally allowed, we shc|uld admit this as an excuse, though we should admit it less readily in the case of such a man as Bacon than in the case of an ordinary lawyer or politician. But the fact is that the practice of torturing prisoners was then generally acknowledged by lawyers to be illegal and was execrated by the public as barbarous. More than thirty years before Peacham's trial that practice was so loudly condemned by the voice of the nation that Lord Burleigh found it necessary to publish an apology for having occasionally resorted toit. * But, though the dangers which then threatened the govern- ment were of a very different kind from those which were to be apprehended from anything that Peacham could write — though the life of the Queen and the dearest interests of the state were in jeopardy — though the circumstances were such that all ordinar}' laws might seem to be superseded by that highest law, the public safety — the apology did not satisfy the country : and the queen found it expedient to issue an order positively forbidding the torturing of state- prisoners on any pretence whatever. From that time, the practice of torturing, which had always been unpopular, which had always been illegal, had also been unusual. It is well known that in 1628, only fourteen years after the time when Bacon went to the Tower to hsten to the yells of Peacham, the judges decided that Felton, a criminal who neither deserved nor was likely to obtain any extraordinarj' indulgence, could not lawfully be put to the question. We, therefore, say that Bacon stands in a verj' different situation from that in which Mr. Montagu tries to place him. Bacon was here distinctly behind his age. He was one of the last of the tools of power who peisisted in a practice the most barbarous and the most absurd that has ever disgraced jurisprudence— in a practice of which, in the preceding generation, Elizabeth and her ministers had been ashamed — in a practice which, a few years later, no sycophant in all the Inns of Court had the heart or the forehead to defend. Bacon far behind his age ! Bacon far behind Sir Edward Coke ! Bacon clinging to exploded abuses ! Bacon withstanding the progress of improve- ment I Bacon struggling to push back the human mind ! The words seem strange. They sound like a contradiction in terms. Yet the fact is even so : and the explanation may be readily found by any person who is not blinded by pi>ejudice. Mr. Montagu cannot believe that so extraordinary a man as Bacon could be guilty of a bad action ; as if history were not made up of the bad actions of extraordinary men — as if all the most noted destroyers and de- ceivers of our species, all the founders of arbitrar>' governments and false religions had not been extraordinary men — as if nine-tenths of the calamities which have befallen the human race had any other origin than the union of high intelligence with low desires. Bacon knev; this well. He has told us that there are persons " scientia This paper is contained in the Harleian Miscellany. It is dated 1583. 394 LORD BACON. tanquani niigeli alati, cupiditalibus vero tanquam serpentes qui humi replant " ;* and il did not require his admiral )le sagacity and his extensive converse with mankind to make the discovery. Indeed, he had only to look within. The difference between the soaring angel and the creeping snake was but a type of the difference between Bacon the philosopher and Bacon the Attorney-General — Bacon seeking for truth and Bacon seeking for the Seals. Those who survey only one-half of his character may speak of him with unmixed admira- tion or with unmixed contempt. But those only judge of him correctly who take in at one view Bacon in speculation and Bacon in action. They will have no difficulty in comprehending how one and the same man should have been far before his age and far behind it — in one line the boldest and most useful of innovators — in another one the most obstinate champion of the foulest abuses. In his library, all his rare powers were under the guidance of an honest ambition — of an enlarged philanthrophy — of a sincere love of truth. There, no temptation drew him away from the right course. Thomas Aquinas could pay no fees — Duns Scotus could confer no peerages. The Master of the Sentences had no rich reversions in his gift. Far different was the situation of the great philosopher when he came forth from his study and his laboratory to mingle with the crowd which filled the galleries of ^^^litehall. In all that crowd there was no man equally qualified to render great and lasting services to mankind. But in all that crowd there was not a heart more set on things which no man ought to suffer to be necessary to his happiness — on things which can often be obtained only by the sacrifice of integrity and honour. To be the leader of the human race in the career of improvement — to found on the ruins of ancient intellectual dynasties a more prosperous and a more enduring empire — to be revered by the latest generations as the most illustrious among the benefactors of mankind — all this w'as within his reach. But all this availed him nothing while some quibbling special pleader was promoted before him to the bench — while some heavy country gentleman took precedence of him by virtue of a purchased coronet — while some pandef , happy in a fair wife, could obtain a more cordial salute from Buckingham — while some buffoon, versed in all the latest scandal of the court, could draw a louder laugh from James. During a long course of years, Bacon's unworthy ambition was crowned with success. His sagacity early enabled him to perceive who was likely to become the most powerful man in the kingdom. He probably knew^ the King's mind before it was known to the King himself, and attached himself to Villiers while the less discerning crowd of courtiers still continued to fawn on Somerset. The influence of the younger favourite became greater daily. The contest between the rivals might, however, have lasted long, but for that frightful crime which, in spite of all that could be effected by the research and ingenuity of historians, is still covered with so mysterious an obscurity. The descent of Somerset had been a gradual and almost imperceptible lapse. It now became a headlong fall ; and Villiers, left without a competitor, rapidly rose to a height of power such as no subject since Wolsey had attained. There were many points of resemblance between the two celebrated courtiers who, at different times, extended their patronage to Bacon. It is difficult to say whether Essex or Villiers was more eminently distinguished by those graces of person and manner which have always been rated in courts at nuich more than their real value. Both were constitutionally brave ; and both, like most men who are constitutionally brave, were open and unreserved. Both were rash and headstrong. Both were destitute of the abilities and ot * De Augmentis, Lib. v. Cap. i. LORD BACON. 395 the information which are necessary to statesmen. Yet both, trusting to the accomplishments which had made them conspicuous in tilt-yards and ball- rooms, aspired to rule the state. Both owed their elevation to the personal attachment of the sovereign ; and in both cases this attachment was of so eccentric a kind that it perplexed observers — that it still continues to perplex historians — and that it gave rise to much scandal which we are inclined to think unfounded. Each of them treated the sovereign whose favour he enjoyed with a rudeness which approached to insolence. This petulance ruined Essex, who had to deal with a spirit naturally as proud as his own and accustomed, during nearly half a century, to the most respectful observance. But there was a wide difference between the haughty daughter of Henry and her successor. James was timid from the cradle. Plis nerves, naturally weak, had not been fortified by reflection or by habit. His life, till he came to England, had been a series of mortifications and humiliations. With all his high notions of the origin and extent of his prerogatives, he was never his own master for a day. In spite of his kingly title, in spite of his despotic theories, he was to the last a slave at heart. Villiers treated him like one ; and this course, though adopted, we believe, merely from temper, succeeded as well as if it had been a system of policy formed after mature delibera- tion. In generosity, in sensibility, in capacity for friendship, Essex far surpassed Buckingham. Indeed, Buckingham can scarcely be said to have had any friend with the exception of the two princes over whom successively he exercised so wonderful an influence. Essex was to the last adored by the people. Buckingham was always a most unpopular man, except perhaps for a very short time after his return from the childish visit to Spain. Essex fell a victim to the rigour of the government amidst the lamentations of the people. Buckingham, execrated by the people, and solemnly declared a public enemy by the representatives of the people, fell by the hand of one of the people, and was lamented by none but his master. The way in which the two favourites acted towards Bacon was highly characteristic, and may serve to illustrate the old and true saying — that a man is generally more inclined to feel kindly towards one on whom he has con- ferred favours than towards one from whom he has received them. Essex loaded Bacon with benefits, and never thought that he had done enough. It seems never to have crossed the mind of the powerful and wealthy noble that the poor barrister whom he treated with such munificent kindness was not his equal. It was, we have no doubt, with perfect sincerity that he declared that he would willingly give his sister or daughter in marriage to his friend. He was in general more than sufficiently sensible of his own merits ; but he did not seem to know that he had ever deserved well of Bacon. On that cruel day when they saw each other for the last time at the bar of the Lords, Essex taxed his perfidious friend with unkindness and insincerity, but never with ingratitude. Even in such a moment, more bitter than the bitterness of death, that noble heart was too great to vent itself in such a reproach. Villiers, on the other hand, owed much to Bacon. WTien their acquaintance began. Sir Francis was a man of mature age, of high station and of established fame as a politician, an advocate and a writer. Villiers was little more than a boy, a jxjunger son of a house then of no great note. He was but just entering on the career of court favour ; and none but the most discerning observers could as yet perceive that he was likely to distance all his competi- tors. The countenance and advice of a man so highly distinguished as the Attorney-General must have been an object of the highest importance to the young adventurer. But though Villiers was the obliged party, he was l«ss 3q6 lord bacon. warmly attached to Bacon, and far less delicate in his conduct towards Bacon, than Essex had been. To do the new favourite justice, he early exerted his influence in behalf ol his illustrious friend. In 1616 Sir Francis was sworn of the Privy Council, and in March, 1617, on the retirement of Lord Brackley, was appointed keeper of the Great Seal. On the 7th of May, the first day of term, he rode in state to Westminster Hall, with the Lord Treasurer on his right hand, the Lord Privy Seal on his left, a long procession of students and ushers before him, and a crowd of peers, privy-councillors and judges following in his train. Having entered his court, he addressed the splendid auditory in a grave and dignified speech, which proves how well he understood those judicial duties which he after- wards performed so ill. Even at that moment — the proudest moment of his life in the estimation of the vulgar, and, it may be, even in his own — he cast back a look of lingering affection towards those noble pursuits from which, as it seemed, he was about to be estranged. " The depth of the three long vacations," said he, "I would reserve in some measure free from business of estate, and for studies, arts and sciences, to which of my own nature I am most inclined." The years during which Bacon held the Great Seal were among the darkest and most shameful in English history. Everything at home and abroad was mismanaged. First came the execution of Raleigh ; an act which, if done in a proper manner, might have been defensible, but which, under all the circum- stances, must be considered as a dastardly murder. Worse was behind — the war of Bohemia — the successes of Tilly and Spinola — the Palatinate conquered • — the King's son-in-law an exile —the house of Austria dominant on the Continent — the Protestant religion and the liberties of the Germanic body trodden under foot. In the meantime the wavering and cowardly policy of England furnished matter of ridicule to all the nations of Europe. The lore of peace which James professed would, even when indulged to an impolitic excess, have been respectable if it had proceeded from tenderness for his people. But the truth is that, while he had nothing to spare for the defence of the natural allies of England, he resorted without scruple to the most illegal and oppressive devices for the purpose of enaljling Buckingham and Bucking- ham's relations to outshine the ancient aristocracy of the realm. Benevolences were exacted. Patents of monopoly were multiplied. All the resources which could have been employed to replenish a beggared exchequer at the close of a ruinous war were put in motion during this season of ignominious peace. The vices of the administration must be chiefly ascribed to the weakness of the King and to the levity and violence of the favourite. But it is impossible to acquit the Lord Keeper. For those odious patents, in particular, which passed the Great Seal while it was in his charge, he must be held answerable. In the speech which he made on first taking his seat in his court, he hnd pledged himself to discharge this important part of his functions with the greatest caution and impartiality. He had declared that he " would walk in the light," " that men should see that no particular turn or end led him, but a general nile." Mr. Montagu would have us believe that Bacon acted up to these professions. He says that " the power of the favourite did not deter the Lord Keeper from staying grants and patents when his public duty de- manded this interposition." Does Mr. Montagu consider patents of monopoly as good things ? or does he mean to say that Bacon stayed every patent of monopoly that came before him ? Of all patents in our histor}', the most disgraceful was that which was granted to Sir Giles Mompesson — supposed LORD BACON. 397 to be the original of Massinger's Overreach — and to Sir Francis Michell — from whom Justice Greedy is supposed to have been drawn — for the exclusive manufacturing of gold and silver lace. The effect of this monopoly was of course that the metal employed in the manufacture was adulterated, to the great loss of the public. But this was a trifle. The patentees were armed with powers as great as have ever been given to farmers of the revenue in the worst governed countries. They were authorised to search houses and to arrest interlopers ; and these formidable powers were used for purposes vile r than even those for which they were given — for the wreaking of old grudges, and for the corrupting of female chastity. Was not this a case in which public duty demanded the interposition of the Lord Keeper ? And did the Lord Keeper interpose? He did. Rewrote to inform the King that he "had considered of the fitness and conveniency of the gold and silver thread business " — " that it was convenient that it should be settled " — that he " did conceive apparent likelihood that it would redound much to his Majesty's profit " — that, therefore, " it were good it were settled with all convenient speed." The meaning of all this was, that certain of the house of Villiers were to go shares with Overreach and Greedy in the plunder of the public. This was the way in which, when the favourite pressed for patents — lucrative to his relations and to his creatures, ruinous and vexatious to the body of the people — the chief guardian of the laws interposed. Having assisted the patentees to obtain this monopoly, Bacon assisted them also in the steps which they took for the purpose of guarding it. He committed several people to close con- finement for disobeying his tyrannical edict. It is needless to say more. Our readers are now able to judge whether, in the matter of patents. Bacon acted conformably to his professions, or deserved the praise which his biographer has bestowed on him. In his judicial capacity his conduct was not less reprehensible. He suffered Buckingham to dictate many of his decisions. Bacon knew as well as any man that a judge who listens to private solicitations is a disgrace to his post. He had himself, before he was raised to the woolsack, represented this strongly to Villiers, then just entering on his career. " By no means," said Sir Francis, in a letter of advice addressed to the young courtier — " by no means be you persuaded to interpose yourself, either by word or letter, in any cause depending in any court of justice, nor suffer any great man to do it where you can hinder it. If it should prevail, it perverts justice ; but if the judge be so just, and of such courage as he ought to be, as not to be inclined thereby, yet it always leaves a taint of suspicion behind it." Yet he had not been Lord Keeper a month when Buckingham began to interfere in chancery suits, and his interference was, as might have been expected, suc- cessful. Mr. Montagu's reflections on the excellent passage which we have quoted above are exceedingly amusing. " No man," says he, " more deeply felt the evils which then existed of the interference of the Crown and of statesmen tft influence judges. How beautifully did he admonish Buckingham, regardless as he proved of all admonition ! " We should be glad to know how it can be expected that admonition will be regarded by him who receives it when it is altogether neglected by him who gives it. We do not defend Buckingham ; but what was his guilt to Bacon's ? Buckingham was young, ignorant, thoughtless — dizzy with the rapidity of his ascent and the height of his position. That he should be eager to serve his relations, his flatterers, his mistresses — that he should not fully apprehend the immense importance of a pure admini»tration of justice — that he should think more about those who were bound to him by private ties than about the public interest —all this was 398 LORD BACO!\t. perfectly natural and not altogether unpardonable. Those who intrust a petulant, hot-blooded, ill-informed lad with power, are more to blame than he for the mischief which he may do with it. How could it be expected of a lively page, raised by a wild freak of fortune to the first influence in the empire, that he should have bestowed any serious thought on the principles which ought to guide judicial decisions ? Bacon was the ablest public man thendiving in Europe. He was nearly sixty years old. He had though much, and to good purpose, on the general principles of law. He had for many years borne a part daily in the administration of justice. It was impossible that a man with a tithe of his sagacity and experience should not have known that a judge who suffers friends or patrons to dictate his decrees violates the plainest rules of duty. In fact, as we have seen, he knew this well : he expressed it admirably. Neither on this occasion, nor on any other, could his bad actions be attributed to any defect of the head. They sprang from quite a different cause. A man who stooped to render such services to others was not likely to be scruixilous as to the means by which he enriched himself He and his dependents accepted large presents from persons who were engaged in Chancery suits. The amount of the plunder which he collected in this way it is impossible to estimate. There can be no doubt that he received very much more than was proved on his trial, though, it may be, less than was suspected by the public. His enemies stated his illicit gains at a hundred thousand pounds. But this was probably an exaggeration. It was long before the day of reckoning arrived. During the interval between the second and third Parliaments of James, the nation was absolutely governed by the Crown. The prospects of the Lord Keeper were bright and serene. His great place rendered the splendour of his talents even more conspicuous, and gave an additional charm to the serenity of his temper, the courtesy of his manners and the eloquence of his conversation. The pillaged suitor might mutter. The austere Puritan patriot might, in his retreat, grieve that one on whom God had bestowed without measure all the abilities which qualify men to take the lead in great reforms should be found among the adherents of the worst abuses. But the murmurs of the suitor and the lamentations of the patriot had scarcely any avenue to the ears of the powerful. The king, and the minister who was the King's master, smiled on their illustrious flatterer. The whole crowd of courtiers and nobles sought his favour with emulous eagerness. Men of wit and learning hailed with delight the elevation of one who had so signally shown that a man of profound learning and of brilliant wit might understand, far better than any plodding dunce, the art of thriving in the world. Once, and but once, this course of prosperity was for a moment interrupted. It would seem that even Bacon's brain was not strong enough to bear without some discomposure the inebriating eftect of so much good fortune. For some time after his elevation, he showed himself a little wanting in that wariness and self-command to which, more than even to his transcendent talents, his elevation was to be ascribed. He was by no means a good hater. The temperature of his revenge, like that of his gratitude, was scarcely ever more than lukewarm. But there was one person whom he had long regarded with an animosity which, though studiously suppressed, was perhaps the stronger for the suppression. The insults and injuries which, when a young man struggling into note and professional practice, he had received from Sir Edward Coke, were such as might move the most placable nature to resentment. About the time at which Bacon received the Seals, Coke had, on account of his contumacious resistance to the royal pleasure, been deprived of his seat in LORD BACON. 399 the Court of King's Bench, and had ever since languished in retirement. But Coke's opposition to the Court, we fear, was the effect not of good principles, but of a bad temper. Perverse and testy as he was, he wanted true fortitude and dignity of character. His obstinacy, unsupported by virtuous motives, vas not proof against disgrace. He solicited a reconciliation with the favourite, and his sohcitations were successful. Sir John Yilliers, the brother of Buck- ingham, was looking out for a rich wife. Coke had a large fortune and an unmarried daughter. A bargain was struck. But Lady Coke — the lady whom twenty years before Essex had wooed on behalf of Bacon — would not hear of the match. A violent and scandalous family quarrel followed. The mother carried the girl away by stealth. The father pursued them, and regained possession of his daughter by force. The King was then in Scotland, and Buckingham had attended him thither. Bacon was, during their absence, at the head of affairs in England. He felt towards Coke as much malevolence as it was in his nature to feel towards anybody. His wisdom had been laid to .sleep by prosperity. In an evil hour he determined to interfere in the disputes which agitated his enemy's household. He declared for the wife, counten- anced the Attorney-General in filing an information in the Star Cha'mber against the husband, and wrote strongly to the King and the favourite against the proposed marriage. The language which he used in those letters shows that, sagacious as he was, he did not quite know his place, that he was not fully acquainted with the extent either of Buckingham's power, or of the change which the possession of that power had produced in Buckingham's character. He soon had a lesson which he never forgot. The favourite received the news of the Lord Keeper's interference with feelings of the most violent resentment, and made the King even more angry than himself. Bacon's eyes were at once opened to his error, and to all its possible consequences. He had been elated, if not intoxicated, by greatness. The shock sobered him in an instant. He was all himself again. He apologised submissively for his interference. He directed the Attorney-General to stop the proceedings against Coke. He sent to tell Lady Coke that he could do nothing for her. He announced to both the families that he was desirous to promote the connection. Having given these proofs of.contrition, he ventured to present himself before Buckingham. But the young upstart did not think that he had yet sufficiently humVjled an old man who had been his friend and his benefactor, who was the highest civil functionary in the realm, and the most eminent man of letters of the world. It is said that on two successive days Bacon repaired to Buckingham's house — that on two successive days he was suffered to remain in an antechamber among footboys, seated on an old wooden box, with the Great Seal of England at his side ; and that when at length he was admitted, he flung himself on the floor, kissed the favourite's feet, and vowed never to rise till he was forgiven. Sir Anthony Weldon, on whose authority this story rests, is likely enough to have exaggerated the meanness of Bacon and the insolence of Buckingham. But it is difficult to imagine that so circumstantial a narrative, written by a person who avers that he was present on the occasion, can be wholly without foundation ; and, unhappily, there is little in the character either of the favourite or of the Lord Keeper to make the narrative improbable. It is certain that are conciliation took place on terms humiliating to Bacon, who never more ventured to cross any purpose of anybody who bore the name of Yilliers. He put a strong curb on those angry passions which had for the first time in his life mastered his prudence. He went through the forms of a reconciliation with Coke, and did his best, by seeking opportunities of paying little civilities, and by avoiding all that could produce collision, to tame th« untamable ferocity of his old enemy. LORD BACON. In the main, however, his Hfe, while he held the Great Seal, was, in out ward appearance, most enviable. In London he lived with great dignity at York House, the venerable mansion of his father. Here it was that, in January, 1620, he celebrated his entrance into his sixtieth year amidst a splendid circle of friends. He had then exchanged the appellation of Keeper for the higher title of Chancellor. Ben Jonson was one of the party, and wrote on the occasion some of the happiest of his rugged rhymes. "All things," he tells us, " seemed to smile about the whole house, ' the fire, the wine, the men.' " The spectacle of the accomplished host, after a life marked by no great disaster, entered on a green old age, in the enjoyment of riches, power, high honours, undiminished mental activity and vast literary reputation, made a strong impression on the poet, if we may judge from those well-known lines : " England's high Chancellor, the destined heir. In his soft cradle, to his father's chair, Whose even thread the fates spin round and full Out of their choicest and their whitest wool." In the intervals of rest which Bacon's political and judicial functions afforded, he was in the habit of retiring to Gorhambury. At that place, his business was literature and his favourite amusement gardening, which, in one of his most pleasing essays, he calls " the purest of human pleasures." In his magnificent grounds he erected, at a cost of ten thousand pounds, a retreat to which he repaired when he wished to avoid all visitors and to devote himself wholly to study. On such occasions, a few young men of distinguished talents were sometimes the companions of his retirement. And among them his quick eye soon discerned the superior abilities of Thomas Hobbes. It is not probable, however, that he fully appreciated the powers of his disciple, or foresaw the vast influence, both for good and for evil, which that most vigorous and acute of human intellects was destined to exercise on the two succeeding gen- erations. In January, 1621, Bacon had reached the zenith of his fortunes. He had just published the " Novum Organum " ; and that extraordinary book had drawn forth the warmest expressions of admiration from the ablest men in Europe. He had obtained honours of a widely different kind, but perhaps not less valued by him. He had been created Baron Verulam. He had subsequently been raised to the higher dignity of Viscount St. Albans. His patent was drawn in the most flattering terms, and the Prince of Wales signed it as a witness. The ceremony of investiture was performed with great state at Theobalds, and Buckingham condescended to be one of its chief actors. Posterity has felt that the greatest of English philosophers could derive no accession of dignity from any title which James could bestow, and, in defiance of the royal letters l)atent, has obstinately refused to degrade Francis Bacon into Viscount St. Albans. In a few weeks was signally brought to the test the value of those objects for which Bacon had sullied his integrity, had resigned his independence, had violated the most sacred obligations of friendship and gratitude, had flattered the worthless, had persecuted the innocent, had tampered with judges, had tortured jirisoners, had plundered suitors, had wasted on paltry intrigues all the powers of the most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been l)Cstowcd on any of the children of men. A sudden and terrible reverse was at hand. A Parliament had been summoned. After six years of silence, the voice of the nation was again to be heard. Only three days after the pageant which was performed at Theol)alds in honour of Bacon, the Houses met. Want of money had, as usual, induced the King to convoke his Parliament. But it may be doubted whether, if he or his ministers had been at all awar« LORD BACON. 401 of the state of public feeling, they would not have tried any expedient, or borne Vfith any inconvenience, rather than have ventured to face the deputies of a justly exasperated nation. But they did not discern those times. Indeed, almost all the political blunders of James, and of his more unfortunate son, arose from one great error. During the fifty years which preceded the long Parlia- ment, a great and progressive change was taking place in the public mind. iThe nature and extent of this change was not in the least understood by either of the first two Kings of the House of .Stuart, or by any of their advisers. That the nation became more and more discontented every year, that every House of Commons was more unmanageable than that which had preceded it, were facts which it was impossible not to perceive. But the Court could not under- stand why these things were so. The Court could not see that the English people and the English Government, though they might once have been well suited to each other, were suited to each other no longer, that the nation had outgrown its old institutions, was every day more uneasy under them, was pressing against them, and would soon burst through them. The alarming phenomena, the existence to which no sycophant could deny, were ascribed to ever)' cause except the true. " In my first parliament," said James, " I was a novice. In my next, there was a kind of beasts called undertakers," and so forth. In the third Parliament he couid hardly be called a novice, and those beasts, the uruiertakers, did not exist. Yet his third Parliament gave him more trouble than either the first or second. The Parliament had no sooner met than the House of Commons proceeded, in a temperate and respectful, but most determined manner, to discuss the public grievances. Their first attacks were directed against those odious patents, under cover of which Buckingham and his creatures had pillaged and oppressed the nation. The vigour with which these proceedings were conducted spread dismay through the Court. Buckingham thought himself in danger, and, in his alarm, had recourse to an adviser who had lately acquired considerable in- fluence over him, Williams, Dean of Westminster. This person had already been of great use to the favourite in a very delicate matter. Buckingham had set his heart on marrpng Lady Catherine Manners, daughter and heiress of the Earl of Rutland. -But the difficulties were great. The Earl was haughty and impracticable, and the young lady was a Catholic. Williams soothed the pride of the father, and found arguments which, for a time at least, quieted the con- science of the daughter. For these services he had been rewarded with con- siderable preferment in the Church ; and he was now rapidly rising to the same place in the regard of Buckingham which had formerly been occupied by Bacon. Williams was one of those who are wiser for others than for themselves. His own public life was unfortunate, and was made unfortunate by his strange want of judgment and self-command at several important conjunctures. But the counsel which he gave on this occasion showed no want of worldly wisdom. He advised the favourite to abandon all thoughts of defending the monopolies, to find some foreign embassy for his brother. Sir Edward, who was deeply implicated in the villainies of Mompesson, and to leave the other offenders to the justice of Parlia- ment. Buckingham received this advice with the warmest expressions of grati- tude, and declared that a load had been lifted from his heart. He then repaired with Williams to the royal presence. They found the King engaged in earnest consultation with Prince Charles. The plan of operations proposed by the Dean was fully discussed, and approved m all its parts. The first victims whom the Court abandoned to the vengeance of the Commons were Sir Giles IMompesson and .Sir Francis Michell. It was some time before Bacon began to entertain any apprehensions. His talents and his 402 LORD BACON, address gave him great influence in the house, of which he had lately Ijecome \ member, as indeed they must have done in any as5iembly. In the House of Commons he had many personal friends and many warm admirers. But at length, about six weeks after the meeting of Parliament, the storm burst. A committee of the lower House had been appointed to inquire into the s:ate of the Courts of Justice. On the 15th of March the chairman of that commit- tee, Sir Robert Philips, member for Bath, reported that great abuses had been discovered. "The person," said he, "against whom these things are alleged is no less than the Lord Chancellor, a man so endued with all parts, both of nature and art, as that I will say no more of him, being not able to say enough." Sir Robert then jaroceeded to state, in the most temperate manner, the nature of the charges. A person of the name of Aubrey had a case depending in Chancery. He had been almost ruined by law expenses, and his patience had been exhausted by the delays of the court. He received a hint from some of the hangers-on of the Chancellor, that a present of one hundred pounds would expedite matters. The poor man had not the sum required. However, having found out an usurer who accommodated him with it at a high interest, he carried it to York House. The Chancellor took the money, and his dependents assured the suitor that all would go right. Aubrey was, however, disappointed, for, after considerable delay, " a killing decree " was pronounced against him. Another suitor of the name of Egerton complained that he had been induced by two of the Chancellor's jackals to make his Lordship a present of four hundred pounds, and that, nevertheless, he had not been able to obtain a decree in his favour. The evidence to these facts was overwhelming. Bacon's friends could only entreat the House to suspend its judgment, and to send up the case to the Lords, in a form less offensive than an impeachment. On the nineteenth of INLirch, the King sent a message to the Commons, expressing his deep regret that so eminent a person as the Chancellor should be suspected of misconduct. His Majesty declared that he had no wish to screen the guilty from justice, and proposed to appoint a new kind of tribunal, consist- ing of eighteen commissioners, who might be chosen from among the members of the two Houses, to investigate the matter. The Commons were not disposed to depart from their regular course of proceeding. On the same day they held a conference with the Lords, and delivered in the heads of the accusation against the Chancellor. At this conference. Bacon was not jjresent. Overwhelmed with shame and remorse, and abandoned by all those in whom he had weakly put his trust, he shut himself up in his chamber from the eyes of men. The dejection of his mind soon disordered his body. Buckingham, who visited him by the King's order, " found his Lordship very sick and heavy." It appears, from a pathetic letter which the unha]i]-iy man addressed to the Peers on the day of the conference, that he neither expected nor wished to survive his disgrace. During several days he remained in his bed, refusing to see any human being. He passionately told his attendants to leave him — to forget him — never again to name his name, never to remember that there had been such a man in the world. In the meantime, fresh instances of corruption were every day brought to the knowledge of his accusers. The number of charges rapidly increased from two to twenty-three. The Lords entered on the investigation of the case with laudable alacrity. Some witnesses were examined at the bar of the House. A select committee was apjiointed to take the despositions of others ; and the inquiry was rai)idly proceeding, when, on the twenty-sixth of March, the King adjourned the Parliament for three weeks. This measure revived Bacon's hopes. He made the most of his short respite. He attempted to work on the feeble mind of the King. He LORD BACON. 403 appealed to all the strongest feelings of James, to his fears, to his vanity, to his high notions of prerogative. Would the .Solomon of the age commit so gross an error as to encourage the encroaching spirit of Parliamants ? Would God's anointed, accountable to God alone, pay homage to the clamor- ous multitude? " Those," exclaimed he, " who now strike at the Chancellor will soon strike at the Crown. I am the first sacrifice. I wish I may be the last." But all his eloquence and address were employed in vain. Indeetl, whatever Mr. Montagu may say, we are firmly convinced that it was not in the King's power to save Bacon without having recourse to measures which would have convulsed the realm. The Crown had not sufficient influence in Parlia- ment to procure an acquittal in so clear a case of guilt. And to dissolve a Parliament which is universally allowed to have been one of the best Parlia- ments that ever sat, which had acted liberally and respectfully towards the Sovereign, and which enjoyed in the highest degree the favour of the people, only in order to stop a grave, temperate and constitutional inquiry into the personal integrity of the first judge in the kingdom, would have been a measure more scandalous and absurd than any of those which were the ruin of the House of Stuart. Such a measure, while it would have been as fatal to the Chancellor's honour as a conviction, would have endangered the very existence of the monarchy. The King, acting by the advice of Williams, very properly refused to engage in a dangerous struggle with his people for the purpose of saving from legal condemnation a minister whom it was impossible to save from dishonour. He advised Bacon to plead guilty, and promised to do all in his power to mitigate the punishment. Mr. Montagu is exceedingly angry with James on this account. But though we are, in general, very little inclined to admire that Prince's conduct, we really think that his advice was, under all the circumstances, the best advice that could have been given. On the seventeenth of April the Houses reassembled, and the Lords resumed their inquires into the abuses of the Court of Chancery. On the 22nd, Bacon addressed to the Peers a letter, which Prince Charles condescended to deliver. In this artful and pathetic composition, the Chancellor acknowledged his guilt in guarded and general terms, and, while acknowledging, endeavoured to palliate it. This, however, was not thought sufficient by his judges. They required a more particular confession, and sent him a copy of the charges. On the 30th he delivered a paper in which he admitted, with few and unimportant reservations, the truth of the accusations brought against him, and threw himself entirely on the mercy of his peers. " Upon advised consideration of the charges," said he, " descending into my own conscience, and calling my memory to account, so far as I am able, I do plainly and ingenuously confess that I am guilty of cor- ruption, and do renounce all defence." The Lords came to a resolution that the Chancellor's confession appeared to be full and ingenuous, and sent a committee to inquire of him whether it was really subscribed by himself. The deputies, among whom was .Southamp- ton, the common friend, many years before, of Bacon and Essex, performed their duty with great delicacy. Indeed, the agonies of such a mind and the degradation of such a name might well have softened the most obdurate natures. "My Lords," said Bacon, "it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech your Lordships to be merciful to a broken reed." They withdrew; and he again retired to his chamber in the deepest dejection. The next day, the sergeant-at-arms and the usher of the House of Lords came to conduct him to Westminster Hall, where sentence was to be pronounced. But they found him so unwell that he could not leave his bed ; and this excuse for his absence was readily accepted. In no quarter does there appear to have been the smallest desire to add to his humiliation. The sentence was, however, severe 404 LORD BACON. — the more severe, no doubt, because the Lords knew that it would not be executed, and that thoy had an excellent opportunity of exhibiting, at small cost, the inflexibility of their justice, and their abhorrence of corruption. Bacon was condemned to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds and to be imprisoned in the Tower during the King's pleasure. He was declared in- capable of holding any office in the State or of sitting in Parliament, and he was banished for life from the verge of the court. In such misery and shame ended that long career of worldly wisdom and worldly prosperity. Even at this pass Mr. Montagu does not desert his hero. He seems indeed to think that the attachment of an editor ought to be as devoted as that of Mr. Moore's lovers ; and cannot conceive what biography was made for, "if 'tis not the same Through grief and through danger, through sin and through shame." He assures us that Bacon was innocent — that he had the means of making a perfectly satisfactory defence — that when " he plainly and ingenuously confessed that he was guilty of corruption," and when he afterwards solemnly affirmed that his confession was " his act, his hand, his heart," he was telling a great lie, and that he refrained from bringing forward proofs of his innocence, because he durst not disobey the King and the favourite, who, for their own selfish objects, pressed him to plead guilty. Now, in the first place, there is not the smallest reason to believe that, if James and Buckingham thought Bacon had a good defence, they would have prevented him from making it. What conceivable motive had they for doing so? Mr. Montagu perpetually repeats that it was their interest to sacrifice Bacon. But he overlooks an obvious distinction. It was their [interest to sacrifice Bacon on the supposition of his guilt, but not on the supposition of his innocence. James was very properly unwilling to run the risk of protecting his Chancellor against the Parliament. But if the Chancellor had been able, by force of argument, to obtain an acquittal from the Parliament, we have no doubt that both the King and Villiers would have heartily rejoiced. They would have rejoiced, not merely on account of their friendship for Bacon, which seems, however, to have been as sincere as most friendships of that sort, but on selfish grounds. Nothing could have strengthened the government more than such a victor)\ The King and the favourite abandoned the Chan- cellor because they were unable to avert his disgrace and unwilling to share it. Mr. Montagu mistakes effect for cause. He thinks that Bacon did not prove his innocence because he was not supported by the Court. The truth evidently is that the Court did not venture to support Bacon because he could not prove his innocence. Again, it seems strange that Mr. ISIontagu should not perceive that, while attempting to vindicate Bacon's reputation, he is really casting on it the foulest of all aspersions. He imputes to his idol a degree of meanness and depravity more loathsome than judical corruption itself A corrupt judge may have many good qualities. But a man who, to please a powerful patron, solemnly declares himself gviilty of corruption, when he knows himself to be inno- cent, must be a monster of servility and impudence. Bacon was — to say nothing of his highest claims to respect— a gentleman, a nobleman, a scholar, a statesman, a man of the first consideration in society, a man far advanced in years. Is it possible to believe that such a man would, to gratify any human being, irreparably ruin his own character by his own act ? Imagine a grey-headed judge, full of years and honours, owning with tears, with pathetic assurances of his penitence and of his sincerity, that he has been guilty of shameful malpractices, repeatedly asseverating the truth of his confession, sub- LORD BACON. 405 scribing it with his own hand, submitting to conviction, receiving a humilating sentence and acknowledging its justice, and all this when he has it in his power to show that his conduct has been irreproachable ! The thing is incred- ible. But if we admit it to be true, what must we think of such a man, if, indeed, he deserves the name of man, who thinks anything that kings and minions can bestow more precious than honour, or anything that they can inflict more terrible than infamy ? Of this most disgraceful imputation we fully acquit Bacon. He had no defence ; and Mr. Montagu's affectionate attempt to make a defence for him has altogether failed. The grounds on which Mr. Montagu rests the case are two ; the first, that the taking of presents was usual and — what he seems to consider as the same thing — not discreditable ; the second, that these presents were not taken as bribes. Mr. Montagu brings forward many facts in support of his first proposition. He is not content with showing that many English judges formerly received gifts from suitors, but collects similar instances from foreign nations and ancient times. He goes back to the commonwealths of Greece, and attempts to press into his service a line of Homer and a sentence of Plutarch, which, we fear, will hardly serve his turn. The gold of which Homer speaks was not intended to fee the judges, but was paid into court for the benefit of the successful litigant ; and the gratuities which Pericles, as Plutarch states, distributed among the members of the Athenian trilxinals, were legal wages paid out of the public revenue. We can supply Mr. Montagu with passages much more in point. Hesiod, who, like poor Aubrey, had " a killing decree " made against him in the Chancery of Ascra, was so uncivil as to designate the learned persons who presided in that court as ^affiXijas 8(i)podyovs. Plutarch and Diodorus have handed down to the latest ages the respectable name of Anytus, the son of Anthemius, the first defendant who, eluding all the safe- guards which the ingenuity of .Solon could devise, succeeded in corrupting a bench of Athenian judges. We are, indeed, so far from grudging Mr. Montagu the aid of Greece, that we will give him Rome into the bargain. We acknowledge that the honourable senators who tried Verres received presents which were worth more than the fee-simple of York House and Gorhambury together, and that the no less honourable senators and knights who professed tu believe in the a/i/n of Jlodius, obtained marks still more extraordinary of the esteem and gratitude of the defendant. In short, we are ready to admit that, before Bacon's time and in Bacon's time, judges were in the habit of receiving gifts from suitors. But is this a defence ? We think not. The robberies of Cacus and Ba- rabbas are no justification for those of Turpin. The conduct of the two men of Belial, who swore away the life of Naboth, has never been cited as an excuse for the perjuries of Gates and Dangerfield. Mr. Montagu has confounded two things which it is necessary carefully to distinguish from each other if we wish to form a correct judgment of the characters of men of other countries and other times. That an immoral action is, in a particular society, generally con- sidered as innocent is a good plea for an individual who, being one of that society and having adopted the notions which prevail among his neighbours, cominits that action. But the circumstance that a great many people are in the habit of committing immoral actions is no plea at all. We sheuld think it unjust to call St. Louis a wicked man because, in an age in which toleration was generally regarded as a sin, he persecuted heretics. We should think it unjust to call Cowper's friend, John Newton, a hypocrite and monster because, at a time when the slave-trade was commonly considered by the most respect- 4o6 LORD BACO^. able people as an innocent and beneficial traffic, he went, largely provided with hymn-books and handcuffs, on a Guinea voyage. But the circumstance that there are fifty thousand thieves in London is no excuse for a fellow who is caught l)reaking into a shop. No man is to be blamed for not making flis- coveries in morality, for not finding out that something which everybody else thinks to be good is really bad. But, if a man does that which he and all around him know to be bad, it is no excuse for him that others have done the same. We should be ashamed of spending so much time in pointing out so clear a distinction, but that Mr. Montagu seems altogether to overlook it. Now, to apply these principles to the case before us ; let Mr. Montagu prove that, in Bacon's age, the practices for which Bacon was punished were generally considered as innocent, and we admit that he has made out his point. But this we defy him to do. That these practices were common we admit ; but they were common just as all wickedness to which there is strong temptation always was and always will be common. They were common just as theft, cheating, perjury, adultery have always been common. They were common, not because people did not know what was right, but because people liked to do what was wrong. They were common, though prohibited by law. They were common, though condemned by public opinion. They were common, because in that age law and public opinion united had not sufficient force to restrain the greediness of powerful and unprincipled magistrates. They were common, as ever}' crime will be common when the gain to which it leads is great and the chance of punishment small. But, though common, they were univer- sally allowed to be altogether unjustifiable ; they were in the highest degree odious ; and, though many were guilty of them, none had the audacity publicly to avow and defend them. We could give a thousand proofs that the opinion then entertained concern. ing these practices was such as we have described. But we will content ourselves with calling a single witness — honest Hugh Latimer. His sermons- preached more than seventy years before the inquirj' into Bacon's conduct — abound with the sharpest invectives against those very practices of which Bacon was guilty, and which, as Mr. Montagu seems to think, nobody ever considered as blamalile till Bacon was punished for them. We could easily fill twenty pages with the homely, but just and forcible, rhetoric of the brave old bishop. We shall select a few passages as fair specimens, and no more than fair speci- mens, of the rest. " O nines diligimt tnunera. They all love bribes. Bribery is a princely kind of thieving. They will be waged by the rich, either to give sentence against the poor, or to put off the poor man's cause. This is the noble theft of princes and magistrates. They are bribe-takers. Nowadays they call them gentle rewards. Let them leave their roloitrivg a?td call them by their Christian name — bribes." And again : " Cambyses was a great em- peror, such another as our master is. He had many lord-deputies, lord-presi- dents and lieutenants under him. It is a great while ago since I read the hislory. It chanced he had under him, in one of his dominions, a briber, a gift-taker, a gratifier of rich men ; he followed gifts as fast as he that followed the pudding ; a handmaker in his office to make his son a great man : as the old saying is, ' Happy is the child whose father goeth to the devil.' The cry of the poor widow came to the emperor's ear and caused him to flay the judge quick, and he laid his skin in the chair of judgment that all judges that should give judgment afterwards should sit in the same skin. Surely it was a goodly sign, a goodly monument, the sign of the judge's skin. / pi-ay God we may once sec the skin in England." " I am sure," says he, in another sermon, " this is scala inferni, the right way to hell, to be covetous, to take liribcs and pervert justice. If a judge "should ask me the way to hell, I would show him this way. LORD BACON. 407 First, let him be a covetous man ; let his heart be poisoned with covetoiisness. Then let him go a little further and take bril^es ; and, lastly, pervert judgment. Lo, here is the mother, and the daughter, and the daughter's daughter. Avarice is the mother : she brings forth bribe-taking, and bribe-taking per- verting of judgment. There lacks a fourth thing to make up the mess, which, so help me God, if I were judge, should be hani^iim tiium, a Tyljurn tippet to take with him ; an it were the judge of the Iving's Bench, my Lord Chief Judge of England, yea, an it were my Lord Chaiicrl'or himself, to Tyburn 7c>ith h>m." We will quote but one more passage. " He that took the silver Ijasin and ewer for a bribe, thinketh that it will never come out. But he may now know that I know it, and I know it not alone ; there be more beside me that knew it. Oh, briber and bribery ! He was never a good man that will so take bribes. Nor can I believe that he that is a briber will be a good justice. It will never be merry in England till we have the skins of such. Lor what medcth bribery ivhere men do their things uprightly ? " This was not the language of a great philosopher who had made new dis- coveries in moral and political science. It vvas the plain talk of a plain man, who sprang from the body of the people, who spnpathised strongly with their wants and their feelings, and who boldly uttered their opinions. It was on account of the fearless way in which stout-hearted old Hugh exposes the mis- deeds of men in ermine tippets and gold collars that the Londoners cheered him as he walked down the Strand to preach at \\liitehall — struggled for a touch of his gown, and bawled "Have at them. Father Latimer." It is plain, from the passages which we have quoted, and from fifty others which we might quote, that, long before Bacon was born, the accepting of presents by a judge was known to be a wicked and shameful act — that the fine words under which it was the fashion to veil such corrupt practices were even then seen through by the common people — that the distinction on which Mr. Montagu insists be- tween compliments and bribes w'as even then laughed at as a mere " colouring." There may be some oratorical exaggeration in what Latimer says about the Tyburn tippet and the sign of the judge's skin ; but the fact that he ventured to use such expressions is amply sufficient to prove that the gift-taking judges, the receivers of silver basins and ewers, were regarded as such pests of the commonwealth that a venerable divine might, without any breach of Christian charity, publicly pri.y to God for their detection and their condign jxmish- ment. Mr. Montagu tells us, most justly, that we ought not to transfer the opinions of our age to a former age. But he has himself committed a greater error than that against which he has cautioned his readers. Without any evidence, nay, in the face of the strongest evidence, he ascribes to the people of a former age a set of opinions which no people ever held. But any hypothesis is in his view more probable than that Bacon should have been a dishonest man. V\'e firmly believe that, if papers were to be discovered which should irresistibly prove that Bacon was concerned in the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, Mr. Montagu would tell us that, at the beginning of the seventeenth centur)', it was not thought improper in a man to put arsenic into the broth of his friends, and that we ought to blame, not Bacon, but the age in which he lived. But why should we have recourse to any other evidence, when the proceed- ing against Lord Bacon is itself the best evidence on the subject ? \\'hen Mr. Montagu tells us that we ought not to transfer the opinions of our age to Bacon's age, he appears altogether to forget that it was by men of Bacon's own age that Bacon was prosecuted, tried, convicted and sentenced. Did not they know what their own opinions were ? Did not they know whether they thought the taking of gifts by a judge a crime or not ? Mr. Montague complains bitterly 4o8 LORD BACON. that Bacon was induced to abstain from making a defence. But, if Bacon's defence resembled that which is made for him in the volume before ns, it would have been unnecessary to trouble the Houses with it. The Lords and Commons did not want Bacon to tell them the thoughts of their own heart! — • to inform them that they did not consider such practices as those in which they had detected him as at all culpable. Mr. Montagu's proposition may indeed be faijrly stale." thus : — It was very hard that Bacon's contemporaries should think it wrong in him to do what they did not think it wrong in him to do. Hard indeed ; and withal somewhat improbable. Will any person say that the Commons, who impeached Bacon for taking presents, and the Lords, who sentenced him to fine, imprisonment and degradation for taking presents, did not know that the taking of presents was a crime ? Or, will any person say that Bacon did not know what the whole House of Commons and the whole House of Lords knew? Nobody who is not prepared to maintain one of these absurd propositions can deny that Bacon committed what he knew to be a crime. It cannot be pretended that the Houses were seeking occasion to ruin Bacon, and that they therefore brought him to punishment on charges which they themselves knew to be frivilous. In no quarter was there the faintest in- dication of a disposition to treat him harshly. Through the whole proceeding there was no symptom of personal animosity or of factious violence in either House. Indeed, we will venture to say that no State Trial in our History is more creditable to all who took part in it, either as prosecutors or judges. The decency, the gravity, the public spirit ; the justice moderated, but not unnerved, by compassion — which appeared in every part of the transaction — would do honour to the most respectalole public men of our own times. The accusers, while they discharged their duty to their constituents by bringing the misdeeds of the Chancellor to light, spoke with admiration of his many eminent qualities. The Lords, while condemning him, complimented him on the ingenuousness of his confession, and spared him the humiliation of a public appearance at their bar. So strong was the contagion of good feeling that even Sir Edward Coke, for the first time in his life, behaved like a gentleman. No criminal ever had more temperate prosecutors than Bacon. No criminal ever had more favourable judges. If he was convicted, it was because it was impossible to acquit him without offering the grossest outrage to justi^^e and common sense. Mr. Montagu's other argument, namely, that Bacon, though he took gifts, did 7iot take bribes, seems to us as futile as that which we have considered. Indeed, we might be content to leave it to be answered by the plainest man among our readers. Demosthenes noticed it with contempt more than two thousand years ago. Latimer, we have seen, treated this sophistry with similar disdain. " Leave colouring," said he, " and call these things by their Christian name, bribes." Mr. Montagu attempts — somewhat unfairly, we must say — to represent the presents which Bacon received, as similar to the perquisites which suitors paid to the members of the Parliaments of France. The French magistrate had a legal right to his fee ; and the amount of the fee was regu- lated by law. Whether this be a good mode of remunerating judges is not the question. But what analogy is there between payments of this sort and the presents which Bacon received — presents which were not sanctioned by the law, which were not made under the public eye, and of which the amount was regulated only by private bargain between the magistrate and the suitor? Again, it is mere trifling to say that Bacon could not have meant to act cor- ruptly because he employed the agency of men of rank, of bishops, privy councillors and members of parliament — as if the whole history of that genera- tion was not full of the low actions of high people j as if it was not notorious LORD BACON. 409 that men, as exalted in rank as any of the decoys that Bacon employed, had pimped for Somerset and poisoned Overburj'. "But," says Mr. Montagu, " these presents were made openly and with the greatest publicity." This would indeed be a strong argument in favour of Bacon. But we deny the fact. In one, and one only, of the cases in which Bacon was accused of corruptly recei%ing gifts, does he appear to have received a gift publicly. This was in a matter depending between the Company of Apothecaries and the Company of Grocers. Bacon, in his Confession, insisted strongly on the circum.stance that he had on this occasion taken presents publicly, as a proof that he had not taken them corruptly. Is it not clear that, if he had taken the presents mentioned in the other charges in the same public manner, he would have dwelt on this point in his answer to those charges ? The fact that he insists so strongly on the publicity of one particular present is of itself sufficient to prove that the other presents were not publicly taken. Why he took this present publicly and the rest secretly is evident, lie on that occasion acted openly because he was acting honestly. He was not on that occasion sitting judicially. He was called in to effect an amicable arrangement between two parties. Both were satisfied with his decision. Both joined in making him a present in return for his trouble. \\Tiether it was quite delicate in a man of his rank to accept a present under such circum- stances may be questioned. But there is no ground in this case for accusing him of corniption. Unhappily, the very circumstances which prove him to have been innocent in this case prove him to have been guilty on the other charges. Once, and once only, he alleges hat he received a present pulilicly. The inference is, that in all the other cases mentioned in the articles against him he received presents secretly. When we examine the single case in which he alleges that he received a present publicly, we find that it is also the single case in which there was no gross impropriety in his receiving a present. Is it then possible to doubt that his reason for not receiving other presents in as public a mannei was, that he knew that it was wrong to receive them ? One argimient still remains, plausible in appearance, but admitting of easy and complete refutation. The tv.'o chief complainants, Aubrey and Egerton, had both made presents to the Chanc^^llor. But he had decided against them both. Therefore, he had not "ecev-cd those presents as bribes. " The com- plaints of his accusers were," says Mr. Montagu, "not that the gratuities had, but that they had not, influenced Bacon's judgment, as he had decided against them." The truth is, that it is precisely in opa. In his opinions on all these subjects, he was not a Stoic, nor an Eiiicurean, nor an Academic, but what would have been called by Stoics, Epicureans and Academics a mere ISwr-rjs — a mere common man. And it was precisely because he was so that bis name makes so great an era in the LORD BACON. 425 history of the world. It was because he dug deep that he was able to pile high. It was because, in order to lay his foundations, he went down into those parts of human nature which lie low, but which are not liable to change, that the fabric which he reared has risen to so stately an elevation and stands with such immovable strength. We have sometimes thought that an amusing fiction might be written, in which a disciple of Epictetus and a disciple of Bacon should be introduced as fellow-travellers. They come to a village where the small-pox has just begun to rage, and find houses shut up, intercourse suspended, the sick abandoned, mothers weeping in terror over their children. The Stoic assures the dismayed population that there is nothing bad in the small-pox, and that to a wise man disease, deformity, death, the loss of friends are not evils. The Baconian takes out a lancet and begins to vaccinate. They find a body of miners in great dismay. An explosion of noisome vapours has just killed many of those who were at work and the survivors are afraid to venture into the cavern. The Stoic assures them that such an accident is nothing but a mere airowporiynevop. The Baconian, who has no such fine word at his command, contents himself with devising a safety-lamp. They find a shipwrecked mer- chant wringing his hands on the shore. His vessel, with an inestimable cargo, has just gone down, and he is reduced in a moment from opulence to beggary. The Stoic exhorts him not to seek happiness in things which lie without him- self, and repeats the whole chapter of Epictetus vpbs rovs rrjv diropiav dedoiKoras. The Baconian constructs a diving-bell, goes down in it, and returns with the most precious effects from the wreck. It would be easy to multiply illustra- tions of the difference between the philosophy of thorns and the philosophy of fruit — the philosophy of words and the philosophy of works. Bacon had been accused of overrating the importance of those sciences which minister to the physical well-being of man, and of underrating the importance of moral philosophy ; and it cannot be denied that persons who read the " Novum Organum " and the " De Augmentis," without adverting to the circumstances under which those works were written, will find much that may seem to coun- tenance the accusation. It is certain, however, that, though in practice he often went very wrong, and though, as his historical work and his essays prove, he did not hold, even in theory, very strict opinions on points of political morality, he was far too wise a man not to know how much our well- being depends on the regulation of our minds. The world for which he wished was not, as some people seem to imagine, a world of water-wheels, power- looms, steam-carriages, sensualists and knaves. He would have been as ready as Zeno himself to maintain that no bodily comforts which could be devised by the skill and labour of a hundred generations would give happiness to a man whose mind was under the tyranny of licentious appetite, of envy, of hatred, or of fear. If he sometimes appeared to ascribe importance too exclusively to the arts which increase the outward comforts of our species, the reason is plain. Those arts had been most unduly depreciated. They had been represented as unworthy of the attention of a man of liberal education. " Cogitavit," says Bacon of himself, " eam esse opinianem sive eestimationem humidam et damnosam, minui nempe majestatem mentis humanre, si in experimentis et rebus particularibus, sensui subjectis, et in materia terminatis, diu ac multum versetur : prjesertim cum hujusmodi res ad inquirendum laboriosre, ad meditan- dum ignobiles, ad discendum asperse, ad practicam illiberales, numero infinitce, et subtilitate pusill^e videri soleant, et ob hujusmodi conditiones, gloriae artium minus sint accommodatte. "* This opinion seemed to him "omnia in familia ' • Cogitata et Visa. The expression opinio huinida may surprise a reader not accus- tomed to Bacon's style. The allusion is to the maxim of Heraclitus the obscure ; " Dry 426 Lord Bacon. humana turbasse." It had undoubtedly caused many arts which were of the greatest utility, and which were susceptible of the greatest improvements, lobe neglected by speculators and abandoned to joiners, masons, smiths, weavers, apothecaries. It was necessary to assert the dignity of those arts, to bring them prominently forward, to proclaim that, as they have a most serious effect on human happiness, they are not unworthy of the attention of the highest human intellects. Again, it was by illustrations drawn from these arts that Bacon could most easily illustrate his principles. It was by improvements | effected in these arts that the soundness of his principles could be most speedily and decisively brought to the test and made manifest to common understand- ings. He acted like a wise commander who thins every other part of his line to strengthen a point where the enemy is attacking with peculiar fury, and on the fate of which the event of the battle seems likely to depend. In the " Novum Organum," however, he distinctly and most truly declares that his philosophy is no less a Moral than a Natural Philosophy — that, though his illustrations are drawn from physical science, the principles which those illus- trations are intended to explain are just as applicable to Ethical and Political encjuiries as to enquiries into the nature of Heat and Vegitation. * He frequently treated of moral subjects ; and he almost always brought to those subjects that spirit which was the essence of his whole system. He has left us many admirable practicable observations on what he somewhat quaintly called the Gfo'gics of the mind — on the mental culture which tends to produce good dispositions. Some persons, he said, might accuse him of spending labour on a matter so simple that his predecessors had passed it by with contempt. He desired such persons to remember that he had from the first announced the objects of his search to be, not the splendid and the surprising, but the useful and the true — act the deluding dreams which go forth through the shining portal of ivory, but the humliler realities of the gate of horn, t True to this principal, he indulged in no rants about the fitness of things, the all-sufficiency of virtue and the dignity of human nature. He dealt not at all in resounding nothings, such as those with which Bolingbroke pretended to comfort himself in exile, and in which Cicero sought consolation after the loss of Tullia. The casuistical subtilties which occupied the attention of the keenest spirits of his age had, it should seem, no attractions for him. The treatises of the doctors, whom Escobar afterwards compared to the four beasts and the four-and-twenty elders in the Apocalypse, Bacon dismissed with most contemptuous brevity. " Inanes plerumque evadunt et futiles."J Nor did he ever meddle with those enigmas which have puzzled hundreds of genera- tions and will puzzle hundreds more. He said nothing about the grounds of moral obligation, or the freedom of the human will. He had no inclination to employ himself in labours resembling those of the damned in the Grecian Tartarus — to spin for ever on the same wheel round the same pivot — to gape for ever after the same deluding clusters — to pour water for ever into the same bottomless buckets — to pace for ever to and fro on the same wearisome path after the same recoiling stone. He exhorted his disciples to prosecute researches of a very different description ; to consider moral science as a practical science — a science of which the object was to cure the diseases and perturbations of the mind — and which could be improved only by a method analogous to that which has improved medicine and surgery. Moral philoso- phers ought, he said, to set themselves vigorously to work for the purpose of light is the best." By dry light, Bacon understood the light of the intellect not obscured by tho mists of pqssion, interest or prejudice. * Novum Organum, Lib. i, Aph. 127. t De Augmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 3. X De Augmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 2. LORD BACON. 42? discovering what are the actual effects produced on the human character by particular modes of education, by the indulgence of particular habits, by the study of particular books, by society, by emulation, by imitation. Then we might hope to find out what mode of training was most likely to preserve and restore moral health.* What he was as a natural philosopher and a moral philosopher, that he was also as a theologian. He was, we are convinced, a sincere believer in the divine autliority of the Christian revelation. Nothing can be found in his writings, or in any other writings, more eloquent and pathetic than some passages which were apparently written under the influence of strong devotional feeling. He loved to dwell on the power of the Christian religion to effect much that the ancient philosophers could only promise. He loved to consider that religion as the bond of charity, the curb of e\'il passions, the consolation of the wretched, the support of the timid, the hope of the dying. But contro- versies on speculative points of theology seemed to have engaged scarcely any portion of his attention. In what he wrote on Church Government he showed, as far as he dared, a tolerant and charitable spirit. He troubled himself not at all about Homoousians antl Ilomoiousians, Monothelites and Ncstorians. He lived in an age in which tlisputes on the most subtle points of divinity excited an intense interest throughout Europe ; and nowhere more than in England, tie was placed in the very thick of the conflict. He was in power at the time of the Synod of Dort, and must for months have been daily deafened with talk about election, reprobation and final perseverance. Vet we do not remember a line in his works from which it can be inferred that he was either a Calvinist or an Arminian. While the world was resounding with the noise of a disputatious philosophy and a disputatious theolog}-, the Baconian school, like Alworthy seated between Square and Thwackum, preser\-ed a calm neutrality — half scornful, half benevolent, and content with adding to the sum of practical good, left the war of words to those who liked it. We have dwelt long on the end of the Baconian philosophy, because from this peculiarity all the other peculiarities of that philosophy necessarily arose. Indeed, scarcely any person who proposed to himself the same end with Bacon could fail to hit upon the same means. The vulgar notion about Bacon we take to be this — that he invented a new method of arriving at truth, which method is called Induction ; and that he exposed the fallacy of the syllogistic reasoning which had been in vogue before his time. This notion is about as well founded as that of the people who, in the middle ages, imagined that Virgil was a great conjurer. Many, who are far too well informed to talk such extravagant nonsense, entertain what we think incorrect notions as to what Bacon really effected in this matter. The inductive method has been practised ever since the beginning of the world by every human being. It is constantly practised by the most igno- rant clown, by the most thoughtless schoolboy, by the very child at the breast. That method leads the clown to the conclusion that if he sows barley he shall not reap wheat. By that method the schoolboy learns that a cloudy day is the best for catching trout. The very infant, we ima^ne, is led by jiduction to expect milk from his mother, or nurse, and none from his father. Not only is it not true that Bacon invented the inductive method, but it is not true that he was the first person who correctly analysed that method and explained its uses. Aristotle had long before pointed out the absurdity of supposing that syllogistic reasoning could erer conduct men to the disco- very of any new principle ; had shown that such discoveries must be made by ♦ lb., Lib. 7, Cap. 3. 428 LORD BACON. induction and by induction alone ; and had given the history of the inductive process, concisely indeed, but with great perspicuity and precision.* Again, we are not inclined to ascribe much practical value to the analysis of the inductive method which Bacon has given in the second book of the " Novum Organum." It is indeed an elaborate and correct analysis. But it is an analysis of that which we are all doing from morning to night, and which we continue to do even in our dreams. A plain man finds his stomach I out of order. He never heard Lord Bacon's name. But he proceeds in the /, strictest conformity with the rules laid down in the second book of the " Novum i Organum," and satisfies himself that minced pies have done the mischief. \ "I ate mince pies on Monday and Wednesday, and I was kept awake by indigestion all night." This is \\\t comparentia ad intellectum histantiarum convenicnlinrn. " I did not eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite well." This is the coniparentia instantiarum in proximo qua natura data piivanttir. "I ate very sparingly of them on Sunday, and was very slightly indisposed in the evening. But on Christmas-day I almost dined on them, and was so ill that I was in great danger." This is the coniparentia in- stantiarum secundum magis et minus. " It cannot have been the brandy which I took with them. For I have drunk brandy daily for years without being the worse for it." This is the rejectio naturarum. Our invalid then proceeds to what is termed by Bacon the Vindemiatio, and pronounces that minced pies do not agree with him. We might go on to what are called by Bacon prcErogativa instantiarum. For example : "It must be something peculiar to minced pies, for I can eat any other pastry without the least bad effect." This is the instantia solitaria. We might easily proceed, but we have already sufficiently explained our meaning. We repeat that we dispute neither the ingenuity nor the accuracy of the theory contained in the second book of the " No^^m Organum," but we think that Bacon greatly overrated its utility. We conceive that the in- ductive process, like many other processes, is not likely to be better performed merely because men know how they perform it. William Tell would not have been one whit more likely to cleave the apple if he had known that his arrow would describe a parabola under the influence of the attraction of the earth. Captain Barclay would not have been more likely to walk a thousand miles in a thousand hours if he had known the place and name of every muscle in his legs. Monsieur Jourdain probably did not pronounce D and F more correctly after he had been apprised that D is pronounced by touching the teeth with the end of the tongue and F by putting the upper teeth on the lower lip. We cannot perceive that the study of grammar makes the smallest difference in the speech of people who have always lived in good society. Not one Londoner in ten thousand can lay down the rules for the proper use of will and shall. Yet not one Londoner in a million ever misplaces his 7vill and shall. No man uses figures of speech with more propriety because he knows that one figure is called a metonymy and another a synecdoche. A drayman, in a passion, calls out, "You are a pretty fellow," without suspecting that he is uttering irony, and that irony is one of the four primary tropes. The old systems of rhetoric were never regarded by the most experienced and discerning judges as of any use for the purpose of forming an orator. " Ego banc vim intelligo," said Cicero, "esse in praeceptis omnibus, non ut ea secuti oratores eloquentia; laudem sint adepti, sed quae sua sponte homines eloquentes facerent, ea quosdam observasse, atque id egisse ; sic esse non eloquentiam ex artificio, sed artificium ex eloquentia natum."t We must own that we entertain the ♦ See the last chapter of the Posterior Analytics and the first of the Metaphysics. f Pe Oratore, Lib, j. LORD BACON. 42^ same opinion concerning the study of Logic which Cicero entertained concern- ing the study of Rhetoric. A man of sense syllogises in celarent and cesa7-e all day long without suspecting it ; and, though he may not know what an igiioratio elenchi is, has no difficulty in exposing it whenever he falls in with it ; which is likely to be as often as he falls in with a reverend Master of Arts nourished on mode and figure in the cloisters of Oxford. Considered merely as an intel- lectual feat, the " Organum " of Aristotle can scarcely be admired too highly. ' But the more we compare indi\'idual with indi%-idual, school with school, nation ■ w4th nation, generation with generation, the more do we lean to the opinion that :he knowledge of the theorj' of logic has no tendency whatever to make ; . men good reasoners. \Miat Aristotle did for the syllogistic process. Bacon has, in the second book^ of the " No\'um Organum," done for the inductive process ; that is to say he has analysed it well. His rules are quite proper, but we do not need them,' because they are drawn from our own constant practice. But though everybody is constantly performing the process described in the se- cond book of the " Ierality to the native Irish, or the professors of the ancient religion." What schooli)oy of fourteen is ignorant of this remarkable circumstance ? What Whig, new or old, was ever such an idiot as to think that it could be suppressed ? Really, we might as well say that it is a remark- able circumstance, familiar to people well read in histor)', Ijut carefully sup- pressed by the Clergy of the Kstaljlished Church, that in the fifteenth century England was Catholic. We are tempted to make some remarks on another ixissage, which seems to be the peroration of a siJeech intended to have been spoken against the Reform Bill, but we forbear. We douln wheth'.r it will be found that the memory of Sir William Temple owes much to Mr. Courtenay's researches. Temple is one of those men whom the world has c»greed to j)raise highly without knowing much about them, anil who are therefore more likely to lose than to gain by a close examination. Yet he is not without fair pretensions to the most honourable place among the statesmen of his time. A few of them equalled or surpassed him in talents ; but they were men of no good repute for honesty. A few may be named whose patriotism was purer, nobler and more disinterested than his ; but they were men of no eminent ability. Morally, he was above Shaftesbury ; intellectually, he was above Russell. To say of a man that he occupied a high position in time; of misgovern- ment, of corruption, of civil and religious faction, and that, ne%-ertheless, he contracted no great stain, and bore no part in any great crime ; that he won the esteem of a profligate Court and of a turbulent people, without being guilty of any disgraceful subserviency to either — seems to be very high praise ; and all this may with truth be said of Temple. Yet Temple is not a man to our taste. A temper not naturally good, but under strict command — a constant regard to decorum — a rare caution in playing that mixed game of skill and hazard, human life — a disposition to be content with small and certain winnings rather than to go on doubling the stake — these seem to us to be the most remarkable features of his character. This sort of moderation when united, as in him it was, with very considerable abilities, is, under ordinary circumstances, scarcely to be distinguished from the highest and purest integrity, and yet may be perfectly compatible with laxity of prin- ciple, with coldness of heart, and with the most intense selfishness. Temple, we fear, had not sufficient warmth and elevation of sentiment to deserve the name of a virtuous man. He did not betray or oppress his countrj- : nay, he rendered considerable services to her ; but he risked nothing for her. No temptation which either the King or the Opposition could hold out ever in- duced him to come forward as the supporter either of arbitrary or of factious measures. But he was most careful not to give offence by strenuously op- posing such measures. He never put himself prominently before the public eye, except at conjunctures when he was almost certain to gain and could not possibly lose — at conjunctures when the interest of the State, the \-iews of the Court and the passions of the multitude all appeared for an instant to co- incide. By judiciously availing himself of several of these rare moments, he succeeded in establishing a high character for wisdom and patriotism. WTien the favourable crisis was passed, he never risked the reputation which he had won. He avoided the great offices of State with a caution almost pusillani- mous, and confined himself to quiet and secluded departments of public business, in which he could enjoy moderate but certain advantages without incurring envy. If the circumstances of the country became such that S/Ji WILLIAM TEMPLE. 441 it was impossible to take any part in politics without some danger, he retired to his Library and his Orchard ; and, while the nation groaned under oppression, or resounded with tumult and with the din of civil arms, amused himself by writing Memoirs and tying up Apricote. His political career bore some resemblance to the military career of Louis XIV. Louis, lest his royal dignity should be compromised by failure, never repaired to a siege till it had been reported to him by the most skilful ofticers in his service that nothing could prevent the fall of the place. When this was ascertained, the monarch, in his helmet and cuirass, appeared among the tents, held councils of war, dictated the capitulation, received the keys, and then returned to \'ersailles to hear his flatterers repeat that Turenne had been beaten at Mariendal, that Conde had been forced to raise the siege of Arras, and that the only warrior whose glory had never been obscured by a single check was Louis the Great ! Vet Conde and Turenne will always be con- sidered as captains of a very different order from the invincible Louis ; and we must own that many statesmen, who have committed very great faults, appear to us to be deserving of more esteem that the faultless Temple. For in truth his faultlessness is chiefly to be ascribed to his extreme dread of all responsi- bility ; to his determination rather to leave his country in a scrape than to run any chance of being in a scrape himself. He seems to have been averse from danger ; and it must be admitted that the dangers to which a public man was exposed, in those days of conflicting tyranny and sedition, were of the most serious kind. He could not bear discomfort, bodily or mental. His lamenta- tions when, in the course of his diplomatic journeys, he was put a little out of his way, and forced, in the vulgar phrase, to rough it, are ciuite amusing. He talks of riding a day or two on a bad Westphalian road, of sleeping on straw for one night, of travelling in winter when the snow lay on the ground, as if he had gone on an expedition to the North Pole or to the source of the Nile. This kind of valetudinarian effeminacy, this habit of coddling himself, appears in all parts of his conduct. He loved fame, but not with the love of an exalted and generous mind. He loved it as an end, not at all as a means ; as a per- sonal luxur}', not at all as an instrument of advantage to others. He scraped it together and treasured it up with a timid and niggardly thrift, and never employed the hoard in any enterprise, however virtuous and honourable, in which there was hazard of losing one particle. No wonder if such a person did little or nothing which deserves positive blame. But much more than this may justly be demanded of a man possessed of such abilities and placed in such a situation. Had Temple been brought before Dante's infernal tribunal, he would not have been condemned to the deeper recesses of the abyss. He would not have been boiled with Dundee in the crimson pool of Bulicame, or hurled with Danby into the seething pitch of Malebolge, or congealed with Churchill in the eternal ice of Giudecca ; but he would perhaps have been placed in the dark vestibule next to the shade of that inglorious pontiff — " Che fece per viltate il gran rifiuto." Of course a man is not lx)und to be a politician any more than he is bound to be a soldier ; and there are perfectly honourable ways of quitting both politics and the military profession. But neither in the one way of life, nor in the other, is any man entitled to take all the sweet and leave all the sour. A man who lielongs to the army only in time of peace — who appears at reviews in Hyde Park, escorts the .Sovereign with the utmost valour and fidelity to and from the House of Lords, and retires as soon as he thinks it likely that he may be ordered on an expedition — is justly thought to have disgraced himself. Some portion of the censure due to such a holiday soldier may justly fall on tha 442 S//^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. mere holiday-politician, who flinches from his duties as soon as those duties become difficult and disagreeable — that is to say, as soon as it becomes peculiarly important that he should resolutely peforni them. But though we are far indeed from considering Temple as a perfect states- man, though we place him below many statesmen who have committed very great errors, we cannot deny that, when compared with his contemporaries, he makes a highly respectal)le appearance. Tne reaction which followed the victory of the popular party over Charles the First had produced a hurtful effeel on the Rational character ; and this effect was most discernible in the classes and in the places which had been most strongly excited by the recent revolution. The deterioration was greater in London than in the country, and was greatest of all in the courtly and official circles. Almost all that remained of what had been good and noble in the Cavaliers and Roundheads o( 1642 was now to be found in the middling orders. The principles and feelings which prompted the Grand Remonstrance were still strong among the sturdy yeomen and the decent, God-fearir\g merchants. The spirit of Derby and Capel still glowed in many sequestered manor-houses ; but among those political leaders who, at the time of the Restoration were stilj young, or in the vigour of manhood, there was neither a Southampton nor a Vane, neither a Falkland nor a Hampden. That pure, fervent and constant loyalty which, in the preceding reign, had remained unshaken on fields of disastrous battle, in foreign garrets and cellars, and at the bar of the High Court of Justice, was scarcely to be found among the rising courtiers. As little, or still less, could the new chiefs of parties lay claim to the great qualties of the statesmen who had stood at the head of the Long Parliament. Hampden, Pym, Vane, Cr(jmwell are discriminated from the ablest politicians of the succeeding gener- ation by all the strong lineaments which distinguish the men who produce revolutions from the men whom revolutions produce. The leader in a great change, the man who stirs up a reposing community and overthrows a deeply rooted system may be a very depraved man, but he can scarcely be destitute of some moral qualities which extort even from enemies a reluctant admiration : fixedness of purpose, intensity of will, enthusiasm, which is not the less fierce or persevering because it is sometimes disguised under the semblance of com- posure, and which bears down before it the force of circuinstances and the opposition of reluctant minds. These qualities, variously combined with all sorts of virtues and vices, may be found, we think, in most of the authors of great Civil and Religious movements : in C^sar, in Mahomet, in ffildebrand, m Dominic, in Luther, in Robespierre ; and these qualities were found, in no scanty measure, among the chiefs of the party which opposed Charles the First. The character of the men whose minds are formed in the midst of the confusion which follows a great revolution is generally very diffisrent. Heat, the natural philosophers tell us, produces rarefaction of the air, and rarefac- tion of the air produces cold. So zeal makes revolutions, and revolutions make men zealous for nothing. The politicians of whom we speak, whatever may be their natural capacity or courage, are almost always characterised by a peculiar levity, a peculiar inconstancy, an easy, apathetic way of looking at the most solemn questions, a willingness to leave the direction of their course to fortune and popular opinion, a potion that one public cause is pretty nearly as good as another, and a firm conviction that it is much better to be the hireling of the worst cause than to be a martyr to the best. This was most strikingly the case with the English statesmen of the generation which followed the Restoration. They had neither the enthusiasm of the Cavalier, nor the enthusiasm of the Republican. They had been early emancipated from the dominion of old usages and feelings ; yet they had not SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 44J acquired a strong passion for innovation. Accustomed to see old esta- blishments shaking, falling, lying in ruins all around them ; to live under a succession of constitutions, of which the average duration was about a twelvemonth, they had no religious reverence for prescription, no- thing of that frame of mind which naturally springs from the habitual contem- plation of immemorial anticjuity and immovable stability. Accustomed, on the other hand, to see change after change welcomed with eager hope and ending in disappointment — to see shame and confusion of face follow the extravagant hopes and predictions of rash and fanatical innovators — they had learned to look on professions of public spirit and on schemes of reform with distrust and contempt. They sometimes talked the language of devoted subjects — some- times that of ardent lovers of their country. But their secret creed seems to have been, that loyalty was one great delusion and patriotism another. If they really entertained any predilection for the monarchical or for the popular part of the constitution — for episcopacy or for presbyterianism — that predilection was feeble and languid, and instead of overcoming, as in the times of their fathers, the dread of exile, confiscation and death, was rarely of proof to resist the slightest impulse of selfish ambition or of selfish fear. .Such was the texture of the presbyterianism of Lauderdale and of the speculative republicanism of Halifax. The sense of political honour seemed to be extinct. With the great mass of mankind, the test of integrity in a public man is consistency. This test, though very defective, is perhaps the best that any, except very acute, or very near observers, are capable of applying, and does undoubtedly enable the people to form an estimate of the characters of the great, which, on the whole, approximates to correctness. But during the latter part of the seventeenth centur}', inconsistency had necessarily ceased to be a disgrace, and a man was no more taunted with it, than he is taunted with being black at Timbuctoo. Nobody was ashamed of avowing what was common between him and the whole nation. In the short space of about seven years, the supreme power had been held by the Long Parliament, by a Council of Officers, by Barebones' Parliament, by a Council of Officers again, by a Protector according to the Instrument of Government, by a Protector according to the Humble Petition and Advice, by the Long Parliament again, by a third Council of Officers, by the Long Parliament a third time, by the Convention, and by the King. In such times, consistency is so inconvenient to a man who aifects it, and to all who are connected with him, that it ceases to be regarded as a virtue and is considered as impracticable obstinacy and idle scrupulosity. Indeed, in such times, a good citizen may be bound in duty to serve a succession of Govern- ments. Blake did so in one profession and Hale in another, and the conduct of both has been approved by posterity. But it is clear that when inconsistency with respect to the most important public questions has ceased to be a reproach, inconsistency with respect to questions of minor importance is not likely to be regarded as dishonourable. In a country in which many very honest people had, within the space of a few months, supported the government of the Protector, that of the Rump, and that of the King, a man was not likely to be ashamed of abandoning his party for a place, or of voting for a bill which he had opposed. The public men of the times which followed the Restoration were by no means deficient in courage or ability ; and some kinds of talent appear to have been developed amongst them to a remarkable — we might almost say, to a morbid and unnatural — degree. Neither Theramenes in ancient, nor Talleyrand in modern times, had a finer perception of all the peculiarities of character and of all the indications of coming change than some of our countrymen of those days. Their power of reading things of high import, in signs which to others 444 -S"/^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. were invisible or unintelligible, resembled magic. But the curse of Reuben was upon them all : " Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel." This character is susceptible of innumerable modifications, according to the innumerable varieties of intellect and temper in which it may be found. Men of unquiet minds and violent ambition followed a fearfully eccentric course — darted wildly from one extreme to another — served and betrayed all parties in turn — showed their unblushing foreheads alternately in the van of the most corrupt administrations and of the most factious oppositions — were privy to th? most guilty mysteries, first of the Cabal and then of the Rye House Plot- abjured their religion to win their sovereign's favour while they were secretly ])lanning his overthrow — shrived themselves to Jesuits with letters in cypher from the Prince of Orange in their pockets — corresponded with the Hagu^ whilst in office under James — and began to correspond with St. Germain's as soon as they had kissed hands for office under William. But Temple was not one of these. He was not destitute of ambition. But his was not one of those souls within which unsatisfied ambition anticipates the tortures of hell, gnaws like the worm which dieth not, and burns like the fire which is not quenched. His principle was to make sure of safety and comfort and to let greatness come if it would. It came ; he enjoyed it ; and, in the very first moment in which it could no longer be enjoyed without danger and vexation, he contentedly let it go. He was not exempt, we think, from the prevailing political immorality. His mind took the contagion, but took it ad modum recipientis — in a form so mild that an undiscerning judge might doubt whether it were indeed the same fierce pestilence that was raging all around. The malady partook of the con- stitutional languor of the patient. The general corruption, mitigated by his calm and unadventurous temperament, showed itself in omissions and desertions, not in positive crimes ; and his inactivity, though sometimes timorous and selfish, becomes respectable when compared with the malevolent and perfidious restlessness of Shaftesbury and Sunderland. Temple sprang from a family which, though ancient and honourable, had, before his time, been scarcely mentioned in our history ; but which, long after his death, produced so many eminent men and formed such distinguished alliances, that it exercised, in a regular and constitutional manner, an influence in the state scarcely inferior to that which, in widely different times and by widely different arts, the house of Neville attained in England and that of Douglas in Scotland. During the latter years of George H. and through the whole reign of George HI., members of that widely spread and powerful connection were almost constantly at the head either of the Government or of the Opposition. There were times when the "cousinhood," as it was once nicknamed, would of itself have furnished almost all the materials necessary for the construction of an efficient Cabinet. Within the space of fifty years, three First Lords of the Treasury, three Secretaries of State, two Keepers of the Privy .Seal and four First Lords of the Admiralty were appointed from among the sons and grandsons of the Countess Temple. So splendid have been the fortunes of the main stock of the Temple family, continued by female succession. William Temple, the first of the line who attained to any great historical eminence, was of a younger branch. His father, Sir John Temple, was Master of the Rolls in Ireland, and distinguished himself among the Privy Councillors of that kingdom by the zeal with which, at the commencement of the struggle between the Crown and the Long Parlia- ment, he supported the popular cause. He was arrested by order of the Duke of Ormond, but regamed his liberty by an exchange, repaired to England, and there sat in the House of Commons as burgess for Chichester. He attached himself to the Presbyterian party ; and was one of those moderate members ^/i? WILLIAM TEMPLE. 44S who, at the close of the year 1648, voted for treating with Charles on the basis to which that Prince had himself agreed, and who were, in consequence, turned out of the House, with small ceremony, by Colonel Pride. Sir John seems, however, to have made his peace with the victorious Independents, for, in 1653, he resumed his office in Ireland. Sir John Temple was married to a sister of the celebrated Henry Hammond, a learned and pious divine who took the side of the King with very conspicuous zeal during the civil war, and was deprived of his preferment in the church after the victory of the Parliament. On account of the loss which Hammond sustained on this occasion, he has the honour of being designated, in the cant of that new brood of Oxonian secretaries who unite the worst parts of the Jesuit to the worst parts of the Orangeman, as Hammond, Presbyter, Doctor and Confessor. William Temple, Sir John's eldest son, was born in London in the year 1628. He received his early education under his maternal uncle ; was subse- quently sent to school at Bishop-Stortford ; and, at seventeen, began to reside at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where the celebrated Cudworth was his tutor. The times were not favourable to study. The Civil War disturbed even the quiet cloisters and bowling-greens of Cambridge, produced violent revolutions in the government and discipline of the colleges, and unsettled the minds of the students. Temple forgot at Emmanuel all the little Greek which he had brought from Bishop-Stortford, and never retrieved the loss — a circum- stance which would hardly be worth noticing but for the almost incredible fact that, fifty years later, he was so absurd as to set up his own authority against that of Bentley on questions of Greek history and philology. He made no proficiency either in the old philosophy which still lingered in the schools of Cambridge, or in the new philosophy of which Lord Bacon was the founder. But to the end of his life he continued to speak of the former with ignorant admiration and of the latter with equally ignorant contempt. After residing at Cambridge two years, he departed without taking a degree, and set out upon his travels. He seems then to have been a lively, agreeable young man of fashion, not by any means deeply read, but versed in all the superficial accomplishments of a gentleman, and acceptable in all polite societies. In politics he professed himself a Royalist. His opinions on religious subjects seem to have been such as might be expected from a young man of quick parts, who had received a rambling education, who had not thought deeply, who had been disgusted by the morose austerity of the Puritans, and who, surrounded from childhood by the hubbub of conflicting sects, might easily learn to feel an impartial contempt for them all. On his road to France he fell in with the son and daughter of Sir Peter Osborne. Sir Peter was governor of Guernsey for the King, and the young people were, like their father, warm for the royal cause. At an inn where they stoppal in the Isle of Wight, the brother amused himself with inscribing on the windows his opinion of the mling powers. For this instance of malig- nancy the whole party were arrested and brought before the governor. The sister, trusting to the tenderness which, even in those troubled times, scarcely any gentleman of any party ever failed to show where a woman was concerned, took the crime on herself, and was immediately set at liberty with her fellow- travellers. This incident, as was natural, made a deep impression on Temple. He was only twenty. Dorothy Osborne was twenty-one. She is said to have been handsome ; and there remains abundant proof that she possessed an ample share of the dexterity, the vivacity and the tenderness of her sex. Temple »ocH? became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, and she returned hJs 446 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. regard. But difficulties as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume opposed their wishes. When the courtship commenced, the father of the here was sitting in the Long Parliament ; the father of the heroine was holding Guernsey for King Charles. Even when the war ended, and Sir Peter Osborne returned to his seat at Chicksands, the prospects of the lovers were scarcely less gloomy. Sir John Temple had a more advantageous alliance in view for his son. Dorothy Osl)orne was in the meantime besieged l:)y as many suitors as were drawn to Belmont by the fame of Portia. The most distinguished on the list was Henry Cromwell. Destitute of the capacity, the energy, the magnanimity of his illustrious father, destitute also of the meek and placid virtues of his elder Ijrother, this young man was perhaps a more formidable rival in love than either of them would have been. Mrs. Hutchinson, speak- ing the sentiments of the grave and aged, describes him as an " insolent foole," and a "debauched, ungodly cavalier." These expressions probably mean that he was one who, among young and dissipated people, would pass for a fine gentleman. Dorothy was fond of dogs of larger and more formidable breed than those which lie on modern hearth-rugs ; and Henry Cromwell promised that the highest functionaries at Dublin should be set to work to procure her a fine Irish greyhound. She seems to have felt his attentions as very flattering, though his father was then only Lord-General, and not yet Protector. Love, however, triumphed over ambition, and the young lady appears never to have regretted her decision ; though, in a letter written just at the time when all England was ringing with the news of the violent dissolution of the Long Parlia- ment, she could not refrain from reminding Temple, with pardonable vanity, " how great she might have been, if she had been so wise as to have taken hold of the offer of H. C." Nor was it only the influence of rivals that Temple had to dread. The relations of his mistress regarded him with personal dislike, and spoke of him as an unprincipled adventurer, without honour or religion, ready to render service to any jjarty for the sake of preferment. This is, indeed, a verj' dis- torted view of Temple's character. Yet a character, even in the most distorted view taken of it by the most angry and prejudiced minds, generally retains something of its outline. No cai'icaturist ever represented Mr. Pitt as a Falstaff, or Mr. Fox as a skeleton ; nor did any libeller ever impute parsi- mony to Sheridan, or profusion to Marlborough. It must be allowed that the turn of mind which the eulogists of Temple have dignified with the appellation of philosophical indifference, and which, however becoming it may be in an old and experienced statesman, has a somewhat ungraceful appearance in youth, might easily appear shocking to a family who were ready to fight or suffer martyrdom for their exiled King and their persecuted church. The poor girl was exceedingly hurt and irritated by these imputations on her lover, de fended him warmly behind his back, and addressed to himself some very tendei iand anxious admonitions, mingled with assurances of her confidence in his honour and virtue. On one occasion she was mojt highly provoked by the way in which oifc of her brothers spoke of Temple. " We talked ourselves Weary," she says ; " he renounced me. and I defied him." Nearly seven years did this arduous wooing continue. We arc not accurately informed respecting Temple's movements during that time. But he seems to have led a rambling life, sometimes on the Continent, sometimes in Ireland, sometimes in London. He made himself master of the French and Spanish languages, and amused himself by writing essays and romances — an employ- ment which at least served the purpose of forming his style. The specimen which Mr. Courtenay has preserved of these early compositions is by no means contemptible. Indeed, there is one passage on Like and Dislike which could SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 447 have been produced only by a mind habituated carefully to reflect on its own operations, and which reminds us of the best things in Montaigne. He appears to have kept up a very active correspondence with his mistress. His letters are lost, but hers have been preserved ; and many of them appear in these volumes. Mr. Courtenay expresses some doubt whether his readers will think him justified in inserting so large a number of these epistles. We only wish that there were twice as many. \^ery little indeed of the diplomatic correspondence of that generation is so well worth reading. There is a vile phrase of which bad historians are exceeding fond — "the dignity of history." One writer is in possession of some anecdotes which would illustrate most strikingly the operation of the Mississippi scheme on the manners and morals of the Parisians. But he suppresses those anecdotes because they are too low , for the dignity of history. Another is strongly tempted to mention some facts indicating the horrible state of the prisons of England two hundred years ago. But he hardly thinks that the sufferings of a dozen felons pigging together on bare bricks in a hole fifteen feet square would form a subject suited to the dignity of history. Another, from respect for the dignity of history, publishes an account of the reign of George the Second without ever mentioning "WTiite- field's preaching in Moorfields. How should a writer, who can talk about senates, and congresses of sovereigns, and pragmatic sanctions, and ravelins, and counterscarps, and battles where ten tnousand men are killed and six thousand men, with fifty stand of colours and eighty guns taken, stoop to the Stock Exchange, to Newgate, to the theatre, to the tabernacle? Tragedy has its dignity as well as history ; and how much the tragic art has owed to that dignity any man may judge who will compare the majestic Alexandrines in which the Seigneur Oreste and Madame Andromaque utter their complaints, with the chattering of the fool in " Lear" and of the nurse in " Romeo and Juliet." That a historian should not record trifles, that he should confine himself to what is important is perfectly true. But many writers seem never to have con- sidered on what the historical importance of an event depends. They seem not lo be aware that the importance of a fact, when that fact is considered with reference to its immediate effects, and the importance of the same fact, when that fact is considered as part of the materials for the construction of a science, are two very different things. The quantity of good or evil which a transaction produces is by no means necessarily proportioned to the quantity of light which that transaction affords as to the way in which good or evil may hereafter be produced. The poisoning of an emperor is in one sense a far more serious tnatter than the poisoning of a rat. But the poisoning of a rat may be an era in chemistry ; and an emperor may be poisoned by such ordinary means, and with such ordinary symptoms, that no scientific journal would notice the occur- rence. An action for an hundred thousand pounds is in one sense a more fnornentous affair than an action for fifty pounds. But it by no means follows that the learned gentlemen who report the proceedings of the courts of law ought to give a fuller account of an action for a hundred thousand pounds than of an action for fifty pounds. For a cause in which a large sum is at stake may be important only to the particular plaintiff and the particular defendant. A cause, on the other hand, in which a small sum is at stake, may establish some great principle interesting to half the families in the kingdom. The case is exactly the same with that class of subjects of which historians treat. To an Athenian, in the time of the Peloponnesian war, the result of the battle of Delium was far more important than the fate of the comedy of the " Knights. ' But to us the fact that the comedy of the "Knights" was brought on the Athenian stage with success is far more important than the fact that tlie 448 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. Athenian phalanx gave way at DeHum. Neither the one event nor the other has now any intrinsic importance. We are in no danger of being speared by the Thebans. We are not quizzed in the "Knights." To us the importance of both events consists in the value of the general truth which is to be learned from them. What general truth do we learn from the accounts which have come down to us of the battle of Delium ? Very little more than this, that when two armies fight, it is not improbable that one of them will be very soundly beaten — a truth which it would not, we apprehend, be difficult to establish, even if all memory of the battle of Delium were lost among men. But a man who becomes acquainted with the comedy of the "Knights," and with the history of that comedy, at once feels his mind enlarged. Society is presented to him under a new aspect. He may have read and travelled much. He may have visited all the countries of Europe and the civilised nations of the East. He may have observed the manners of many barbarous races. But here is something altogether different from everything which he has seen either among polished men, or among savages. Here is a community politically, intellectually and morally unlike any other community of which he has the means of forming an opinion. This is the really precious part of history — the corn which some threshers carefully sever from the chaff for the purpose of gathering the chaff into the garner and flinging the corn into the fire. Thinking thus, we are glad to learn so much, and would willingly learn more, about the loves of Sir William and his mistress. In the seventeenth century, to be sure, Louis XIV. was a much more important person than Temple's sweetheart. But death and time equalise all things. Neither the great King nor the beauty of Bedfordshire— neither the gorgeous paradise of Marli nor Mistress Osborne's favourite walk "in the common that lay hard by the house, where a great many young wenches used to keep sheep and cows and sit in the shade singing of ballads," is anything to us. Louis and Dorothy are alike dust. A cotton-mill stands on the ruins of Marli, and the Osbornes have ceased to dwell under the ancient roof of Chicksands. But of that infor- mation for the sake of which alone it is worth while to study remote events, we find so much in the love letters which Mr. Courtenay has published, that we would gladly purchase equally interesting billets with ten times their weight in state-papers taken at random. To us surely it is as useful to know how the young ladies of England employed themselves a hundred and eighty years ago • — how far their minds were cultivated, what were their favourite studies, what degree of liberty was allowed to them, what use they made of that liberty, what accomplishments they most valued in men, and what proofs of tenderness delicacy permitted them to give to favoured suitors — as to know all about the seizure of Tranche Comte and the treaty of Nimeguen. The mutual relations of the two sexes seem to us to be at least as important as the mutual relations of any two governments in the world ; and a series of letters written by a virtuous, amial)le and sensible girl, and intended for the eye of her lover alone, can scarcely fail to throw some light on the relations of the sexes ; whereas it is perfectly possible, as all who have made any historical researches can attest, to read bale after bale of despatches and protocols without catching one ghmpse of light about the relations of governments. Mr. Courtenay proclaims that he is one of Dorothy Osborne's devoted ser- vants, and expresses a hope that the publication of her letters will add to the number. We must declare ourselves his rivals. She really seems to have been a very charming young woman — modest, generous, affectionate, intelligent and sprightly — a royalist, as was to be expected from her connections, without any of that political asperity which is as unwomanly as a long beard — religious, and occasionally gliding into a very pretty and endearing sort of preaching, yet not ^/A" WILLIAM TEMPLE. 449 too good to partake of such diversions as London afforded under the melancholy rule of the Puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous sermon from a divine who was thought to be one of the great lights of the Assembly at Westminster — with a little turn for coquetry, which was yet perfectly compatible with warm and disinterested attachment — and a little turn for satire, which yet seldom passed the bounds of good-nature. She loved reading ; but her studies were not those of Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey. She read the verses of Cowley and Lord Broghill, French memoirs recommended by her lover, and the Travels of Fernando Mendez Pinto. But her favourite books were those ponderous French romances which modern readers know chiefly from the pleasant satire of Charlotte Lennox. She could not, however, help laughing at the vile English into which they were translated. Her own style is very agreeable ; nor are her letters at all the worse for some passages in which rail- lery and tenderness are mixed in a very engaging namby-pamby. When at last the constancy of the lovers had triumphed over all the obstacles which kinsmen and rivals could oppose to their union, a yet more serious calamity befell them. Poor Mistress Osborne fell ill of the small-pox and, though she escaped with life, lost all her beauty. To this most severe trial the affection and honour of the lovers of that age was not unfrequently sub- jected. Our readers probably remember what Mrs. Hutchinson tells us of herself. The lofty Cornelia-like spirit of the aged matron seems to melt into a long-forgotten softness when she relates how her beloved Colonel "married her as soon as she was able to quit the chamber, when the priest and all that saw her were affrighted to look on her. But God," she adds, with a not un- graceful vanity, " recompensed his justice and constancy by restoring her as well as before." Temple; showed on this occasion the same "justice and con- stancy," which did so much honour to Colonel Hutchinson. The date of the marriage is not exactly known. But Mr. Courtenay supposes it to have taken place about the end of the year 1654. From this time we lose sight of Dorothy, and are reduced to form our opinion of the terms on which she and her hus- band were from very slight indications which may easily mislead us. Temple soon went to Ireland, and resided with his father, partly at Dublin, partly in the county of Carlow. Ireland was probably then a more agreeable residence for the higher classes, as compared with England, than it has ever been before or since. In no part of the empire were the superiority of Crom- well's abilities and the force of his character so signally displayed. He had not the power, and probably had not the inclination, to govern that island in the best way. The rebellion of the aboriginal race had excited in England a strong religious and national aversion to them ; nor is thsre any reason to be- fieve that the Protector was so far beyond his age as to be free from the prevail- • ing sentiment. He had vanquished them ; he kaew that they were in his power : and he regarded them as a band of malefactors and idolators who ^ were mercifully treated if they were not smitten with the edge of the sword. | On those who resisted he had made war as the Hebrews made war on the • Canaanites. Drogheda was as Jericho' and Wexford as Ai. To the remains of the old population, the conqueror granted a peace such as that which Joshua granted to the Gibeonites. He made them hewers of wood and drawers of water. But, good or bad, he could not be otherwise than great. Under iavourable circumstances, Ireland would have found in him a most just and beneficent ruler. She found in him a tyrant — not a small teasing tyrant, such as those who have so long been her curse and her shame — but one of those awful tyrants who at long intervals seem to be sent on earth, like avenging angels, with some high commission of destniction and renovation. He was no man of half measures. ^ mean affronts and ungracious concessions. His 450 6YA' WlLLfAM TEMPLE. . _ . . : ■ . r "" i Protestant ascendency was not an ascendency of ribands, and fiddles, and statues, and processions. He would never have dreamed of abolishing penal laws against the Irisli catholics and withholding from them the elective fran- chise — of giving them tlie elective franchise and excluding them from Parlia- ment — of admitting them to Parliament and refusing to them a full and equal participation in all the blessings of society and government. The thing most alien from his clear intellect and his commanding spirit was petty persecution. He knew how to tolerate and he knew how to destroy. His administration in Ireland was an administration on what are now called Orange principles — followed out most ably, most steadily, most undauntedly, most unrelentingly, to every extreme consequence to which those principles lead ; and it would, if continued, inevitably have produced the effect which he contemplated — an entire decomposition and reconstruction of society. He had a great and definite object in view — to make Ireland thoroughly English, to make it another Yorkshire or Norfolk. Thinly peopled as Ireland then was, this end was not unattainable ; and there is every reason to believe that, if his policy had been followed during fifty years, this end would have been attained. Instead of an emigration, such as we now see from Ireland to England, there was, under his government, a constant and large emigration from England to Ireland. This tide of population ran almost as strongly as that which now runs from Massachusetts and Connecticut to the states behind the Ohio. The native race was driven back before the advancing van of the Anglo-Saxon population as the American Indians or the tribes of Southern Africa are now driven back before the white settlers. Those fearful phenomena which have almost invariably attended the planting of civilised colonies in uncivilised countries, and which had been known to the nations of Europe only by distant and questionable rumour, were now publicly exhibited in their sight. The words "extirpation," " eradication," were often in the mouths of the English back-settlers of Leinster and Munster — cruel words — yet, in their cruelty, containing more mercy than much softer expressions which have since been sanctioned by universities and cheered by Parliaments. For it is in truth more merciful to extirpate a hundred thousand people at once, and to fill the void with a well governed population, than to misgovern millions through a long succession of generations. We can much more easily pardon tremendous severities inflicted for a great object than an endless series of paltry vexations and oppressions inflicted for no rational object at all. Ireland was fast becoming English. Civilisation and wealth were making rapid progress in almost every part of the island. The effects of that iron despotism are described to us by a hostile witness in very remarkable language. I " Which is more wonderful," says Lord Clarendon, "all this was done and settled within little more than two years, to that degree of perfection that there were many buildings raised for beauty as well as use, orderly and regular . plantations of trees, and fences and inclosures raised throughout the kingdom, purchases made by one from, another at very valuable rates, and jointures made upon marriages, and all other conveyances and settlements executed, a:s in a kingdom at peace within itself, and where no doubt could be made of the vahdity of titles." All Temple's feelings about Irish questions were those of a colonist and a member of the dominant caste. He troubled himself as little about the welfare of the remains of the old Celtic population as an English farmer on the Swan river troubles himself about the New Hollanders, or a Dutch Boer at the Cape about the Caffres. The years which he passed in Ireland, while ttie Cromwellian system was in full operation, he always described as "years of great satisfaction." Farming, gardening, county business, and studies, SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 451 rather entertaining than profound, occupied his time. In politics he took no part, and, many years after, he attributed this inaction to his love of the ancient constitution, which, he said, "would not suffer him to enter into public affairs till the way was plain for the King's happy restoration." It does not appear, indeed, that any offer of employment was made to him. If he really did refuse any preferment, we may, without much breach of charity, attribute the refusal rather to the caution which, during his whole life, pre- , vented him from running any risk than to the fervour of his loyalty. In 1660 he made his first appearance in public life. He sat in the convention which, in the midst of the general confusion that preceded the Restoration, was summoned by the chiefs of the army of Ireland to meet in Dublin. After the King's return, an Irish parliament was regularly convoked, in which Temple represented the county of Carlow. The details of his conduct in this situation are not known to us. But we are told in general terms, and can easily believe, that he showed great moderation and great aptitude for busi- ness. It is probable that he also distinguished himself in debate ; for, many years afterwards, he remarked that " his friends in Ireland used to think that, if he had any talent at all, it lay in that way." In May, 1663, the Irish parliament was prorogued, and Temple repaired to England with his wife. His income amounted to about five hundred pounds a-year, a sum which was then sufficient for the wants of a family mixing in fashionable circles. He passed two years in London, where he seems to have led that easy, lounging life which was best suited to his temper. He was not, however, unmindful of his interest. He had brought with him letters of introduction from the Duke of Ormond, then Lord -Lieu tenant of Ireland, to Clarendon, and to Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, who was Secre- tar)' of State. Clarendon was at the head of affairs. But his power was visibly decliHing, and was certain to decline more and more every day. An observer much less discerning than Temple might easily perceive that the Chancellor was a man who belonged to a by-gone world ; a representative of a past age, of obsolete modes of thinking, of unfashionable vices, and of more unfashionable virtues. His long exile had made him a stranger in the country of his birth. His mind, heated by conflict and by personal suffering, was far more set against popular and tolerant courses than it had been at the time of the breaking out of the Civil War. He pined for the decorous tyranny of the old Whitehall ; for the days of that sainted king who deprived his people of their money and their ears, but let their wives and daughters alone ; and could scarcely reconcile himself to a court with a mistress and without a Star Chaml)er. By taking this course he made himself every day more odious, both to the sovereign, who loved pleasure much more than prerogative, and to the people, who dreaded royal prerogatives much more than royal plea- sures ; and was, at last, more detested by the Court than any chief of the Opposition, and more detested by the Parliament than any pandar of th-* Court. Temple, whose great maxim was to offend no party, was not likely to cling to the falling fortunes of a minister the study of whose life was to offend all parties. Arlington, whose influence was gradually rising as that of Claren- don diminished, was the most useful patron to whom a young adventurer :ould attach himself. This statesman, without virtue, wisdom, or strength of mind, had raised himself to greatness by superficial qualities, and was the mere creature of the time, the circumstances and the company. The digni- fied reserve of manners, which he had acquired during a residence in Spain, provoked the ridicule of those who considered the usages of the French court IS the only standard of good breeding, but served to impress the crowd with a, 452 S/R WILLIAM TEMPLE. favourable opinion of his sagacity and gravity. In situations where the solemnity of the Escurial would have been out of place, he threw it aside without liifticulty, and conversed with great humour and vivacity. WTiile the multitude were talking of " Bennet's grave looks,"* his mirth made his presence always welcome in the royal closet. While in the antechamber Buckingham was mimicking the pompous Castilian strut of the Secretary, for the diversion of Mistress Str.art, this stately Don was ridiculing Clarendon's sober counsels to the King within, till his Majesty cried with laughter and the Chancellor with vexation. There perhaps never was a man whose outward demeanour '. made such ilifferent impressions on different people. Count Hamilton, for example, describes him as a stupid formalist, who had been made secretary solely on account of his mysterious and important looks. Clarendon, on the other hand, represents him as man whose " best faculty was raillery," and who was "for his pleasant and agreeable humour acceptable unto the King." The truth seems to be that, destitute as he was of all the higher qualifica- tions of a minister, he had a wonderful talent for becoming, in outward sem- blance, all things to all men. He had two aspects, a busy and serious one for the pul)lic, whom he wished to awe into resjiect, and a gay one for Charles, who thought that the greatest service which could be rendered to a prince was to amuse him. Yet both these were masks which he laid aside when they had served their turn. Long after, when he had retired to his deer-park and fish-ponds in Suffolk, and had no motive to act the part either of the hidalgo or of the buffoon, Evelyn, who was neither an unpractised nor an un- discerning judge, conversed much with him, and pronounced him to be a man of singularly polished manners and of great colloquial powers. Clarendon, proud and imperious by nature, soured by age and disease, and re- lying on his great talents and services, sought out no new allies. He seems to have taken a sort of morose pleasure in slighting and provoking all the rising talent of the kingdom. His connections were almost entirely confined to the small circle, every day becoming smaller, of old cavaliers who had been friends of his youth or companions of his exile. Arlington, on the other hand, beat up everywhere for recruits. No man had a greater personal following, and no man exerted himself more to serve his adherents. It was a kind of habit with him to push up his dependents to his own level, and then to complain bitterly of their ingratitude because they did not choose to be his dependents any longer. It was thus that he quarrelled with two successive Treasurers, Gifford and Danby. To Arlington, Temple attached himself, and was not sparing ©f warm professions of affection, or even, we grieve to say, of gross and almost profane adulation. In no long time he obtained his reward. England was in a very different situation with respect to foreign powers from that which she had occupied during the splendid administration of the ' Protector. She was engaged in war with the United Pro\ances, then governed with almost regal power by the Grand Pensionarj', John de Witt ; and though no war had ever cost the kingdom so much, none had ever been more feebly ^nd meanly conducted. France had espoused the interests of the States- lieneral. Denmark seemed likely to take the same side. Spain, indignant at the close political and matrimonial alliance which Charles had formed with the House of Braganza. was not disposed to lend him any assistance. The great plague of London had suspended trade, had scattered the ministers and nobles, had paralysed every department of the public service, and had in- creased the gloomy discontent which misgovernment had begun to excite * " Bennet's grave looks were a pretence " is a line in one of the best political poems of th'art age. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 453 throughout the nation. One Continental ally England possessed — the Bishop of Munster, a restless and ambitious prelate, bred a soldier, and still a soldier in all his tastes and passions. He hated the Dutch, who had interfered in the affairs of his see, and declared himself willing to risk his little dominions for the chance of revenge. He sent, accordingly, a strange kind of ambassador to London, a Benedictine monk, who spoke bad English and looked, says Lord Clarendon, "like a carter." This person brought a letter from the Bishop, offering to make an attack by land on the Dutch territoiy. The English min- isters eagerly caught at the proposal, and promised a subsidy of 500,000 rix- doUars to their new ally. It was determined to send an English agent to Munster ; and Arlington, to whose department the business belonged, fixed on Temple for this post. Temple accepted the commission, and acquitted himself tc the satisfaction of his employers, though the whole plan ended in nothing ; and the Bishop, after pocketing an instalment of his subsidy, made haste to conclude a separate peace. Temple, at a later period, looked back with no great satisfaction to this part of his life, and excused himself for undertaking a negotiation from which little good could result, by saying that he was then young and very new to business. In truth, he could hardly have been placed in a situation where the eminent diplomatic talents which he possessed could have appeared to less advantage. He was ignorant of the German language, and did not easily accommodate himself to the manners of the people. He could not bear much wine ; and none but a hard drinker had any chance of success in Westphalian society. Under all these disadvantages, however, he gave so much satisfaction that he was created a baronet and appointed resident at the viceregal court of Brussels. Brussels suited Temple far better than the palaces of the boar-hunting and wine-bibbing princes of Germany. He now occupied the most important posts of observation in which a diplomatist could be stationed. He was placed in the territory of a great neutral power, between the territories of the two great powers which were at war with England. From this excellent school he soon came forth the most accomplished negotiator of his age. In the meantime, the government of Charles had suffered a succession of humiliating disasters. The extravagance of the court had dissipated all the means which Parliament had supplied for the purpose of carrying on offensive hostilities. It was determined to wage only a defensive war ; and even for defensive war the vast resources of England, managed by triflers and pulilic robbers, were found insufficient. The Dutch insulted the British coasts, sailed up the Thames, took Sheerness, and carried their ravages to Chatham. The blaze of the ships burning in the river was seen at London ; it was rumoured that a foreign army had landed at Gravesend ; and military men seriously pro- posed to abandon the Tower. To such a depth of infamy had a bad adminis- tration reduced that proud and victorious nation, which a few years before had dictated its pleasure to Mazarine, to the States-General and tc the Vatican. Humbled Vjy the events of the war, and dreading the just anger of Parliament, the I'^nglish Ministry hastened to huddle up a peace with France and Holland at Breda. But a new scene was about to open. It had already been for sometime apparent to discerning observers that England and Holland were threatened by a common danger, much more formidable than any which they had reason to apprehend from each other. The old enemy of their independence and of their religion was no longer to be dreaded. The sceptre had passed away from Spain. That mighty empire, on which the sun never set, which had crushed the liberties of Italy and Germany, which had occupied Paris with it« X;^^ SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. armies arid covered the British seas with its sails, was at the mercy of every spoiler ; and Europe saw with dismay the rapid growth of a new and more formidable power. Men looked to Spain and saw only weakness disguised and increased by jiride— dominions of vast bulk and little strength, tempting, unwieldy and defenceless^an empty treasury — a haughty, sullen and torpid nation — a child on the throne — factions in the council — ministers v/ho served only themselves, and soldiers who were terrible only to their countrymen. Men looked to France and saw a large and compact territory — a rich soil — a central situation— a bold, alert and ingenious people — large revenues — numerous and disciplined troops — an active and ambitious prince, in the flower of his age, surrounded by generals of unrivalled skill. The projects of Louis could be counteracted only by ability, vigour and union on the part of his neighbours. Ability and vigour had hitherto been found in the councils of Holland alone, and of union there was no appearance in Europe. The question of Portuguese independence separated England from Spain. Old grudges, recent hostilities, maritime pretensions, commercial competition separated England as widely from the United Provinces. The great object of Louis, from the beginning to the end of his reign, was the acquisition of those large and valualjle provinces of the Spanish monarchy which lay contiguous to the eastern frontier of France. Already, before the conclusion of the treaty of Breda, he had invaded those provinces. He now pushed on his conquests with scarcely any resistance. Fortress after fortress was taken. Brussels itself was in danger ; and Temple thought it wise to send his wife and children to England. But his sister. Lady Giffard, who had been sometime his inmate, and who seems to have been a more important personage in his family than his wife, still remained with him. De Witt saw the progress of the French arms with painful anxiety. But it was not in the power of Holland alone to save Flanders ; and the difficulty of forming an extensive coalition for that purpose appeared almost insuperable. Louis, indeed, affected moderation. He declared himself willing to agree to a compromise with Spain. But these offers were undoubtedly mere profes- sions, intended to quiet the apprehensions of the neighbouring powers ; and, as his position became every dav more and more advantageous, it was to be expected that he would rise in his demands. Such was the state of affairs when Temple obtained from the English Ministry permission to make a tour in Holland incognito. In company with Lady Giffard he arrived at the Hague. He was not charged with any public commission, but he availed himself of this opportunity of introducing himself to De Witt. " My only business, sir," he said, "is to see the things which are most considerable in your country, and I should execute my design very imperfectly if I went away without seeing you." De Witt, who from report had formed a high opinion of Temple, was pleased by the compliment, and replied with a frankness and cordiality which at once led to intimacy. The two statesmen talked calmly over the causes which had estranged England from Holland, congratulated each other on the peace, and then began to dis- cuss the new dangers which menaced Europe. Temple, who had no authority to say anything on behalf of the English Government, expressed himself very guardedly. De Witt, who was himself the Dutch Government, had no reason to be reserved. He openly declared that his wish was to see a general coalition formed for the preservation of Flanders. His simplicity and openness amazed Temple, who had been accustomed to the affected solemnity of his patron, the Secretary, and to the eternal doublings and evasions which passed for great feats of statesmanship among the Spanish politicians at Brussels. " ^^^loever," he wrote to Arlington, " deals with M. de Witt must go the same plam way SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 455 that he pretends to in his negotiations, without refining, or colouring, or offering shadow for substance." He was scarcely less struck by the modest dwelling and frugal table of the first citizen of the richest state in the world. \Vhile Clarendon was amazing London with a dwelling more sumptuous than the palace of his master, while Arlington was lavishing his ill-gotten wealth on the decoys and orange-gardens and interminable conservatories of Euston — the great statesman who had frustrated all their plans of conquest, and the roar of whose gims they had heard with terror even in the galleries of White- hall, kept only a single servant, walked about the streets in the plainest garb, and never used a coach except for visits of ceremony. Temple sent a full account of his interview with De Witt to Arlington, who, in consequence of the fall of the Chancellor, now shared with the Duke of Buckingham the principal direction of affairs. Arlington showed no dis- position to meet tJie advances of the Dutch minister. Indeed, as was amply proved a few years later, both he and his master were perfectly willing to purchase the means of misgoverning England by giving up, not only Flanders, but the whole Continent to France. Temple, who distinctly saw that a moment had arrived at which it was possible to reconcile his countrj' with Holland — to reconcile Charles with the Parliament — to bridle the power of Louis — to efface the shame of the late ignominious war — to restore England to the same place in Europe which she had occupied under Cromwell, became more and more urgent in his representations. Arlington's replies were for some- time couched in cold and ambiguous terms. But the events which followed the meeting of Parliament, in the autumn of 1667, appear to have produced an entire change in his views. The discontent of the nation was deep and general. The administration was attacked in all its parts. The King and the ministers Aboured, not unsuccessfully, to throw on Clarendon the blame of past mis- carriages ; but though the Commons were resolved that the late Chancellor should be the first victim, it was by no means clear that he would be the last. The Secretary was personally attacked with great bitterness in the course of the debates. One of the resolutions of the Lower House against Clarendon could be understood only as a censure of the foreign policy of the Government as too favourable to France. To these events chiefly we are inclined to attribute the change which at this crisis took place in the measures of England. The Ministry seem to have felt that, if they wished to derive any advantage from Clarendon's downfall, it was necessary' for them to abandon what was supposed to be Clarendon's system, and by some splendid and popular measure to win the confidence of the nation. Accordingly, in December, 1667, Temple received a despatch containing instructions of the highest importance. The plan which he had so strongly recommended was approved ; and he was directed to visit De Witt as speedily as possible, and to ascertain whether the States were willing to enter into an offensive and defensive league with Eng- land against the projects of France. Temple, accompanied by his sister, instantly set out for the Hague, and laid the propositions of the English Government before the Grand Pensionary. The Dutch statesman answered, with characteristic straightforwardness, that he was fully ready to agree to a defensive alliance, but that it was the fundamental principle of the foreign policy of the States to make no offensive league under any circumstances whatever. With this answer. Temple hastened from the Hague to London had an audience of the King, related what had passed between himself and De Witt, exerted himself to remove the unfavourable opinion which had been conceived of the Grand Pensionary at the English court, and had the satisfac- tion of succeeding in all his objects. On the evening of the first of January, 1668, a council was held, at which Charles declared his resolution to unite 45(^ ^V/i? WILLIAM TEMPLE. with the Dutch on their own terms. Temple and his indefatigable sister im- mediately sailed again for the Ila^uc, and, after weathering a violent storm in which they were very nearly loat, arrived in safety at the place of their destination. On this occasion, as on every other, the dealings Ijctween Temple and De Wilt were singularly fair and open. When they met, Temple began by re- cajHtulating what iiad pxssed at their last interview. De Witt, who was as little given to lying with his face as with his tongue, marked his assent by his looks wliilc the recapitulation proceeded, and, when it was concluded, answered that Teniiile's memory w.as jjerfectl)' correct, and thanked him for proceeding ir. so exact and sincere a m;inner. Temple then informed the Graml Pension- ary that the King of England had determined to close with the projxjsal of a defensive alliance. De Witt had \m\ expected so sjx-'cdy a resolution ; and his counten.once indicated surprise as well as pleasure, iiut he did not retract ; and it was speedily arr.nnged that England and Hollanfl should unite for the purpose of conipciling Louis to abide by the compromise which he had formerly ol'fereil. The next object of the two statesmen was to induce another govern- ment to become a party to their league. The victories of Gustavus and Torstenson, and the political talents of Oxenstiern, had jbtained for Sweden a consideration in Europe disproportioned to her real power ; the princes of Northern Germany stood in great awe of her ; and De Witt and Temple agreed that tf she could be induced to accede to the league, " it would be too strong a bar for Prance to venture on." Temple went that same evening to Count Dona, the Swedish Minister at the Hague, took a seat in the most uncere- monious manner ; and, with that air of frankness and good-will by which he often succeeded in rendering his diplomatic overtures acceptable, explained the scheme which was in agitation. Dona was greatly pleased and flattered. He had not powers which would authorise him to conclude a treaty of such im- ])ortance. But he strongly advised Temple and De Witt to do their part without delay, and seemed confident that Sweden would accede. The ordinary course of public business in Holland was too slow for the present emergency ; and De Witt appeared to have some scruples alxjut breaking through the estal)lished forms. But the urgency and dexterity of Temple jirevailed. The States-General took the responsibility of executing the treaty with a celerity unprecedented in the annals of the federation, and indeed inconsistent with its fundamental laws. The state of public feeling was, how- ever, such in all the provinces, that this irregidarity was not merely pardoned, but applauded. When the instrument had been formerly signed, the Dutch Commissioners embraced the English Plenipotentiary with the warmest expressions of kindness and confidence. "At Breda," exclaimed Temple, " we embraced as friends, here as brothers." This memorable negotiation occupied only five days. De Witt complimented Temple in high terms on having effected in so short a time what must, under other management, have been the work of months : and Temple, in his despatches, spoke in equally high terms of De Witt. " I must add these words, to do M. de Witt right, that I found him as plain, as direct and square in the course of this business as any man could be, though often stiff in points where he thought any advantage could accrue to his country ; and have all the reason in the world to be satisfied with him ; and for his industry, no man had ever more, I am sure. For these five days, at least, neither of us spent any idle hours, neither day nor night." Sweden Nvillingly acceded to the league, which is known in history^ by the name of the Triple Alliance ; and, after some signs of ill-humour on the part of France,- 3- general pacification was the result. S//? WILLIAM TEMPLE. 457 The Triple Alliance may be viewed in two lights ; as a measure of foreign policy and as a measure of domestic policy ; and under both aspects it seems to us desers'ing of all the praise which has been bestowed upon it. Dr. Lingard, who is undoubtedly a very able and well inlormed writer, but whose great fundamental rule of judging seems to be that tlie })opular opinion on a historical cjuestion cannot possibly be correct, speaks very slightingly of this celebrated treaty ; and .Mr. Courtenay, who by no means regards Temple with that profound veneration which is generally found in biographers, has conceded, in our opinion, far too much to Dr. Lingard. The reasoning of Dr. Lingard is simply this. The Triple Alliance only compelled Louis to make peace on the terms on which, before the alliance was formed, he had offered to make peace. How can it then be said that this alliance arrested his career and preserved Europe from his ambition ? Now, this reasoning is evidently of no force at all, except on the supposition that Leen formed ; and, if Dr. Lingard thinks this a reasonable supposition, we should be disposed to say to him, in the words of that great politician, Mrs. Western : " Indeed, brother, you would make a fine plenipo to negotiate with the French. l"hey would soon persuatle you that they take towns out of mere defensive principles." Our own inipression is that Louis made his offer only in order to avert some .such measure as the Triple Alliance, and adhered to his offer only in consequence of that alliance, lie had refused to consent to an armistice. He had made all his arrangements for a winter campaign. In the very week in which Temple and the .States concluded their agreement at the Hague, Franche Comte was attacked by the French armies, and in three weeks the whole province was conquered. This prey Louis was compelled to disgorge. And what compelled him ? Did the object seem to him small or contemptible? On the contrar)', the annexation of P'ranche Comte to his kingdom was one of the favourite projects of his life. Was he withheld by regard for his word ! Did he — who never in any other transaction of his reign showed the smallest respect for the most solenm ooligations of public faith, who violated the Treaty of the PyTcnees, who violated the Treaty of Aix, who violated the Treaty of Ximeguen, who violated the Partition Treaty, who violated the Treaty of Utrecht — feel himself restrained by his word on this single occasion ? Can any person who is acquainted with his character and with his whole policy doubt that, if the neighbouring powers would have looked quietly on, he would instantly have risen in his demands? How then stands the case ? He wished to keep Franche Comte. It was not from regard to his word that he ceded Franche Comte. Why then did he cede Franche Comte ? We answer, as all Europe answered at the time, from fear of the Triple Alliance. But grant that Louis was not really stopped in his progress by this famous league ; still it is certain that the world then, and long after, believed that he was so stopped, and that this was the prevailing mipression in PVance as well as in other countries. Temple, therefore, at the very least, succeeded in raising the credit of his country and m lowering the credit of a rival power. Here there is no room for contro%-ersy. No grul)bmg among old state-papers will ever bring to light any document which will shake these facts^lhat Eurojie believed the ambition of I'^rance to have been curbed by the three jxiwers — that England, a few months before the least among the nations, forced to abandon her own seas, unable to defend the mouths of her own rivers, regained almost as high a place in the estimatii>n of her neighbours as she had held in the tmies of Elizabeth and Oliver ; and that all this change of opinion wai produced in five days by wise and resolute councils, without the firing of a 4S8 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. single gun. That the Triple Alliance effected this will hardly be disputed ; and, if it effected nothing else, it must still be regarded as a master-iMece of diplomacy. Considered as a measure of domestic policy, this treaty seems lo be equally deserving of approbation. It did much to allay discontents, to reconcile the sovereign with a people who had, under his wretched administration, become ashamed of him and of themselves. It was a kind of pledge for internal good government. The foreign relations of the kingdom had at that time the close.st connection with our domestic policy. From the Restoration to the accession of the House of Hanover, Holland and France were to England what the right-hand horseman and the left-hand horseman in Burger's fine ballad were to the Wildgraf — the good and the evil counsellor — the angel of light and the angel of darkness. The ascendency of France was inseparably connected with the prevalence of tyranny in domestic affairs. The ascendency of Holland was as inseparably connected with the prevalence of political liberty and of mutual toleration among Protestant sects. How fatal and degrading an influence Louis was destined to exercise on the British counsels, how great a deliverance our country was destined to owe to the States, could not be foreseen when the Triple Alliance was concluded. Yet even then all discerning men considered it as a good omen for the English constitution and the reformed religion, that the Government had attached itself to Holland and had assumed a firm and .somewhat hostile attitude towards France. The fame of this measure was the greater because it stood so entirely alone. It was the single eminently good act performed by the Government during the interval between the Restoration and the Revolution. * Every person who had the smallest part in it, and some who had no part in it at all, battled for a share of the credit. The most close- fisted republicans were ready to grant money for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this popular alliance ; and the great Tory poet of that age, in his finest satires, repeatedly spoke with reverence of the " triple bond." This negotiation raised the fame of Temple both at home and abroad to a great height, to such a height, indeed, as seems to have excited the jealousy of his friend Arlington. While London and Amsterdam resounded with acclama- tions of joy, the Secretary, in very cold official language, communicated to his friend the approbation of the King ; and, lavish as the Government was of titles and money, its ablest servant was neither ennobled nor en- riched. Temple's next mission was to Aix-la-Chapelle, where a general congress met for the purpose of perfecting the work of the Triple Alliance. On his road he received abundant proofs of the estimation in which he was held. Salutes were fired from the walls of the towns through which he passed ; the population poured forth into the streets to see him ; and the magistrates entertained him with speeches and banquets. After the close of the negotiations at Aix, he was appointed Ambassador at the Hague. But in both these missions he experienced much vexation from the rigid and, indeed, unjust parsimony of the Government. Profuse to many unworthy applicants, the ^Ministers were niggardly to him alone. They secretly disliked his politics ; and they seem to have indemnified themselves for the humiliation of adopting his measures by cutting down his salary and delaying the settlement of his outfit. At the Hague he was received with cordiality by De Witt, and with the most signal marks of respect by the States-General. His situation was in one point extremely delicate. The Prince of Orange, the hereditar)' chief of the faction opposed lo the administration of De Witt, was the nephew of Charles. * "The only good public thin? that bath been done since the king came into Eng- land."— Pepys's Diary, February i-j, 1867-68. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 450 To preserve the confidence of the ruling party, without showing any want of respect to so near a relation of his own master, was no easy task. But Temple acquitted himself so well that he appears to have been in great favour both with the Grand Pensionary and with the Prince. In the main, the years which he spent at the Hague seem, in spite of some pecuniary difficulties occasioned by the ill-will of the English Ministers, to have passed very agreeably. He enjoyed the highest personal consideration. He was surrounded by objects interesting in the highest degree to a man of his observant turn of mind. He had no wearing labour, no hea\y responsibility ; and, if he had no opportunity of adding to his high reputation, he ran no risk of impairing it. But evil times were at hand. Though Charles had for a moment deviated into a wise and dignified policy, his heart had always been with France ; and France employed every means of seduction to lure him back. His impatience of control, his greediness for money, his passion fur beauty, his family affections, all his tastes, all his feelings were practised on with the utmost dexterity. His interior Cabinet was now composed of men such as that generation, and that generation alone, produced ; of men at whose audacious profligacy the rats of our own time looK with the same sort of admiring despair with which our sculptors contemplate the Theseus and our painters the Cartoons. To be a real, hearty, deadly enemy of the liberties and religion of the nation was in that dark conclave an honourable distinction — a distinction which belonged only to the daring and impetuous Clifford. His associates were men to whom all creeds and all constitutions were alike ; who were equally ready to profess and to persecute the faith of Geneva, of Lambeth and of Rome ; who were equally ready to be tools of power without any sense of loyalty, and stirrers of sedition without any zeal for freedom. It was hardly possible even for a man so penetrating as De AVitt to foresee to what depths of wickedness and infamy this execrable administration would descend. Yet many signs of the great woe which was coming on Europe — the visit of the Duchess of Orleans to her brother^the unexplained mission of Buckingham to Paris — the sudden occupation of Lorraine by the P>ench— made the Grand Pensionary uneasy ; and his alarm increased when he learned that Temple had received orders to repair instantly to London. De Witt earnestly pressed for an explanation. Temple very sincerely replied that he hoped that the English Ministers would adhere to the principles of the Triple Alliance. " I can answer," he said, "only for myself. But that I can do. If a new system is tp be adopted, I will never have any part in it. I have told the King so ; and I will make my words good. If I return you will know more : and if I do not return you will guess more." De ^Vitt smiled, and answered that he would hope the best, and would do all in his power to prevent others from forming unfavourable surmises. In October, 1670, Temple reached London ; and all his worst suspicions were immediately more than confirmed. He repaired to the Secretary's house, and was kept an hour and a half waiting in the ante-chamber whilst Lord Ashley was closeted with Arlington. When at length the doors were thrown open, Arlington was dry and cold, asking trifling questions about the voyage, and then, in order to escape from the necessity of discussing business, called in his daughter, an engaging little girl of three years old, who was long after described by poets as "dressed in all the bloom of smiling nature," and whom Evelyn, one of the witnesses of her inauspicious marriage, mournfully designated as " the sweetest, hopefuUest, most beautiful child, and most vir- tuous too." Any particular conversation was impossible; and Temple, who with all his constitutional or philosophical indifference, was sufficiently sensi- 4^0 S//^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. tive on the side of vanity, felt this treatment keenly. The next day he offered himself to the notice of the King, who was snuffing up the morning air and feeding his ducks in the Mall. Charles was civil, but, like Arlington, care- fully avoided all conversation on politics. Temple found that all his most respectable friends were entirely excluded from the secrets of the inner council, and were awaiting in anxiety and dread for what those mysterious deliberations might produce. At length he obtained a glimpse of light. The bold spirit and fierce passions of Clifford made him the most unfit of all men to be the keeper of a momentous secret. He told Temple, with great vehemence, that the States had behaved basely, that De Witt was a rogue and a rascal, that it was below the King of England, or any other king, to have anything to do with such wretches ; that this ought to be made known to all the world, and that it was the duty of the Minister at the Hague to declare it publicly. Temple commanded his temper as well as he could, and replied calmly and firmly, that he should make no such declaration, and that if he were called upon to give his opinion of the States and their Ministers, he wouk' say exactly what he thought. He now saw clearly that the tempest was gathering fast — that the great alliance which he had formed and over which he had watched with parental care was about to be dissolved — that times were at hand when it would be necessary for him, if he continued in public life, either to take part decidedly against the Court or to forfeit the high reputation which he enjoyed at home and abroad. He began to make preparations for retiring altogether from business. He enlarged a little garden which he had purchased at Sheen, and laid out some money in ornamenting his house there. He was still nominally ambassador to Holland ; and the English Ministers continued during some months to flatter the States with the hope that he would speedily return. At length, in June, 1671, the designs of the Cabal were ripe. The infamous treaty with France had been ratified. The season of deception was past and that of insolence and violence had arrived. Temple received his formal dis- mission, kissed the King's hand, was repaid for his services with some of those vague compliments and promises which cost so little to the cold heart, the easy temper and the ready tongue of Charles, and ({uietly withdrew to his little nest, as he called it, at .Sheen. There he amused himself with gardening, which he practised so success- fully that the fame of his fruit soon spread far and wide. But letters were his chief solace. He had, as we have mentioned, l)een from his youth in the habit of diverting himself with C(;mposition. The clear and agreeable language of his desi)atches had early attracted the notice of his employers ; and, before the peace of Breda, he had, at the request of Arlington, published a pamjjlet on the war, of which nothing is now known, except that it had some vogue at the time, and that Charles, not a contemptible judge, pro- nounced it to be very well written. Temple had also, a short time before he began to reside at the Hague, written a treatise on the state of Ireland, in which he siiowed all the feelings of a Cromwellian. He had gradually formed a style singularly lucid and melodious — superficially deformed, indeed, by (lallicisms and lliispanicisms, picked uj) in travel or in negotiation — but at the liottom pure English — generally flowing with careless simplicity, l)ut occasionally rising even into Ciceronian magnificence. The length of his sentences has often been remarked. But in truth this length is only a]5parcnt. A critic who considers as one sentence everything that lies between two full stops will undoubtedly call Temple's sentences long. But a critic who ex- amines them carefully will find that they are not swollen liy j>arenthetical matter ; that their structure is scarcely ever intricate ; that they are formed S/J^ WILLIAM TRAMPLE. 46 i merely by accumulation ; and that, by the simple process of leaving out con- junctions, and substituting full stops for colons and semicolons, they might, without any alteration in the order of the words, be broken up into very short ?eriods with no sacrifice except that of euphony. The long sentences of looker and Clarendon, on the contrary, are really long sentences, and cannot be turned into short ones without being entirely taken to pieces. The best known of the works which Temple composed during his first re- treat from official business are an " Essay on Government," which seems to us exceedingly childish, and an "Account of the United Provinces," which we think a master-piece of its kind. Whoever compares these two treatises will pro- bably agree with us in thinking that Temple was not a very deep or accurate reasoner, but was an excellent observer — that he had no call to philosophical speculation, but that he was qualified to excel as a writer of Memoirs and Travels. While Temple was engaged in these pursuits, the great storm which had long been brooding over Europe burst with such fury as for a moment seemed to threaten ruin to all free governments and all Protestant churches. France and England, without seeking for any decent pretext, declared war against Holland. The immense armies of Louis poured across the Rhine and in- vaded the territory of the United Provinces. The Dutch seemed to be para- lysed by terror. Great towns opened their gates to straggling parties. Regi- ments flung down their arms without seeing an enemy. Guelderland, Over>'s- sel, Utrecht were overrun by the conquerors. The fires of the French camp were seen from the walls of Amsterdam. In the first madness of despair, the devoted people turned their rage against the mo6t illustrious of their fellow- citizens. De Ruyter was saved with difficulty from assassins. De W'itt was torn to pieces by an infuriated rabble. No hope was left to the Common- wealth, save in the dauntless, the ardent, the indefatigable, the unconquerable spirit which glowed under the frigid demeanour of the young Prince of Orange. That great man rose at once to the full dignity of his part and approved himself a worthy descendant of the line of heroes who had vindicated the liberties of Europe against the house of Austria. Nothing could shake his fidelity to his country — not his close connection with the royal family of Eng- land — not the most earnest solicitations — not the most tempting offers. The spirit of the nation — that spirit which had maintained the great conflict against the gigantic power of Philip — revived in all its strength. Counsels, such as are inspired by a generous despair, and are almost always followed by a speedy dawn of hope, were gravely concerted by the statesmen of Holland. To opea their dykes — to man their ships— to leave their country, with all its miracles of art and industry — its cities, its canals, its villas, its pastures and its tulip gardens — buried under the waves of the German Ocean — to bear to a distant climate their Calvinistic faith and their old Batavian liberties — to fix, perhaps with happier auspices, the new Stadthouse of their Comi? onwealth under other stars and amidst a strange vegetation in the Spice Islands of the Eastern seas— such were the plans which they had the spirit to form ; and it is seldom that men who have the spirit to form such plans are reduced to the necessity of executing them. The allies had, during a short period, obtained success beyond their hopes. This was their auspicious moment. They neglected to improve it. It passed away ; and it returned no more. The Prince of Orange arrested the progress of the French armies. Louis returned to be amused and flattered at Ver- sailles. The country was under water. The winter approached. The weather became stormy. The fleets of the combined kings could no longer keep the sea. The Republic had obtained a respite ; and the circumstances were such 462 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. that a respite was, in a military view, important ; in a political view, almost decisive. The alliance against Holland, formidable as it was, was yet of such a nature that it could not succeed at all unless it succeeded at once. The English Ministers could not carry on the war without money. They could legally obtain money only from the Parliament ; and they were most unwilling to call the Parliament together. The measures which Charles had adopted at home were even mere unpopular than his foreign policy. He had bound himself by a treaty with Louis to re-establish the Catholic religion in England ; and, in pursuance of this design, he had entered on the same path which his brother afterwards trod with greater obstinacy to a more fatal end. He had annulled by his own sole authority the laws against Catholics and other dissenters. The matter of the Declaration of Indulgence exasperated one half of his subjects and the manner the other half. Liberal men would have rejoiced to see tole- ration granted, at least to all Protestant sects. Many high churchmen had no objection to the King's dispensing power. But a tolerant act done in an un- constitutional way excited the opposition of all who were zealous either for the Church or for the privileges of the pople, that is to say, of ninety-nine English- men out of a hundred. The ministers were, therefore, most unwilling to meet the Houses. Lawless and desperate as their counsels were, the boldest of them had too much value for his neck to think of resorting to benevolences, privy-seals, ship-money, or any of the other unlawful modes of extortion which former kings had employed. The audacious fraud of shutting up the Exchequer furnished them with about twelve hundred thousand pounds, a sum which, even in better hands than theirs, would hardly have sufficed for the war- charges of a single year. And this was a step which could never be repeated ; a step which, like most breaches of public faith, was speedily found to have caused pecuniary difficulties greater than those which it removed. All the money that could be raised was gone ; Holland was not conquered ; and the King had no resource but in a Parliament. Had a general election taken place at this crisis, it is probable that the country would have sent up representatives as resolutely hostile to the Court as those who met in November, 1640 ; that the whole domestic and foreign policy of the Government would have been instantly changed ; and that the members of the Cabal would have expiated their crimes on Tower Hill. But the House of Commons was still the same which had been elected twelve years before in the midst of the transports of joys, repentance and loyalty which followed the Restoration ; and no pains had been spared to attach it to the Court by places, pensions and bribes. To the great mass of the people it was scarcely less odious than the Cabinet itself. Vet, though it did not immediately proceed to those strong measures which a new House would in all ijrobability have adopted, it was sullen and unmanagealilc, and undid, slowly indeed, and by ilegrees, but most effectually, all that the Ministers hatl done. In one session it anniliilated their system of internal government. In a second .session it gave a death-blow to their foreign policy. The dispensing jjower was the first object of attack. The Commons would not expressly approve the war ; but neitlier did they as yet expressly condemn it ; and they were even willing to grant the King a supply for the purpose of continuing hostilities on condition that he would redress internal grievances, among which the Declaration of Indulgence held the foremost place. Shafleslniry, who was Chancellor, saw that the game was up — that he had got all that was to be got by siding with despotism and Popery, and that it was high time to think of being a demagogue and a good Protestant. The Lord Treasurc.T, Clifford, was marked out by his boldness, by his openness, by .9//v' WILLIAM TEMPLE. 463 his zeal for the Catholic religion, by something which, compared with the villany of his colleagues, might almost be called honesty, to be the scapegoat of the whole conspiracy. The King came in person to the House of Peers for the purpose of requesting their Lordships to meditate between him and the Commons touching the Declaration of Indulgence. He remained in the House while his speech was taken into consideration — a common practice with him ; for the debates amused his sated mind, and were sometimes, he used to say, as good as a comedy. A more sudden turn his Majesty had certainly never seen in any comedy of intrigue, either at his own play-house, or at the Duke's, than that which this memorable debate produced. The Lord Treasurer spoke with characteristic ardour and intrepedity in defence of the Declaration. When he sat down, the Lord Chancellor rose from the woolsack, and, to the amazement of the King and of the House, attacked Clifford — attacked the Declaration for which he had himself spoken in Council — gave up the whole policy of the Cabinet — and declared himself on the side of the House of Commons. Even that age had not witnessed so portentous a display of impudence. The King, by the advice of the French Court, which cared much more about the war on the Continent than about the conversion of the English heretics, detemiined to save his foreign policy at the expense of his plans in favour of the Catholic church. He obtain a supply ; and in return for this concession he cancelled the Declaration of Indulgence — and made a formal renunciation of the dispensing power before he prorogued the Houses. But it was no more in his power to go on with the war than to maintain his arbitary system at home. His Ministry, betrayed within and fiercely assailed from without, went rapidly to pieces. Clifford threw down the white staff and retired to the woods of Ugbrook, vowing, with bitter tears, that he would never again see that turbulent city and that perfidious Court. Shaftesburj' was ordered to deliver up the Great Seal, and instantly carried over his front of brass and his tongue of poison to the ranks of the Opposition. The remaining members of the Cabal had neither the capacity of the late Chancellor, nor the courage and enthusiasm of the late Treasurer. They were not only unable to carry on their former projects, but began to tremble for their own lands and heads. The Parliament, as soon as it again met, began to murmur against the alliance with France and the war with Holland ; and the murmur gradually swelled into a fierce and terrible clamour. Strong resolutions were adopted against Lauderdale and Buckingham. Articles of impeachment were exhibited against Arlington. The Triple Alliance was mentioned with reverence in every debate ; and the eyes of all men were turned towards the quiet orchard where the author of that great league was amusing himself with reading and gardening. Temple was ordered to attend the King, and was charged with the office of negotiating a separate peace with Holland. The Spanish Ambassador to the Court of London had been empowered by the States-General to treat in their name. With him Temple came to a speedy agreement, and in three days a treaty was concluded. The highest honours of the State were now within Temple's reach. After the retirement of Clifford, the white staff had been delivered to Thomas Osborne, soon after created Earl of Danby, who was related to Lady Temple, and had, many years earlier, travelled and played tennis \yith Sir William. Danby was an interested and unscrupulous man, but by no means destitute of abilities or of judgment. He was, indeed, a far better adviser than any in whom Charles had hitherto reposed confidence. Clarendon was a man of another generation, and did not in the least understand the society which he had to 464 ■ SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. govern. The members of the Cabal were ministers of a foreign power and enemies of the Established Church, and had, in consequence, raised against themselves and their master an irresistible storm of national and religious hatred. Uanby wished to strengthen and extend the prerogative ; but he had the sense to see that this could be done only by a complete change of system. He knew the English people and the House of Commons ; and he knew that the course which Charles had recently taken, if olDstinately pursued, might Avell end before the windows of the Banqueting- House. He saw that the true policy of the Crown was to ally itself, not with the feeble, the hated, the down-trodden Catholics, but with the powerful, the wealthy, the popular, the dominant Church of England ; to trust for aid, not to a foreign Prince whose name was hateful to the British Nation and whose succours could be obtained only on terms of vassalage, but to the old Cavalier party, to the landed gentry, the clergy and the universities. By rallying round the throne the whole strength of the Royalists and High Churchmen, and by using without stint all the resources of corruption, he flattered himself that he could manage the Parliament. That he failed is to be attributed less to himself than to his master. Of the disgraceful dealings which were still kept up with the French Court, Danby deserved little or none of the blame, though he suf- fered the whole punishment. Danby, with great parliamentary talents, had paid little attention to European politics, and wished for the help of some person on whom he could rely in this department. A plan was accordingly arranged for making Temple Secretary of State. Arlington was the only member of the Cabal who still held office in England. The temper of the House of Commons made it necessary to remove him, or rather, to require him to sell out ; for at that time the great offices of State were bought and sold as commissions in the army now are. Temple was informed that he should have the Seals if he would pay Arlington six thou- sand pounds. The transaction had nothing in it discreditable, according to the notions of that age, and the investment would have been a good one ; for we imagine that at that time the gains which a Secretary of State might make, without doing anything considered as improper, were very considerable. Temple's friends offered to lend him the money ; but he was fully determined not to take a post of so much responsibility in times so agitated and under a prince on whom so little reliance could be placed, and accepted the embassy to the Hague, leaving Arlington to find another purchaser. Before Temple left England, he had a long audience of the King, to whom he spoke with great severity of the measures adopted ])y the late Ministry. The King owned that things had turned out ill. '' But," said he, "if I had been well served, I might have made a good business of it." Temple was alarmed at this language, and inferred from it that the system of the Cabal had not been abandoned, but only sus])endcd. He therefore thought it his duty to go, as he expresses it, " lo the bottom of the matter." He strongly represented to the King the impossibility of establishing either absolute government or the Cath- olic religion in England ; and concluded by repeating an observation which he had heard at Brussels from M. Gourville, a very intelligent Frenchman, well known to Charles: "A king of England," said (lourvilh;, "who is willing to be the man of his people, is thegrcptcst king in the world ; but if he wishes to be more, by Heaven he is nothing at all ! " The King betrayed some .symptons of impatience during this lecture ; but at last he laid his hand kindly on Temple's shoulder and said, " Vou are right and so is Gourville, and I will be the man of my ])eople." With this assurance, Temple repaired to the Hague in July, 1674. Holland was now .secure, and France was surrounded on every side by enemies. S/A' WILLIAM TEMPLE. 465 Spain and the Empire were in arms for the purpose of compelling Louis to abandon all that he had acquired since the treaty of the Pyrenees. A congress for the purpose of putting an end to the war was opened at Nimeguen under the mediation of England in 1675 ; and to that congress Temple was deputed. The work of conciliation, however, went on very slowly. The belligerent powers were still sangaine, and the mediating power was unsteady and insincere. In the meantime, the Opposition in England became more and more formid- able, and seemed fully determined to force the King into a war with France. Charles was desirous of making some appointments which might strengthen the administration and conciliate the confidence of the public. No man was more esteemed by the nation than Temple ; yet he had never been concerned in any opposition to any government. In July, 1677, he was sent for from Nimeguen. Charles received him with caresses, earnestly pressed him to accept the seals of Secretary of State, and promised to bear half the charge of buying out the present holder. Temple was charmed by the kindness and politeness of the King's manner and by the liveliness of his Majesty's conver- sation, but his prudence was not to be so laid asleep. He calmly and steadily excused himself. The King affected to treat his excuses as mere jests, and gaily said, " Go, get you gone to Sheen. We shall have no good of you till you have been there ; and when you have rested yourself, come up again." Temple withdrew and stayed two days at his villa, but returned to town in the same mind, and the King was forced to consent at least to a delay. But while Temple thus carefully shunned the responsibility of bearing a part in the general direction of affairs, he gave a signal proof of that never-faihng sagacity which enabled him to find out ways of distinguishing himself without risk. He had a principal share in bringing about an event which was at the time hailed with general satisfaction, and which subsequently pro- duced consequences of the highest importance. This was the marriage of the Prince of Orange and the Lady Mary. In the following year, Temple returned to the Hague ; and thence he was ordered, in the close of 1678, to repair to Nimeguen, for the purpose of signing the hollow and unsatisfactory treaty by which the distractions of Europe were for a short time suspended. He grumbled much at being required to sign bad articles which he had not framed, and still more at having to travel in very cold weather. After all, a difficulty of etiquette prevented him from signing, and he returned to the Hague. Scarcely had he arrived there when he receiyed intelligence that the King, whose embarrassments were now far greater than ever, was fully resolved immediately to appoint him Secretary of State. He a third time declined that high post, and began to make preparations for a journey to Italy ; thinking, doubtless, that he should spend his time much more pleasantly among pictures and ruins than in such a whirlpool of political and religious frenzy as was then raging in London. But the King was in extreme necessity and was no longer to be so easily put off. Temple received positive orders to repair instantly to England. He obeyed, and found the country in a state even more fearful than that which he had pictured to himself. Those are terrible conjunctures, when the discontents of a nation — not light And capricious discontents, but discontents which have been steadily increasing during a long series of years — have attained their full maturity. The discerning few predict the approach of these conjunctures, but predict in vain. To the many, the evil season comes as a total eclipse of the sun at noon comes to a people of savages. Society, which but a short time before was in a state of perfect repose, is on a sudden agitated with the most fearful convoilsions and 466 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. seems to be on the verge of dissolution ; and the rulers who, till the raischie^ was beyond the reach of all ordinary remedies, had never bestowed one thought on its existence, stand bewildered and panic-stricken, without hope or resource, in the midst of the confusion. One such conjuncture this generation has seen. God grant that we may never see another ! At such a conjuncture it was that Temple landed on English ground in the beginning of 1679. The Parliament had obtained a glimpse of the King's dealings with France, and their anger had been unjustly directed against Danby, whose conduct as to that matter had been, on the whole, deserving rather of praise than of censure. The Popish plot, the murder of Godfrey, the infamous inventions of Oates, the discovery of Colman's letters had excited the nation to madness. All the disaffection which had been generated by eighteen years of misgovernment had come to the birth together. At this moment the King had been advised to dissolve that Parliament which had been elected just after his restoration, and which, though its composition had since that time been greatly altered, was still far more deeply imbued with the old cavalier spirit than any that had preceded, or that was likely to follow it. The general election had commenced, and was proceeding with a degree of excitement never before known. The tide ran furiously against the Court. It was clear that a majority of the new House of Commons would be — to use a word which came into fashion a few months later — decided Whigs. Charles had found it necessary to yield to the violence of the public feeling. The Duke of York was on the point of retiring to Holland. *' I never," says Temple, who had seen the abolition of monarchy, the dissolution of the Long Parliament, the fall of the Protectorate, the declara- tion of Monk against the Rump, " I never saw greater disturbance in men's minds." The King now with the utmost emergency besought Temple to take the seals. The pecuniary part of the arrangement no longer presented any diffi- culty, and Sir William was not quite so decided in his refusal as he had formerly been. He took three days to consider the posture of affairs and to examine his own feelings, and he came to the conclusion that " the scene was unfit for such an actor as he knew himself to be." Yet he felt that, by refusing help to the King at such a crisis, he might give much offence and incur much censure. He shaped his course with his usual dexterity. He affected to be very desirous of a seat in Parliament ; yet he contrived to be an unsuccessful candidate ; and, when all the writs were returned, he represented that it would be useless for him to take the seals till he could procure admittance to the House of Cojiimons ; and in this manner he succeeded in avoiding the great- ness which others desired to thrust upon him. The Parliament met ; and the violence of its proceedings surpassed all expectation. The Long Parliament itself, with much greater provocation, had at its commencement been less violent. The Treasurer was instantly driven from office, impeacheil, sent to the Tower. Sharp and vehement votes were passed on the subject of the Popish Plot. The Commons were prepared to go much further, to wrest from the King his prerogative of mercy in cases of high political crimes and to alter the succession to the Crown. Charles was thoroughly perplexed and dismayed. Temple saw him almost daily, and thought him impressed with a deep sense of his errors and of the miserable state into which they have brought him. Their conferences became longef and more confidential ; and Temple began to flatter himself with the hope that he might be able to reconcile parlies at home as he had reconciled hostile States abroad ; that he might be able to suggest a plan which should allay all heats, efface the memory of all past grievances, secure the nation from mis- government and protect the Crown against the encroachments of Parliament, SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 467 Temple's plan was that the existing Privy Council, which consisted of fifty members, should be dissolved ; that there should no longer be a small interior council, like that which is now designated as the Cabinet ; that a new Privy Council of thirty members should be appointed ; and that the King should pledge himself to govern by the constant advice of this body, to suffer all his affairs of every kind to be freely debated there, and not to reserve any part of the public business for a secret committee. Fifteen of the members of this new council were to be great officers of State. The other fifteen were to be independent noblemen and gentlemen of the greatest weight in the country. In appointing them, particular regard was to be had to the amount of their property. The whole annual income of the counsellors was estimated at ^30x3,000. The annual income of all tht members of the House of Commons was not supposed to exceed ;^400,ooo. The appointment of wealthy counsellors Temple describes as "a chief regard, necessary to this Constitution." This plan was the subject of frequent conversation between the King and Temple. After a month passed in discussions to which no third person appears to have been privy, Charles declared himself satisfied of the expediency of the proposed measure and resolved to carry it into effect. It is much to be regretted that Temple has left us no account of these con- ferences. Historians have, therefore, been left to form their own conjectures as to the object of this very extraordinary plan, " this Constitution," as Temple himself calls it. And we cannot say that any explanation which has yet been given seems to us quite satisfactory. Indeed, almost all the writers whom we have consulted appear to consider the change as merely a change of administra- tion, and so considering it, they generally applaud it. Mr. Courtenay, who has evidently examined this subject with more attention than has often been bestowed upon it, seems to think Temple's scheme very strange, unintelligible and absurd. It is with very great diffidence that we offer our own solution of what we have always thought one of the great riddles of English histor)'. We are strongly inclined to suspect that the appointment of the new Vx\\y Council was really a much more remarkable event than has generally been supposed, and that what Temple had in view was to effect, under colour of a change of administration, a permanent change in the Constitution. The plan, considered merely as a plan for the formation of a Cabinet, is so obviously inconvenient, that we cannot easily believe this to have been Temple's chief object. The number of the new Council alone would be a most serious objection. The largest cabinets of modern times have not, we believe, consisted of more than fifteen members. Even this number has gene- rally been thought too large. The Marquess Wellesley, whose judgment on a question of executive administration is entitled to as much respect as that of any statesman that England ever produced, expressed, on a very important occasion,* his conviction that even thirteen was an incon- veniently large number. But in a Cabinet of thirty members \Nhat chance could there be of finding unity, secrecy, expedition, any of the qualities which such a body ought to possess ? If, indeed, the memliers of such a Cabinet were closely bound together by interest, if they all had a deep stake in the permanence of the Administration, if the majority were dependent on a small number of leading men, the thirty might perhaps act as a smaller number would act, though more slowly, more awkwardly, and with more risk of improper disclosures. But the council which Temple pro- posed was so framed that if, instead of thirty members, it had contained only In the negotiations of iSi2. 40S SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. ten, it would still have been the most unwieldly and discordant Cabinet that ever sat. One half of the members were to be persons holding no office — persons who had no motive to compromise their opinions, or to take any share of the responsibility of an unpopular measure — persons, therefore, who might be expected, as often as there might be a crisis requiring the most cordial co-operation, to draw off from the rest and to throw every diffi- culty in the way of the public business. The circumstance that they were men of enormous private wealth only made the matter worse. The House of Commons is a checking body ; and therefore it is desirable that it should, to a great extent, consist of men of independent fortune, who receive nothing and expect nothing from the Government. But with executive boards the case is quite different. Their business is not to check, but to act. The very same things, therefore, which are the virtues of Parliaments may be vices in Cabinets. We can hardly conceive a greater curse to the country than an Administration, the members of which should be as perfectly independent of each other, and as little under the necessity of making mutual concessions, as the representatives of London and Devonshire in the House of Commons are and ought to be. Now Temple's new Council was to contain fifteen members who were to hold no offices, and the average amount of whose private estates was ten thousand pounds a year — an income which, in proportion to the wants of a man of rank of that period, was at least equal to thirty thousand a year in our time. Was it to be expected that such men would gratuitously take on themselves the labour and responsibility of Ministers, and the unpopularity which the best Ministers must sometimes be prepared to brave ? Could there be any doubt that an Opposition would soon be formed within the Cabinet itself, and that the consequence would be disunion, altercation, tardiness in operations, the divulging of secrets, everything most alien from the nature of an executive council ? Is it possible to imagine that considerations so grave and so obvious should have altogether escaped the notice of a man of Temple's sagacity and experi- ence ? One of two things appears to us to be certain — either that his project has been misunderstood, or that his talents for public affairs have been overrated. We lean to the opinion that his project has been misunderstood. His new Council, as we have shown, would have been an exceedingly bad Cabinet. The inference which we are inclined to draw is this^that he meant his Council to serve some other purpose than that of a mere Cabinet. Barillon used four or five words which contain, we think, the key of the whole mystery. Mr. Courtenay calls them pithy words ; but he does not, if we are right, apprehend their whole force. " Ce sont," said Barillon, " des etats, nondes conseils. " In order clearly to understand what we imagine to have been Temple's views, we must remember that the Government of England was at that mo- ment, and had been during nearly eighty years, in a state of transition. A change, not the less real nor the less extensive because disguised under ancient names and forms, was in constant progress. The theory of the Constitution — the fundamental laws which fix the powers of the three branches of the legisla- ture — underwent no material change between the time of lilizabeth and the time of William HI. The most celebrated laws of the seventeenth century on those subjects — the Petition of Right — the Declaration of Right — are purely declaratory. They purport to be merely recitals of the old polity of England. They do not establish free government as a salutary improvement, but claim it as an undoubted and immemorial inheritance. Nevertheless, there can be no doulit that, during the period of which we speak, all the mutual relations of SIP WILLIAM TEMPLE. 469 all the orders of the State did practically undergo an entire change. The letter of the law might be unaltered ; but, at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- tury, the power of the Crown was, in fact, decidedly predominant in the State ; and, at the end of that centurj', the power of Parliament, and especially of the Lower House, had become, in fact, decidedly predominant. At the beginning of the century, the sovereign perpetually violated, with little or no opposition, the clear privileges of Parliament. At the close of the century, the Parliament had virtually drawn to itself just as nmch as it chose of the pre- rogative of the Crown. The sovereign retained the shadow of that authority of which the Tudors had held the substance. He had a legislative veto which he never ventured to exercise — a power of appointing Ministers, whom an address of the Commons could at any moment force him to discard — a power of declaring war, which, without Parliamentary support, could not be carried on for a single day. The Houses of Parliament were now not merely legis- lative assemblies — not merely checking assemblies. They were great Coun- cils of State, whose voice, when loudly and firmly raised, was decisive on all questions of foreign and domestic policy. There was no part of the whole system of Government with which they had not power to interfere by advice equivalent to command ; and, if they abstained from intermeddling with some departments of the executive administration, they were withheld from doing so only by their own moderation and by the confidence which they reposed in the ministers of the Crown. There is perhaps no other instance in history of a change so complete in the real constitution of an empire unaccompanied by any corresponding change in the theoretical constitution. The disguised transformation of the Roman commonwealth into a despotic monarchy, under the long administration of Augustus, is perhaps the nearest parallel. This great alteration did not take place without strong and constant resist- ance on the part of the Kings of the house of Stuart. Till 1642, that resist- ance was generally of an open, violent and lawless nature. If the Commons refused supphes, the sovereign le\aed a "benevolence." If the Commons impeached a favourite minister, the sovereign threw the chiefs of the Opposi- tion into prison. Of these efforts to keep down the Parliament by despotic force, without the pretext of law, the last, the most celebrated and the most wicked was the attempt to seize the five members. That attempt was the signal for civil war, and was followed by eighteen years of blood and confusion. The days of trouble passed by ; the exiles returned ; the throne was again set up in its high place ; the peerage and the hierarchy recovered their ancient splendour. The fundamental laws, which had been recited in the Petttion of Right, were again solemnly recognised. The theory of the English constitution was the same on the day when the hand of Charles the Second was kissed by the kneeling Houses at Whitehall as on the day when his father set up the royal standard at Nottingham. There was a short period of doting fondness, a hysterica passio of loyal repentance and love. But emotions of this sort are transitory ; and the interests on which depends the progress of great societies are permanent. The transport of reconciliation was soon over ; and the old struggle recommenced. The old struggle recommenced — but not precisely after the old fashion. The sovereign was not indeed a man whom any common warning would have restrained from the grossest violations of law. But it was no common warning that he had received. All around him were the recent signs of the vengeance of an oppressed nation — the fields on which the noblest blood of the island had been poured forth — the castles shattered by the cannon of the Parlia- mentary annies — the hall where sat the stern trilxmal to whose bar had 470 STR WILLIAM TEMPLE. been led, through lowering ranks of pikemen, the captive heir of a hundred kings — the stately pilasters, before which the great execution had been so fear- lessly done in the face of heaven and earth. The restored Prince, admonished by the fate of his father, never ventured to attack his Parliaments with open and arbitrary violence. It was at one time by means of the Parliament itself, at another time by means of the courts of law, that he attempted to regain for the Crown its old predominance. He began with great advantages. The Parliament of i66i was called while the nation was still full of joy and tender- ness. The great majority of the House of Commons were zealous royalists. All the means of influence which the patronage of the Crown afforded were used without limit. Bribery was reduced to a system. The King, when he could spare money from his pleasures for nothing else, could spare it for pur- poses of corruption. While the defence of the coasts was neglected, while ships rotted, while arsenals lay empty, while turbulent crowds of unpaid seamen swarmed in the streets of the seaports, something could still be scraped together in the Treasury for the members of the House of Commons. The gold of France was largely employed for the same purpose. Yet it was found, as indeed might have been foreseen, that there is a natural limit to the effect which can be pro- duced by means like these. There is one thing which the most corrupt senates are unwilling to sell ; and that is the power which makes them worth buying. The same selfish motives which induce them to take a price for a particular vote, will induce them to oppose every measure of which the effect would be to lower the importance, and consequently the price, of their votes. About the income of their power, so to speak, they are quite ready to make bargains. But they are not easily persuaded to part with any fragment of the principal. It is curious to observe how, during the long continuance of this Parliament — the Pensionary Parliament, as it was nicknamed by contemporaries — though every circumstance seemed to be favourable to the Crown, the power of the Crown was constantly sinking and that of the Commons constantly rising. The meetings of the Houses were more frequent than in former reigns; their interference was more harassing to the Government than in former reigns ; they had begun to make peace, to make war, to pull down, if they did not set up, Administrations. Already a new class of statesmen had appeared, unheard of before that time, but common ever since. Under the Tudors and the earlier Stuarts, it was generally by courtly arts, or by official skill and knowledge, that a politician raised himself to power. From the time of Charles II. down to our own days a different species of talent. Parliamentary talent, has been the most valuable of all the qualifications of an English statesman. It has stood in the place of all other acciuirements. It has covered ignorance, weakness, rash- ness, the most fatal maladministration. A great negotiator is nothing when' compared with a great deljatcr ; and a Minister who can make a successful s|)eech need trouble himself little about an unsuccessful expedition. This is the talent which has made judges without law and diplomatists without French— which has sent to the Admiralty men who did not know the stern of a ship from her bowsprit and to the India Board men who did not know the difference between a rupee and a pagoda — which made a foreign secretary of Mr. l^itt, who, as George II. said, had never opened Vattel — and which was very near making a Chancellor of the Exchequer of Mr. Sheridan, who could not work a sum in long division. This was the sort of talent which raised Clifford from obscurity to the head of affairs. To this talent Danby — Ijy birth a simple country gentleman— owed his white staff, his garter and his dukedom. The encroachment of the power of the Parliament on the power of the Crown resembled a fatality, or the operation of some great law of nature. The will of the individual on the throne, <>r of the individuals in the two Houses, seemed SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 471 to go for nothing. The King might be eager to encroach ; yet something con- stantly drove him back. The Parhament might be loyal, even servile ; yet something constantly urged them forward. These things were done in the green tree. \\Tiat then was likely to be done in the dry ? The Popish Plot and the general election came together, and found a people predisposed to the most violent excitation. The composition of the House of Commons was changed. The Legislature was filled with men who leaned to Republicanism in jiolitics and to Presbyterianism in religion. They no sooner met than they commenced an attack on the Government, which, if successful, must have made them supreme in the .State. Where was this to end? To us, who have seen the solution, the question presents few ditticulties. But to a statesman of the age of Charles II. — to a statesman who wished, without depriving the Parliament of its privileges, to maintain the monarch in his old supremacy — it must have appeared very per- plexing. Clarendon had, when Minister, struggled honestly, perhaps, but, as was his wont, obstinately, proudly and offensively against the growing power of the Commons. He was for allowing them their old autliority and not one atom more. He would never have claimed for the Crown a right to levy taxes from the people without the consent of Parliament. But when the Parliament, in the first Dutch war, most properly insisted on knowing how it was that the money which they had voted had produced so little effect, and began to inquire through what hands it had passed and on what services it had been expended, Clarendon considered this as a monstrous innovation. He told the King, as he himself says, "that he could not be too indulgent in the defence of the privi- leges of Parliament, and that he hoped he would never violate any of them ; but he desired him to be equally solicitous to prevent the excesses in Parliament, and not to suffer them to extend their jurisdiction to cases they have nothing to do with ; and that to restrain them within their proper bounds and limits is as necessary as it is to preserve them from being invaded ; and that this was such a new encroachment as had no bottom." This is a single instance. Others might easily be given. The bigotry, the strong passions, the haughty and disdainful temper, which made Clarendon's great abilities a source of almost unmixed evil to himself and to the public, had no place in the character of Temple. To Temple, however, as well as to Clarendon, the rapid change which was taking place in the real working of the Constitution gave great disquiet ; particularly as he had never sat in the English Parliament, and therefore regarded it with none of the predi- lection which men naturally feel for a body to which they belong, and for a theatre on which their own talents have been advantageously displayed. To wrest by force from the House of Commons its newly acquired powers was impossible ; nor was Temple a man to recommend such a stroke, even if it had been possible. But was it possible that the House of Commons might be induced to let those powers drop — that, as a great revolution had been effected without any change in the outward form of the Government, so a great counter- revolution might lie effected in the same manner — that the Crown and the Parliament might be placed in nearly the same relative position in which they had stood in fhe reign of Elizabeth, and that this might be done without one sword drawn, without one execution, and with the general acquiescence of the nation ? The English people — it was probably thus that Temple argued — will not bear to be governed by the unchecked power of the sovereign, nor ought they to be so governed. At present there is no check but the Parliament. The limits which separate thf nower of checking those who govern from the power 472 S/J^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. of governing are not easily to be defined. The Parliament, therefore, sup- ported by the nation, is rapidly drawing to itself all the powers of Government. If it were possible to frame some other check on the power of the Crown, some check which might be less galling to the Sovereign than that by which he is now constantly tormented, and yet whicti might appear to the people to be a tolerable security against maladministration, Parliaments would proljably meddle less, and they would be less supported by public opinion in their meddling. That the King's hands may not be rudely tied by others, he must consent to tie them lightly himself. That the executive administration may not be usurped by the checking body, something of the character of a checking body must be given to the body which conduct the executive administration. The Parliament is now arrogating to itself every day a larger share of the functions of the Privy Council. We must stop fhe evil by giving to the Privy Council something of the constitution of a Parlia- ment. Let the nation see that all the King's measures are directed by a Cabinet composed of representatives of every order in the State, by a Cabinet which contains, not placemen alone, but independent and popular noblemen and gentlemen who have large estates and no salaries, and who are not likely to sacrifice the public welfare, in which they have a deep stake, and the credit which they have obtained with the country, to the pleasure of a Court from which they receive nothing. When the ordinary administration is in such hands as these, the people will be quite content to see the Parliament become, what it formerly was, an extraordinary check. They will be quite willing that the House of Commons should meet only once in three years for a short session, and should take as little part in matters of state as it did a hundred years ago. Thus we believe that Temple reasoned : for on this hypothesis his scheme is in- telligible, and on any other hypothesis appears to us, as it does to Mr. Courtenay, exceedingly absurd and unmeaning. This Council was strictly what Barillon called it, an assembly of States. There are the representatives of all the great sections of the community, of the Church, of the law, of the Peerage, of the Commons. The exclusion of one half of the counsellors from office under the Crown, an exclusion which is quite absurd when we consider the Council merely as an executive board, becomes at once perfectly reasonable when we consider the Council as a body intended to restrain the Crown as well as to exercise the powers of the crown, to perform some of the functions of a Parlia- ment as well as the functions of a Cabinet. We see, too, why Temple dwelt so much on th:; private wealth of the members, why he instituted a comparison between their united incomes and the united incomes of the members of the House of Commons. Such a parallel would have been idle in the case of a mere Cabinet. It is extremely significant in the case of a body in- tended to supersede the House of Commons in some very important functions. We can hardly help thinking that the notion of this Parliament on a small scale was suggested to Temple by what he had himself seen in the United Prov- inces. The original assembly of the States-General consisted, as he tells us, of above eight hundred persons. P.ut this great body was represented by a smaller Council of about thirty, which bore the name and exercised the powers of the States-General. At last the real states altogether ceased to meet ; and their powq?, though still a part of the theory of the Constitution, became obsolete ia practice. We do not, of course, imagine tliat Temple either expected or wished that Parliaments should be thus disused ; but he did expect, we think, that something like what had hap|)ened in Holland would happen in England, and that a large portion of the functions lately assumed by S//^ WILLIAM TEMPLU. 473 I'arliainent would be quietly transferred to the miniature Parliament which he proposed to create. Had this plan, with some modifications, been tried at an earlier period, in a more composed state of the public mind and by a better scrvereign, we are by no means certain that it might not have effected the purpose for which it was designed. The restraint imposed on the King by the Council of Thirty, whom he had himself chosen, would have been feeble indeed when compared with the restraint imposed by Parliament. But it would have been more constant. It would have acted every year and all the year round ; and before the Revolu- tion the sessions of Parliament were short and the recesses long. The advice of the Council would probably have prevented any very monstrous and scan- dalous measures ; and would consequently have prevented the discontents which follow such measures, and the salutary laws which are the fruit of such discontents. We believe for example, that the second Dutch war would never have been approved by such a Council as that which Temple proposed. We are quite certain that the shutting up of the Exchequer would never even have been mentioned in such a Council. The people, pleased to think that Lord Russell, Lord Cavendish and Mr. Powle, unplaced and unpensioned, were daily representing their grievances and defending their rights in the Royal presence, would not have pined quite so much for the meeting of Parliaments. The Parliament, when it met, would have found fewer and less glaring abuses to attack. There would have been less misgovernment and less reform. We should not have been cursed with the Cabal, or blessed with the Habeas Corpus Act. In the meantime, the Council, considered as an executive Council, would, unless some at least of its powers had been delegated to a smaller body, have been feeble, dilatory, divided, unfit for everything which requires secrecy and despatch, and peculiarly unfit for the administration of war. The Revolution put an end, in a very different way, to the long contest between the King and the Parliament. Yxom. that time, the House of Commons has been predominant in the .State. The Cabinet has really been from that time a committee nominated by the Crown out of the prevailing party in Parliament. Though the minority in the Commons are constantly proposing to condemn executive measures, or to call for papers which may enable the House to sit in judgment on such measures, these propositions are scarcely ever carried ; and, if a proposition of this kind is carried against the Govern- ment, a changeof Ministry almost necessarily follows. Growing and struggling power always gives more annoyance and is more unmanageable than estal)- lished power. The House of Commons gave infinitely more trouble to the Ministers of Charles II. than to any Ministers of later times ; for in the time of Charles II., the House was checking Ministers in whom it did not confide, Now that its ascendancy is fully established, it either confides in Ministers or turns them out. This is undoubtedly a far better state of things than that which Temple wished to introduce. The modern Cabinet is a far better Executive Council than his. The worst House of Commons that has sate since the Revolution was a far more efficient check on misgovernment than his fifteen independent counsellors would have been. Vet, everything considered, it seems to us that his plan was the work of an observant, ingenious and fertile mind. On this occasion, as on every occasion on which he came prominently forward. Temple had the rare good fortune to please the public as well as the Sovereign. The general exultation was great when it was known that the old Council, made up of the most odious tools of power, was dismissed ; that small interior committees, rendered odious by the recent memory of the Cabal, were to be disused ; and that thts King would adopt no measure till it had been dis- 474 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. cussed and aj)proved by a body, of which one half consisted of indepen^nt gentlemen and noblemen, and in which such persons as Russell, Cavendish, and Temple himself, had seats. Town and country were in a ferment of joy, The bells were rung, bonfires were lighted ; and the acclamations of England were re-echoed by the Dutch, who considered the influence obtained by Temple as a certain omen of good for Europe. It is, indeed, much to the honour of his sagacity that every one of his great measures should, in such times, have pleased every party which he had any interest in pleasing. This was the case with the Triple Alliance, with the Treaty which concluded the second Dutch war, with the marriage of the Prince of Orange, and finally, with the institu- tion of this new Council. The only people who grumbled were those popular leaders of the House of Commons who v/ere not among the Thirty ; and, if our view of the measure be correct, they were precisely the people who had good reason to grumble. They were precisely the people whose activity and whose influence the new Council was intended to destroy. But there was very soon an end of the bright hopes and loud applauses with which the publication of this scheme had been hailed. The perfidious levity of the King and the ambition of the chiefs of parties produced the instant, entire and irremediable failure of a plan which nothing but firmness, public spirit and self-denial on the part of all concerned in it could conduct to a happy issue. Even before the project was divulged, its author had already found reason to apprehend that it would fail. Considerable difficulty was experienced in framing the list of counsellors. There were two men in par- ticular about whom the King and Temple could not agree — two men deeply tainted with the vices common to the English statesmen of that age, but unri- valled in talents, address and influence. These were the Earl of Shaftesbury and George Savile, Viscount Halifax. It was a favourite exercise among the Greek sophists to write panegyrics on characters proverbial for depravity. One professor of rhetoric sent to Socrates a panegyric on Busiris ; and Socrates himself wrote another which has come down to us. It is, we presume, from an ambition of the same kind that some writers have lately shown a disposition to eulogise Shaftesbury. But the attempt is vain. The charges against him rest on evidence not to be invalidated by any arguments which human wit can devise, or by any infor- mation which may be found in old trunks and escrutoires. It is certain that, just before the Restoration, he declared to the Regicides that he would be damned, body and soul, rather than suffer a hair of their heads to be hurt, and that, just after the Restoration, he was one of the judges who sentenced them to death. It is certain that he was a principal member of the most profligate Administration ever known, and that he was afterwards a principal member of tlie most profligate Opposition ever known. It is certain that, in power, he did not scruple to violate the great fundamental principle of the Constitution in order to exalt the Catholics, and that, out of power, he did not scruple to violate every principle of justice in order to destroy them. There were in that age honest men, William Penn is an instance, who valued toleration so highly that they would willingly have seen it estab- lished, even by an illegal exertion of the prerogative. There were many honest men who dreaded arbitrary power so much, that, on account of the alliance between Popery and arbitrary power, they were disposed to grant no toleration to Papists. On both those classes we look with indulgence, though we think both in the wrong. But Shaftesbury belonged to neither class. He united all that was worst in both. From the friends of toleration he borrowed their contemot for the Constitution and from the friends of hberty their con- Sm WILLIAM TEMPLE. 475 tempt for the rights of conscience. We never can admit that his conduct as a member of the Cabal was redeemed by his conduct as a leader of Opposition. On the contrary, his life was such that every part of it, as if by a skilful contrivance, reflects infamy on every other. We should never have known how abandoned a prostitute he was in place, if we had not known liow desperate an incendriary he was out of it. To judge of him fairly, we must bear in mind that the Shaftesbury who, in office, was the chief author of the Declaration of Indulgence, was the same Shaftesbury who, out of office, excited and kept up the savage hatred of the rabble of London against the very class to whom that Declaration of Indulgence was intended to give illegal relief It is amusing to see the excuses that are made for him. We will give two specimens. It is acknowledged that he was one of the Ministry which made the alliance with France against Holland, and that this alliance was most pernicious. What, then, is the defence ? Even this — that he betrayed his master's counsels to the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg and tried to rouse all the Protestant powers of Germany to defend the States. Again, it is acknowledged that he was deeply concerned in the Declaration of Indulgence, and that his conduct on this occasion was not only unconstitutional, but quite inconsistent v/ith the course which he afterwards took respecting the professors of the Catholic faith. What, then, is the defence ? Even this — that he meant only to allure concealed Papists to avow themselves and thus to become open marks for the vengeance of the public. As often as he is charged with one treason, his advocates vindicate him by confessing two. They had better leave him where they find him. For him there is no escape upwards. Every outlet by which he can creep out of his present position, is one which lets him down into a still lower and fouler depth of infamy. To whitewash an Ethio- pian is a proverbially hopeless attempt ; but to whitewash an Ethiopian by giving him a new coat of blacking is an enterprise more extraordinary still. That in the course of Shaftesbury's unscrupulous and revengeful opposition to the Court he rendered one or two most useful services to his country, we admit. And he is, we think, fairly entitled, if that be any glory, to have his name eternally associated with the Habeas Corpus Act in the same way in whick the name of Henry VIII. is associated with the reformation of the Church and that of Jack Wilkes with the freedom of the press. While Shaftesbury was still living, his character was elaborately drawn by two of the greatest writers of the age — by Butler, with characteric brilliancy of wit^by Dryden, with even more than characteristic energy and loftiness — by both with all the inspiration of hatred. The sparkling illustrations of Butler have been thrown into the shade by the brighter glory of that gorgeous satiric Muse, who comes sweeping by in sceptred pall, borrowed from her most august sisters. But the descriptions well deserve to be compared. The reader will at once perceive a considerable difference between Butler's " politician, With more heads than a beast in vision," and the Ahithophel of Dryden. Butler dwells on Shaftesbury's unprincipled versatility ; on his wonderful and almost instinctive skill in discerning the approach of a change of fortune ; and on the dexterity with which he extricated himself from the snares in which he left his associates to perish. "Our state-artificer foresaw Which way the world began to draw. For as old sinners have all points O' th' compass in their bones and joints, 476 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. Can by their pangs and aches find AH turns and changes of the wind, And better than by Napier's bones Feel in their own the age of moons So guilty sinners in a state Can by their crimes prognosticate, And in their consciences feel pain Some days before a shower of rain. He, therefore, wisely cast about All ways he could to insure his throat." In Dryden's great portrait, on the contrary, violent passion, implacable revenge, boldness amounting to temerity, are the most striking features. Ahithophel is one of the "great wits to madness near allied." And again — " A daring pilot in extremity, Pleased with the danger wlien the waves went high, He sought the storms ; but, for a calm unfit, Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit." * The dates of the two poems will, we thmk, explain this discrepancy. The third part of " Hudibras " appeared in 1678, when the character of Shaftesbury had as yet but imperfectly developed itself. He had, indeed, been a traitor to every party in the State, but his treasons had hitherto prospered. Whether it were accident or sagacity, he had timed his desertions in such a manner that fortune seemed to go to and fro with him from side to side. The extent of his perfidy was known ; but it was not till the Popish Plot furnished him with a machinery which seemed sufficiently powerful for all his purposes, that the audacity of his spirit and the fierceness of his malevolent passions became fully manifest. His subsequent conduct showed undoubtedly great ability, bat not ability of the sort for which he had formerly been so eminent. He was now headstrong, sanguine, full of impetuous confidence in his own wisdom and his own good luck. He, whose fame as a political tactician had hitherto rested chiefly on his skilful retreats, now set himself to break down all the bridges behind him. His plans were castles in the air : his talk was rodo- montade. He took no thought for the morrow : he treated the Court as if the King were already a prisoner in his hands : he built on the favour of the multitude, as if that favour were not proverbially inconstant. The signs of the coming reaction were discerned by men of far less sagacity than his, and scared from his side men more consistent than he had ever pretended to be. But on him they were lost. The counsel of Ahithophel — that counsel which was as if a man had inquired of the oracle of God — was turned into foolish- ness. He who had become a by-word, for the certainty with which he fore- saw and the suppleness with which he evaded danger, now, when beset on * It has never, we believe, been remarked, that two of the most striking lines in the description of Ahithophel are borrowed from a most obscure quarter. In KnoUes's His- tory of the Turks, printed more than sixty years before the appearance of Absalom and Ahithophel, are the following verses, under a portrait of the Sultan Mustapha the First : — " Greatnesse on goodnesse loves to slide, not stand. And leaves for Fortune's ice Vertue's firme land." Dryden's words are — " But wild Ambition loves to slide, not stand. And Fortune's ice prefers to Virtue's land." The circumstance is the more remarkable, because Dryden has really no couplet more intensely Drydenian, both in thought and expression, than this, of which the whole thought, and almost the wliole expression, are stolen. As we are on this subject, we cannot refrain from observing that Mr. Coiirtenay has dbne Dryden injustice, by inadvertently atliributing to him some feeble lines which are in Tate's part of Absalom and Ahithophel. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 477 every side with snares and death, seemed to be smitten with a blindness as strange as his former clear-sightedness, and, turning neither to the right nor to the left, strode straight on with desperate hardihood to his doom. There fore, after having early acquired and long preserved the reputation of infallible wisdom and invariable success, he lived to see a mighty ruin wrought by his own ungovernable passions — to see the great party which he had led van- quished, and scattered, and trampled down — to see all his own de\ilish en- ginery, of lying witnesses, partial sheriffs, packed juries, unjust judges, blood- thirsty mobs, ready to be employed against himself and his most devoted followers — to fly from that proud city whose favour had almost raised him to be Mayor of the Palace — to hide himself in squalid retreats — to cover his grey head with ignominious disguises — and he died in hopeless exile, sheltered by a State, which he had cruelly injured and insulted, from the vengeance of a master whose favour he had purchased by one series of crimes and forfeited by another. Halifa.x had, in common with Shaftesbury, and with almost all the politicians of that age, a very loose morality where the public was concerned ; but in his case the prevaihng infection was modified by a ver>' peculiar constitution both of heart and head — by a temper singularly free from gall, and by a refining and sceptical understanding. He changed his course as often as Shaftesbury ; but he did not change it to the same extent or in the same direction. Shaftes- bury was the very reverse of a trimmer. His disposition led him generally to do his utmost to exalt the side which was up and to depress the side which was down. His transitions were from extreme to extreme. While he stayed with a party he went all lengths for it — when he quitted it he went all lengths against it. Halifax was emphatically a trimmer — a trimmer both by intellect and by constitution. The name was fixed on him by his contemporaries ; and he was so far from being ashamed of it that he assumed it as a badge of honour. He passed from faction to faction. But instead of adopting and inflaming the passions of those whom he joined, he tried to diffuse among them something of the spirit of those whom he had just left. "While he acted ^vith the Opposition, he was suspected of being a spy of the Court ; and when he had joined the Court, all the Tories were dismayed by his Republican doctrines. He wanted neither arguments nor eloquence to exhibit what was commonly regarded as his wavering policy in the fairest light. He trimmed, he said, as the temperate zone trims between intolerable heat and intolerable cold, as a good government trims between despotism and anarchy as a pure church trims between the errors of the Papst and those of the A; abaptist. Nor was this defence by any means without weight ; for, though there is abundant proof that his integrity was not of strength to withstand the temptations by which his cupidity and vanity were sometimes assailed, yet his dislike of ex- tremes, and a forgiving and compassionate temper which seems to have been natural to him, preserved him from all participation in the worst crimes of his time. If both parties accused him of deserting them, both were compelled to admit that they had great obligations to his humanity, and that, though an un- certain friend, he was a placable enemy. He voted in favour of Lord Stafford, the victim of the WTiigs ; he did his utmost to save Lord Russell, the victim of the Tories ; and, on the whole, we are inclined to think that his public life, though far indeed from faultless, has as few great stains as that of any politician who took an active part in affairs during the troubled and disastrous period of ten years which elapsed between the fall of Lord Danby and the Revolution. His mind was much less turned to parti'-ular observations and much vnore 478 S//i WILLIAM TEMPLE. to general speculations than that of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury knew the Kmg, the Council, the Parliament, the city better than Halifax ; but Halifax would have written a far better treatise on political science than Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury shone more in consultation and Halifax in controversy : Shaftes- bury was more fertile in expedients and Halifax in arguments. Nothing that remains from the pen of Shaftesbury will bear a comparison with the political tracts of Halifax. Indeed, very little of the prose of that age is so well worth reading as the " Character of a Trimmer " and the " Anatomy of an Equiva- lent." What particularly strikes us in those works, is the writer's passion for generalisation. He was treating of the most exciting subjects in the most agitated times — he was himself placed in the very thick of the civil conflict — ■ yet there is no acrimony, nothing inflammatory, nothing personal. He pre- serves an air of cold superiority— a certain philosophical serenity — which is per- fectly marvellous ; he treats every question as an abstract question — begins with the wildest propositions — argues those propositions on general grounds — and often, when he has brought out his theorem, leaves the reader to make the application, without adding an allusion to particular men or to passing events. This speculative turn of mind rendered him a bad adviser in cases which required celerity. He brought forward, with wonderful readiness and copiousness, arguments, replies to those arguments, rejoinders to those replies, general maxims of policy, and analogous cases from history. But Shaftesbury was the man for a prompt decision. Of the parliamentary eloquence of these celebrated rivals, we can judge only by report ; and, so judging, we should be inclined to think that, though Shaftesbury was a distinguished speaker, the superiority belonged to Halifax. Indeed the readiness of Halifax in debate, the extent of his knowledge, the ingenuity of his reasoning, the liveliness of his expression, and the silver clearness and sweetness of his voice seem to have made the strongest impression on his contemporaries. By Dryden he is described as " of piercing wit and pregnant thought, Endued by nature and by learning taught To move assemblies." His oratory is utterly and irretrievably lost to us, like that of Somers, of Bolingbroke, of Charles Townshend — of many others who were accustomed to rise amidst the breathless expectation of senates and to sit down amidst re- iterated bursts of applause. But old men, who lived to admire the eloquence of Pulteney in its meridian and that of Pitt in its splendid dawn, still mur- mured that they had heard nothing like the great speeches of Lord Halifax on the Exclusion Bill. The power of Shaftesbury over large masses was un- rivalled. Halifax was disqualified by his whole character, moral and intellec- tual, for the part of a demagogue. It was in small circles, and, above all, in the House of Lords, that his ascendency was felt. Shaftesbury seems to have troubled himself very little about theories of government. Halifax was, in speculation, a strong republican, and did not conceal it. lie often made hereditary monarchy and aristocracy the subjects of his keen pleasantry, while he was fighting the battles of the Court, and obtaining for himself step after step in the peerage. In this way, he attempted to gratify at once his intellectual vanity and his more vulgar ambition. He shaped his life according to the opinion of the multitude, and indemnified him- self by talking according to his own. Ilis colloquial powers were great ; his perception of the ridiculous exquisitely fine ; and he seems to have had the rare art (jf preserving the reputation of good breeding and good nature while hal)itually indulging a strong propensity to mockery. Teni|)le wished to put llulifiix into the new council and to leave out .S7A' WILLIAM TEMPLE. 479 Shaftesbury. The King objected strongly to Halifax, to whom he had taken a great dislike, which is not accounted for and which did not last long. Temple replied that Halifax was a man eminent both by his station and by his abilities, and would, if excluded, do everything against the new arrangement that could be done by eloquence, sarcasm and intrigue. All who were con- sulted were of the same mind ; an