vim^ 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 University of California. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Class 
 
 >^5v 
 
LORD MACAULAY'S 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME 
 
 COMPLETE EDITION 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LONDON 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 Broadway, Ludgate Hill 
 
 GLASGOW, MANCHESTER AND NEW YORK 
 
 1889 
 
2'm*- 
 
 \ 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 ESSAYS FROM THE EDINBURGH REVjEW. 
 
 FACE 
 
 Milton . . i 
 
 Machiavelli . . , 30 
 
 HALLAM'S CONSTI'JUTIONAL HiSTOP.i' ....... 55 
 
 SouTHEY's Colloquies on Society 105 
 
 Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems 131 
 
 Civil Disabilities of the Jews ' . .143 
 
 / Moore's Life of Lord Byron 151 
 
 Samuel Johnson . 170 
 
 John Bunyan 19& 
 
 John Hampden . . . ' 204 
 
 Burghley and his Times .... c .... . 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 57^ 
 
 Leigh Hunt 593 
 
 Lord Holland 621 
 
 Warren Hastings 627 
 
 Frederic the Great 692 
 
 Madame D'Arblay 736 
 
 -. The Life and Writings of Addison ...:... 769 
 
 iThe Earl of Chatham 814 
 
 V 
 
 Lays of Ancient Pome , , » . i » • • • • ^^* 
 
 sr.'yfi.i 
 
ESSAYS. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 /oannis Miltoni, Ani^H, de Doctrina Christiana libri duo posthumi. A Treatise on Chi is 
 tian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By John Milton. Translated 
 from the original by Charles R. Sumner, M.A., &c., &c. 1825. 
 
 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 consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this 
 work may have been brought to the office 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 ; 
 hut 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 ce\emonial cleanness vhich 
 characterizes the diction of our academical Pharisees. He does not attempf 
 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 maJe Quintilian stare and gasp." 
 But he writes with as much ease md freedom as if Latin were his mol!iei 
 tongue ; and where he is least happy, his failure seems to arise from the care- 
 lessness of a native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner. What Denham 
 with great felicity says of Cowley may be applied to him. He wears the 
 garb, but not the clothes of the ancients. 
 
 Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a powerful and inde- 
 pendent mind, emancipated from the influence of authority, and devoted to 
 the search of truth. He professes to form his system from the Bible alone | 
 
MIL TOM. 
 
 and his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly among the best that have apJ* 
 pearcd. But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in his citations. 
 
 vSome of tJie heterodox opinions which he avows seem to have excited con- 
 siderable amazement ; particularly his Arianism, and his notions on the sub- 
 ject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have 
 read the Paradise Lost without suspecting him of the fDrmer ; nor do we 
 .ninlc that any- reader, acquainted with the histctry of his life, ought to be 
 - much startled at the latter. The opinions w^iich he has expressed respectijuj 
 the nature of the Deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation "of tlii 
 Sabbath might, we think, have caused more just surprise. 
 / But we will not go into the discussion of these points. The book, were it 
 j 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 upper 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 
 a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in ever^ 
 magazine ; and it will then, to borrow the elegant language of the play-bills, 
 'I be withdrawn, to make room for the forthcoming novelties. 
 
 We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it may be, 
 which this v/ork has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose to 
 preach 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- 
 «;iple we intend to take advantage of the late interesting discovery, and v/hile 
 j^his memorial of a great and good man is still in the hands of all, to say somes 
 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, ws turn 
 for a short time from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all love aiid 
 reverence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the 
 philosopher, the glory of English literature, the champion and the martyr of 
 English liberty. 
 
 It is by his poety y that Milton is best known ; and it is of his poetry that 
 we wish first to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized world his 
 place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. His de- 
 tractors, however, though out-voted, have not been 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- 
 sidered in themselves, may be classed among the noblest productions of the 
 human mind. 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 want of instruction, and, though destitute of models themselves, be- 
 queathed to posterity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, in- 
 lierited what his predecessors created ; ha lived inane nlightened age ; _ he 
 received a finished education ; and we must, therefoire, it we would form a just 
 estimate of his povvdrs7TMalvr4aTge~deductions for these advantages. 
 
 We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxic ^ as the remark m ay appeac»^ 
 ♦hat no poet has ey gj:Jtftdr40L ^ruggle w ith mors unlavourable circumstances 
 :han Milton. He"^ubted, 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 
 advantage from the civilization vehich surrounded him, or from the learningp 
 
MILTON, 
 
 which he had acquired ; and he looked back with something like regret to the 
 ruder age of simple words and vivid imjjjiessions. 
 
 We think t^at, 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 have 
 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 oiihodox article of 1 
 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 progress of the experi- 
 mental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The improvement of the former 
 js 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 
 speculators 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. Marcel'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 
 better 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 abstract.' 
 They advance from particular images to general terras. 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 poetry loses. Generalisation is necessary 
 to the advancement of knowledge, but particularly in the creations of the 
 imagination, in proportion as men know more and think more, they look 
 less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories 
 and worse poems. They give us yague phrases instead of images, and per- 
 sonified qualities instead of men. iThey m.ay 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 ' 
 Aurora. If Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of human actions, 
 it is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely 
 improbable that it would have contained half so much able reasoning on the 
 su^'iect as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees. But could Mandevillt 
 have created an lago ? Well as he knew how to resolve cliaracters into then 
 
 / 
 
MILTON. 
 
 elements, would he have been able to combine those elements in such a manner 
 as to make up a man, — a real, living, individual man? 
 
 Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a cer« 
 tain unsoundness of mind, if anything which gives so much pleasure ought to 
 be called unsoundness. By poetry we mean not, of course, all writing in 
 verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our definition excludes many 
 metrical compositions which, on other grounds, deserve the highest praise. 
 By poetry, we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to pro- 
 duce an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by means of words what 
 the painter does by means of colours. Thus the greatest of poets has described 
 it, in lines universally admired for the vigour and felicity of their diction, and 
 still more valuable on account of the just notion which they convey of the art 
 in wliich he excelled : — 
 
 •' As imagination bodies forth 
 The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen ^ 
 Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
 A local habitation and a name." 
 
 These are the fruits of the "fine frenzy" which he ascribes to the poet, — a 
 fine frenzy, doubtless, but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry ; 
 but it is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just; but the premises are 
 false. After the first suppositions have been made, everything ought to be 
 consistent ; but those first suppositions require a degree of credulity which 
 almost amounts to a partial and temporary derangement of the intellect. 
 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 sensibility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear as a 
 little girl is affected by the story of poor Red Riding- Hood. She knows that 
 it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. 
 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 state of society men are children 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 enlightened age there will be 
 much intjg]]]^^nrp. much scignce. much philagophy, 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- 
 ]>are ; but they will not create. They will talk about the old poets, and com- 
 ment on tl'item, and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they wiil scarcely be 
 able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder ancestors, 
 ths agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of belief. The Greek Rhapsodists, 
 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 l>ards of Wales and Germany 
 exercised over their auditors seems to modern readers almost miraculous. 
 Such feelings are very rare in a ci' lli^ed community, and most rare among 
 those who participate most in its improvements. They linger longest among 
 the peasantry. 
 
 Poetry 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 acts best 
 
 • Set the Dialoru^ bctwetn Socrates and I©. 
 
y^lLTON, 5 
 
 ^_ • I' ■ I 
 
 in a dark room, poetry effects its pujpose most completely in a dark age. As 
 the light of knowledge breaks in upon its exhibitions, as the outHnes of cer- 
 tainty become more and more definite, and the shades of probability more 
 and more distinct, the hues and lineaments of the phantoms which it calls up 
 grow fainter and fainter. We cannot unite the incompatible advantages of 
 reality and deception, the clear discernment of truth and the exquisite enjoy- 
 ment of fiction. 
 
 He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires to be a great poet, 
 must first become a little child. He must take to pieces the whole web of 
 his mind. He must unlearn much of that knowledge which has perhaps 
 constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. His very talents will be a 
 hinderance to him. His difficulties will be proportioned to his proficiency in 
 the pursuits which are fashionable among his contemporaries ; and that pro- 
 ficiency will in general be proportioned 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 modern ruin. We have seen in our own 
 time great talents, intense labour, and long meditation employed in this 
 struggle against the spirit of the age, and employed, we will no^ say abso- 
 lutely in vain, but with dubious success and feeble applause. 
 
 If these reasonings be just, no po et has ever triumphed over greater diffi - 
 c ulties than Milt on. He received a learned education. He was a profound 
 and elegant classical scholar : he had studied all the mysteries of Rabbinical 
 literature : he was intimately acquainted with every language of modern 
 Europe from which either pleasure or information was then to be derived. 
 He was, perhaps, the only great poet of later times who has been distinguished 
 by the excellence of hi s Latin ve rse. The genius of Petrarch was scarcely of 
 the first order : and his poems m the ancient language, though much praised by 
 those who have never read them, are wretched compositions. Cowley, with 
 all hi^ admirable wit and ingenuity, had little imagination : nor, indeed, do 
 we think his classical diction comparable to that of Milton. The authority 
 of Johnson is against us on this point. But Johnson had studied the bad 
 writers of the middle ages till he had become utterly insensible to the Augustan 
 elegance, and was as ill qualified to judge between two Latin styles as a 
 habitual drunkard to set up for a wine-taster. 
 
 Versification in a dead language is an exotic, a far-fetched, costly, sickly 
 imitation of that which elsewhere may be found in healthful and spontaneous 
 perfection. The soils on which this rarity flourishes are in general as ill 
 suited to the production of vigorous native poetry as the flower-pots of a 
 hothouse to the growth of oaks. That the author of the Paradise Lost 
 should have written the Epistle to Manso was truly wonderful. Never before 
 were such marked oridnality and such exquisite mimic ry found together. 
 Indeed, in all the Latin poems of Milton the artificial manner indispensable 
 to such works is admirably preserved, while, at the same time, the richness 
 of his fancy and the elevation of his sentiments give to them a peculiar 
 charm, an air of nobleness and freedom, which distinguishes them from all 
 other writings of the same class. They remind us of the amusements of 
 those angelic warriors who composed the cohort of Gabriel : — 
 
 ** About him exercised heroic games 
 The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads 
 Celestial armoury, shield, helm, and spear. 
 Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold." 
 
 We cannot look upon the sportive exercises for which the genius of Miltojj 
 BT^girds itself, without catching a glimpse of the gorgeous and terrible panoply 
 
MILTON. 
 
 which it is accustomed to wear. The str epryf.h nf his imnginatinn triumphed 
 over every obstacle. So intense and ardent was the fire of his mind that it 
 not only' was not suffocated beneath the weight of its fuel, but penetrated the 
 whole superincumbent mass with its own heat and radiance. 
 
 It is not our intention to attempt anything like a complete examination of 
 the poetry of Milton. The public has long been agreed as to the merit of the 
 most remarkable passages, the incomparable harmony of the numbers, and 
 the excellence of that style which no rival has been able to equal, and no 
 parodist to degrade, which displays in their highest perfection the idiomatic 
 powers of the English tongue, and to which every ancient and every modern 
 language has contributed something of grace, of energy, or of music. In the 
 vast field of criticism on which we are entering, innumerable reapers have 
 already put their sickles. Yet the harvest is so abundant that the negligent 
 search of a straggling gleaner may be rewarded with a sheaf. 
 
 The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Milton is the extreme 
 remoteness of the associations by means of which it acts on the reader. Its 
 effect is produced, not so much by what it expresses, as by what it suggests, 
 not so much by the ideas which it directly conveys, as by other ideas which 
 are connected with them. He electrifies the mind through conductors. The 
 most unimaginative man must understand the Iliad. Homer gives him no 
 choice, and requires from him no exertion ; but takes the whole upon hiinself, 
 and sets his images in so clear a light that it is impossible to be blind to them. 
 The works of Milton 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 
 spell 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 " Open 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 support of these observations, we may remark that scarcely any pas- 
 sages in the poems of Milton are more generally known, or more frequently 
 repeated, than those v/hich are little more than muster-rolls of names. They 
 are not alvvays more appropriate or more melodious than other names. But 
 they are charmed names. Every one of them is the first link in a long 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 upon 
 us an effect wholly independent of their intrinsic value.' One transports us 
 back to a remote period of history. Another places us among the 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 splendid phantoms of 
 chivalrous romance, the trophisd lists, the embroidered housingG. the qua^lnt 
 
MILTON. 
 
 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 ia^is peculiar manner more happily dis- 
 played than in the Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossible to conceive 
 that the mechanism of language 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 Comus 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 
 characters. As 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 performances. 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 
 ajj amalgamation ; but never with complete success. The Greek drama, on 
 
 e model of which the Samson was written, sprung from the ode. The 
 dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, 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 ajipearance. ^schylus was, 
 head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time the Greeks had far more inter- 
 course v/ith the East than in the days of Hoimer ; and they had not yet ac« 
 quired thj^ immense superiority in war, in science, and in the arts which, in 
 tiie following generation, led them to treat the Asiatics with contempt. From' 
 the 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 : 
 considered as choruses, they are above all praise. If, for instance, we ex- 
 amine the address of Clytemnestra to Agamemnon on his tr/.urn, or the de- 
 scription of the seven Argive chiefs, by the principles of dra/r.atic writing, we 
 shall instantly condemn them as monstrous. But if we forget the character^- 
 and think only of the poetry, we 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 illusion. Euripides 
 attempted to carry the reform further. But it was a task far beyond his powen^ 
 
kiLTO^. 
 
 perhaps beyond any powers. Instead of correcting what was bad, he de- 
 stroyed what was excellent. He substituted crutches for stilts, bad sermons 
 for good odes. 
 
 Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly j much more highly 
 than, in our opinion, he deserved. Indeed the caresses which this partiality 
 leads him to bestow on **sad Electra's poet," sometimes remind us of the 
 beautiful Queen of Fairyland kissing the long ears of Bottom. At all events, 
 there can be no doUbt that his veneration for the Athenian, whether just or 
 not, was injurious to the Samson Agonistes. Had he taken ^Eschylus for his 
 model, he would have given himself up to the lyric inspiration, 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- 
 selyes 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 ir, as far superior to 
 the 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 him. He understood and loved the literature of moden 
 Italy. But he did not feel for it the same veneration which he entertaine<v 
 for the remains of Athenian and Roman poetry, consecrated by so many lofty 
 and endearing recollections. The faults, moreover, of his Italian predecessors 
 were of a kind to which his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could stoop 
 to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style ; but false brilliancy was his 
 utter aversion. His Muse had no objection to a russet attire : but she turned 
 with disgust from the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as paltry as the rags of 
 a chimney-sweeper on May-day. Whatever ornaments she wears are of mas- 
 sive gold, not only dazzling to the sight, but capable of standing the severest 
 test of the crucible. 
 
 Milton attended in the Comus to the distinction which he neglected in the Sam- 
 son. He made it what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, and dramatic only in 
 semblance. He has not attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect inherent 
 in the nature of that species of composition ; and he has, therefore, succeeded, 
 wherever success was not impossible. The speeches must be read as majestic 
 soliloquies ; and he who so reads them will be enraptured with their eloquence, 
 ! their sublimity, and their music. The interruptions of the dialogue, however, 
 impose a constraint upon the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The 
 finest passages are those which are lyrics in form as well as in spirit. "I 
 should much commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to 
 Milton, *♦ the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain 
 dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I must plainly confess to 
 you, I have seen yet nothing parallel in our language." I'he criticism was 
 just. It is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dialogues, when he 
 is discharged from the labour of uniting two incongruous styles, when lie is al 
 liberty to indulge his choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even above 
 himself. Then, like his own good genius bursting from the earthly form and 
 
MILTON. 
 
 weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in celestial freedom and beauty ; he seems to 
 ^ry exultingly, 
 
 " Now my task k smoothly done, 
 I can fly or I can run," 
 
 to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in the Elysian dew of the 
 rainbow, and to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, which the n jsky 
 wings of the zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides.* 
 
 There are several of the minor poems of Milton on which we would willingly 
 make a few remarks. Still more willingly would we enter into a detailed ex- 
 amination of that admirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which, strangely 
 enough, is scarcely ever mentioned except as an instance of the blindness of 
 that parental affection which men of letters bear towards the offspring 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 
 than the superiority of the Paradise Regained to every poem which has since 
 made its appearance. But oiir limits prevent us from discussing the point at 
 length. We hasten on to that extraordinary production which the general 
 suffxage of critics has placed in the highest class of human compositions. 
 
 The only poem of modern times which can be compared 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 
 2gypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico. The images which Dante 
 employs 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 depends 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- 
 gethon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the monastery of St. Benedict. The 
 place where the heretics were confined in burning tombs resembled the vast 
 cemetery of Aries ! 
 
 • " There eternal summer dwells, 
 
 And west winds, with musky wing, 
 About the cedared alleys fling 
 Nard and cassia's balmy smells : 
 Iris there with humid bow 
 Waters the odorous banks, that blow 
 Flowers of more mingled hue 
 Than her purfled scarf can show. 
 And drenches with Elysian dew 
 (List, mortals^ if your ears be tru«) 
 Beds of hyacinths and roses. 
 Where young Adonis oft reposes- 
 ^^Taxim well of his deep woui^d.* 
 
10 ' MILTON, 
 
 Now let us compare with the exact details of Dante the dim intimations of 
 Milton. We will cite a few examples. The English poet has never thought 
 of taking the measure of Satan. lie 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 Tenerifife or Atlas ; 
 his stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in which 
 Dante has described the gigantic 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 concealed him from the 
 waist dovvnwands, nevertheless shov;^ed so much of him that three tall Ger- 
 mans would in vain have 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 Pai-adise 
 Lost with the last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome 
 details, and takes refuge in indistinct but solemii 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, defying 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 own 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 Gomedy 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, v/ho 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 brov/ has 
 been marked by the purifying angel. The reader would throw aside such a 
 /ale in incredulous disgust, unless it were told with the strongest air of ve- 
 racity, with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the greatest precision and 
 multiplicity in its details. The narrative of Milton in this.respect differs from 
 that of Dante as the adventures of Amadis differ from those of Gulliver. 
 The author of Amadis would have made his book ridiculous if he had intro- 
 duced those minute particulars which give such a charm to the work of Swift, 
 *the nautical observations, the affected delicacy about names, the ofilcial 
 documents transcribed at full length, and all the unmeaning gossip and scandal 
 of the court, springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing. We arc 
 not shocked at being told that a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw 
 many very strange sights, and v/e can easily abandon ourselves to the illusion 
 of the romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, new actually resident 
 at Rotherhithe, tells us of pygmies and giants,- flying islands and philosophiz- 
 ing horses, nothing but such circumstantial touches could produce for a single 
 moment a deception on the imagination. 
 
 Of all the poets who have introduced into their works the agency of supey* 
 
MILTON. XI 
 
 nat ural beings. A Tiltnn linn nnfrreded best. Here Dante decidedly yields to 
 himu And as this is a point on whicl^ many rash and ill-considered judgments 
 have been pronounced, we feel inclined to dwell on it. 9 little longer. The 
 most fatal error which a poet can possibly commit ill the. management of his 
 machinery is that of attempting to philosophize too much. Milton has been 
 often censured for ascribing to spirits many functions of which spirits must be 
 incapable. But these objections, though sanctioned by eminent names, origi- 
 nate, we venture to say, in profound ignorance of the art of poetry. 
 
 What is spirit ? What are our own minds, the portion of spirit with which we 
 are best acquainted ? We observe certain phenomena. We cannot explain 
 them into material causes. We therefore infer that there exists something 
 which is not material. But of ^his something we have no idea. We can 
 define it only hj ne gatives. We can reason about it only by symbols. We 
 nse the word ; but we have po image of the thing ; and the business of 
 poetry is with images, and not with words. The poet uses words indeed ; 
 but they are merely the instruments of his art, not its objects. They are the 
 materials which he is to dispose in such a manner as to present a picture to 
 the mental eye. And i;^/4hey are not so disposed, they are no more entitled 
 to be called poetry thary a bale of canvas and a box of colours to be called a 
 j_)amting. / 
 
 Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the great mass of mankind 
 can never feel an intjerest in them. They must have images. The strong ten- 
 dency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idolatry can be explained 
 on no other principle. The first inhabitants of Greece, there is evefy reason 
 to believe, worshipped one invisible Deity. But the necessity of having some- 
 thir.g more definite to adore produced, in a few centuries, the innumerable 
 crowd of gods and goddesses. In like manner the ancient Persians thought 
 it impious to exhibit the Creator under a human form. Yet even these trans- 
 ferred to the sun the worship which, speculatively, they considered due only 
 • to the Supreme Mind. The history of the Jews is the record of a continued 
 ' struggle between pure theism, supported by the most terrible sanctions, and 
 the strangely fascinating desire of having some visible and tangible object o^ 
 adoration. Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon has assignci 
 for the rapidity with which Christianity spread over the world, while Judaisai 
 scarcely ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. 
 God^the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted few wor- 
 shippers. A philosopher might admire so noble a conception : but the crow J 
 turned away in disgust fro m v.-orrk yf^hinh presented no image to their min d'i. 
 Tt was before Deity embodied in a human form, walking among men, partok' 
 ing of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, v/eeping over their graves, 
 slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices of the 
 synagogue, and the doubts of the academy, and the pride of the portico, and 
 the fasces of the lictor, and the swords of thirty legions, were humbled in the 
 dust ! Soon after Christianity had achieved its triumph, the principle whicli 
 had assisted it began to corrup't it. It beearpe a new paganism. Patron saints 
 assumed the offices of household gods. St. George took the place of Mars. 
 St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Castor and Pollux. The Virgin 
 Mother and Cecilia succeeded to Venus and the Muses, The fascination of 
 sex and loveliness was again joined to that of celestial dignity ; and the homage 
 of chivalry was blended with that of religion. Reformers have often made a 
 stand against these feelings ; but never with more than apparent and partial 
 success. The men who demolished the images in cathedrals have not always 
 been able tg-dgmolish fhosp. which were enshrined ui-theirjninds. It would 
 not be difficult to show that in politics the same rule holds good. Doctrineg 
 
M Milton. 
 
 we are afraid, must generally be embodied before they can excite a strong public 
 feeling. The multitude is more easily interested for the most unmeaning 
 badge, or the most insignificant name, than for the most important principle. 
 
 From these considerations we infer that no poet who should affect that 
 metaphysical accuracy for the want of which Milton has been blamed would 
 escape a disgraceful failure. Still, however, there was another extreme which, 
 though far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. The imaginations of men 
 are, in a great measure, under the control of their opinions. The most exquisite 
 art of poetical colouring can produce no illusion when it is employed to re- 
 present that which is at once perceived to be incongruous and absurd. Milton 
 wrote in an age of philosophers and theologians. It was necessary, therefore, 
 for him to abstain from giving such a shock to their understandings as might 
 break the charm which it was his object to throw over their imaginations. 
 This is the real explanation of the indistinctness and inconsistency with which 
 he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson acknowledges that it was abso- 
 lutely necessary for him to clothe his spirits with material forms. " But," says 
 he, "he should have secured the consistency of his system by keeping im- 
 materiality out of sight, and seducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts." 
 This is easily said ; but what if he could not seduce the reader to drop it from 
 his thoughts ? What if the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of 
 the minds of men as to leave no room even for the quasi-belief which poetry 
 requires ? Such we suspect to have been the case. It was impossible for the 
 poet to adopt altogether the material or the immaterial system. He therefore 
 took his" stand on the debatable ground. He left the whole in ambiguity. 
 He has doubtless, by so doing, laid himself open to the charge of inconsistency. 
 But, though philosophically in the wrong, we cannot but believe that he was 
 ooetically in the right. This task, which almost any other writer would have 
 found impracticable, was easy to him. The peculiar art which he possessed 
 of communicating his meaning circuitously, through a long succession of asso- 
 ciated ideas, and of intimating more than he expressed, enabled liim to disguise 
 those incongruities which he could not avoid. 
 
 Poetry which relates to the beings of another world ought to be at once 
 mysterious and picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque^ 
 indeed, beyond any that ever was written. Its effect approaches to that pre- 
 duced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is picturesque to the exclusion of a». 
 mystery. This is a fault, indeed, on the right side, a fault inseparable from th* 
 plan of his poem, which, as we have already observed, rendered the utmost 
 accuracy of description necessary. Still it is a fault. His supernatural agents 
 excite an interest ; but it is not the interest which is proper to supernatural 
 agents. We feel that we could talk with his ghosts and demons without any 
 emotion of unearthly awe. We could, like Don Juan, ask them to supper, 
 and eat heartily in their company. His angels are good men with wings. His 
 devils are spiteful ugly executioners. His dead men are merely living men in 
 strange situations. The scene which passes between the poet and Facinata is 
 justly celebrated. Still Facinata in the burning tomb is exactly what Facinata 
 •would have been at an auto-da-fe. Nothing can be more touching than the 
 first interview of Dante and Beatrice. Yet what is it but a lovely woman 
 chiding, with sweet, austere composure, the lover for whose affection she is 
 grateful, but whose vices she reprobates ? The feelings which give the passage 
 its charm would suit the streets of Florence as well as the summit of the 
 Mount of Purgatory. 
 
 The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all other writers. His 
 fiends, in particular, are wonderful creations. They are not metapliyslcal 
 abstractions. They are not wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They 
 
MlLTOl^, 
 
 «3 
 
 have no horns, no tails, none of the f^e-faw-fum of TassO and Klopstock. 
 They have just enough in common with human nature to be intelligible to 
 human beings. Their characters are, like their forms, marked by a certain 
 dim resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated to gigantic dimensions, and 
 veiled in mysterious gloom. 
 
 Perhaps the gods and demons of iEschylus may best bear a comparison 
 with the angels and devils of Milton. The/ style of the Athenian had, as we 
 have remarked, something of the vagueness and tenor of the Oriental cha- 
 racter ; and the same peculiarity may be traced in his mythology. It has 
 nothing of the amenity and elegance which we generally find ia the supersti- 
 tions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and colossal. His legends seem to 
 harmonize less with the fragrant groves and graceful porticos in which his 
 countrymen paid their vows to the God of Light and Goddess of Desire than 
 with those huge and grotesque labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt 
 enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindoostan still bows down to her 
 seven-headed idols. His favourite gods are those of the elder generations — 
 the sons of heaven and earth, conipared with whom Jupiter himself was a 
 stripling and an upstart, — the gigantic Titans and the inexorable Furies. 
 Foremost among his creations of thik class stands Prometheus, half fiend, half 
 redeemer, the friend of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of heaven. He 
 bears undoubtedly a considerable resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In 
 both we find the same impatience of control, the same ferocity, the same un- 
 conquerable pride. In both characters also are mingled, though in very dif- 
 fereht proportions, some kind and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, 
 is hardly superhuman enough. He talks too much of his chains and his 
 uneasy pc^ture : he is rather too much depressed and agitated. His resolu- 
 tion seems to depend on the knowledge which he possesses that he holds the 
 fate of his torturer in his hands, and that the hour of his release will surely 
 come. But Satan is a creature of another sphere. The might of his intellec^al 
 nature is victorious over the extremity of paui. Amidst agonies which cannot 
 be conceived without horror he deliberates, resolves, and even exults. Against 
 the sword of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, against the flaming 
 lake, and the marl burning with solid fire, against the prospect of an eternity 
 of unintermittent misery, his spirit bears up unbroken, resting on its own 
 innate energies, requiring no support from anything external, nor even from 
 hope itself ! 
 
 To return for a moment to the parallel which we have been attempting to 
 draw between Milton and Dante, we would add that the poetry of these great 
 men has, in a considerable degree, taken its character from their moral qualities. 
 They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude their idiosyncracies on their 
 readers. They have nothing in common with those modern beggars for fame 
 who extort a pittance from the compassion of the inexperienced by expos ^nc; 
 the nakedness and sores of their minds. Yet it would be difiicult to naa:e 
 two writers whose works have been more completely, though undesigned!)*, 
 coloured by their personal feelings. 
 
 The character of Milton was peculiarly distinguished by loftiness of thought ; 
 that of Dante by intensity of feeling. In every line of the Divine Corae(^y we 
 discern the asperity which is produced by pride struggling with misery. There 
 is perhaps no work in the world so deeply and unifonnly sorrowful. The 
 melancholy of Dante was no fantastic caprice. It was not, as far as at this dis- 
 tance of time can be judged, the effect of external circumstances. It was from, 
 within. Neither love nor glory, neither the conflicts of earth nor the hop* 
 of heaven could dispel it. It twined every consolation and every pleasure inta 
 Its own nature. It resembled that noxious Sardinian soil of which the iiuensa 
 
14 MILTON. 
 
 bitterness is said to have been perceptible even in its honey. His mind was, 
 in the noble language of the Hebrew poet, * ' a land of darkness, as darkness 
 itself, and where the light was as darkness ! " The gloom of his character dis- 
 colours all the passions of men and all the face of nature, and tinges with its 
 own livid hue the flowers of Paradise and the glories of the Eternal Throne ! 
 All iht portraits of him are singularly characteristic. No person can look en 
 the features, noble even to ruggedness, the dark furrows of the cheek, t'ae 
 haggard and woful stare of the eye, the sullen and contemptuous curve of the 
 Up, 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 ambition and in love. He had survived his health and 
 his sight, the comforts of his home, and the prosperity of his party. Of the 
 great 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 ; and some had poured forth their blood on scaffolds. That hateful 
 proscription, facetiously termed the Act of Indemnity and Oblivion, had set a 
 mark on the poor, bhnd, deserted poet, and held him up by name to the 
 hatred of a profligate court and an inconstant people. Venal and licentious 
 scribblers, with just sufficient talent to clothe the thoughts of a pander in the 
 style of a bellman, were now the favourite writers of the sovereign and the 
 public. It was a loathsome herd — which could be compared to nothing so 
 fitly as to the rabble of Comus, grotesque monsters, half bestial, half human, 
 dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, and reeling in obscene dances. 
 Admidst these his Muse was placed, like the chaste lady of the masque, lofty, 
 spotless, and serene — to be chattered at, and pointed at, and grinned at by 
 the whole rabble of satyrs and goblins. If ever despondency and asperity 
 could be excused in any man, it might have been excused in Milton. But the 
 strength of his mind overcame every calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, 
 nor age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappointments, 
 nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect had power to disturb his sedate and 
 majestic patience. His spirits do not seem to have been high, but they were 
 singularly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps stem ; but it was a 
 temper \vhich no sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such as it was 
 v/hen, on the eve of great events, he returned from his travels, in the prime of 
 health and manly beauty, loaded with literary distinctions, and glowing with 
 patriotic hopes, such it continued to be when, after having experienced every 
 calamity which is incident to our nature, old, poor, sightless, and disgraced, 
 he retired to his hovel to die! 
 
 Hence it was that, though he wrote the Paradise Lost at a time of life when 
 images of beauty and tenderness are in general beginning to fade, even from 
 those minds in which they have not been effaced by anxiety and disappoint- 
 ment, he adorned it with all that is most lovely and delightful in the physical 
 nnd in the moral world. Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more 
 healthful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, or loved better to luxu- 
 riate amidst sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightingales, the juice of 
 summer fruits, and the coolness of shady fountains. His conception of love 
 unites all the voluptuousness of the Oriental harem and all the gallantry of 
 chivalric tournament with all the pure and quiet affection of an English fire- 
 side. His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and 
 dells, beautiful as fairyland, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic 
 elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the ava«- 
 lanch?. 
 
MILTOl^. 15 
 
 Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of Milton may be found in all his 
 works ; but it is most strongly displayed in the Sonnets. Those remarkabl«» 
 poems have been undervalued by critics who have not understood their nature. 
 They have no epigrammatic point. There is none of the ingenuity of Filicaja 
 in the thought, none of the hard and brilliant ipnamel of Petrarch in the style. 
 They are simple but majestic records of the feelings of the poet ; as little 
 tricked out for the public eye as his diary would have been. A victory, an 
 expected attack upon the city, a momentary fit of depression or exultation, a 
 jest thrown out against one of his books, a dr^am which, for a short time, re- 
 stored to him that beautiful face over which tha grave had closed for ever, led 
 him to musings which, without effort, shaped themselves into verse. The 
 unity of sentiment and severity of style whicW characterizes these little pieces, 
 remind us of the Greek Anthology, or perhap!^ still more of the Collects of the 
 English Liturgy — the noble poem on the Ma^acres of Piedmont is strictly a 
 collect in verse. \ 
 
 The Sonnets are more or less striking, accdrding as the occasions which 
 gave birth to them are more or less interesting. But they are, almost without 
 exception, dignified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which we know 
 not where to look for a parallel. It would, indeed, be scarcely safe to draw 
 any decided inferences as to the character of a writer from passages directly 
 egotistical. But the qualities which we have ascribed to Milton, though per- 
 haps most strongly marked in those parts of his works which treat of his per- 
 sc«ial feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and impart to all his writings, 
 prose and poetry, English, Latin, and Italian, a strong family likeness. 
 
 His public conduct was such as was to be expected from a man of a spirit so 
 high and an intellect so powerful. He lived at one of the most memorable 
 eras in the history of mankind j at the very crisis of the great conflict between 
 Oromasdes and Arimanes — liberty and despotism, reason and prejudice. That 
 great battle was fought for no single generation, for no single land. The 
 destinies of the human race were staked on the same cast with the freedoni of 
 the English people. Then were first proclaimed those mighty principles 
 which have since worked their way into the depths of the American forests, 
 which have roused Greece from the slavery and degradation of two thousand 
 years, and which, from one end of Europe to the other, have kindled an un- 
 quenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, and loosed the knees of the 
 oppressors with a strange and unwonted fear. 
 
 Of those principles, then struggling for their infant existence, Milton was ' ■^ 
 the most devoted and eloquent literary champion. We need not say how"!^ '^ 
 much we admire his public conduct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves "-^ ^ 
 that a large portion of his countrymen still think it unjustifiable. The civil 
 war, indeed, has been more discussed and is less understood than any event 
 in Eiiglish history. The Roundheads laboured under the disadvantage of 
 which the lion in the fable complained so bitterly. Though they were the 
 conquerors, their enemies were the painters. As a body, they had done their * 
 utmost to decry and ruin literature ; and literature was even with them, as, in 
 the long run, it always is with its enemies. The best book on their side of 
 the question is the charming memoir of Mrs. Hutchinson. May's History 
 of the Parliament is good ; but it breaks off at the most interesting crisis of 
 the struggle. The performance of Ludlow is very foolish and xnolent ; and 
 most of the later writers who have espoused the same cause, Oldmixon, for 
 irstance, and Catherine Macaulay, have, to say the least, been more dis- 
 tinguished by zeal than either by candour or by skill. On the other side are 
 the most authoritative and the most popular historical works in our language, ' 
 that of Clarendon and that of Hume, The former is not only ably ^yritten 
 
i6 MILTON. 
 
 and full of valuable information, but has also an air of dignity and sincerity 
 which makes even the prejudices and errors with which it abounds respect- 
 able. Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the great mass of the reading 
 public are still contented to take their opinions, hated religion so much that 
 he hated liberty for having been allied with religion — and has pleaded the 
 cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate, while affecting the 
 impartiality of a judge. 
 ^ The public conduct of Milton must be approved or condemned according 
 '^ ' as the resistance of the people to Charles I. shall appear to be justifiable or 
 i criminal. We shall, therefore, make no apology for dedicating a few pages to 
 ^,.the discussion of that interesting and most important question. We shall not 
 i ^ argue it on general grounds ; we shall not recur to those primary principles 
 1^ \{ from which the claim of any government to the obedience of its subjects is to 
 ^"^ be deduced ; it is a vantage-ground to which we are entitled ; but we will 
 relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confident of superiority that we have 
 r" no objection to imitate the ostentatious generosity of those ancient knights 
 who vowed to joust without helmet or shield against all enemies, and to give 
 their antagonists the advantage of sun and wind. We will take the naked 
 constitutional question. We confidently affirm that every reason which can 
 be urged in favour of the Revolution of 1688 may be urged with at least 
 ^ equal force in favour of what is called the Graat Rebellion. 
 \ In one respect only, we think, can the warmest admirers of Charles venture 
 
 ** I0 say that he was a better sovereign than his son. He was not, in name an(} 
 i- 3/ profession, a Papist ; we say in name and profession, — because both Charles 
 \..J^_ himself and his miserable creature Laud, while they abjured the innocent 
 S, badges of Popery, retained all its V;orst vices, a complete subjection of reason 
 ^^ to authority, a weak preference of form to substance, a childish passion for 
 mummeries, an idolatrous veneration for the priestly character, and above all, 
 a stupid and ferocious intolerance. This, however, we wave. We will concede 
 that Charles was a good Protestant ; but wc say that his Protestantism does 
 not make the slii^htest distinction between his case and that of James. 
 
 The principles of the Revolution have often been grossly misrepresented, 
 and never more than in the course of the present year. There is a certain 
 S class of men who, while they profess to hold in reverence the great names 
 I and great actions of former times, never look at them for any other purpose 
 than in order to find in them some excuse for existing abuses. In every 
 — venerable precedent, they pass by what is essential, and take only what is 
 accidental ; they keep out of sight what is beneficial, and hold up to public 
 •jr\ '.mitation all that is defective. If in any part of any great example there be 
 anything unsound, these flesh-flies detect it with an unerring instinct, and dart 
 upon ic with a ravenous delight. They cannot always prevent the advocates 
 I of a good measure from compassing their end; but they feel, with their proto- 
 type, that 
 
 *' Their labours must be to pervert that end, 
 Aud out of good still to find means of evil." 
 
 '"''^b the blessings which England has derived from the Revolution these 
 people are utterly insensible. The expulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recogni- 
 tion of popular rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing with 
 ihem. One sect there was, which, from unfortunate temporary causes, it was 
 thought necessary to keep under close restraint. One part of the empire there 
 was, so unhappily circumstanced, that at that time its misery was necessary to 
 our happiness, and its slavery to our freedom ! These are the parts of the 
 Revolution which the politicians of whom we speak love to contemplate, and 
 which seem to theni, ngt indeed tp vindicate, but in ^om^ degree to pa^iatf 
 
MILTON, 
 
 the good which it has produced. Talk to them of Naples, of Spain, or of 
 South America ! they stand forth, zesclots for the doctrine of Divine Right— 
 which has now come back to us, like a thief from transponation, under the 
 alias of Legitimacy. But mention the miseries of Ireland ! Then William 
 is a hero. Then Somers and Shrewsbury are] great men. Then the Revolu- 
 tion is a glorious era ! The very same persojhs who, in this count ly, never 
 omit an opportunity of reviving every wretched Jacobite slander respecting 
 the Whigs of that period, have no sooner, crossed St. George's Channel 
 than they begin to fill their bumpers to the /glorious and immortal memory. 
 They may truly boast that they look not at mien but at measures. So that evil 
 be done, they care not who does it — the! arbitrary Charles or the liberal 
 William, Ferdinand the Catholic or Frederick the Protestant ! On such 
 occasions their deadliest opponents may reckon upon their candid construc- 
 tion. The bold assertions of these people, have of late impressed a large 
 portion of the public with an opinion that James II. was expelled simply 
 because he was a Catholic, and that the Revolution was essentially a Pro- 
 testant Revolution. 
 
 But this certainly was not the case. Nor can any person who has acquired 
 more knowledge of the history of those times than is to be found in Gold- 
 smith's Abridgment, beUeve that, if James had held his own religious 
 opinions without wishing to make proselytes, or if, wishing even to make 
 proselytes, he had contented himself wt'h exerting only his constitutional 
 influence for that purpose, the Prince of Orange would ever have been 
 invited over. Our ancestors, we suppose, knew their own meaning. And, 
 if we may believe them, tl eir hostility was primarily not to popery but to 
 tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant because he was a Catholic ; but 
 they excluded Catholics from the crown because they thought them likely 
 to be tyrants. The ground on which they, in their famous resolution, de- 
 clared the throne vacant was this, " that James had broken the fundamental 
 laws of the kingdom." Everyman, therefore, who approves of the Revo- 
 lution of 1688 must hold that t/ie breach of fundamental laws on the part of 
 the sovereign justifies resistance. The question, then, is this : Had Charles I. 
 broken the fundamental laws of England? 
 
 No person can answer in the negative, unless he refuses credit, not merely 
 to all the accusations brought against Charles by his opponents, but to the 
 narratives of the warmest Royalists, and to the confessions of the king him- 
 self. If th/'re be any truth in any historiaH of any party who has related 
 the events of that reign, the conduct of Charles, from his accession to the 
 meeting of the Long Parliament, had been a continued course of oppression 
 and treachery. Let those who applaud the Revolution and condemn the 
 Rebellion mention one act of James II. to which a parallel is not to be 
 found in the history of his father. Let them lay their fingers on a single 
 article in the Declaration of Right, presented by the two Houses to William 
 and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged to have violated. He had, 
 according to the testimony of his own friends, usurped the functions of the 
 legislature, raised taxes without the consent of Parliament, and quartered 
 troops on the people in the most illegal and vexatious manner. Not a single 
 session of Parliament had passed without some unconstitutional attack on the 
 freedom of debate. The right of petition was grossly violated. Arbitrary 
 judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarranted imprisonments, were giievances 
 pf daily and hourly occurrence. If these things do not justify resistance, 
 the Revolution was treason : if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable. 
 
 But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures ? Why, after the king had 
 CQjisented to so many reforms, a;^4 renounced so msiny oppressive prerogative 
 
I8 MILTON. 
 
 did the Parliament continue to rise in their demands at the risk of provoking 
 ^ a civil war ? The SLip-money had been given up. The Star Chamber had 
 f^ been abolished. Provision had been made for the frequent convocation and 
 «~ secure deliberation of Parliaments. Why not pursue an end confessedly good, 
 by peaceable and regular means ? We recur again to the analogy of the 
 Revolution. Why was James driven from the throne? Why was he not 
 retained upon conditions? He too had offered to call a free Parliament, and 
 to submit to its decision all the matters in dispute. Yet we praise our fore- 
 fathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, a dynasty of 
 strangers, twenty years of foreign and intestine war, a standing army, and a 
 national debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and proved tyran:. 
 The Long Parliament acted on the same principle, and is entitled to the same 
 praise. They could not tinist the king. Pie had, no doubt, passed salutary 
 laws. But what assurance had they that he would not break them? He 
 had renounced oppressive prerogatives. But where was the security that he 
 would not resume them ? They had to deal with a man whom no tie could 
 /j* bind, a man who made and broke promises with equal facility, a man whose 
 ' * honour had been a hundred times pawned, and never redeemed. 
 
 PI ere, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still stronger ground than the 
 Convention of 1688. No action of James can be compared, for wickedness 
 and impudence, to the conduct of Charles with respect to the Petition of 
 Right. The Lords and Commons present him with a bill in which the con- 
 stitutional limits of hi^ power are marked out. He hesitates ; he evades ; at 
 last he bargains to give his assent, for five subsidi«s. The bill receives his 
 solemn assent. The subsidies are voted. But no sooner is the tyrant relieved 
 than he returns at once to all the arbitrary measures which he had bound him- 
 self to abandon, and violates all the clauses of the vei-y act which he had been 
 paid to pass. 
 
 For more than ten years the people had seen the rights which were theirs 
 
 by a double claim, by immemorial inheritance and by recent purchase, infringed 
 
 by the perfidious king who had recognised them. At length circumstances 
 
 compelled Charles to summon another Parliament: another chance was given 
 
 them for liberty. Were they to throw it away as they had thrown away 
 
 the former ? ' Were they again to be cozened by le roi le veut ? Were 
 
 \ they again to advance their money on pledges which had been forfeited over 
 
 ^ and over again? Were they to lay a second Petition of Right at the foot of 
 
 the throne, to grant another lavish aid in exchange for another unmeaning 
 
 ceremony, and then to take their departure till, after ten years more of fraud 
 
 and oppression, their prince should again require a supply, and again repay it 
 
 jW with a perjury? They were compelled to choose whether they would tj'ust 
 
 a tyrant or conquer him. We think that they chose wisely and nobly. , 
 "j The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other malefactors against 
 whom overwhelming evidence is produced, generally decline all controversy 
 about the facts, tfnd content themselves with calling testimony to character. 
 He had so many private virtues ! And had James II. no private virtues ? 
 Was even Oliver Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, 
 destitute of private virtues ? And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to 
 Charles? A religious zeal, not more sincere than that of his son, and fully as 
 weak and narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinaiy household decencies 
 which half the tomb stones in England claim for those who lie beneath them. 
 A good father ! A good husband ! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years 
 of persecution, tyranny, and falsehood ? 
 
 We charge him with having broken his coronation-oath — and we arc told 
 that he kept his marriage- vow ! We accuse him of having in^iven up his peoplij; 
 
MILTOK, 19 
 
 to the merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard-hearted of prelates 
 — and the defence is that he took>^is little kon on his knee and kissed him I 
 We censure him for having violated the arpcles of the Petition of Right, 
 after having, for good and valuable cons;ideration, promised to observe them — 
 ETid we are informed that he was accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in 
 the morning ! It is to such considerations as these, together with his Vandyke 
 ilress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he owes, we verily believe, 
 most of his popularity with the present genoratiori. 
 
 For ourselves, we own that we do not understand the common phrase, a 
 good man but a bad kinfi We can as easily conceive a good man and an un- 
 natural father, or a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in estimat- 
 ing the character of an individual, leave out ©f our consideration his conduct 
 in the most important of all human relations. And if, in ihat relation, we 
 find him to have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the liberty to 
 call him a bad man, in spite of all his temperance at table and all his regu- 
 larity at chapel. 
 
 VV^e cannot refrain from adding a few words respecting a topic on which the 
 defenders of Charles are fond of dwelling. If, they say, he governed his 
 people ill, he at least governed them after the example of his predecessors. 
 If he violated their privileges, it was because those privileges had not been 
 accurately defined. No active oppression has ever been imputed to him 
 which has not a parallel in the annals of the Tudors. This point Hume has 
 laboured, with an art which is as discreditable in a historical work as it 
 would be admirable in a forensic address. The answer is short, clear, and 
 decisive. Charles had assented to the Petition of Right. He had renounced 
 the oppressive powers said to have been exercised by his predecessors, and 
 he- had renounced them for money. He was not entitled to set up his anti- 
 quated claims against his ov.m recent release. 
 
 These arguments are so obvious that it may seem superfluous to dwell upon 
 them. But those who have observed how much the events of that time are 
 misrepresented and misunderstood will not blame us for stating the case 
 simply. It is a case of which the simplest statement is the strongest. 
 
 The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely choose to take issue on the 
 great points of the question. They content themselves with exposing some of 
 the crimes and follies to v/hich public commotions necessarily give birth. 
 They bewail the unmerited fate of Strafford. They execrate the lawless vio- 
 lence of the army. Theyiaugh at the Scriptural names of the preachers. 
 Major-generals fleecing their districts ; soldiers revelling on the spoils of a 
 ruined peasantry ; upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking possession 
 of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees of the old gentry ; boys smash- 
 ing the beautiful windows of cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked through the 
 market-place; Fifth-monarchy-men shouting for King Jesus; agitators lectur- 
 ing from the tops of tubs on the fate of Agag — all these, they tell us, were 
 the offspring of the Great Rebellion. 
 
 Be it so. , We are not careful to answer in this matter. These charges, 
 were they infinitely more important, would not alter our opinion of an event 
 which alone has made us to differ from the slaves who crouch beneath the 
 sceptres of Brandenburgh and Braganza. Many evils, no doubt, were produced 
 by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. Has the acquisition 
 been worth the sacrifice ? It is the nature of the De^iil of tyranny to tear and 
 rend the body which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued possession less 
 horrible than the struggles of the tremendous exorcism ? 
 
 If it were possible that a people brought up under an intolerant and arbi- 
 trary system could subvert that system without acts of cruelty and folbr, half 
 
so MJLTOM 
 
 the objections to despotic power would be removed. We should, in that case, 
 be compelled to acknowledge, that it at least produces no pernicious efifects on 
 the intellectual and moral character of a people. We deplore the outrages 
 which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the outrages, the more 
 assured we feel that a revohition was necessary. The violence of those outrages 
 will always be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the poople : and 
 the ferocity and ignorance of the people will be proportioned to the oppression 
 and degradation under which thty have been accustomed to live. Thus it was 
 in our civil war. The rulers in the Church and State reaped only that which 
 they had sown. They had prohibited free discussion ; they had done their 
 best to keep the people unacquainted with their duties and their rights. The 
 retribution was just and natural. If they suffered from popular ignorance, it 
 was because they had themselves taken away the key of knowledge. If they 
 v.ere assailed with blind fury, it was because they had exacted an equally 
 blind submission. 
 
 It is the character of such revolutions that we always see the worst of them at 
 first. Till men have been for some time free, they know not how to use their 
 freedom. I'he natives of wine countries are always sober. In climates where 
 wine is a rarity intemperance abounds. A newly liberated people may be 
 compared to a northern army encamped on the Rhine or the Xeres. It is 
 said that when soldiers in such a situation first find themselves able to indulge 
 without restraint in such a rare and expensive luxury nothing is to be seen 
 but intoxication. Soon, however, plenty teaches discretion j and after wine 
 has been for a few months their daily fare, they become more temperate than 
 they had ever been in their own country. In the same manner, the final and 
 permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, and mercy. Its imme- 
 diate effects are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, scepticism on points 
 the most clear, dogmatism on points the most mysterious. It is just at this 
 crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. They pull down the scaffolding from 
 the half-finished edifice : they point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the 
 comfortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole appearance ; and then 
 ask in scorn where the promised splendour and comfort is to be found ? If such 
 miserable sophisms were to prevail, there would never be a good house or a 
 good government in the world. 
 
 Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy who, by some mysterious law of her 
 nature, was condemned to appear, at certain seasons, in the form of a foul 
 and poisonous snake. Those who injured her during the period of her dis- 
 guise were for ever excluded from participation in the blessings which she 
 bestowed. But to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and 
 protected her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form 
 which was natural to her, accompanied their steps, granted all their wishes, 
 filled their houses with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in 
 war,* Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the form of a hateful 
 reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe to those who, in dis- 
 gust, shall venture to crush her ! And happy are those who, having dared to 
 receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewatded by 
 her in the tim-e of her beauty and her glory ! 
 
 There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces 
 — and that cure \s freedom! When a prisoner first leaves his cell he cannot 
 bear the light of day : he is unable to discriminate colours, or recognize 
 faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him into his dungeon, but to accus- 
 tom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at fir?t 
 
 • Orlando Furioso, canto 43. 
 
MILTON. ai 
 
 dazzle and bewilder nations which hj^ve become half blind in the house of 
 bondage. But let them gaze on, ana they will soon be able to bear ic In a 
 few years men learn to reason. The extreme violence of opinions subsides. 
 Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered elements of truth cease to 
 conflict, and begin to coalesce. And at length a system of justice and order 
 is educed out of the chaos. 
 
 Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying it down as a self- 
 evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their 
 freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not 
 to go into the water till he had learnt to swim ! If men are to wait for liberty 
 till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever. 
 
 Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the conduct of Milton and 
 the other wise and good men who, in spite of much that was ridiculous 
 and hateful in the conduct of their associates, stood firmly by the cause of 
 public liberty. We are not aware that the poet has been charged with per- 
 sonal participation in any of the blamable excesses of that time. The 
 favourite topic of his enemies is the line of conduct which he pursued with 
 regard to the execution of the king. Of that celebrated proceeding we by no 
 means approve. Still we must say, in justice to the many eminent persons who 
 concurred in it, and in justice more particularly to the eminent person who 
 defended it, that nothing can be more absurd than the imputations which, for 
 the last hundred and sixty years, it has been the fashion to cast upon the 
 regicides. We have throughout abstained from appealing to first principles ; 
 we will not appeal to them now. We recur again to the parallel case of the 
 Revolution. What essential distinction can be drawn between the execution 
 of the father and the deposition of the son ? What constitutional maxim is 
 there which applies to the form'er and not to the latter ? The king can do 
 no wrong. If so, James was as innocent as Charles could have been. The 
 minister only ought to be responsible for the acts of the sovereign. If so, why 
 not impeach Jeffries and retain James? The person of a king is sacred. 
 Was the person of James considered sacred at the Boyne ? To discharge 
 cannon against an army in which a king is known to be posted, is to approach 
 pretty near to regicide. Charles too, it should always be remembered, was 
 put to death by men who had been exasperated by the hostilities of several 
 years, and who had never been bound to him by any other tie than that which 
 was common to them with all their fellow citizens. Those who drove James 
 from his throne, who seduced his army, who alienated his friends, who first im- 
 prisoned him in his palace, and then turned him out of it, who broke in upon 
 his very slumbers by imperious messages, who pursued him with fire and sword 
 from one part of the empire to another, who hanged, drew, and quartered his 
 adherents, and attainted his innocent heir, were his nephew and his two 
 daughters ! When we reflect on all these things, we are at a loss to conceive 
 how the same persons who, on the fifth of November thank God for wonder- 
 fully conducting his servant King William, and for making all opposition fall 
 bef(»re him un^il he became our king and governor, can, on the thirtieth of 
 January, conU'ive to be afraid that the blood of the Royal Martyr may be 
 visited oa themselves and their children. 
 
 We do not, we repeat, approve of the execution of Charles ; not because 
 the constitution exempts the king from responsibility, for we know that all 
 such maxims, however excellent, have their exceptions ; nor because we feel 
 any peculiar interest in his character, for we think that his sentence describes 
 him with perfect justice as "a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public 
 enemj' ; " but because we are convinced that the measure was most injurious to 
 the cause of freedom. He whom it removed was a captive and a hostage. 
 
22 MILTON, 
 
 His heir, to whom the allegiance of every Royalist was instantly transfened, 
 \sas at large. The Presbyterians could never have been perfectly reconciled to 
 the father. They had no such a rooted enmity to the son. The great body of 
 the people, also, contemplated that proceeding with feelings which, howevcr 
 unreasonable, no government could safely venture to outrage. 
 
 Eut though we think the conduct of the regicides blamalile, that of Milton 
 sppears to us in a very different light. The deed was done. It could not 
 be undone. The evil was incurred; and tlie object was to render it as 
 small as possible. We censure the chiefs of the army for not yielding to the 
 popular opinion : but we cannot censure Milton for wishing to change that 
 opinion. The very feeling which would have restrained us from committi ng 
 the act would have led us, after it had been committed, to defend it against 
 the ravings of serviUty and superstition. For the sake of public liberty we 
 wish that the thing had not been done while the people disapproved of it. 
 But, for the sake of public liberty, we should also have wished the. people to 
 approve of it when it was done. If anything more were wanting to the justi- 
 fication of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish it. That miserable 
 performance is now with justice considered only as a beakon to word-catchers 
 who wish to become statesmen. The celebrity of the man who refuted iL 
 the "iEnece magni dextra," gives it all its fame with the present generatiorx. 
 In that age the state of things was different. It was not then fully understood 
 how vast an interval separates the mere classical scholar from the political 
 philosopher. Nor can it be doubted that a treatise which, bearing the name 
 of so eminent a critic, attacked the fundamental principles of all free govern- 
 ments must, if suffered to remain unanswered, have produced a most per- 
 nicious effect on the public mind. 
 
 We wish to add a few words relative to another subject on v/hich the 
 enemies of Milton delight to dwell — his conduct during the administration of 
 the Protector. That an enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept ofiice 
 under a military usurper seems, no doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But 
 vU the circumstances in which the country was then placed were extraordinary, 
 /"lie ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seems to have 
 coveted despotic power. He at first fouglit sincerely and manfully for the 
 Parliament, and never deserted it till it had deserted its duty. If he dis- 
 solved it by force, it was not till he found that the few members who remained, 
 after so many deaths, secessions, and expulsions, were desirous to appropi-iate 
 !o themselves a power which they held only in trust, and to inflict upon Eng- 
 land the curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But even when thus placed by 
 violence at the head of affairs, he did not assume unlimited- power. He gave 
 the country a constitution far more perfect than any which had at that time 
 been known in the world. He reformed the representative system in a 
 manner which has extorted praise even from Lord Clarendon. For himself 
 he demanded, indeed, the first place in the Commonwealth ; but with powers 
 scarcely so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder, or an American president. 
 He gave the Parliament a voice in the appointment of ministers, and left to 
 it the whole legislative authority— not even reserving to himself" a veto on its 
 enactments. And he did not require that the chief magistracy should be 
 hereditary in his family. Thus far, we think, if the circumstances of the 
 time, and the opportunities which he had of aggrandizing himself be fairly 
 considered, he will not lose by comparison with Washington or Bolivar. 
 Had his moderation been met by corresponding moderation, there is no reason 
 to think that he would have overstepped the line which he had traced for 
 himself. But when he found thai his Parliaments questioned the authority 
 tinder which they met, and that he was in danger of being deprived of th« 
 
MILTON, 23 
 
 restricted power which was absolutely necessary to his personal safety, Ibenj 
 
 /it mi^st be acknowledged, he adopteda more arbitrary policy. 
 Y^t, though we believe that the intentions of Cromwell were at first honest, 
 though we believe that he was driven from the noble course which he had marked 
 Dut fof himself by the almost irresistible force of circumstances, though we 
 admire, in common with all men of all parties, the ability and energy of his 
 splendid administration, we are not pleading for arbitrary and lawless pov»'er, 
 even in his hands. We know that a good constitution is infinitely better than 
 the best despot. But we suspect that, at the time of which we speak, the 
 violence of religious and political enmities rendered a stable and happy 
 settlement next to impossible. The choice lay, not between Cromwell and 
 liberty, but between Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose well no 
 man can doubt who fairly compares the events of the Protectorate with those 
 of the thirty years which succeeded it — the darkest and most disgraceful in 
 the English annals. Cromwell was evidently laymg, though in an irregular 
 manner, the foundations of an admirable system. Never before had religious 
 liberty and the freedom of discussion been enjoyed in a greater degree. 
 Never had the national honour been better upheld abroad, or the seat of 
 justice better filled at home. And it was rarely that any opposition, which 
 Stopped short of open rebellion, provoked the resentment of the liberal and 
 raagnanimous usurper. The institutions which he had established, as set 
 down in the Instrument of Government, and the Humble Petition and 
 Advice, were excellent. His practice, it is true, too often departed from 
 the theory of these institutions. But, had he lived a few years longer, it is 
 probable that his institutions would have survived him, and that his arbitrary 
 practice would have died with him. His pov/er has not been consecrated by 
 ancient prejudices. It was upheld only by his great personal qualities. 
 Little, therefore, was to be dreaded from a second protector, unless he were 
 also a second Oiiver Cromwell. The events which followed his decease are 
 the most complete vindication of those who exerted themselves to uphold his 
 authority ; for his death dissolved the whole frame of society. The army 
 -sose against the Parliament, the different corps of the army against each 
 ucher. Sect raved against sect. Party plotted against party. The Presby- 
 terians, in their eagerness to be revenged on the Independents, sacrificed 
 their own liberty, and deserted all their old principles. Without casting one 
 glance on the past, or requiring one stipulation for the future, they threw down 
 their freedom at the feet of the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. 
 
 Then came those days, never to be recalled without a blush — the days of 
 servitude withoat loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarfish talents and 
 gigantic vices, the paradise of cold hearts and naiTOw 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 infamy, 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 principles of liberty were the scoff of every grinning courtier, 
 and the Anathema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every high place 
 <vorship was paid to Charles and James — Belial and Moloch ; and England 
 propitiated those obscene and cruel idols with the blood of her best and 
 bravest children. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace 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 the remarks which we have hitherto made on the public character 
 
MILTON, 
 
 of Milton apply to him only as one of a large body. We shall proceed to notice 
 some of the peculiarities which distinguished him from his contemporaries. 
 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 only 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 followers, 
 an useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of march in the hope 
 of picking up somethmg under its protection, 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 support 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' head or on broiled rumps, 
 and cut down oak-branches or stuck them up as circumstances 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 observers to point them out. For 
 many years after the Restoration they were the theme of unmeasured in- 
 vective and derision. They wei-e 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 
 coW'^ 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 posture, their long graces, 
 their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases 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 subject should carefully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule 
 which has already misled so many excellent writers. 
 
 "Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il no 
 Che mortali pefigli in se contiene ; 
 Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio, 
 Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene."* 
 
 Tliose 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, — who, 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 of 
 
 ♦ Gcrusalemrnc Liberj^ta, xv. 57. 
 
MlLTOhr, ^s 
 
 Charles II. was celebrated. But, if we must make our choice, we shall, like 
 Bassanio in the play, turn from th^ specious caskets which contain only the 
 Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix our choice on the plain leaden chest 
 which conceals the treasure. V 
 
 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 overruling 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. 
 To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of 
 existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other 
 sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occa- 
 sional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze 
 full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. 
 Hejjce-oxiginated 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 recognized no title to 
 superiority but his favour ; and, confident of that favour, they despised all the 
 accomplishments and all the dignities of the world./ If they were unacquainted 
 with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles 
 of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt 
 assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not 
 accompanied by a splendid train of menials, legions of ministering angels had 
 charge over them. Their palaces were houses 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 down with contempt ; for they 
 esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure and eloquent in a more 
 sublime language ; nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by 
 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 had been wrested by no common 
 deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the 
 sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for 
 him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the 
 dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring 
 God! 
 
 Thus the Puritan was made up of twc different men, the one all self-abase- 
 ment, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, calm, inflexible, saga- 
 cious. He prostrated himself in the 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 
 terrible illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of 
 fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming frot^ 
 dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with the 
 sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of 
 his soul that God had hid his face from him. But, when he took his seat in the 
 council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul 
 
25 MlLfO^, 
 
 had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the 
 godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans 
 and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason 
 to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate, or. in the field of battle. 
 These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgmejit 
 and an immutability of purpose which some writers have thought inconsistent 
 with their religious zeal, but which were, in fact, the neccessary effects 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 fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They 
 had their smiles and their tears, tlieir raptures and their sorrows, but nt»t 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 neither 
 part nor lot in human infirmities ; insensible to fatigue, to pleasure, and 
 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 all circumstances are taken into considerafion, 
 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 thi, 
 cause of religion. There was another party, by no means numerous, but dis- 
 tinguished by learning and ability, which 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 with regard to religious subjects, but passionate 
 worshippers of freedom. Heated by the study of ancient literature, they set 
 up their country ai 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 the 
 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 charge 
 upon a whole party the profligacy and baseness of the horseboys, gamblers, 
 and bravoes, whom the hope of licence and plunder attracted from all the 
 dens of Whitefriars to the standard of Charles, and who disgraced their asso- 
 ciates by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of the Parliamentary 
 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 national pride in comparing them 
 with the instruments which the despots of other countries are c(»mpelled to 
 
 / 
 
MILTON. Vf 
 
 employ, with the mutes who throng their antichambers, and the janissaries 
 who mount guard at their gates. CMr 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 v/ithout love, destroying without 
 hatred. There was a freedom in their subserviency, a nobleness in their very 
 degradation. The sentinfent of individual independence was strong v/ithiu 
 them. They were, indeed, misled, but by no base or selfish motive. Com- 
 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 v/ere 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 
 'Df the Roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of the hospitable CavaHer, 
 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 defiled. 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 
 not 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, their scorn of science, and their aversion to pleasure. 
 Having tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had nevertheless all the estimable 
 and ornamental 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 more chivalrous 
 delicacy of honour and love. Though his opinions were democratic, his 
 tastes and his associations were sudi as harmonize best with monarchy and 
 aristocracy. He was under the influence of all the feelingr? by which the 
 gallant Cavaiit-rs 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 withoiit 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 cweetness. The illusioDS which captivated his imagination never 
 
28 MILTON, 
 
 impaired his reasoning powers. The statesman was proof against the 
 splendour, the solemnity, and the romance which enchanted the poet. Any 
 person who will contrast the sentiments expressed in his Treatises on Pitlacy 
 with the exquisite lines on Ecclesiastical architecture and music in the Pen- 
 f«roso, 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 deceiver 
 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 to overthrow 
 ^ a foresworn king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in conjunction 
 \ with others; But the glory of the battle which he fought for that species of 
 freedom which is the most valuable, and which was then the least understood, 
 tlie 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 wand \ 
 Without the rod reversed, 
 And backward mutters of dissevering povver. 
 We cannot free the lady that sits here 
 Bound in strong fetters, fixed and mo'aonless. 
 
 To jeverse 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 disdain from their insolent triumph. He saw that they, 
 like those whom they had vanquished, were hostile to the liberty of thought. 
 He therefore joined the Independents, and called upon Cromwell to break 
 •the secular cliaui, 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, 
 directed less against particular abuses than against those deeply seated errors 
 on which almost all abuses are founded,* the servile worship of eminent men, 
 and the irrational dread of innovation. 
 
 That he might shake the foundation of these debasing sentiments more 
 effectually, he always selected for himself the boldest literary services. He 
 tiever came up in the rear when the outside works had been carried, and tho 
 
 • Sonnet to Crom yelL 
 
MILTON. 29 
 
 breach entered. He pressed into the forlorn hope. At the beginning of the 
 changes he wrote with incomparable e^rgy 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 
 shone. 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 adversum ; nee mc, qui cjetera, vincit 
 Impetus, et rapido conti-arius 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 
 Burice 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 Bst the length to which 
 our remarks have already extended renders this impossible. 
 '>( We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear ourselves a\yay 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 
 his shrine, how worthless soever may be the offering which we bring to it. While 
 this book lies on our table, we seem to be contemporaries of the great poet. 
 V7e 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 ; the 
 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 down 
 the immortal accents which flowed from his lips. 
 
 • The Reason of Church Goverqment urged against Prelatcy, Bock II, 
 
30 MA CHI A VELLL 
 
 These are, perhaps, foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be ashamed of thsin ; 
 nor shall we be sorry if what we have written shall in any degree excite them 
 in other minds. We are not much in the habit of idolizing either the living 
 or the dead. And we think that there is no more certain indication of a weak 
 and ill-regulated intellect than that propensity which, for want of a better 
 name, we will venture to christen Boswellism. 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 
 v/e 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 thfe productions of 
 other soils, not only by their superior bloom aud sweetness, but by 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 sublime 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 Lis fame. V 
 
 INIACHIAVELLI. 
 CEuvres completes de Machiavel, traduites par J. V. Perikr. Paris, 1S33. 
 
 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 a.s 
 that of the man whose character and writings we now propose to consider. 
 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 or 
 a convenient crime. One writer gravely assures us that Maurice of Saxony 
 learned all his fraudulent policy from that execrable volume. Another remarks 
 that, 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 Lyttelton charges the poor Florentine -with the manifold treasons of the 
 H« 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 wcrks accursed things. Nor have rvijr ovm co'.mtrj^men b^c^.n 
 
MACBIAVELLL %\ 
 
 backward in testifying their opinion of his merits. Out of his surname they 
 have coined an epithet for a knave — an^Uout of his Christian name a syno- 
 nym for the Devi!.* 
 
 It is, indeed, scarcely possible for any person not v/ell acquainte^l 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 with great suspicion on the 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 King-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 
 detect, in this unfortunate performance, some concealed meaning, more con- 
 sistent with the character and conduct of the author than that which appears 
 at the first glance. 
 
 One hypothesis is that Machiavelli intended to practise on the young 
 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 warn nations against the arts of ambitious men. It would be easy to show 
 that neither of these solutions is consistent with many passages in the Prince 
 itself. But the most decisive refutation is that which is furnished by the other 
 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 perusal 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 moral 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 th^t dissimulation and treachery had ever struck him as dis- 
 creditable. 
 
 After this it may seem ridiculous to say tlmt we are acquainted with few 
 writings which exhibit so much elevation of sentiment, so pure and warm a 
 zeal for the public good, or so just a view of the duties and rights of citizens 
 9& those of Machiavelli. Yet so it is. And even from the Prince itself we 
 
 ♦ Nick Michiavel had ne'er a trick, 
 Tho' he gave his name to our old Nick. 
 
 Hudibras, Part Hi., canto g 
 But, we believe, there i" a schism on tkis subject among the antiquarians. 
 
MachuvelLl 
 
 could select many passages in support of this remark. I'o a reader of ouf slgfc 
 and country this inconsistency is, at first, perfectly 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 pure, 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 he lived saw anything shocking or 
 incongruous in his writings. Abundant proofs remain of the high estimation 
 in which both his works and his person were held by the most respectable 
 among his contempcraries. 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 demo- 
 cratical party censured 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 cry 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 the 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 suggests many interesting considerations, both political and meta- 
 physical, we shall make no apology for discussing it at some length. 
 
 During the gloomy and disastrous centuries which followed the downfall of 
 the Roman Empire ^Italy had preserved, in a far greater degree than any 
 other part of Western Europe, the traces of ancient civihzation. The night 
 which descended upon her was the night of an Arctic summer : the dawn 
 began to reappear before the last reflection of the preceding sunset had faded from 
 the horizon. It was in the time of the French Morovingians and of the Saxon 
 Heptarchy that ignorance and ferocity seemed to have done their worst. Yet 
 even then the Neapolitan provmces, 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 
 security and repose. Even in those regions where the sanguinary Lombards 
 had fixed their monarchy there was incomparably more of wealth, of inform- 
 ation, of physical comfort, and of socisJ. order than could be found in Gaul, 
 Britain, or Germany. 
 
 That which most distinguished Italy from the neighbouring countries was 
 the importance which the population of the towns, from a very early period, 
 
MACHIAVELLL 33 
 
 began to acquire. Some cities, founde^ in wild and remote situations by fugi- 
 tives who had escaped from the rage ofihe barbarians, preserved their freedom 
 by their obscurity, till they became able to preserve it by their power. Others 
 seem to have retained, under all the changing dynasties of ir /aders, under 
 Odoacer and Theodoric, Narses and Alboin, the municipal inst.tutions which 
 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 considerable 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 Ceesars. Happily the public mind of 
 Italy had long contained the seeds of free opinions, which were novy'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 arrns 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 
 a 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 market-place. The state of society in the Neapolitan dominioni 
 
 c 
 
34 MACHIAVELIL 
 
 and in some parts of the Ecclesiastical State more nearly resembled that which 
 existed in the great monarchies of Europe. But the governments of Lombardy 
 and Tuscany, through 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 Cassars 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 than 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 
 coimtries gained nothing but relics and wounds, brought the rising common- 
 wealths of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large increase of wealth, dominions, 
 and knowledge. Their moral and their geographical position enabled them 
 to pi^ofit 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 sum fairly equal, in exchangeable value, to two 
 millions and a half of our money. Four hundred thousand florins were 
 smnually coined. Eighty banks conducted the commercial operations, not of 
 Florence only, but of all Europe. The transactions of these establishments 
 W(?re sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise even the contemporaries 
 of the Barings and the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to Edward III. 
 of England upwards of three hundred thousand marks, at a time when 
 the mark contained more silver than 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 inhabitants. 
 In the various schools about ten thousand children were taught to read; 
 twelve hundred studied arithmetic ; six hundred received a learned education. 
 The progress of elegant literature and of the fine arts was proportioned to 
 that 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 
 
 by formal boundaries, still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but yielding 
 neither flowers nor fruit. The delug^f 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, ckpping its hands, pouring forth, in 
 spontaneous abundance, everything brilliant, or fragrant, or nourishing. A 
 new language, characterized by simple sweetness and simple energy, had 
 attained its perfection. No tongue ever furnished more gorgeous and vivid 
 tints to poetry : nor was it long before a poet appeared tvho knew how to em- 
 ploy them. Early, in the fourteenth century came forth the Divine Comedy, 
 beyond comparison the greatest work of imagination, which had appeared 
 since the 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 Petrarch 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 transaction 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 commercial 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 manuscripts. 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 Magnificent. We cannot 
 refrain from quoting the splendid passage, in which the Tuscan Thucydides 
 describes the state of Italy at that period : — '* Ridotta tutta in somma pace e 
 tranquillita, coltivata non meiio ne' luoghi piu montuosi e piii sterili che 
 nelle pianure e regioni piu fertili, ne sottoposta ad altro imperio che de' suoi 
 medesimi, non solo era abbondantissima d'abitatori e di ricchezze ; ma illus* 
 trata sommamente dalla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo splendore ^i 
 molte nobilissime e bellissime citta, dalla sedia e maesta deUa religione, 
 fioriva d' uomini prestantissimi nell' amministrazione delle cose pubbliche, a 
 d'ingegni molto nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qualunque arte preclara cd 
 industriosa." * When we peruse this just and splendid description we can 
 scarcely persuade ourselves that we are reading of times in which the 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 
 i.ufferings 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 with every 
 
 * Gtucciaxdini* lib L 
 
36 MACHIAVELLL 
 
 article of comfort or luxury, the manufactories swarming with artisans, the 
 Apennines covered with rich cultivation up to their very summits, the Po 
 wafting the harvests of Lombardy to the granaries of Venice, and carrying 
 back the tilks of Bengal and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With 
 peculiar pleasure every c\iltivated mind must repose on the fair, the happy, 
 the glcnor.s e lorence ; on the halls which rung with the mirth of Pulci ; the 
 cell where twinkled the midnight lamp of Politian, the statues on which 
 the young cy : zi Michael Angelo glared with the frenzy of a kindred inspira- 
 tion, the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the 
 May-day dance of the Etrurian virgins. Alas, for the beautiful city ! Alas, for 
 the wit and the learning, the genius and the love ! 
 
 " Le donne, i cavalier, gli affanni, gli agi, 
 Che ne'nvogliava amore e cortesia, 
 La dove i cuor son fatti si malvagi."t 
 
 A time was at hand when all the seven vials of the Apocalypse were to ba 
 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 was 
 the penalty of precocious maturity. Their early greatness and their early 
 decline are principally to be attributed to the same cause — the preponderance 
 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 army ; the whole 
 year a march. Such was the state of society which facilitated the gigantic 
 conquests of Attila 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 pui'suits 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- 
 I)loyed, 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 
 troops of the same description. 
 
 But when commerce and manafactures 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 z. community 
 there is little superfluous time ; but .here is generally much superfluous money. 
 Some 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- 
 mentary on the history of Italy. Five hundred years before the Christian era 
 
 • Dante Purwatorio, xiv. 
 
MACfflAVELLI. 
 
 37 
 
 the citizens of the republics round the iEgean Sea fonned perhaps the finest 
 militia that ever existed. As wealth^nd refinement advanced, the system 
 underwent a gradual alteration. The Ionian States were the first in which com- 
 merce and the arts were cultivated — and the first in which the ancient discipline 
 decayed. Within eighty years after the battle of Plataea mercenary troops were 
 everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In the time of Demosthenes it was 
 scarcely possible 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 long after their neighbours had 
 begun to hire soldiers. But their military spirit declined with ther singular 
 institutions. In the second century Greece contained only one nation of 
 warriors, the savage highlanders of i^tolia, who were at least ten generations 
 behind their countrymen in civilization and intelligence. 
 
 All the causes which produced these effects amongst the Greeks, acted still 
 more strongly on the modern Italians. Instead of a power like Sparta, in its 
 nature warlike, they had amongst them an ecclesiastical state, in its nature 
 pacific. Where there are numerous slaves every freeman is induced by the 
 strongest motives to familiarize himself with the use of arms. The common- 
 wealths of Italy did not, like those of Greece, swarm with thousands of these 
 household enemies. Lastly, the mode in which military operations were con- 
 ducted during the prosperous times of Italy was peculiarly unfavourable to 
 the formation of an efficient militia. Men covered with iron from head to 
 foot, armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on horses of the largest 
 breed, were considered as composing the strength of an army. The infantry 
 waL, regarded as comparatively worthless, and was neglected till it became 
 really so. These tactics maintained their ground for centuries in most parts 
 of Europe. That foot soldiers could withstand the charge of heavy cavalry 
 was thought utterly impossible, till, towards the close of the fifteenth century, 
 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 use of the Grecian spear, the Roman sword, or the modem bayonet 
 might be acquired with comparative ease. But nothing short of the daily 
 exercise of years could train the man at arms to support his ponderous 
 panoply, and manage his unwieldy weapon. Throughout Europe this most 
 important branch of war became a separate profession. Beyond the Alps, 
 indeed, though a profession, it was not generally a trade. It was the duty 
 and the amusement of a large class of country gentlemen. It was the service 
 by which they held their lands, and the diversion by which, in the absence of 
 mental resources, they beguiled their leisure. But in the Northern States 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 habit*. 
 Here, therefore, the practice of employing mercenaries became universal 9t u 
 time when it was almost unknown in other countries. 
 
 When war becomes the trade of a separate class the least dangerous coarse 
 left to a government is to form that class into a standing array. It is scarcely 
 possible that men can pass their lives in the service of a single state without 
 Feeling some interest in its greatness. Its victories are their victories. Its 
 (defeats are their defeats. The contract loses something of its mercantile 
 character. The services of the soldier are considered as the effects of patriotic 
 zeal, his pay as the tribute of national gratitude. To betray the power which 
 employs him, to be even remiss in its service, are in his eyes the most atrocious 
 jand degrading of crimes. 
 
 When the princes and commonwealths of Italy began to use hired troop5, 
 
38 pfACHIAVELLl. 
 
 their wisest course would have been to form separate military establishments. 
 Unhappily this was not done. The mercenary waniors of the Peninsula, 
 instead of being attached to the service of different powers, were regarded as 
 the common property of all. The connexion between the state and its 
 defenders was reduced to the most simple and naked traffic. The adventui-er 
 brought his.^horsej his weapons, his strength, and his experience into the 
 market. Whether the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the pope or the 
 Signory of Florence struck the bargain, was to him a matter of perfect 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 to prevent him from instantly turning his arms against his late 
 masters. The soldier was altogether disjoined frcm 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 against his associates. 
 The strongest interest and the strongest feelings concurred to 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 of 
 imion 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 capitulations and equally bloodless combats, make 
 up the military history of It^ljfc^driifMg^^l' C&urs^M'-n^ly?f^w^ centuries. 
 "Mighty armies fightr 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 of 
 the world was left, undefended, to the assaults of every barbarous invader — 
 to the brutality of Switzerland, the insolence of France, and the fierce rapacity 
 of Arragon. The moral effects which followed from this state of things were 
 still 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 s'j.periority of in- 
 telligence. Their very wars, more pacific than the peace of their neighbours, 
 required rather civil than military qualifications. Hence, while ^ courage was 
 the point of honour in other countries, ingenuity became the poiiif pf honour 
 in Italy. 
 
 From these principles were deduced, by processes strictly analogous, two 
 opposite systems of fashionable moi-ality. Through the greater part of 
 Europe the vices which peculiarly belong to timid dispositions, and v/hich are 
 the natural defence of weakness, fraud and liypocrisy, liave always been most 
 disreputable. On the other hand, the excesses of haughty and daring spirits 
 
MACHIAVELLL 3^. 
 
 ■« '-' ' ' ' — ~ ' ' — ' s- 
 
 have been treated with indulgence, and even with respect. The Italians re- 
 garded with corresponding lenity thos€' crimes which require self-command, 
 address, quick observation, fertile invention, and profound knowledge of 
 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 
 fieldof battle, the expiring lease of priestcraft renewed for another century, 
 the dreadful legacy of a causeless and hopeless war bequeathed to H people 
 who had no interest in its event, everything 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 open enemies by the help of faithless allies ; he then armed hwn- 
 self against his allies with the spoils taken from his enemies. By his incom- 
 parable dexterity, he raised himself from the precarious and dependent situa- 
 tion of a military adventurer to the first throne of Italy, To such a man 
 much was forgiven — hollow friendship, ungenerous enmity, violated faith. 
 Such are the opposite errors which men commit, when their moraUty is not 
 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 lieutenant ; 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 
 to his character. lago, on the contrary, is the object of universal loathing. 
 Moiy 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 tlae fifteenth cen- 
 tury would have felt very differently. Othello would have inspired nothing 
 but detestation and contempt. The folly with which he trusts 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 lago they would assuredly have 
 condemned ; but they would have condemned it as we condemn that of his 
 victim. Something of interest and respect would have mingled with their 
 disapprobation. Thp 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 between the Italians and their neighbours. A 
 similar difference existed between the Greeks of the second century 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 tnl 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, 
 the^ had no rivals. Their manners were polished, their percepfions acute, their 
 invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, humane. But of courage and 
 sincerity they were almost utterly destitute. The rude warriors who had sub« 
 
40 MACHIAVELLL 
 
 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 of the time of 
 Juvenal and the Greek of the time of Pericles joined in one. Like the fonftet 
 he was timid and pliable, artful and unscrupulous. But, like the latter, he had 
 a country. Its independence and prosperity were dear to him. If his character 
 were degraded by some mean crimes, it was, on the other hand, ennobled by 
 public spirit and by an honourable ambition. 
 
 A vice sanctioned by the general opinion 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 
 constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost he too often 
 tlings the remains of his virtue after it in despair. The Highland gentleman 
 who, a century ago, lived by taking black mail from his neighbours, committed 
 the same crime for which Wild was accompanied to Tyburn by the huzzas of 
 two hundred thousand people. 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 supposed 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 frequently more impaired by a single lapse from virtue than 
 that of a man by twenty years of intrigue. Classical antiquity would furnish 
 lis with instances stronger, if possible, than those to which we have referred. 
 
 We must apply this principle to the case before us. Habits of dissimulation 
 and falsehood, no doubt, mark a man of our age and country 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 willing to learn. 
 But they are not therefore useless. How Philip disposed his troops at Chser- 
 onea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, whether Mary blew up Damley, or 
 Siquier shot Charles XII., and ten thousand other questions of the same-, 
 description, are in themselves imimportant. 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 distinguish 
 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 snalce, majestic 
 and beautiful above, grovelling and poisonous below. We see a man whose 
 thoughts and words have no connexion with each other j who never hesitates 
 
MACHIAVELLI. 41 
 
 ftt an oath when he wishes to seduc^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 unruffled, 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 
 — for the first and last time. Military courage, the boast of the sottish Germai^> 
 the frivolous and prating Frenchman, the romantic and arrogant Spaniard, hfc 
 neither possesses nor values. He shuns danger — not because he is insensible 
 to shame, but because, in the society in which he lives, timidity has ceased to 
 be shameful. 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 speediest, and the darkest. He cannot comprehend how a 
 man should scruple to deceive him whom he does not scruple to destroy. He 
 would think 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 ive 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- 
 ties, 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 poUcy, 
 there was an extraordinary degree of fairness in his intellect. Indifferent to 
 truth in the transactions of life, he was honestly devoted to the pursuit of truth 
 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 o f hi's nerves and the activity of his imae: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 eff'ect of his philosophical studies counteracted the 
 narrowing tendency. He had the keenest enjoyment of wit, eloquence, and 
 poetry. The fine arts profited alike by the severity of his judgment and the 
 liberality of his patronage. The portraits of some of the remarkable Italians 
 of those times are perfectly in harmony with this description. Ample and 
 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 fleminine 
 delicacy, but compressed with more than masculine decision, mark out men 
 at once enterprising and apprehensive ; men equally skilled in detecting the 
 purposes of others, and in concealing their own j men who must have been 
 
42 MACHIAVELLL 
 
 i- 
 
 foraiidable enemies and unsafe allies ; but men, at the same time, whose 
 • tempers were mild and equable, and who possessed an amplitude and subtlety 
 of mind which would have rendered them eminent either in active or in con- 
 templative life, and fitted them either to govern or to instruct mankind. 
 
 Every age and every nation has certain characteristic vices, which prevail 
 almost universally, which scarcely any person scruples to avow, and which 
 even rigid moralists but faintly censure. Succeeding generations change the 
 fashion of their morals, with their hats and their coaches ; taka some other 
 kind of wickedness under their patronage, and wonder at the depravity of 
 their ancestors. Nor is this all. Posterity, that high court of aj;peal, which 
 is never tired of eulogizing its own justice and discernment, acts, on such 
 occasions, like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Finding the de- 
 linquents too numerous to be all punished, it selects some of them at hazard, 
 to bear the whole penalty of an offence in which they are not more deeply 
 implicated than those who escape. Whether decimation be a convenie^t mode 
 of military execution, we know not ; but we solemnly protest against the 
 introduction of such a principle into the philosophy of history. 
 
 In the present instance the lot has fallen on Machiavelli ; a man whose 
 public conduct was upright and honourable, whose views of morality, where 
 they differed from those of the persons around him, seemed to have differed 
 for the better, and whose only fault was that, having adopted some of the 
 maxims then generally received, he arranged them more luminously anc? ex- 
 pressed them more forcibly than any other writer. 
 
 - Having now, we hope, in some degree cleared the personal character of 
 Machiavelli, 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 to 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 
 labouring to express that which is inexpres^ble, is at once mean and extra- 
 vagant when misemployed by an imitator, v The moral poems are in evei-y 
 point superior, i That on Fortune, in particular, and that on Opportunity 
 exhibit both justness of thought and fertility of fancy. The Golden Ass has 
 nothing but the name in common with the Romance of Apuleius — a book 
 which, in spite of its irregular plan and its detestable style, is among the most 
 fascinating in the Latin language, and in which the merits of Le Sage and 
 Radcliffe, Bunyan and Crebillon, are singularly united. The poem of Machia- 
 velli, which is evidently unfinished, is carefully copied from the earlier cantos 
 of the Inferno. The writer loses himself in a wood. He is terrified by 
 monsters and relieved by a beautiful damsel. His protectress conducts him 
 to a large menagerie of emblematical beasts, whose peculiarities are described 
 at length. The manner, as well as the plan, of the Divine Comedy is care- 
 fully imitated. Whole lines are transferred from it. But they no longer pro- 
 duce their wonted effect. Virgil advises the husbandman who removes a 
 plant from one spot to another to mark its bearings on the cork, and to place 
 it in the same position with regard to the different points of the heaven in 
 which it formerly stood. A similar care is necessary in poetical transplant- 
 ation. Where it is neglected we perpetually see the flowers of language 
 which«have bloomed on one soil wither on another. Yet the Golden Ass is 
 not altogether destitute of merit. There is considerable ingenuity in the 
 allegory and some vivid colouring in the description. 
 The Comedies deserve more attention. The Mahdragola, in particular, is 
 
MACmAVELLT. 4pj. 
 
 superior to the best of Goldoni, and iaferior only td the best of Molicre. It 
 is the work of a man who, if he had devoted himself to the drama, wotild 
 probably have attained the highest eminence, and produced a permanent and 
 salutary effect on the national taste. This we infer, not so much from the 
 degree 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 quite 
 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. 
 
 The real object of the drama is the exhibition of the human character. This, 
 w^ 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 
 in a line. It is the very essence of a species of composition in which every 
 idea is coloured by passing through the medium of an imagined mind. To 
 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 tke poet from any grace 
 of composition. There is no style in which some man may noi, under some 
 circumstances, express himself. There is, therefore, no style which the drama 
 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 as 
 those in which he describes the chariot of Mab. 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 and 
 Sheridan. Both were men of splendid wit and polished taste. Unhappily 
 they made all their characters in their own likeness. Their works bear the 
 same relation to the legitimate drama which a transparency bears to a paint- 
 ing : no delicate touches : no hues imperceptibly fading into each other : .the 
 whole is lighted up with an universal glare. Outlines and tints are forgotten in 
 the common blaze which illuminates all. The flowers 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. 
 Every fop, every boor, every valet is a man of wit. The very butts and dupes. 
 Tattle, Urkwould, Puff, Acres, outshine the whole Hotel de Rambouillet. ^ 
 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 Shakespeare ■ 
 adopted so different a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw Mirabel and 
 Millamant into the shade. All the good sayings of the facetious hours of 
 Absolute and Surface might have been clipped from the single character of 
 Falstaff without being missed. It would have been easy for that fertile mind 
 to have given Bardolph and Shallow as much wit as Prince Hal, and to have 
 made Dogbftrry and Verges retort en each other in sparkling epigrams. But 
 he knew, to use his ov/n admirable language, that such indiscriminate pro- 
 digality was ^*Jrom the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and 
 now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the mirror up to Nature." 
 
MACHIAVELLI. 
 
 \ 
 
 This digtession will enable our readers to understand what we mean when 
 we say that, in the Mandragola, Machiavelli has proved that he completely 
 understood the nature of the dramatic art and possessed talents which would 
 have enabled him to excel in it. By the correct and vigorous delineation of 
 human nature, it produces interest without a pleasing or skilful plot, and 
 laughter without the least ambition of wit. The lover, not a very delicate or 
 generous lover, and his adviser the parasite are drawn with spirit. The 
 hypocritical confessor is an admirable portrait. He is, if we mistake not, the 
 original of Father Dominic, the best comic character of Dryden. But old 
 Nicias 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 simpletons, are his game. 
 Shakespeare has, indeed, a vast assortment of fools ; but the precise species of 
 which we speak is not, if we remember right, to be found there. Shallow is 
 a f«ol. But his animal spirits supply, to a certain degree, the place of clever- 
 ness. Ilis talk is to that of Sir John what soda-water is to champagne. It 
 has the effervescence, though not the body or the flavour. Slender and Sir 
 Andrew Aguecheek are fools, troubled with an uneasy consciousness of their 
 folly, which, in the latter, produces a most edifying meekness and docility, 
 and in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy, and confusion. Cloten is aK 
 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 the 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 all that Machiavelli has 
 written in metre. He seems to have entertained the same opinion ; for he 
 has introduced some of them in other places. The contemporaries of the 
 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 
 his order it was represented at Rome.+ 
 
 The Clizia is an imitation of the Casina of Plautus, which is itself an 
 imitation of the lost KX-npovixivoi of Diphilus. Plautus was, unquestionably, 
 one of the best Latin writers. His works are [copies ; but they have, in an 
 extraordinary degree, the air of originals. We infinitely prefer the slovenly 
 
 • Decameron, Giom. viii. Nov. 9. 
 
 t Nothing can be more evident than that Paulus Jovius designates the Mandragola under 
 the name of the Nicias. We should not have noticed what is so perfectly obvious, were it 
 pot that this natural and palpable misnomer has led the sagacious and industrious Bayle ivto 
 • gross error. 
 
MA CHI A VELLI. 45 
 
 exuberance of his fancy and the clum^ 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 modern fashion of composition. The lover 
 remains in the country, and the heroine is locked up in her chamber durino; 
 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 witli 
 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 Latiu 
 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 Machiavelli. 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 
 library of the Strozzi. Its genuineness, if we have been rightly informed, i.> 
 established solely by the comparison of hands. Our suspicions are strengthened 
 by the 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 lainentations, are all the veiy 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 brethren in misfortune 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 1767, is un- 
 questionably genuine and highly valuable. The unhappy circumstances in 
 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 ability of their foreign agents than 
 
46 MA CHI A VELLT. 
 
 Dn tlie conduct of those who were intrusted with the domestic administration. 
 The ambassador had to discharge functions far more delicate than transmitting 
 orders of knighthood, introducing tourists, or presenting his brethren with the 
 homage of his high consideration. He was an advocate to whose management 
 the dearest interests of his cHents were intrusted, a spy clothed with an inviol- 
 able character. Instead of consulting the dignity of those whom he repre- 
 sented by a reserved manner and an ambiguous style, he was to plunge into 
 r,ll the intrigues of the court at which he resided, to discover and flatter every 
 weakness of the prince who governed his employers, of the favourite who 
 governed the prince, and of the lacquey who governed the favourite. He was 
 ■to compliment the mistress and bribe the confessor, to panegyrize or suppli- 
 cate, to laugh or weep, to accommodate himself to every caprice, to lull every 
 suspicion, to treasure every hint, to be everything, to observe everything, to 
 endure everything. High as the art of political intrigue had been carried in 
 Italy, these were times which required it all. 
 
 On these arduous errands a Machiavelli was frequently employed. He v/aa 
 sent to treat with the King of the Romans and with the Duke of Valentinois. 
 He was twice ambassador at the Court of Rome, and thrice at that of France. 
 In these missions, and in several others of inferior importance, he acquitted 
 himself with great dexterity. His despatches form one of the most amusing 
 and instructive collections extant. We meet with none of the mysterious 
 jargon so common in m.odern state-papers, the flash language of political 
 robbers and sharpers. The narratives are clear and agreeably written ; the 
 remarks on men and things clever and judicious. The conversations are 
 reported in a spirited and characteristic manner. We find ourselves intro- 
 duced into the presence of the men who, during twenty eventful years, 
 swayed the destinies of Europe. Their wit and their folly, their fretfulness 
 and their merrim.ent, are exposed to us. We are admitted to ovei'liear their 
 cliat, and to watch their familiar gestures. It is interesting and curious to 
 recognize, in circumstances which elude the notice of historians, the feeble 
 violence and shallow cunning of Louis XII. ; the bustling insignificance 
 of Maximilian, cursed with an impotent pruriency for renown ; rash, yet timid ; 
 obstinate, yet fickle; always in a hurry, yet always too late; the fierce and 
 haughty energy which gave dignity to the eccentricities of Julius ; the soft 
 and graceful manners which raasTced the insatiable ambition and the implacable 
 hatred of Borgia. » 
 
 We have mentioned Borgia. It is impossible not to pause for a moment on 
 the name of a man in whom the political morality of Italy was so strongly 
 personified, partially blended with the sterner lineaments of the Spanish cha- 
 racter. On two important occasions Machiavelli was admitted to his society ; 
 once, at the moment when his splendid villainy achieved its most signal 
 triumph, when he caught in one snare and crushed at one blow all his most 
 formidable rivals ; and again when, exhausted by disease and overwhelmed 
 by misfortunes which no human prudence could have averted, he was the 
 prisoner of the deadliest enemy of his house. These interviews between the 
 greatest speculative and the greatest practical statesman of the age are fully 
 described in the correspondence, and form perhaps the most interesting part 
 of it. From some passages in the Prince, and perhaps also from some indis- 
 tinct traditions, several writers have supposed a connexion between those 
 remarkable men much closer than ever existed. The envoy has even been 
 accused of prompting the crimes of the artful and merciless tyrant. But from 
 the official documents it is clear that their intercourse, though ostensibly 
 amicable, was in reality hostile. It cannot be doubted, however, that the 
 imagination of Machiavelli was strongly impressed and his speculations on 
 
MACHIAVELU. 47 
 
 government coloured by the observations which he made on the singular 
 character and equally singular fortunes of a man who, under such disadvan- 
 tages, had achieved such exploits ; who, when sensuality, varied through in- 
 numerable forms, could no longer stimulate his sated mind, formed a more 
 powerful and durable excitement in the intense thirst of empire and revenge ; 
 who emerged from the sloth and luxury of the Roman purple, the first prince 
 and general of the age ; who, trained in an unwarlike profession, formed a 
 gallant army out of the dregs of an unwarlike people ; who, after acquiring 
 sovereignty by destroying his enemies, acquired popularity by destroying his 
 tools ; who had begun to employ for the most salutary ends the power which 
 he had attained by the most atrocious means ; who tolerated within the sphere 
 of his iron despotism no plunderer or oppressor but himself ; and who fell at 
 last amidst the mingled curses and regrets of a people of whom his genius 
 had been a wonder and might have been the salvation. Some of those crimes 
 of Borgia which to us appear the most odious would not, from causes which 
 we have already considered, have struck an Italian of the fifteenth century with 
 equal horror. Patriotic feeling also might induce Machiavelli to look with 
 some indulgence and regret on the memory of the only leader who could have 
 defended the independence of Italy against the confederate spoilers of 
 Cambray. 
 
 On this subject Machiavelli felt most strongly. Indeed, the expulsion of the 
 foreign tyrants and the restoration of that golden age which had preceded the 
 irruption of Charles VIII. were projects which, at that time, fascinated 
 all the master-spirits of Italy. The magnificent vision delighted the great 
 but ill-regulated mind of Julius. It divided with manuscripts and sauces, 
 painters and falcons, the attention of the frivolous Leo. It prompted the 
 generous treason of Morone. It imparted a transient energy to the feeble 
 mind and body of the last Sforza. It excited for one moment an honest ambi- 
 tion in the false heart of Pescara. Ferocity and insolence were not among 
 the vices of the national character. To the discriminating cruelties of poli- 
 ticians, committed for great ends on select victims, the moral code of the 
 Italians was too indulgent. But though they might have recourse to barbarity 
 as an expedient, they did not require it as a stimulant. They turned with 
 loathing from the atrocity of the strangers who seemed to love blood for its 
 own sake, who, not content with subjugating, were impatient to destroy ; who 
 found a fiendish pleasure in razing magnificent cities, cutting the throats of 
 enemies who cried for quarter, or suffocating an unarmed people by thousands 
 in the caverns to which they had tied for safety. Such were the scenes which 
 daily excited the teror aii4 disgust of a people amongst whom, till lately, the 
 worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched battle was the loss of his horse, 
 and the expense of his ransom. The swinish intemperance of Switzerland, 
 the wolfish avarice of Spain, the gross licentiousness of the French, indulged 
 in violation of hospitality, of decency, of love itself, the wanton inhumanity 
 which was common to all the invaders, had rendered them objects of deadly 
 hatred to the inhabitants of the Peninsula.* The wealth which had been ac- 
 cumulated during centuries of prosperity and repose was rapidly melting 
 away. The intellectual superiority of the oppressed people only rendered 
 them more keenly sensible of their political degradation. Literature and taste, 
 indeed, still disguised with^ a flush of hectic loveliness and brilliancy the 
 ravages of an incurable decay. The iron had not yet entered into the soul. 
 
 • The opening stanzas of the Fourteenth Canto of the Orlando Furioso give a frightful 
 picture of the state of Italy in those times. Yet, strange to say, Ariosto is speakiiig of tbo 
 C£n4uct of tho?c who called thenjselves allies. 
 
MACHIAVELLL 
 
 The time was not yet come when eloquence was to be gagged, and reason to 
 be hoodwinked — when the harp of the poet was to be hung on the willows 
 of Amo, and the right hand of the painter to forget its cunning. Yet a dis- 
 cerning eye might even then have seen that genius and learning would not 
 long survive the state of things from which they had sprung — that the great 
 men whose talents gave lustre to that melancholy period had been formed 
 under the influence of happier days, and would leave no successors behind 
 them. The times which shine with the greatest splendour in literary history 
 are not always those to which the human mind is most indebted. Of this we 
 may be convinced by comparing the generation which follows them with that 
 which preceded them. The first fruits which are reaped under a bad system often 
 spring from seed sown under a good one. Thus it was, in some measure, 
 with the Augustan age. Thus it was with the age of Raphael and Ariosto, 
 of Aldus and Vida. 
 
 Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes of his country, and clearly 
 discerned the cause and the remedy. It was the military system of the Italian 
 people which had extinguished their valour and discipline, and rendered their 
 wealth an easy prey to every foreign plunderer. The secretary projected a 
 scheme, alike honourable to his heart and to his intellect, for abolishing the 
 use of mercenary troops, and organizing a national militia. 
 
 The exertions which he made to effect this great object ought alone to 
 rescue his name from obloquy. Though his situation and his habits were 
 pacific, he studied with intense assiduity the theory of war. He made himself 
 master of all its details. The Florentine government entered into his views. 
 A council of war was appointed. Levies were decreed. The indefatigable 
 minister flew from place to place in order to superintend the execution of his 
 design. The times were, in some respects, favourable to the experiment. 
 The system of military tactics had undergone a great revolution. The cavalry 
 was no longer considered as forming the strength of an army. The hours 
 which a citizen could spare from his ordinary employments, though by no 
 means sufficient to familiarize him with the exercise of a man-at-arms, might 
 render him an useful foot-soldier. The dread of a foreign yoke, of plunder, 
 massacre, and conflagration might have conquered that repugnance to military 
 pursuits which both the industry and the idleness of great towns commonly 
 generate. For a time the scheme promised well. The new troops acquitted 
 themselves respectably in the field. Machiavelli looked with parental 
 rapture on the success of his plan ; and began to hope that the arms of Italy 
 might once more be formidable to the barbarians of the Tagus and the Rhine, 
 But the tide of misfortune came on before the barriers which should have 
 withstood it were prepared. For a time, indeed, Florence might be con- 
 sidered as peculiarly fortunate. Famine and sword and pestilence had 
 devastated the fertile plains and stately cities of the Po. All the curses 
 denounced of old against Tyre seemed to have fallen on Venice. Her 
 merchants already stood afar off, lamenting for their great city. The time 
 seemed near when the sea-weed should overgrow her silent Rialto, and the 
 fisherman wash his nets in her deserted arsenal. Naples had been four times 
 conquered and reconquered by tyrants equally indiff"erent to its welfare and 
 squally greedy for its spoils. Florence, as yet, had only to endure degrada- 
 tion and extortion, to submit to the mandates of foreign powers, to buy over 
 and over again, at an enormous price, what was already justly her own, to 
 return thanks for being wronged, and to ask pardon for being in the right. 
 She was at length deprived of the blessings even of this infamous and servile 
 repose. Her military and political institutions were swept away together. 
 The ^tedici returned, in the train of foreign invaders, from their long % xS\% 
 
MACHIAVELLL 49 
 
 The policy of Machiavelli was abandoned ; and his public services were 
 requited with poverty, imprisonment,'^nd torture. 
 
 The fallen statesman still clung to his project with unabated ardour. With 
 the view of vindicating it from some popular objections, and of refuting some 
 prevailing errors on the subject of military science, he wrote his seven books 
 on the Art of War. This excellent work is in the form of a dialogue. The 
 opinions of the writer are put into the mouth of Fabrizio Colonna, a powerful 
 nobleman of the Ecclesiastical State, and an officer of distinguished merit in 
 the service of the King of Spain. He visits Florence on his way from Lom- 
 ba::dy to his own domains. He is invited to meet some friends at the house 
 of Cosimo Rucellai, an amiable and accomplished young man, whose early 
 death Machiavelli feelingly deplores. After partaking of an elegant enter- 
 taimiient, they retn-e from the heat into the most shady recesses of the garden. ' 
 Fabrizio is struck by the sight of some uncommon plants. His host informs 
 him that, though rare in modern days, they are frequently mentioned by the 
 classical authors, and that his grandfather, like many other Italians, amused 
 himself with practising the ancient methods of gardening. Fabrizio expresses 
 his regret that those who, in later times, affected the manners of the old 
 Romans, should select for imitation their most trifling pursuits. This leads 
 to a conversation on the decline of military discipline, and on the best means 
 of restoring it. The institution of the Florentine militia is ably defended ; 
 and several improvements are suggested in the details. 
 
 The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that time, regarded as the best 
 soldiers in Europe. The Swiss battalion consisted of pikemen, and bore a 
 close resemblance to the Greek phalanx. The Spaniards, like the soldiers of 
 Rome, were armed with the sword and the shield. The victories of Flaminius 
 and iEmilius over the Macedonian kings seem to prove the superiority of the 
 weapons used by the legions. The same experiment had been recently tried 
 with the same result at the battle of Ravenna, one of those tremendous days 
 into which human folly and wickedness compress the whole devastation of a 
 famine or a plague. . In that memorable conflict the infantry of Arragon, the 
 old companions of Gonsalvo, deserted by all their allies, hewed a passage 
 through the thickest of the imperial pikes, and effected an unbroken retreat, in 
 the face of the gend-armerie of De Foix and the renowned artillery of Este. 
 Fabrizio, or rather Machiavelli, proposes to combine the two systems, to arm 
 the foremost lines with the pike, for the purpose of repulsing cavalry, and 
 those in the rear with the sword, as being a weapon better adapted for every pur- 
 pose. Throughout the work the author expresses the highest admiration of the 
 military science of the ancient Romans, and the greatest contempt for the 
 maxims which had been in vogvie amongst the Italian commanders of the pre- 
 ceding generation. He prefers infantry to cavalry, and fortified camps to 
 fortified towns. He is inclined to substitute rapid movements and decisive 
 engagements for the languid and dilatory operations of his countrymen. He 
 attaches very little importance to the invention of gunpowder. Indeed, he 
 seems to think that it ought scarcely to produce any change in the mode of 
 arming or of disposing troops. The general testimony of historians, it must 
 be allowed, seems to prove that the ill-constructed and ill-served artillery of 
 those times, though useful in a siege, was of little value on the field of battle. 
 Of the tactics of Machiavelli we will not venture to give an opinion : but 
 we are certain that his book is most able and interesting. As a commentary 
 on the history of his times, it is invaluable. The ingenuity, the grace, and 
 the perspicuity of the style, and the eloquence and animation of particular pas- 
 sages must give pleasure even to readers who take no interest in the subject. 
 The Prince and the Discourses 00 l-ivy were written after the ifiSX 
 
50 MACHIAVELLI. 
 
 of Ihe Republican Government. The former was dedicated to the young 
 Lorenzo de Medici. This circumstance seems to have disgusted the contem- 
 poraries of the writer far more than the doctrines which have rendered the 
 name of the work odious in later times. It was considered as an indication of 
 political apostasy. The fact, however, seems to have been that Machiavelli, 
 despairing of the liberty of Florence, was inclined to support any government 
 which might preserve her independence. The interval which separated a 
 democracy and a despotism, Soderini and Lorenzo, seemed to vanish when 
 compared with the difference between the former and the present state of 
 Italy, between the security, the opulence, and the repose which it had en- 
 joyed under its native rulers, and the misery in which it had been plunged 
 since the fatal year in which the first foreign tyrant had descended from the 
 Alps. The noble and pathetic exhortation with which the Prince concludes 
 shows how strongly the writer felt upon the subject. 
 
 The Prince traces the progress of an ambitious man, the Discourses the 
 progress of an ambitious people. The same principles on which, in the for- 
 mer work, the elevation of an individual is explained are applied, in the lat- 
 ter, to the longer duration and more complex interests of a society. To a 
 modern statesman the form of the Discourses may appear to be puerile. In 
 truth, Livy is not a historian on whom much reliance can be placed, even in 
 cases where he must have possessed considerable means of information. And 
 his first Decade, to which Machiavelli has confined himself, is scarcely en- 
 titled to more credit than our chronicle of British kings who reigned befoie 
 the Roman invasion. But his commentator is indebted to him for little more 
 than a few texts which he might as easily have extracted from the Vulgate or 
 ■ the Decameron. The whole train of thought is original. 
 
 On the peculiar immorality which has rendered the Prince unpopular, and 
 which is almost equally discernible in the Discourses, we have already given 
 our opinion at length. We have attempted to show that it belonged rather 
 to the age than to the man, that it was a partial taint, and by no means im- 
 plied general depravity. We cannot, however, deny that it is a great blemish 
 and that it considerably diminishes the pleasure which, in other respects, 
 those works must afiord to every intelligent mind. 
 
 It is, indeed, impossible to conceive a more healthful and vigorous consti. 
 tution of the understanding than that which these works indicate. The 
 qualities of the active and the contemplative statesman appear to have been 
 blended, in the mind of the writer, into a rare and exquisite harmony. His 
 skill in the details of business had not been acquired at. the expense of his 
 general powers. It had not rendered his mind less comprehensive ; but it 
 had served to correct h'>. speculations, and to'impart to them that vivid and 
 practical character which so widely distinguishes them from the vague theories 
 of most political philosophers. 
 
 Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a 
 general maxim. If it be very moral and very true, it may serve for a copy to 
 a charity-boy. If, like those of Rochefoucault, it be sparkling and whimsical, 
 it may make an excellent motto for an essay. But few, indeed, of the many 
 wise apophthegms which have been uttered from the time of the Seven Sages 
 of Greece to that of Poor Richard have prevented a single foolish action. 
 We give the highest and the most peculiar praise to the precepts of 
 Machiavelli, when we say that they may frequently be of real use in regulating- 
 conduct — not so much because they are more just, or more profound, than 
 those v/hich might be culled from other authors as because they can be more 
 readily applied to the problems of real life. 
 
 There are errors in these works, J3iit they are errors which a writeri 
 
MACntAi'ELLt. 51 
 
 situated like Macliiavelli, could scar^ly avoid. They arise, for the most 
 part, from a single defect which appears to us to pervade his whole system. 
 In his political scheme the means had been more deeply considered than the 
 ends. The great principle, that societies and laws exist only for the purpose 
 of increasing the sum of private happiness, is not recognized with sufficient 
 clearness. The good of the body, distinct from the good of the members, and 
 sometimes hardly compatible with it, seems to be the object which he proposes 
 to himself. Of all political fallacies, this has had the widest and the most 
 mischievous operation. The state of society in the little commonwealths of 
 Greece, the close connection and mutual dependence of the citizens, and the 
 severity of the laws of war tended to encourage an opinion which, under such 
 circumstances, could hardly be called erroneous. The interests of every in- 
 dividual were inseparably bound up with those of the state. An invasion 
 destroyed his corn-fields and vineyards, drove him from his home, and com- 
 pelled him to encounter all the hardships of a military life. A peace restored 
 him to security and comfort. A victory doubled the number of his slaves. A 
 defeat, perhaps, made him a slave himself. When Pericles, in the Peloponne- 
 sian war, told the Athenians that, if their country triumphed, their private 
 losses would speedily be repaired; but that, if thf'r arms failed of success, 
 ev^ry individual amongst them would proljably be ruined,* he spoke no 
 more than the truth. He spoke to men whom the tribute of vanquished 
 cities supplied with food and clothing, with the luxury of the bath and the 
 amusements of the theatre, on whom the greatness of their country conferred 
 rank, and before whom the members of less prosperous communities 
 trembled; and to men who, in case of a change in the public fortunes, 
 would, at least, be deprived of every comfort and every distinction which 
 they enjoyed. To be butchered on the smoking ruins of their city, to be 
 dragged in chains to a slave-market; to see one child torn from them to dig 
 in the quarries of Sicily, and another to guard the harenvs of Persepolis-^' 
 those were the frequent and probable consequences of national calamities. 
 Hence, among the Greeks patriotism became a governing principle, or rather 
 an ungovernable passion. Both their legislators and their philosophers took it 
 for granted that, in providing for the strength and greatness of the state, 
 Shey sufficiently provided for the happiness of the people,- The writers of the 
 Roman empire lived under despots into whose dominion a hundred nations 
 were melted down, and whose gardens would have covered the little common- 
 wealths of Phlius and Platsea. Yet they continued to employ the same lan- 
 guage, and to cant about the duty of sacrificing everything to a country to 
 which they owed nothing. 
 
 Causes similar to those which had influenced the disposition of the Greeks 
 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 an 
 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 than 
 
 Thucydides, ii, 63. 
 
5* MACHiAVELLL 
 
 file fairness of mind which they indicate. It appears where the author is ill 
 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 phrase, 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 sought out ; they lay in his way, and "could scarcely be 
 avoided. Such mistakes must necessarily be committed by early speculators 
 in every science. 
 
 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 religious 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 
 be 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 blown 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 his Procrustean hypothesis, 
 he puts up with some monstrpus fable about Siam, or Bantam, 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 which 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 peculiar interest from the 
 mournful earnestness which he manifests whenever he touches on topics con- 
 nected with the calamities of his native land. It is difficult to conceive any 
 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 of 
 stupefaction and raving 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 sight of his eyet 
 
MACMIAVELLL 53 
 
 which he saw " — disunion in the counpil, effeminacy in the camp, liberty ex- 
 tinguished, commerce decaying, national honour sullied, an enlightened and 
 flourishing 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 seems to have been 
 rather stem 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 is exchanged 
 for the honest bitterness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one sick of the 
 calamitous times 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 Scipio, the gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp of the 
 triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be transported back to the days when eight 
 hundred thousand Italian warriors sprung to arms at the rumour of a Gallic 
 invasion. He breathes all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty patricians, 
 who forgot the dearest ties of nature in the claims of public duty, who looked 
 with disdain on the elephants and on the gold of Pyrrhus, and listened with 
 unaltered composure to the tremendous tidings of Cannae. Like an ancient 
 temple deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later age, his character 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 incongruous 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 from 
 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 sh^-rt 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 stairs which are more painful than every other 
 
54 MA cm A VELLT. 
 
 ascent,* had not broken the spirit of Machiavelli. The most cornipting post 
 in a corrupting profession had not depraved the generous heart of Clement. 
 
 The history does not appear to be the fruit of much industry or research. 
 It is unquestionably inaccurate. But it is elegant, lively, and picturesque 
 beyond 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 belongs rather to ancient than to modern literature. It is in 
 the style, not of Davila and Clarendon, but of Herodotus and Tacitus : and 
 the classical histories may almost be called romances founded in fact. The 
 relation is, no doubt, in all its principal points, strictly true. But the 
 numerous 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 
 v/riter. It may be doubted whether more exact notions are conveyed to the 
 reader. ' The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of 
 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. Machiavelli 
 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 recording the 
 desolation and shame of Italy devolved on Guicciardini. 
 
 Machiavelli lived long enough to see the commencement of the last struggle 
 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 Machiavelli was hateful to the new masters of Italy ; and those 
 parts of his theory which were in strict accordance with their own daily 
 practice 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 »till deeper homage when the object to which his public 
 life was devoted shall be attained — ^^vvhen the foreign yoke shall be broken, 
 when a second Proccita shall avenge the wrongs of Naples, when a happier 
 Rienzi shall restore the good estate of Rome, when the streets of Florence 
 and Bologna shall again resound with their ancient war cry — Popolo; popolo\f 
 muoiano i tirannil 
 
 • Dante Paradise, canto xviJ. 
 
.V5S ■ '.\)'a <^'V.K.V3.Ki\ 
 
 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.* 
 
 The Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of 
 George II. By Henry Hallam. In 2 vols. 1827. 
 
 History, at least in its state of imaginary perfection, is a compound of poetry 
 and philosophy. It impresses general truths on the mind by a vivid repre- 
 sentation of particular characters and incidents. But, in fact, the two hos- 
 tile elements of which it "consists have never been known to form 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 partition of a province of literature of which they were formerly 
 seised per my et per tout ; and now they hold their respective portions in 
 severalty, 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 flesh and blood beings 
 whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified qualities in an 
 allegory, 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 bf en appropriated by the historical novelist. On the other 
 hand, to extract tViC philosophy of history, to direct 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 
 picture, though it places the object before us, does not enable us to ascertain 
 with accuracy the form and dimensions of its component parts, 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 information as to the bearings of the 
 varigms points, and is a more useful companion to the traveller or the genciui 
 than the painting could be, though it were the grandest that ever Rosa 
 peopled with outlaws, or the sweetest over which Claude ever poured the 
 mellow effulgence 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 Continent as well as in this 
 country. Italy has already produced a historical novel of high merit and of 
 still higher promise. In France the practice has been carried to a length 
 somewhat whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a grave and stately history, 
 very valuable, and a little tedious. He then sends forth as a companion to it 
 a novel, in. which he attempts to give a lively representation of characters and 
 manners. This comse, as it seems to us, has ail the disadvantages of a divi- 
 sion of labour, and none of its advantages. We understand the expediency 
 of keeping the functions of cook and coachman distinct — the dinner will be 
 better dressed, and the horses better managed. But v/here the two situations 
 are united, as in the Maitre Jacques of Moliere, we do not see that the matter 
 
 • Edinburgh Review, VoL xlviii. September, 1828, p. 96. 
 
56 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 is much mended by the solemn fonn with which the pluralist passes from one 
 of his employments to the other. 
 
 We ma)iage these things better in England. Sir Walter Scott gives us a 
 novel ; Mr. Hallara a critical and argumentative history. Both are occupied 
 with the same matter. But the former looks at it with 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 inmost recesses 
 and to lay bare before us all the springs of motion and all the causes of decay. 
 
 Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better qualified than any other writer of 
 our time for the office which he has undertaken, lie has great industry 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 which 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 o,ases. In this respect they often remind us of the dis- 
 courses of Machiavelli. 
 
 The style is sometimes harsh, and sometimes obscure. We have algo here 
 and there remarked a little of that unpleasant trick which Gibbon brought 
 into fashion, the trick, we mean, of narrating by implication 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 who can, therefore, unriddle 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. Hallam'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. On 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 j 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 
 superstition. 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 the same manner the 
 g;reat and comfortable doctrines of the Tory creed, those particularly which 
 /elate to restrictions on worship and on trade, are adored by squires and 
 y§9^P!:s in Pitt Clubs, under the naiiie of a n^inister whq was Cfj bad a repine 
 
DALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. Sf 
 
 s^tative of the system which has beenjDhristened after him as Becket of the 
 spirit of the Gospel. And, on the ot^r 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'/ 
 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 often 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. Hallam 
 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 calHng for a community of goods, or a 
 friend to order without taking under his protection the foulest excesses of 
 tyranny. His admiration oscillates between the most worthless 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 lo blacken the other. But we should 
 certainly prize it far less. Eulogy and invective may be had for the asking. 
 But for cold, rigid justice — the one weight and the one measure — we know 
 not where else we can look. 
 
 No portion of ouf annals has 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 
 government 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 of 
 
58 BALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 those times which Mr. Hallam has given, has not altogether imposed silence 
 on the authors of this fallacy. The title of the queen, they say, was annulled 
 by the pope ; her throne was given to another j her subjects were incited to 
 rebellion ; her life was menaced ; every Catholic was bound in conscience to 
 be a traitor ; it was, therafore, against traitors, not against Catholics, that the 
 penal laws were enacted. 
 
 That our readers may be the better able to appreciate the merits of this 
 defence, we will state, as concisely as possible, the substance of some of these 
 laws. 
 
 As soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, and before the least hostility to 
 her government had been shown by the Catholic population, an act passed 
 prohibiting the celebration of the rites of the Romish Church, on pain of for- 
 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 supremacy when tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture and 
 imprisonment during the royal pleasure. After the lapse of three months it 
 might 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 retrospective statute ; it is a retro- 
 spective penal statute ; it is a retrospective penal statute against a large class. 
 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 ci-isis, 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 discontent among them must be 
 inferred. There were libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours, and 
 suspicions, — strange grounds for a law inflicting capital penalties, ex -post facio, 
 on a large body of men. 
 
 Eight years later the bull of Pius deposing Elizabeth produced a third law. 
 This law, 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 to the case of her sister Mary. The Catholias did 
 not, at the time of Elizabeth's accession, rise in arms t<»seat a pretender on 
 her throne. But before Mary had given, or could give, provocation, the most 
 distinguished Protestants attempted to set aside her rights in favour of the Lady 
 Jane. That attempt, and the subsequent insurrection of Wyatt, 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 religious persecution 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 59 
 
 in which some odious crime was not, justly or unjustly, said to be obviously 
 deducible from the doctrines of thecersecuted party. We might say that 
 the Caesars did not persecute the Cnristians ; 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 
 crime. We might say that the massacre of St. Bartholomew was intended to 
 extirpiate, not a religious sect, but a political party. For, beyond all doubt, 
 the proceedings of the Huguenots, from the conspiracy of Amboise to the battle 
 of Moncontour, had given much more trouble to the French monarchy than 
 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 v/ho hold the 
 same doctrines v»'ith him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution ; and is, 
 in every case, foolish and v/icked. 
 
 When Elizabeth put Ballard and Bablngton 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 
 then 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 same manner on the same dat^, 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, andj^s jiip 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 opinions can be defended. The doctrine of. reprobation, in tne 
 judgment of many very able men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the 
 doctrine 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 think, 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 shovi's us 
 that a man may believe in election without believing in reprobation, that he 
 may believe in reprobation without being an Antinomian, and that he may be 
 an Antinomian 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. 
 
 We do not believe that every Englishman who was reconciled to the Catholic 
 Church woulfl, 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 e;;cape when it wiolies to avoid a disagreeable inference from 
 an admitted proposliion. We know how long the Jansenists contrived to believe 
 (he pope infallible iu matters of doctrine, and at the same time to believe doc- 
 
6o H ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 
 
 trines which he pronounced 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 cruelty. But 
 , it is superfluous to press the argument. By no artifice of ingenuity can the 
 stigma of persecution, the worst blemish of the English Church, be effaced or 
 patched over. Ker 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 
 Avidely different principle. 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, we 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 circumstances 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, in France, in Switzerland, and in Scotland the contest against 
 the Papal power was essentially a religious contest In all those countries, 
 indeed, the cause of the Reformation, like every other great cause, attracted to 
 itself many supporters influenced by no conscientious principle, — many who 
 quitted the Established Church only because they thought her in danger,— 
 many who were weary of her restraints, — and many who were greedy for her 
 spoils. But it was not by these adherents that the separation was there con- 
 ducted. They were welcome auxiliaries ; their support was too often purchased 
 by unworthy compliances, but, however exalted in rank or power, they were 
 not the leaders in the enterprise. Men of a widely different description, men 
 who redeemed great infirmities and errors by sincerity, disinterestedness, 
 energy, and courage j men who, with many of the vices of revolutionary chiefs 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 6i 
 
 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 tyi-ants 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, ifrom 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, of 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, 
 nnprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocracy, a servile Parliament, — such 
 w^ere the instruments by which England was delivered from the yoke of Rome. 
 The 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 brutal 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 tliat v/e 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 as a statesman, he will not appear a much worse man 
 than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Somerset. But when an attempt is 
 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 
 among the crowd which is mingled 
 
 *' A quel caittivo eoio 
 Degll anffeli, che non furon ribell^ 
 Ki fur fedeU a Dio, a* per le fiir«." 
 
62 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 
 
 And the only notice which it would have been necessary to take of his m me 
 would have been 
 
 " Non ragioniam di lui ; ma guards, e passa." 
 But, since his admirers challenge for him a place in the noble army of mart}^, 
 his claims require fuller discussion. 
 
 The origin of his greatness, common enough in the scandalous chronicles of 
 courts, seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. Cranmer rose into favour 
 by serving Henry in the disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He promoted 
 the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the king. On a frivolous pretence, he 
 pronounced that marriage null and void. On a pretence, if possible, still more 
 frivolous, he dissolved the ties which bound the shameless tyrant to Anne of 
 Cleves. He attached himself to Cromwell while the fortunes of Cromwell 
 flourished. He voted for cutting off his head without a trial, when the tide of 
 royal favour turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the king 
 changed his mind. While Henry lived, he assisted in condemning to the 
 flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. When Henry died, 
 he found out that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a loss fot 
 people to burn. The authority of his station and of his grey hairs was em- 
 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. When 
 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 when Edward requested him 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 in <^o 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, Maiy 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 would 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 whether Jane or the Queen of Scotland had the better claim ; and 
 that doubt would, in all probability, have produced a war both with Scotland 
 and with France, if the project of Northumberland had not been blasted in 
 its infancy. That Elizabeth had a better claim than the Queen of Scotland 
 was indisputable. To the part which Cranmer, and unfortunately some better 
 men than Cranmer, toDk';|h; this* moit reprehensible scheme, much of the 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL inSTOkV. 63 
 
 severity with which the Protestants were afterwards treated must in fairness 
 be ascribed. -^ 
 
 . The plot failed; Popery triumphed; and Cranmer recanted. 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 pui-pose, it would not have been 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 mara 
 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 I 
 some respect. 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 extraowdinary 
 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. He 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, lilce 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 those who wrong them, just as they abandon 
 those who serve them. Before we extol a man for his forgiving temper, we 
 should inquire whether he is above revenge, or below it. 
 
 Somerset, with as little principle as his coadjutor, had a firmer and mcwo 
 commanding mind. Of Henry, an orthodox Catholic, excepting that he 
 chose to be his own pope, and of Elizabeth, who certainly had no objection . 
 to the theology of Rome, we need say nothing. These four persons were the • 
 great authors of the English Reformation.. 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 
 liUle as possiV.9 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 succeeded. The extraordinary force of his character, the fortunaw 
 situation in which he stood with respect to foreign powers, and the vast 
 resouices which the suppression of the monasteries placed at his disposal, 
 
64 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY^ 
 
 enabled him to oppress both the religious factions equally. He punished 
 with impartial severity those who renounced the doctrines of Rome, and those 
 who acknowledged her jurisdiction. The basis, however, on which he , 
 attempted to establish his power was too narrow to be durable. It would 
 have been impossible even for him long to persecute both persuasions. Even 
 under his reign there had been insurrections on tlie part of the Catholics, and 
 signs of a spirit which was likely soon to produce insurrection on the part of 
 the Protestants. It was plainly necessary, therefore, that the government 
 should form an alliance with one or with the other side. To recognize the 
 Papal supremacy, would have been to abandon the whole design. Reluctantly 
 and sullenly it at last joined the Protestants. In forming this junction, its 
 object was. to procure as much aid as possible for its selfish undertaking, and 
 to make the smallest possible concessions to the spirit of religious innovation. 
 
 From this compromise the Church of England sprung. In many respects, 
 indeed, it has been well for her that, in an age of exuberant zeal, her prin- 
 cipal founders were mere politicians. To this circumstance she owes her 
 moderate articles, her decent ceremonies, her noble and pathetic liturgy. 
 Her worship is not disfigured by mummery. Yet she has preserved, in a far 
 greater degree than any of her Protestant sisters, that art of striking the senses 
 and filling the imagination in which the Catholic Church so eminently excels. 
 But, on the other hand, she continued to be, for more than a hundred md 
 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 firmly 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, — 
 when 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 tine 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 tov\ards them drove them of necesstly 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- 
 beth. Her aversion to them was political ; his was personal The sect had 
 
HALLAAPS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 65 
 
 plagued him in Scotland, where he was weak ; and he was determined to be 
 even with them in England, where he^as powerful. Persecui ion 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 ac 
 It has been the 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 looking 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 govennnent 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 fhe 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 ot 
 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^jt impartiality, appears to us, in many points, objection- 
 able. 
 
 We pass to th( year 1640. The fate of the short Parliament held in that 
 year clearly indicated the views of the king. That a Parliament so moderate 
 m 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, >vith Oliver St. John, that its moderation was carried too far, 
 n nd that the times required sharper and more decided councils. I^ was f^t 
 
 D 
 
66 HALLAAPS C0NSTJ7VT/0NAL HISTORY, 
 
 cunate, 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 ot 
 ParHaments, and.after a long series of cruelties and illegal imposts, they seemed 
 inclined to examine grievances before they would vote supplies. For this 
 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 ^vilized world. Whatever of political freedom exists either in 
 Europe or in America, has spmng, directly or indirectly, from those institu- 
 tions which they secured and reformed. We never turn to the annals of those 
 f imes without feeling increased admiration of the patriotism, the energy, the 
 decision, the consummate wisdom, which marked the measures of that great 
 Parliament, from the day on which it met o the commencement of civil 
 hostilities. 
 
 The impeachment of Strafford was the first, and perhaps the greatest blow. 
 The whole conduct of that celeljrated man proved that he had formed a 
 deliberate scheme to subvert the fundamental laws of England. Those parts 
 of his correspondence which have been brought to light since his death place 
 1 he raattei 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 design, but to a thorough 
 reform in the affairs of state, and the thoroiigh maintenance of "just authority." 
 We will recommend two or three of these passages to the especial notice of 
 our readers. 
 
 All who know anything of those times know that the conduct of Hampden 
 •n 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 
 fiim. That he was right in the point of law is now universally admitted. 
 Even had it been otherwise, he had a fair case. Five of the judges, servile as 
 our courts then were, pronounced in his favour. The majority against him 
 Vv-as 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 
 :l crime. Strafford, hovi'ever, 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 that it smarts not, I am the more sorry." This 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. **T 
 know very well," says he, "that the common lawyers will be passionately 
 against U, who are wont to put such a prejudice upon all other professions, as 
 if nonv 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-books^ you in England have a costly example." We are really 
 curious to know by what ar^ments it is to be piroVed that the powier (>f 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 67 
 
 ititerfering in the law-suits of individuifts is part of the just authority of'tlie, 
 executive government. 
 
 It is not strange that a man so careless of the cominon civil rights, which 
 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, you may govern 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 Strafford 
 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 West- 
 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 
 to 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 him 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 prion, 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-c" 
 **the wicked Earl." 
 
 In spite of all his vices, in spite of all his dangerous projects— Strafford waJ 
 
68 HALLAM'S CONStlTUtlONAL HISTORV. 
 
 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. 
 He 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 
 one 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 higii 
 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 which the earl was convicted amounted to high treason. 
 This judicial opinion, even if we suppose it to have been erroneous, goes far 
 to justify the Parliament. The judgment pronounced in the Exchequer 
 Chamber 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, noi 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 
 -yithin the statute of Edward III., as a levying of war against the king." 
 ^his 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 fundamental 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.'and that no evidence can be received 
 for the purpose of setting aside this loyal and salutary presumption. The 
 Lords, therefore, were bound to take it for granted that the king considered 
 arms which were unlawfully directed against his people, as directed against his 
 ov/n throne. 
 
 The remarks of Mr. Hallam on the bill of attainder, though, as usual. 
 Weighty and acute, do not perfectly satisfy us. He defends the principle, but 
 o'bjects to the severity of the punishment. That on great emergencies, the 
 Statis may justifiably j)ass a retrospective act against an offender, we have 
 no doubt whatever. We are acquainted with only one argument on the 
 other side, which has in it enough of reason to bear an answer. Warning, 
 it is said, is the end of punishment. But a punishment inflicted, not by 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 6^ 
 
 » W i > f I t I » ■ « - ' ■ ' 
 
 general rule, but by an arbitrary disj^-etion, cannot serve the purpose of a 
 warning ; it is, therefore, useless, ana useless pain ought not . b be inflicted. 
 This sophism has found its way into several books on penal legislation. It 
 admits, however, of a very simple refutation. In the first place, punishments 
 ix post facto are not altogether useless even as warnings. They are warnings 
 to a particular class which stand in great need of warnings, to favourites and 
 ministers. They remind persons of this dercription that there may be a day 
 of reckoning for those who ruin 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 offender, 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 ruffian 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 present, 
 indeed, we should think it extremely pernicious to t^ke 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 oV)jections to retrospective laws for 
 capital punishment ; but that, where 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 affecting life. Nay, if a mode of proceeding be too lax for capital 
 cases, it is, hfortioriy too lax for all others ; for, in capital cases, the princinlos 
 of human nature will always afford considerable security. No judge is so 
 cruel a^ 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, there 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 
 should have 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 first step, and there 
 
70 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIOJSTAL msTORY, 
 
 ■ } " • — ' ■ — 
 
 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 the 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 thought that Strafford 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 Straflord 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 v/e 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 
 magistrate 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 ^ hair of his 
 bead 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 punisher. If, indeed, from that time 
 forth, the conduct of Charles had been blameless, it might have b^en 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 mmister 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 tlie Revolution. It 
 required ever after the most rigid justice and sincerity in his dealings with hisr 
 people to vindicate it. His subsequent dealings with his people, however, clearly 
 showed, that it was not from any respect for the Constitution, or from anr 
 
HALL AM' S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 71 
 
 sense of tlie deep criminality of the pljms in which Strafford and himself had 
 been engaged, that he gave up his minister to the axe. It became evident 
 that he had 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 -would not 
 avail himself of the power which the laws gave him to save a friend to whom 
 liis honour was pledged, soon showed that he did not scruple to break every 
 law and forfeit every pledge in order to work the ruin of his opponents. 
 
 ' ' Put not your trust in princes ! " was the expression 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 dying words of its victim. 
 
 The early measures of that Parliament Mr. Hallam in general approves. 
 But he considers the proceedings which took place 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 which ensued they were clearly the 
 aggressors. As this is ""tie of the most interesting questions in our history, we 
 will venture to ?:t;ate, at some length, the reasons which have led us to form an 
 opinion on ii; contrary to that of a writer whose judgment we so highly respect. 
 
 We will premise that 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 unscrpiilousness 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 ; — 
 urinces who, in the hour of danger, concede everything, swear everything, — 
 Jiold 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 
 jthe 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 ParHament, after punishing the most guilty of hi.^ 
 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 public confidence. Such was the opinion of Clarendon. He distinctly 
 States that the fury of opposition had abated,— that a rea;ction had begun td 
 
U HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 
 
 take place, — that the majority of those who had taken part against the king 
 were desirous of an honourable and complete reconciliation, and that the 
 more violent, or, as it soon appeared, the more judicious members of the 
 party, were fast declining in credit. The remonstrance had been carried with 
 great difficulty. The uncompromising antagonists of the court, such as 
 Ciomwell, had begun to talk of selling their estates and leaving England. 
 The event soon showed that they were the only men who really understood 
 how much inhumanity and fraud lay hid under the constitutional language and 
 fio-acious demeanour of the king. 
 
 the attempt to seize the five members was undoubtedly the real cause ot 
 the war. From that moment the loyal confidence with which most of the 
 popular party were beginning to regard the king was turned into hatred and 
 incurable suspicion. From that moment the Parliament was compelled to 
 surround itself with defensive arms ; — from that moment 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 
 that the measure was weak and even frantic, — 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 
 very 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 Charles took this 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 m»tder and more temperate measures than those which had hitherto been 
 pur>?ued- In every country, and in none more than in England, there is a 
 dio] osition to take the part of those who are unmercifully nm down and who 
 seem destitute of all means of defence. Every man who has observed the ebb 
 and flow of public feeling in our own time will easily recall examples to 
 illustrate this remark. An English statesman ought to pay assiduous worship 
 iQ 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 
 instance in our history of the otperation of this principle. A few weeks turned 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISJ-ORY, 73 
 
 the ablest and most extended ministry that ever existed into a feeble opposi- 
 tion, and raised a king who was talkitjg- of retiring to Hanover, to a height of 
 power which none of his predecessors had enjoyed since the Revolution. A 
 crisis of this description was evidently approaching in 1642. At such a crisis 
 a prince of a really honest and generous nature, who had erred, who had seen 
 his error, who had regretted the lost affections 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 been compelled to feign respect for it, and to whom 
 his honour and the love of his people were as nothing, would select such a 
 crisis for some appalling violation of law, for some stroke 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 ihin 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 a time into the hands 
 of those who, though they disapproved of his past conduct, thought that the 
 remedies had now become worse than the distempers. But we believe that 
 in his heart he regarded both the parties in the Parliament vvith 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- 
 porters 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 wjainst them. The Lords 
 refused to assume the unconstitutional ofiice vvith 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 
 meditated violence, and violence which might probably end in blood. He 
 knew t'.dt the legality of his proceedings was denied ; he must 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 them 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 scuHle ; and it might 
 not, under such circumstances, have been in his power, even if it had bee a io 
 
74 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 his inclination, to prevent a scuffle from ending in a massacre. Fortunately 
 for his fame, v^fortunately, 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 to 
 mark abortive crimes ; and thus the king's advocates havQ found it easy tv 
 represent a step which, but for a trivial accident, might have filled England 
 v/ith 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 
 party. The most zealous Royalists were so much disgusted and ashamed that 
 they suspended their 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 sufBce 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 oppoped 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 
 more 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 
 in 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 institution 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 tlie sittings of the three orders, or ex- 
 pecttd 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 Peninsulau 
 
HALLAM^S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, y^ 
 
 In England, on the other hand, the ^rliament was infinitely more powerful 
 than it had ever been. Not only was its legislative 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 
 two Houses. 
 
 What then made us to differ ? Why was it that, in that epidemic malady 
 of constitutions, ours escaped the destroying influejice ; 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 soon returned to it 
 again : and the character which was habitual prevailed over 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 accomphsh- 
 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 diflScult 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 
 easHy 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 Pompadoui 
 from the effects of the public hatred. 
 
 Hume and many other writers 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 wliich the nobles and 
 commons had effected. The Parliament did not blindly follow the event oi 
 war, but participated in those changes of public sentiment on which the event 
 ©^ war depended. The legal check was secondary and auxiliary to tha*. which 
 
36 HALLAM*S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 
 
 the nation held in its own hands. There have always been nonarchies in 
 Asia in which ihe royal authority has been tempered by fundamental laws, 
 though no legislative 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 Cabul, as Mr. Elphinstone informs us, cannot augment the land 
 revenue, or inievfere with the inrisdiction of the ordinary tribunals. 
 
 In the Eun ])ean kingdoms of this description there were representative 
 assemi)lies. lUu it was not necessary, 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 heve"iilured too far, chastise- 
 ment and ruin were at hand. In fact, the people suffered more from his 
 weakness thai from, his authority. The t)T:anny of wealthy and powerful sub- 
 jects was the ibaracteristic evil of the times. The royal prerogatives were 
 not even suffi. lent for the defence of property and the maintenance of police. 
 
 The progress of civilization introduced a great change. War became a 
 science, and, iis a necessary consequence, a separate trade. The great body of 
 the people grew every day more reluctant to undergo the inconveniences of 
 military servit e, and better able to pay others for undergoing them. A new 
 class of men, tlierefore, 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 leemen — 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 theii ,»rivi!eges, was transferred entire to the king. Monarchy gained 
 in two ways. The sovereign was strengthened, the subjects weakened. The 
 great mass of ifie population, destitute of all military discipline and organiza- 
 tion, ceased tu exercise any influence by force on political transactions. There 
 have, indeed, during the last hundred and fifty yeafs, been many popular in- 
 surrections in I'.urope ; but all have failed, except those in which the regular 
 army has been induced to join the disaffected. 
 
 Those legal (hecks which had been adequate to the purpose for which they 
 were designc') while the sovereign remained dependant on his subjects were 
 now founu wanting. The dikes which had been sufficient while the waters 
 were low weie not high enough to keep out the spring-tide. The deluge passed 
 over them ; and according to the exquisite illustration of Butler, the formal 
 boundaries which had excluded it, now held it in. The old constitutions fared 
 like the old j.l.ields and coats of mail. They were the defences of a rude age ; 
 and they did >.vell enough against the weapons of a rude age. But new and 
 more formidable means of destruction were invented. The ancient panoply 
 became useless ; and it was thrown aside to rust in lumber-rooms, or exhibitei* 
 only as part of an idle pageant. 
 
 Thus absohite monarchy was established on the Continent. England 
 escaped ; but she escaped very narrowly. Happily our insular situation, and' 
 the pacific policy of James, rendered standing armies unnecessary here, till 
 they had been for some, time kept up in the neighbouring kingdoms. Our 
 public r.ien had, therefore, an opportunity of watching the effects produced by 
 this momentous change in form of governments which bore a close analogy to 
 that established in England. Everywhere they saw the power of the mon- 
 arch increasing, the resistance of assemblies which were no longer supfiorted 
 by a national force gradually becoming more and more feeble, and at length 
 altogether ecasing, The friends and the enemies of liberty perceived with 
 
ffALLAATS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 77 
 
 equal clearness the causes of this general decay. It is a favourite them's of 
 StrafTord. He advises the king to procutp from the judges a recognition of 
 his right to raise an army at his pleasuiC "This place well fortified," says 
 he, ** for ever vindicates the monarchy at home from under the conditions and 
 restraints of subjects." We firmly believe that he was in the right. Nay ; 
 we believe that, even if no deliberate scheme of arbitrary government had 
 been formed by the sovereign and his ministers, there was great reason to 
 apprehend a natural extinction of the Constitution. If, for example, Charles 
 had played the part of Gustavus Adolphus — if he had carried on a popular 
 war for the defence of the Protestant cause in Germany — if he had gratified 
 the national pride by a series of victories — if he had formed an army of forty 
 or fifty thousand devoted soldiers, — we do not see what chance the nation, 
 would have had of escaping from despotism. The judges would have given 
 as strong a decision in favour of Camp-money as they gave in favour of Ship- 
 money. If they had scrupled it would have made little difference. An indi- 
 vidual who resisted would have been treated as Charles treated Eliot, and as 
 Strafford wished to treat Hampden. The Parliament might have been sum- 
 moned once in twenty years, to congratulate a king on his accession, or to 
 give solemnity to some great measure of state. Such had been the fate of 
 legislative y.b>eiabiies as powerful, as much res.peci.ecl, as higu-»piiiLea, as mc 
 English Lords and Commons. 
 
 The two Houses, surrounded by the ruin? of so many free constitutions 
 overthrown or sapped by the new military system, were required to intrust 
 the command of an army, and the conduct jf the Irish war to a king who had 
 proposed to himself the destruction of liberty as the great end of his policy. 
 We are decidedly of opinion that it would have been fatal to comply. Many 
 of those who took the side of the king on this question would have cursed 
 their own loyalty, if they had seen him return from war at the head of twenty 
 thousand troops, accustomed to carnage and free quarters in Ireland. 
 
 We think, with Mr. Hallam, that many of the Royalist nobility and gentry 
 were true friends to the Constitution, and that, but for the solemn protesta- 
 tions by which the king bound himself to govern according to the law for 
 the future, they never would have joined his standard. But surely they 
 underrated the public danger. Falkland is commonly selected as the most 
 respectable specimen of this class. He was indeed a man of great talents 
 and of great virtues ; but, we apprehend, infinitely too fastidious for public 
 life. He did not perceive that, in such times as those on which his lot had 
 fallen, the duty of a statesman is to choose the better cause and to stand by 
 it, in spite of those excesses by which every cause, however good in itself, 
 will be disgraced. The present evil always seemed to him the worst. He 
 was always going backward and forward ; but it should be remembered to 
 his honour that it was always from the stronger to the weaker side that he ' 
 deserted. While Charles was oppressing the people, Falkland was a resolute 
 champion of liberty. He attacked Strafford. He even concurred in strong 
 measures against Episcopacy. But the violence of his party annoyed him, 
 and drove him to the other party, to be equally annoyed there. Dreading 
 the success of the cause which he had espoused, sickened by the courtiers of 
 Oxford, as he had been sickened by the patriots of Westminster, yet bound 
 by honour not to abandon them, he pined away, neglected his person, wen*- 
 about moaning for peace, and at last rushed desperately on death, as the best 
 refuge in such miserable times. If he had lived through the scenes that fol- 
 lowed, we have little doubt that he would have condemned himself to share 
 the exile ^ud beggary of the royal family ; that he would then have returned 
 tp oppose all their measures j that he would have been sent to the Tower l?y 
 
78 HALLANPS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 the Commons as a disbeliever in the Popish Plot, and by the king as an 
 accomplice in the Rye- House Plot ; and that, if he had escaped being hanged, 
 first by Scroggs, and then by Jefferies, he would, after manfully opposing 
 James II. through his whole reign, have been seized with a fit of compassion 
 at the very moment of the Revolution, have voted for a regency, and died a 
 non-juror. 
 
 We do not dispute that the royal party contained many excellent men and 
 excellent citizens. But this we say, — that they did not discern those times. 
 The peculiar glory of the Houses of Parliament is that, in the great plague 
 and mortality of constitution, they took their stand between the living and 
 the dead. At the very crisis of our destiny, at the very moment when the 
 fate which had passed on every other nation was about to pass on England, 
 they arrested the danger. 
 
 Those who conceive that the parliamentary leaders were desirous merely 
 to maintain the old constitution and those who represent them as conspiring 
 to subvert it are equally in error. The old constitution, as we have attempted 
 to show, could not be maintained. The progress of time, the increase of 
 wealth, the diflfuaion of knowledge, the great change in the European system 
 of war, rendered it impossible that any of the monarchies of the middle ages 
 should continue to exist on the old footing. The prerogative of the Crown 
 was constantly advancing. If the privileges of the people were to remain 
 absolutely stationary, they would relatively retrograde. The monarchical 
 and denaocratical parts of the government were placed in a situation not un- 
 like that of the two brothers in the Fairy Queen, one of whom saw the soil 
 of his inheritance daily washed away by the tide and joined to that of his rival. 
 The portions had at first been fairly meted out. By a natural and constant 
 transfer, the one had been extended : the other had dwindled to nothing. A 
 new partition, or a compensation, was necessary to restore the original equality. 
 
 It was now absolutely necessary to violate the formal part of the consti- 
 tution, in order to preserve its spirit. This might have been done, as it was 
 done at the Revolution, by expelling the reigning family, and calling to the 
 throne princes who, relying solely on an elective title, would find it necessary 
 io respect the privileges and follow the advice of the assemblies to which they 
 owed everything, to pass every bill which the Legislature strongly pressed 
 upon them, and to fill the offices of state with men in whom it confided. But, 
 as the two Houses did not choose to change the dynasty, it was necessary that 
 they should do directly what at the Revolution.was done indirectly. Nothing 
 is more usual than to hear it said that, if the Long Parliament had contented 
 itself with making such a reform in the government under Charles as was after- 
 wards made under William, it would have had the highest claim to national 
 gratitude j and that in its violence it overshot the mark. But how was it 
 possible to make such a settlement under Charles? Charles was not, like 
 William and the princes of the Hanoverian line, bound by community of 
 interests and dangers to the two Houses. It was, therefore, necessary that he 
 should be bound by treaty and statute. 
 
 Mr. Hallam reprobates, in language which has a little surprised us, the 
 nineteen propositions into which the Parliament digested its scheme. We 
 will Jtsk him whether he does not think that if James II. had remained in 
 the island, and had been suffered, — as he probably would in that case have 
 been suffered — to keep his crown, conditions to the full as hard would have 
 been imposed on him ? On the other hand, if the Long Parliament had pro-, 
 nounced the departure of Charles from London an abdication, and had called 
 Essex or Northumberland to the throne, the new prince might have safely 
 been suffered to reign without such restrictions. His situation would havff 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. ^ 
 
 be(«a a sufficient guarantee. In the nij^eteen propositions we see very little to 
 blame except the articles against the Catholics. These, however, were in the 
 spirit of that age ; and to some sturdy churchmen in our own they may seem 
 to palliate even the good which the Long Parliament effected. The regu- 
 lation with respect to new creations of peers is the only other article abc/at 
 which we entertain any doubt. 
 
 One of the propositions is that the judges shall hold their offices during 
 good behaviour. To this surely no exception will be taken. The right uf 
 directing the education and marriage of the princes was most properly claimed 
 by the Parliament, on the same ground on which, after the Revolution, it 
 was enacted that no king, on pain of forfeiting his throne, should espouse a 
 ' Papist. Unless we condemn the statesmen of the Revolution, who conceived 
 that England could not safely be governed by a sovereign married to a 
 Catholic queen, we can scarcely condemn the Long Parliament because, 
 having a sovereign so situated, they thought it necessary to place him under 
 strict restraints. The influence of Henrietta Maria had already been deeply 
 felt in political affairs. In the regulation of her family, in the education and 
 marriage of her children, it was still more likely to be felt. There might be 
 another Catholic queen ; possibly, a Catholic king. Little as we are disposed 
 to join in the vulgar clamour on this subject, we think that such an event 
 ought to be, if possible, averted ; and this , could only be done, if Charles 
 was to be left on the throne, by placing his domestic arrangements under the 
 control of Parliament. 
 
 A veto on the appointment of ministers was demanded. But this veto Par- 
 liament has virtually possessed ever since the Revolution. It is no doubt very 
 far better that this power of the Legislature should be exercised as it is now 
 exercised, when any great occasion calls for interference, than that at every 
 change it should have to signify its approbation or disapprobation in form. 
 But, unless a new family had been placed on the throne, we do not see how 
 this power could have been exercised as it is now exercised. We again repeat 
 that no restraints which could be imposed on the princes who reigned after the 
 Revolution could have added to the security which their title afforded. They 
 were compelled to court their Parliaments. But from Charles nothing was 
 to be expected which was not set down in the bond. 
 
 It was not stipulated that the king should give up his negative on acts of 
 Parliament. But the Commons had certainly shown a strong disposition to 
 exact this security also. ** Such a doctrine," says Mr. Hallam, " was in this 
 country as repugnant to the whole history of our laws as it was incompatible 
 with the subsistence of the monarchy in anything more than a nominal pre- 
 eminende. " Now this article has been as completly carried into effect by 
 the Revolution as if it had been formally inserted in the Bill of Rights and 
 the Act of Settlement. We are surprised, we confess, that Mr Hallam should 
 attach so much importance to a prerogative which has not been exercised for 
 a hundred and thirty years, which probably will never be exercised again^ 
 and which can scarcely, in any conceivable case, be exercised for a salutary i 
 purpose. 
 
 Bii the great security, the security without which every other would have 
 been insufficient, was the power of the sword. This both parties thoroughly 
 understood. The Parliament insisted on having the command of the militia 
 and the direction of the Irish war. " By God, not for an hour ! " exclaimed 
 the king. ** Keep the militia," said the queen, after the defeat of the royal 
 party ; ** Keep the militia ; that will bring back everything." That, by the 
 old constitution, no military authority was lodged in the Parliament, Mr. 
 Hallam has clearly sliown. That it is a species of power which ought no( 
 
Sd iJALLAM^S CONSTITUTIONAL mSTOkV. 
 
 to be permanently lodged in large and divided assemblies, must, we think, in 
 fairness be conceded. Opposition, publicity, long discussion, frequent com- 
 promise : these are the characteristics of the proceedings of such bodies. 
 Unity, secrecy, decision, are the qualities which military arrangements require. 
 This undoubtedly was an evil. But on the other hand, at such a crisis, to 
 trust such a king with the very weapon which, in hands less dangerous, had 
 destroyed so many free constitutions, would have been the extreme of 
 rashness. The jealousy with which the oligarchy of Venice and the States of 
 Holland regarded their generals and armies induced them perpetually to in- 
 terfere in matters of which they were incompetent to judge. This policy 
 Becured them against military usurpation, but placed them under great disad- 
 vantages in war. The uncontrolled power which the king of France exercised 
 over his troops enabled him to conquer his enemies, but enabled him also to 
 oppress his people. Was there any intermediate course ? None, we confess, 
 altogether free from objection. But, on the whole, we conceive that the best 
 measure would have been that which the Parliament over and over proposed—/ 
 that for a limited time the power of the sword should be left to the two 
 Houses, and that it should revert to the Crown when the constitution should 
 be firmly established, and when the new securities of freedom should be so far 
 strengthened by prescription that it would be difficult to employ even a 
 standing army for the purpose of subverting them. 
 
 Mr. Hallam thinks that the dispute might easily have been compromised, 
 by enacting that the king should have no power to keep a standing army on 
 fool without the consent of Parliament. He reasons as if the question had 
 been merely theoretical — and as if at that time no army had been wanted. 
 "The kingdom," he says, "might have well dispensed, in that age, with any 
 military organization." Now, we think that Mr. Hallam overlooks the most 
 important circumstance in the whole case. Ireland was at that moment in 
 rebellion : and a great expedition would obviously be necessary to reduce 
 that kingdom to obedience. The Houses had, therefore, to consider, not an 
 abstract question of law, but an urgent practical question, directly involving 
 the safety of the state. They had to consider the expediency of immediately 
 giving a great army to a king who was at least as desirous to put down the 
 Parliament of England as to conquer the insurgents of Ireland. 
 
 Of course we do not mean to defend all their measures. Far from it. 
 There never was a perfect man. It would, therefore, be the height of ab- 
 surdity to expect a perfect party or a perfect assembly. For large bodies are 
 far more likely to err than individuals. The passions are inflamed by sym- 
 pathy ; the fear of punishment and the sense of shame are diminished by par- 
 tition. Every day we see men do for their faction what they would die rather 
 than do for themselves. 
 
 No private quarrel ever happens, in which the right and the wrong are so 
 exquisitely divided that all the right lies on one side, and all the wrong on the 
 other. But here was a schism which separated a great nation into two parties. 
 Of these parties, each was composed of many smaller parties. Each contained 
 many members, who differed far less from their moderate opponents than 
 from their violent allies. Each reckoned among its supporters many who 
 were determined in their choice by some accident of birth, of connection, or 
 of local situation. Each of them attracted to itself in multitudes those fierce 
 and turbid spirits, to whom the clouds and whirlwinds of the political hurri- 
 cane are the atmosphere of life. A party, like a camp, has its sutlers and 
 camp-followers, as well as its soldiers. In its progress it collects round it a 
 vast retinue, composed of people who thrive by its cm lom or are amused by 
 Its display, who may be sometimes reckoned, in an ostentatious enuniera* 
 
H ALLAH'S CONSTIIVTIOI^AL HISTORY. Kl 
 
 tion, as forming part of it, but who give no aid to its operations, z\A take 
 but a languid interest in its success, who relax its discipline and dishonour 
 its flag by their irregularities, and wHo, after a disaster, are perfectly ready 
 to cut the throats and rifle the baggage of their companions. 
 
 Thus it is in every great division ; and thus it was in our civil war. On 
 both sides there was, undoubtedly, enough of crime and enough of error to 
 disgust any man who did not reflect that the whole history of the species is 
 (nothing but a comparison of crimes and errors. Misanthropy is not the 
 temper which qualifies a man to act in great affairs, or to judge of them. 
 
 "Of the Parliament," says Mr. Hallam, "it may be said, I think, with 
 not greater severity than truth, that scarce two or three public acts of justice, 
 humanity, or generosity, and very few of political wisdom or courage, are 
 recorded of them, from their quarrel with the king, to their expulsion by 
 Cromwell." Those who may agree with us in the opinion which we have 
 expressed as to the original demands of the Parliament will scarcely concur 
 in this strong censure. The propositions which the Houses made at Oxford, 
 at Uxbridge, and at Newcastle were in strict accordance with these demands . 
 In the darkest period of the war they showed no disposition to concede any 
 vital principle. In the fulness of their success they showed no disposition to 
 encroach beyond these limits. In this respect we cannot but think that they 
 showed justice and generosity, as well as political wisdom and courage. 
 
 The Parliament was certainly far from faultless. We fully agree with Mr. 
 Hallam in reprobating their treatment of Laud. For the individual, indeed, 
 we entertain a more unmitigated contempt than for any other character in 
 our history. The fondness with which a portion of the Church regards his 
 memory can be compared only to that perversity of affection which sometimes 
 leads a mother to select the monster or the idiot of the family as the object of 
 her especial favour. Mr. Hallam has incidentally observed that, in the cor- 
 respondence of Laud with Strafford there are no indications of a sense of duty 
 towards God or man. The admirers of the archbishop have, in consequence, 
 inflicted upon the public a crowd of extracts designed .to prove the contrary. 
 Now, in all those passages, we see nothing which a prelate as wicked as Pope 
 Alexander or Cardinal Dubois might not have written. They indicate no 
 sense of duty to God or man, but simply a strong interest in the prosperity and 
 dignity of the order to which the writer belonged ; an interest which, when 
 kept within certain limits, does not deserve censure, but which can never be 
 considered as a virtue. Laud is anxious to accommodate satisfactorily the 
 disputes in the University of Dublin. He regrets to hear that a church is 
 used as a stable and that the benefices of Ireland are very poor. He is desi- 
 rous that, however small a congregation may be, service should be regularly 
 performed. He expresses a wish that the judges of the court before which 
 questions of tithe are generally brought should be selected with a view to the 
 interest of the clerr^y. All this may be very proper ; and it may be very proper 
 that an alderman should stand up for the tolls of his borough, and an East 
 India director for the charter of his company. But it is ridiculous to say that 
 these things indicate piety and benevolence. No primate, though he were 
 the most abandoned of mankind, could wish to see the body with the conse- 
 quence of which his own consequence was identical degraded in the public 
 estimation by internal dissensions, by the ruinous state of its edifices, and 
 by the slovenly performance of its rites. We willingly acknowledge that 
 the particular letters in question have very little harm in them ; a compliment 
 which cannot often be paid either to the writings or to the actions of Laud. 
 
 Bad as the archbishop was, however, he was not a traitor within the statute. 
 Nor was he by any means so foraaidable as to be a proper subject for ■ 
 
8j HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 retrospective ordinance of the Legislature. His nriind had not expansion 
 enough to comprehend a great scheme, good or bad. His oppressive acts 
 were not, like those of the Earl of Strafford, parts of an extensive system. 
 They were the luxuries in which a mean and irritable disposition indulges 
 itself from day to day — the excesses natural to a little mind in a great place. 
 The severest punishment which the two Houses could have inflicted on liim 
 would have been to set him at liberty and send him to Oxford. There lie 
 might have stayed, tortured by his own diabolical temper, hungering for Puri- 
 tans to pillory and mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want of somebody else 
 to plague, with his peevishness and absurdity, performing grimaces andantici 
 in the cathedral, continuing that incomparable diary, which we never see witii- 
 out forgetting the vices of his heart in the abject imbecility of his intellect, 
 minuting down his dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell from liis 
 nose, watching the direction of the salt, and listening for the note of the 
 screech-owls. Contemptuous mercy was the only vengeance which it became 
 the Parliament to take on such a ridiculous old bigot. 
 
 The Houses, it must be acknowledged, committed great errors in the con- 
 duct of the war, or rather one great error, which brought their affairs into a 
 condition requiring the most perilous expedients. The Parliamentary leaders 
 of what may be called the first generation, Essex, Manchester, Northumber- 
 land, Hollis, even Pym — all the most eminent men, in short, Hampden 
 excepted, were inclined to half measures. They dreaded a decisive victory 
 almost as much as a decisive overthrow. They wished to bring the king into 
 a situation which might render it necessary for him to grant their just and 
 wise demands, but not to subvert the Constitution or to change the dynasty. 
 They were afraid of serving the purposes of those fierce and determined 
 enemies of monarchy who now began to show themselves in the lower ranks of 
 the party. The war was, therefore, conducted in a languid and inefficient 
 manner. A resolute leader might have brought it to a close in a month. At 
 the end of thi le campaigns, however, the event was still dubious ; and that it 
 had not been decidedly unfavourable to the cause of liberty was principally 
 owing to the skill and energy which the more violent Roundheads had displayed 
 in subordinate situations. The conduct of Fairfax and Cromwell at Marston 
 had exhibited, a remarkable contrast to that of Essex at Edgehill, and to that 
 of Waller at Lansdowne. 
 
 If there be any truth established by the universal experience of nations, it is 
 this, — that to carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak and cruel policy. 
 The time for negoc iation is the time for deliberation and delay. But when an 
 extreme case calls for that remedy which is in its own nature most violent, and 
 which, in such cases, is a remedy only because it is violent, it is idle to think 
 of mitigating and diluting. Languid war can do nothing which negociation or 
 submission will not do better : and to act on any other principle is, not to save 
 blood and money, but to squander them.. 
 
 This the Parliamentary leaders found. The third year of hostilities was 
 drawing to a close ; and they had not conquered the king. They had not ob- 
 tained even those advantages which they bad expected from a policy obviously 
 erroneous in a military point of view. They had wished to husband their 
 resourvts. They now found that in enterprises like theirs parsimony is the 
 worst profusion. They had hoped to effect a reconciliation. The event 
 taught them that the best way to conciliate is to bring the work of destruction 
 to a speedy termination. By their moderation many lives and much property 
 had been wasted. The angry passions which, if the contest had been short, 
 would have died away almost as soon as they appeared, had fixed themselves 
 in the foxva of deep and lasting hatred. A military caste had grown up. 
 
HALLAM'S CONSrnUTIONAL JUSTORY. 83 
 
 Those who had been induced to take up arms by the patriotic feelings of 
 citizens had begun to entertain the proiiessional feelings of soldiers. Above all, 
 the leaders of the party had forfeitett its confidence. If they had, by their 
 valour and abilities, gained a complete victory, their influence might have been 
 iifhcient to prevent their associates from abusing it. It was now necessary to 
 choose more resolute and uncompromising commanders. Unhappily the 
 illustrious man who alone united in himself all the talents and virtues which 
 the crisis required, who alone could have saved his country from the present 
 dangers without plunging her into others, who alone could have united all the 
 friends of liberty in obedience to his commanding genius and his venerable 
 name, was no more. Something might still be done. The Houses might 
 still avert that worst of all evils, the triumphant return of an imperious and 
 unprincipled master. They might still preserve London from all the horrors 
 of rapine, massacre, and lust. But their hopes of a victory as spotless as their 
 cause, — of a reconciliation which might knit together the hearts of all honest 
 Englishmen for the defence of the public good, — of durable tranquillity,— of 
 temperate freedom, were buried in the grave of Hampden. 
 
 The self-denying ordinance was passed, and the army was remodelled. 
 These measures were undoubtedly full of danger. But all that was left to the 
 Parliament was to take the less of two dangers. And we think that, even if 
 they could have accurately foreseen all that followed, their decision ought to 
 have been the same. Under any circumstances, we should have preferred 
 Cromwell to Charles. But there could be no comparison between Cromwell 
 and Charles victorious, — Charles restored, Charles enabled to feed fat all the 
 hungry grudges of his smiling rancour and his cringing pride. The next visit 
 of his majesty to his faithful Commons would have been more serious than that 
 with which he last honoured them ; more serious than that which their own 
 general paid them some years after. The king would scarce have been con- 
 tent with praying that the Lord would deliver him from Vane, and collaring 
 Martin. If, by fatal mismanagement, nothing was left to England but a choice 
 of tyrants, the last tyrant whom she should have chosen was Charles. 
 
 From the apprehension of this worst evil the Houses were soon delivered by 
 their new leaders. The armies of Charles were everywhere routed, his fast- 
 nesses stormed, his party humbled and subjugated. The king himself fell into 
 the hands of the Parliament j and both the king and the Parliament soon fell 
 into the hands of the army. The fate of both the captives was the same. Both 
 ivere treated alternately with respect and with insult. At length the natural life 
 of one and the political life of the other v/ere terminated by violence ; and the 
 power for which both had struggled was uliited in a single hand. Men 
 naturally sympathize with the calamities of individuals ; but they are inclined 
 to \oq\ on a fallen party with contempt rather than v/ith pity. Thus mis- 
 fortune turned the greatest of Parliaments into the despised Riunp, and the 
 worst of kings into the Blessed Martyr. 
 
 Mr. Hallam decidedly condemns "the execution of Charles ; and in all that 
 lie says on that subject we heartily agree. We fully concur with him in thinking 
 that a great social schism, such as the civil war, is not to be confounded with 
 rn ordinary treason, and that the vanquished ought to be treated according to 
 the rules, not of municipal, but of international law. In this case the distinc- 
 tion is of the less importance, because both international and municipal law 
 were in favour of Charles. He was a prisoner of war by the former, a king 
 by the latter. By neither was he a traitor. If he had been successful, and 
 had put his leading opponents to death, he would have deserved severe censure ; 
 and this without reference to the justice or injustice of his cause. Yet the 
 opponents of Charles, it must be admitted, were technically guilty of treason* 
 
84 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 He might have sent them to the scaffold without violating any established 
 principle of jurisprudence. He would not have been compelled to overturn 
 the whole Constitution in order to reach them. Here his own case differed 
 widely from theirs. Not only was his condemnation in itself a measure which 
 only the strongest necessity could vindicate ; but it could not be procured with- 
 out taking several previous steps every one of which would have required the 
 strongest necessity to vindicate it. It could not be procured without dissolving 
 the government by military force, without establishing precedents of the most 
 dangerous description, without creating difficulties which the next ten years 
 were spent in removing, without pulling down institutions which it soon became 
 necessary to reconstruct, and setting up others which almost every man was 
 soon impatient to destroy. It was necessary to strike the House of Lords out 
 of the Constitution, to exclude members of the House of Commons by force, to 
 make a new crime, a new tribunal, a new mode of procedure. The whole 
 legislative and judicial systems were trampled down for the purpose of taking 
 a single head. Not only those parts of the Constitution which the Republicans 
 were desirous to destroy, but those which they wished to retain and exalt, were 
 deeply injured by these transactions. High Courts of Justice began to usurp 
 the functions of juries. The remaining delegates of the people were soon 
 driven from their seats by the same military violence which had enabled them 
 to exclude their colleagues. 
 
 If Charles had been the last of his line, there would have been an intelligible 
 reason for putting him to death. But the blow which terminated his life at 
 once transferred the allegiance of every Royalist to an heir, and an heir who 
 was at liberty. To kill the individual was truly, under such circumstances, not 
 to destroy, but to release the king. 
 
 We detest the character of Charles ; but a man ought not to be removed by 
 a law ex postfactOy even constitutionally procured, merely because he is detest- 
 able. He must also be very dangerous. We can scarcely conceive that any 
 danger which a state can apprehend from any individual could justify the 
 violent measures which were necessary to procure a sec ten ce against Charles. 
 But in fact the danger amounted to nothing. There was indeed danger from 
 the attachment of a large party to his office. But this danger his execution 
 only increased. His personal influence was little indeed. He had lost the 
 confidence of every party. Churchmen, Catholics, Presbyterians, Indepen- 
 dents, his enemies, his friends, his tools, English, Scotch, Irish, all divisions 
 and subdivisions of his people had been deceived by him. His most attached 
 councillors turned away with shame and anguish from his false and hollow 
 policy, plot Iiilcrtwined with polt, mine sprung beneath mine, agents disowned, 
 promises evaded, one pledge given in private, another in public. — "Oh, Mr. 
 Secretaj-y," says Clarendon, in a letter to Nicholas, ** those stratagems have 
 given me more sad hours than all the misfortunes in war which have befallen 
 the king, and look like the effects of God's anger towards us." 
 
 The abilities of Charles were not formidable. His taste in the fine arts was 
 indeed exquisite. He was as good a writer and speaker as any modern 
 sovereign has been. But he|was not fit for active life. In negociation he was 
 always trying to dupe others, and duping only himself. As a soldier, he was 
 feeble, dilatory, and miserably wanting, not in personal courage, but in the 
 presence of mind which his station required. His delay at Gloucester saved 
 the parliamentary party from destruction. At Naseby, in the very crisis of 
 his fortune, his want of self-possession spread a fatal panic through his army. 
 The story which Clarendon tells of that affiiir reminds us of the excuses by 
 which Bessus and Bobadil explain their cudgellings. A Scotch nobleman, it 
 fcem^ begged the king not tQ run upon his death, took hold of his bridle, ?ind 
 
HALLAM^S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 85 
 
 turned his horse round. No man who had much value for his life would have 
 tried to perform the same friendly office <51i that day for Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 One thing, and one alone, could make Charles dangerous, — a violent death. 
 His tyranny could not break the high spirit of the English people. His arms 
 could not conquer, his arts could not deceive them ; but his humiliation and 
 his execution melted them into a generous compassion. Men wnu die on a 
 scaffold for political offences almost always die well. The eyes of thousands 
 are fixed upon them. Enemies and admirers are watching their demeanour. 
 Every tone of voice, every change of colour, is to go down to posterity. Escape 
 is impossible. Supplication is vain. In such a situation pride and despair 
 have often been known to nerve the weakest minds with fortitude adequate to 
 the occasion. Charles died patiently and bravely : not more patiently or 
 bravely, indeed, than any other victims of political rage ; not more patiently or 
 bravely than his own judges, who were not only killed, but tortured ; or thau 
 Vane, who had always been considered as a timid man. However, his conduct 
 during his trial and at his execution made a prodigious impression. His sub- 
 jects began to love his memory as heartily as they had hated his person ; and 
 posterity has estimated his character from his death rather than from his life. 
 
 To represent Charles as a martyr in the cause of Episcopacy is absurd. 
 Those who put him to death cared as little for the Assembly of Divines as 
 for the Convocation, and would, in all probability, only have hated him the 
 more if he had agreed to set up the Presbyterian discipline ; and in spite of 
 the opinion of Mr. Hallam, we are inclined to think that the attachment of 
 Charles to the Church of England was altogether political. Human nature is, 
 indeed, so capricious that there may be a single sensitive point in a conscience 
 which everywhere else is callous. A man without truth or humanity may 
 have some strange scruples about a trifle. There was one devout warrior 
 in the royal camp whose piety bore a great resemblance to that which 
 is ascribed to the king. We mean Colonel Turner. That gallant Cavalier 
 was hanged, after the Restoration, for a flagitious burglary. At the gallows 
 he told the crowd that his miud received great consolation from one reflection : 
 be had always taken off his hat when he went into a church. The character 
 of Charles would scarcely rise in our estimation, if we believed that he was 
 pricked in conscience after the manner of this worthy loy ilist, and that, while 
 violating all the first rules of Christian morality, he was sincerely scrupulous 
 about Church government. But we acquit him of such weakness. In 1641 he 
 deliberately confirmed the Scotch Declaration, which stated that the govern- 
 ment of the Church by archbishops and bishops was contrary to the Word of 
 God. In 1645 ^^ appears to have offered to set up Popery in Ireland. That 
 a king who had established the Presbyterian religion in one kingdom, and who 
 was willing to establish the Catholic religion in another, should have insur- 
 mountable scruples about the ecclesiastical constitution of the third, is alto- 
 gether incredible. He himself says in his letters that he looks on Episcopac> 
 as a stronger support of monarchical power than even the army. From causft^ 
 which we have already considered, the Established Church had been, since the 
 Reformation, the great bulwark of the prerogative. Charles wished, there- 
 fore, to preserve it. He thought himself necessary both to the Parliament and 
 to the arriy. He did not foresee, till too late, that, by paltering with the 
 Presbyterians, he should put both them and himself into the power of a fiercer 
 and more daring party. If he had foreseen it, we suspect that the royal blood 
 which still cries to H-^aven, every thirtieth of January, for judgments only to 
 be averted by salt-fibh and egg-sauce, would never have been shed. One 
 who had swaUow^d the Scotch PecJaratioa would §carc?lv strain at tUc 
 Covenant. 
 
86 II ALLAN'S CONSTITl/TIONAL HISTORY, 
 
 The death of Charles and the strong measures which led to it raised Crom- 
 well to a height of power fatal to the infant Commonwealth. No men occupy 
 so splendid a place in history as those who have founded monarchies on the 
 ruins of republican institutions. Their glory, if not of the purest, is assuredly 
 of the most seductive and dazzling kind. ' In nations broken to the curb, in 
 nations long accustomed to be transferred from one tyrant to another, man 
 without eminent qualities may easily gain supreme power. The defection of 
 a troop of guards, a conspiracy of eunuchs, a popular tumult, might place an 
 indolent senator or a brutal soldier on the throne of the Roman world. Similar 
 revolutions have often occurred in the despotic states of Asia. But a com- 
 munity which has heard the voice of truth and experienced the pleasures of 
 liberty — in which the merits of statesmen and of systems are freely canvassed, 
 — in* which obedience is paid, not to persons, but to laws, — in which magis- 
 trates are regarded, not as the lords, but as the servants of the public, — in which 
 the excitement of a party is a necessary of life, — in which political warfare is 
 reduced to a system of tactics ; — such a community is not easily reduced to 
 servitude. Beasts of burden may easily be managed by a new master. But 
 will the wild ass submit to the bonds ? Will the unicorn serve and abide by 
 the crib ? Will leviathan hold out his nostrils to the hook ? The mythologi- 
 cal conqueror of the East, whose enchantments reduced the wild beasts to the 
 tameness of domestic cattle, and who harnessed lions and tigers to his chariot, 
 is but an imperfect type of those extraordinary minds which have thrown a 
 spell on the fierce spirits of nations unaccustomed to control, and have com- 
 pelled raging factions to obey their reins and swell their triumph. The enter- 
 prise, be it good or bad, is one which requires a truly great man. It demands 
 courage, activity, energy, wisdom, firmness, conspicuous virtues, or vices so 
 splendid and alluring as to resemble virtues. 
 
 Those who have sugceeded in this arduous undertaking f^rm a very small 
 and a very remarkable class. Parents of tyranny, but heirs of freedom, kings 
 among citizens, citizens among kings, they unite in themselves the characteris- 
 tics of the system which springs from them, and of the system from which 
 they have sprung. The'r reigns shine with a double light, the last and dearest 
 rays of departing freedom mingled with the first and brightest glories of 
 empire in its dawn. Their high qualities lend to despotism itself a charm 
 drawn from the institutions under which they were formed, and which they 
 have destroyed. They resemble Europeans who settle within the tropics, and 
 carry thither the strength and the energetic habits acquired in regions more 
 propitious to the constitution. They differ as widely from* princes nursed in 
 the purple of imperial cradles as the companions of Gama from their dwarfish 
 and imbecile progeny, which, born in a climate unfavourable to its growth and 
 beauty, degenerates more and more, at every descent, from the qualities of the 
 original conquerors. ' 
 
 In this class three men stand pre-eminent, Caesar, Cromwell, and Bona- 
 parte. The highest place in this remarkable triumvirate belongs undoubtedly 
 to Csesar. He united the talents of Bonaparte to those of Cromwell, and he 
 po?;sessed also what neither Cromwell nor Bonaparte possessed, learning, 
 taste, wit, eloquence, the sentiments and the manners of an accomplished 
 gentleman. 
 
 Between Cromwell and Napoleon Mr. Hallam has instituted a parallel 
 scarcely less ingenious than that which Burke has drawn between Richard 
 Coeur de Lion and Charles XII. of Sweden. In this parallel, however, 
 and indeed throughout his work, we think that he hardly gives Cromwell fair 
 measure. "Cromwell," says he, *' far unlike his antitype, never showed any 
 Bigns of a legislative mind, or any desire tc place his renown on that noblesj 
 
H ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 87 
 
 basis, the amelioration of social institutions." The difference in this respect, 
 we conceive, was not in the characteri'of the men, but in the characters of 
 the revolutions by means of which they rose to power. The civil war in 
 England had been uncfertaken to defend and restore ; the republicans of France 
 set themselves to destroy. In England the principles of the common lav- 
 had never been disturbed, and most even of its forms had been held sacred. 
 In France, the law and its ministers had been swept away together. In 
 France, therefore, legislation became thp first business of the first settled 
 government which rose on the ruins of the old system. The admirers of 
 Inigo Jones have always maintained that his works are inferior to those ol 
 Sir Christopher Wren, only because the great fire of London gave to the lattci- 
 such a field for the display of his powers as no architect in the history of the 
 world ever possessed. Similar allowance must be made for Cromwell. If he 
 erected little that was new, it v/as because there had been no general devasta- 
 tion to clear a space for him. As it was, he reformed the' representative system 
 in a most judicious manner. He rendered the administration of justice uniform 
 throughout the island. We will quote a passage from his speech to the Par- 
 liament in September, 1656, which contains, we think, stronger indications of 
 a legislative mind than are to be found in the whole range of orations delivered 
 on such occasions before or since. 
 
 ** There is one general grievance in the nation. It is the law I 
 
 think, I may say it, I have as eminent judges in this land as have been had, or 
 that the nation has had for these many years. Truly, I could be particular ars 
 to the j'.xecutive part, to the administration ; but that would trouble you. But 
 the truth of it is, there are wicked and abominable laws that will be in your 
 power to alter. To hang a man for sixpence, threepence, I know not what — 
 to hang for a trifle, and pardon murder, is in the ministration of the law 
 through the ill framing of it. I have known in my experience abominable 
 murders quitted ; and to see men lose their lives for petty matters ! This is 
 a thing that God will reckon for ; and I wish it may not lie upon this nation 
 a day longer than you have an opportunity to give a remedy ; and I hope I 
 shall cheerfully join with you in it." 
 
 Mr. Hallam truly says that, though it is impossible to rank Cromwell with 
 Napoleon as a general, yet " his exploits were as much above the level of his 
 contemporaries, and more the effects ot an original uneducated capacity." 
 Bonaparte was trained in the best military schools ; the army which he kd 
 to Italy was one of the finest that ever existed. Cromwell passed his youth 
 and the prime of his manhood in a civil situation. He never looked on war 
 till he was more than forty years old. He had first to form himself, and then 
 to form his troops. Out of raw levies he created an army, the bravest and 
 the best disciplined, the most orderly m peace, and the most terrible in war, 
 that Europe had seen. He called this body into existence. He' led it to con- 
 quest. He never fought a battle without gaining a victory. He never gained 
 a victory -without annihilating the force opposed to him. Yet his triumphs 
 were not the highest glory of his military system. The respect which his 
 troops paid to property, their attachment to the laws and religion of their 
 country, their submission to the civil power, their temperance, their intelli- 
 gence, their industry, are without parallel. It was after the Restoration that 
 the spiri/ which their great leader had infused into them was most signally 
 displayed. At the command of the established government, a government 
 v/hich had no means of enforcing obedience, fifty thousand soldiers, whose 
 backs no enemy had ever seen, either in domestic or in continental war, laid 
 down their arms, and retired into the mass of the people, thenceforwardeto be 
 distinguished only by superior diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pw- 
 
88 hallam's constitutional history. 
 
 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. Hallam, 
 "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 highc ^t 
 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 
 V 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 g»-eat 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 
 as 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 \n war and his reforms in peace. But he was a 
 jealous and implacable 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 
 thatlie allowed so large a share of political liberty to his subjects, and that, 
 even when an opposition dangerous ^ his power and to his person almost 
 
HALLAM'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 seasfJ*!!, 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 
 obtained 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 was glorious, but with no vulgar glory. It was not one of 
 tliose periods of overstrained and convulsive exertion which 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 attempt 
 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 out 
 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 wriiing 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 dynasty, 
 on horseback, as when he led the charge at Naseby, or on foot, as when ha 
 took the ra «ce from the table of the Commons, would adorn our squares and 
 overlook oar public offices from Charing Cross ; and sermons in h's praise 
 would be duly preached on his lucky day, the third of September, by court- 
 chaplains, guiltless of the abomination of the surplice. 
 
 But, 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 honou* of lacqueying his coach, might 
 insult him in loyal sjceeches and addressesr Venal poets might transfer to 
 
9P HALLAM'SCOmriTUTIONAL HISTORY, 
 
 the king the same eulogies, little the worse for wear, which they had bestowed 
 on the Protector. A fickle multitude might crowd to shout and .«'»fF 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 
 pamper the harlots of Charles, when Englishmen were sent to fight under the 
 banners of France against the independence of Europe and the Protestant 
 religion, 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 
 have been difficult for any Englishman to see the salaried Viceroy of France, 
 at the most important crisis of his fate, sauntering through his harem, 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 our countrymen. 
 
 The most questionable act of his life was the execution of Charles. We 
 have already stiongly condemned that proceeding ; 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 word's 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 
 violent 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 
 tlie 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 
 which 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 v/ere, 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 
 
 s.-'i '< * Tbeb^ pfttticiilurs; and many m'orie oY the eiftm'e kind, iurie rccbtideid by Pepys. 
 
hailam's comriTutroNAL msTORV. 91 
 
 « < ■ ■ ■ ' — • — — — ■ — 
 
 defend Mr. Hallam against those who attack his history. But the story is 
 certainly by no means so bad as he tst^s 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. TJiese 
 considerations ought, we think, to free Cromwell from the imputation of 
 hairing 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 Barbadoes, 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 beyond 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. Th^, ** res dura et regni novitas " is the great 
 apology of Cromwell. 
 
 From the moment that Cromwell is dead and buried, we go on in almost 
 perfect 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 rendered 
 respectable and amiable by the purity and elevation of mind which many ct 
 Us friends displayed. Under Charles II. the best and noblest of cnda wa» 
 
92 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY* 
 
 disgraced by means the most crael 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 even 
 for that vulgar fidelity to party which, in our time, it is esteemed infamous to 
 violate. The inconsistency, perfidy, and baseness which 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 diiference 
 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 qui^k 
 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 reign of Charles II. will 
 think himself entitled to indulge in any feelings of nationa^ superiority over 
 the Dktionnaire des Girouettes. Shaftesbury was surely a far less respectable ' 
 man than Talleyrand ; and it would be injustice even to Fouche to compare 
 him 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 
 en the most atrocious system of misgovernment with which any nation was 
 
ftALLAM'JS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORV. $3 
 
 Sn< . ■ ■ -^^-- 
 
 ever cursed, to extirpate Presbyterianism by fire and sword, the drowning of 
 \Vomen, the frightful torture of the bCot. 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, 
 under the forms of the Constitution, on any English administration : and they 
 selected 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 oflt 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- 
 oody 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 Whigs, 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-p6werful to destroy others, unable to save themselves, the mem- 
 bers of the two parties pppressud 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 the Protectorate many signs indicated that 
 a time of licence was at hand. But the restoration of Charles II. rendered 
 the change wonderfully rapid and violent. Profligacy became a test of ortho- 
 doxy and loyalty, a qualification for rank and office. A deep and general 
 taint infected the morals of the most influential classes, and spread itself 
 
94 HALL AM' S COMBTITUTIOMAL mstORV, 
 
 through every province of letters. Poetry inflamed the passions ; philosophy 
 imdermined the principles ; divinity itself, inculcating an abject reverence for 
 the Court, gave additional effect to its licentious example. We look in vain 
 for those qualities which lend a charm to the errors of high and ardent natures, 
 for the generosity, the tenderness, the chivalrous delicacy, which 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 impudence, a lowness, a dirtiness, 
 which can be paralleled only among the heroes and heroines of that t.ithy 
 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 passed 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, blackguardism of feeling and manners, could riot 
 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 
 »f 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 price of her shame and his own. He then repays by ingratitude 
 the benefits whic A 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. service in modern times has, as far as we re- 
 member, furnished any parallel. The conduct of Ney, scandalous enough nq^ 
 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 r^ates the circumstances of the atrocious v-Ot againx 
 poor Anne Hyde, is, if possible, more disgraceful to the Court, of which he may be considered 
 M a specimen^ than the plot itsell 
 
HALLAAPS CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 95 
 
 which in some degree redeem his character with posterity, the load lay very 
 lightly on him. He had others in abundance to keep him in countenance. 
 Godolphin, Orford, Danby, the trimorer HaHfax, the renegade Sunderland, 
 .were all men of the 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 times, are 
 peculiarly liable to corruption, were in a frightful state, gf uch a bench and 
 such a bar England has never seen. Jones, Scroggs, JciTeries, North, Wright, 
 Sawyer, Williams, Shower, are to this day the spots and blemishes of our legal 
 chronicles. Differing in constitution and in situation, — v/hether blustering or 
 cringing, — whether persecuting Protestants or Catholics — they were equally 
 unprincipled and inhuman. The part wliich 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 obedience had been preached from innumerable pulpits. The 
 University of Oxford had sentenced the works of the most moderate constitu- 
 tionalists to the flames. The accession of a Catholic king, the frightful cruel- 
 lies committed in the west of England, never shook the steady loyalty of the 
 clergy. But did they serve the king for naught ? He laid his hand on them, 
 and they cursed him to his face. lie 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. Oxfoi-d 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 mdebted for his high reputation. He was, in every respect, a man 
 unfit for his age, — at once too good for it and too bad for it.' He seemed to 
 us one of the ministers of Elizabeth, transplanted at once to a state of so- 
 ciety widely difierent 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 
 <!;iarendon, and which ]|is sufferings, his long residence in France, and his 
 iiigh 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 people. His probity, his correctness in private life, his decency 
 of deportment, and his general ability would not have misbecome a colleague 
 of Walsmgham and Burleigh. But, in the times on which he was cast, his 
 errors and his virtues v/ere 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 
 Court. His zeal for the prerogative made him unpopular; but it could not 
 i^Coure to him the favour of a master far more desirous of ease and pleasure 
 than of power. Charles would rather have lived in exile and privacy, with 
 abundance of money, a crowd of mimics to amuse him, and ft store of mis- 
 
96 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 tresses, than have purchased the absolute dominion of the world by the priva- 
 tions 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 hateful to him than ever Cromwell had been. 
 Thus, considered bv the people as an oppressor, by the Court as a censor, the 
 minister fell from mt 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. Hallam has formed, we think, a correct estimate of the character and, 
 administration of Clarendon. But he scarcely makes a sufficient allowance for 
 the wear and tear which honesty almost necessarily sustains in the friction "of 
 political 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 notking even in the Confessions of Rousseau. 
 Several writers have taken a perverted and absurd pride in representing them- 
 selves as detestable ; but no other ever laboured hard to make himself despia^ 
 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 
 factions run high, is interested not for the whole people, but for his own sec- 
 tion 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 constant 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 
 (Lacedxmon. The Multitude, on the contrary, looked to Athens. In the 
 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 
 every Kuropean country into two parts, produced similar effects. The Catholic 
 ^v•as toe strong for the Englishman, the Huguenot for the Frenchman. The 
 Protestant statesmen 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 followed by the same conse(juences. The Republicans in every part of 
 Europe were e?ger to see the armies of the NationaJ Convention and the Direc* 
 
HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 97 
 
 cory appear among them, and exulted in defeats which distressed and humbled 
 those whom they considered as their worst enemies, their own rulers. The 
 princes and nobles of France, on the other hand, did their ulmr t to bring 
 foreign invaders to Paris. A very short time has elapsed since the Apostolic^ 
 party in Spain invoked, too successfully, the support of strangers. 
 
 The great contest which raged in England during the seventeenth century 
 and the earlier part of the eighteenth, extinguished, not indeed in the body of 
 the people, but in those classes which were most actively engaged in politics, 
 almost all national feelings. Charles II. and many of his courtiers had passed 
 1 large part of their lives in banishment, serving in foreign armies, living on 
 the bounty of foreign treasuries, soliciting foreign aid to re-establish monarchy 
 in their native country. The oppressed Cavaliers in England constantly looked 
 to France and Spain for deliverance and revenge. Clarendon censures the con- 
 tinental governments with great bitterness for not interfering in our internal dis- 
 sensions. During the Protectorate, not only the Royalists, but the disaffected oi 
 all parties, appear to have been desirous of assistance from abroad. It is n'~t 
 strange, therefore, that, amidst the furious contests which followed the Restori- 
 tion, the violence of party feeling should produce effects which would probab'y 
 have attended it even in an age less distinguished by laxity of principle ai d 
 indelicacy of sentiment. It was not till a natural death had terminated tba 
 paralytic old age of the Jacobite party that the evil was completely at an eiid. 
 The Whigs long looked to Holland, — the High Tories to France. The 
 former concluded the Barrier Treaty ;— some of the latter entreated the Court 
 of Versailles to send an expedition to England. Many men who, however 
 erroneous their political notions might be, were unquestionably honourable in 
 private life, accepted money without scruple from the foreign powers lavour- 
 able to the Pretender. 
 
 Never was there less of national feeling among the higher orders than 
 during the reign of Charles II. That prince, on the one side, thought it 
 better to be the deputy of an absolute king than the king of a free people. 
 Algernon Sydney, on the other hand, would gladly have aided France in all 
 "^er ambitious schemes, and have seen England reduced to the condition of a 
 province, in the wild hope that a foreign despot would assist him to establish 
 his darling republic. The king took the money of France to assist him iu 
 the enterprise which he meditated against the liberty of his subjects with aa 
 little scruple as Frederic of Prussia or Alexander of Russia accepted our sub- 
 sidies in time of war. The leaders of the Opposition no more thought them- 
 selves disgraced by the presents of Louis than a gentleman of our own time 
 thinks himself disgraced by the liberality of powerful and wealthy members 
 of his party who pay his election bill. The money which the king received 
 from France had been largely employed to corrupt members of Pariiamcnt. 
 The enemies of the Court might think it fair, or even absolutely necessary, to 
 encounter bribery with bribery. Thus they took the French gratuities, the; 
 needy among them for their own use, the Vich probably for the general pur- 
 poses of the party, without any scruple. If we compare their conduct, not 
 with that of English statesmen in our own time, but with that of persons in 
 those foreign countries which are now situated as England then was, we shall 
 probably see reason to abate something of the severity of censure with which 
 it has been the fashion to visit those proceedings. Yet, when every allowance 
 is made, the transaction is sufficiently offensive. It is satisfactory to find that 
 Lord Russell stands free from any imputation of personal participation in 
 the spoil. An age so miserably poor in all the moral qualities which render 
 public characters respectable can xU spare the credit which it derives from a 
 man, not indeed conspicuous for talents or knowledge, but honest even ic 
 
98 H ALLAH'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 
 
 his errors, respectable in every relation of life, rationally pious, steadily and 
 placidly brave. 
 
 The great improvement which took place in our breed of public men is 
 principally to be ascribed to the Revolution. Yet that memorable event, in 
 a great measure, took its character from the very vices which it was the means 
 of reforming. It was assuredly a happy revolution, and a useful revolution ; 
 but it was not, what it has often been called, a glorious revolution. William, 
 and William alone, derived glory from it. The transaction was, in almost 
 every part, discreditable to England. That a tyrant who had violated the 
 fundamental laws of the country, who had attacked the rights of its greatest 
 corporations, who had begun to persecute the established religion of the state, 
 who had never respected the law either in his superstition or in his rtvenge, 
 could not be pulled down without the aid of a foreign army, is a circumstance 
 not very grateful to our national pi-ide. Yet this is the least degrading part of 
 the story. The shameless insincerity, the warm assurances of general support 
 which James received, down to .the moment of general desertion, indicate a 
 meanness of spirit and a looseness of morality most disgraceful to the age. 
 That the enterprise succeeded, at least that it succeeded without bloodshed or 
 commotion, was principally owing to an act of ungrateful perfidy such as no 
 .soldier had ever before committed, and to those monstrous fictions respecting 
 the birth of the Prince of Wales which persons of the highest rank were ncic 
 ashamed to circulate. In all the proceedings of the Convention, in the con- 
 ference particularly, we see that littleness of mind which is the chief charac- 
 teristic of the times. The resolutions on which the two Houses at last agreed 
 ^Vere as bad as any resolutions for so excellent a purpose could be. Their 
 feeble and contradictory language was evidently intended to save the credit ol 
 the Tories, who were ashamed to name what they were not ashamed to do. 
 Through the whole transaction no commanding talents were displayed by any 
 Englishman ; no extraordinary risks were run ; no sacrifices were made, except 
 the sacrifice which Churchill made of honour, and Anne of natural affection. 
 
 It v/as in some sense fortunate, as we have already said, for the Church of 
 England, that the Reformation in this country was effected by men who cared 
 little about religion. And, in the same manner, it was fortunate for our civil 
 government that the Revolution was, in a great measure, effected by men who 
 cared little about their political principles. At such a crisis, splendid talents 
 and strong passions might have done more harm than good. There was far 
 greater reason to fear that too much would be attempted, and that violent 
 movements would produce an equally violent reaction, than that too little 
 would be done in the way of change. But narrowness of intellect and flexi- 
 bility of principle, though they may be serviceable, can never be respectable. 
 
 If in the Revolution itself there was little that can properly be called 
 glorious, there was still less in the events which followed. In a Church whicht 
 had, as one man, declared the doctrine of resistance unchristian, only four hun- 
 dred persons refused to take the oath of allegiance to a government founded 
 on resistance. In the preceding generation both the Episcopal and the Pres- 
 byterian clergy, rather than concede points of conscience not more important, 
 had resigned their livings by thousands. 
 
 The churchmen, at the time of the Revolution, justified their conduct by all 
 ^hose profligate sophisms which are called Jesuitical, and which are cfonmonly 
 reckoned amongst the peculiar sins of Popery, but which in fact aie every- 
 where the anodynes employed by minds rather subtle than strong, to quiet 
 Aose internal twinges which they cannot but feel and which they will not 
 obey. As their oath was in the teeth of their principles, so was their conduct 
 in the teetibi of their oiath. Their cosuittMit ouchinations iMcaipst the Govern* 
 
BALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORV. '^ 
 
 ment to v/hich they had sworn fidelity brought a reproach on their order* and 
 on Christianity itself. A distinguish^ churchman has not scrupled to say 
 that the rapid increase of infidelity at that time was principally produced by 
 the disgust which the faithless conduct of his brethren excited in men not suf- 
 ciently candid or judicious to discern the beauties of the system amidst the 
 vices of its ministers. 
 
 But the reproach was not confined to the Church. In every political party, 
 in the Cabinet itself, duplicity and perfidy abounded. The very men whom 
 William loaded with benefits, and in whom he reposed most confidence, with 
 his seals of office in their hands, kept up a correspondence with the exi/ed 
 <"amily. 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 procdtded to betray his country. He sent intelligence to 
 the French Court of a secret expedition intended to attack Brest. 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 III., 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 ; 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. The 
 parties ahnost constantly ^proximated, often met, sometimes crossed each 
 other. There were occasional bursts of violence ; but, from the time of the 
 Revolution, 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 towards 
 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 ofiice, and the public disapprobation 
 as punishments sufficient for errors in the administration not imputable to 
 
 fjersonal corruption. Nothing, we believe, has contributed more than this 
 enity to raise the character of public men. Ambition is of itself a game 
 sufficiently hazardous and sufficiently deep to inflame the passions, without 
 adding property, life, and liberty to the stake. Where the play nms sa 
 desperately high as in the seventeenth century, honour is at an end. '=*^ate*' 
 
toD hallAaps constitutional mSTORY, 
 
 ■ r 11 ' r . I 1 
 
 men, instead of being as they should be, at once mild and steady, are at once 
 ferocious and inconsistent. The axe is for ever before their eyes. A popular 
 outcry sometimes unnerves them, and sometimes makes them desperate ; it 
 drives them to unworthy compliances, or to measures of vengeance as cruel as 
 those which they have reason to expect. A minister in our times need not 
 fea/ either to be firm or to be merciful. Our old policy in this respect was as 
 absurd as that of the king in the Eastern tales who proclaimed that any 
 physician who pleased might come to Court and prescribe for his diseases, but 
 that if the remedies failed the adventurer should lose his head. It is easy to 
 conceive how many able men would refuse to undertake the cure on such con- 
 ditions; how much the sense of extreme danger would confuse the perceptions, 
 and cloud the intellect, of the practitioner, at the v^ry crisis which most called' 
 for self-possession, and how strong his temptation would be, if he found that 
 he had committed a blunder, to escape the consequences of it by poisoning his 
 patient. 
 
 But, in fact, it would have been impossible, since the Revolution, to punish 
 any minister for the general course of his policy, with the slightest semblance 
 of justice ; for since that time no minister has been able to pursue any general 
 course of policy without the approbation of the Parliament. The most important 
 effects of that great change were, as Mr. Hallam has most truly said and most 
 ably shown, those which it indirectly produced. Thenceforward it became the 
 interest of the executive government to protect those very doctrines which an 
 executive government is in general inclined to persecute. The sovereign, the 
 ministers, the courtiers, at last even the universities and the clergy, were 
 changed into advocates of the right of resistance. In the theory of the Whigs, 
 in the situation of the Tories, in the common interest of all public men, the 
 Parliamentary constipation of the country found perfect security. The power of 
 the House of Commons, in particular, has been steadily on the increase. By 
 the practice of granting supplies for short terms, and appropriating them to par- 
 ticular services, it has rendered its approbation as necessary in practice to all 
 the measures of the executive government as it is in the theory of a legislative 
 act. 
 
 Mr. Hallam appears to have begun with the reign of Henry VII., as the 
 period at which what is called modem history, ih contradistinction to the 
 history of the middle ages, is generally supposed to commence. He has stopped 
 at the accession of George III., ** from unwillingness," as he says, **to excite 
 the prejudices of modem 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 
 comprehensive manner in which remote posterity alone can, without much 
 danger of error, look back on it, will probably observe those 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 political differences which had agitated 
 England since the Norman conquest seemed to be set at rest. The long an(J 
 fierce stniggle between the Crown and the barons had terminated. The grie- 
 vances which had produced the rebellions of Tyler and Cade had disappeared. 
 Villanage was scarcely knpwn. The two royal houses, whose conflicting 
 claims had long convulsed the kingdom, were at length united. The claimants 
 whose pretensions, just or injust, ^d disturbed the new settlement, were over- 
 thrown. In religion there was no open dissent, and probably very little secret 
 heresy. The old subjects of contention, in short, had vanished those which 
 to fucceed had not yet appeared. 
 
ITALLAM'S CO^rSTTTUTtONAl msTOkV. I6i 
 
 WW ir "i 1 11 i t i ■ ■ — — — - — ■ • ■ ' 
 
 Soon, however, new principles \^re announced ; principles which were 
 destined to keep England during two centuries and a half in a itate of con^- 
 motion. The Reformation divided the people into two great parties. l.iC 
 Protestants were victorious. They again subdivided themselves. Political 
 systems were engrafted on theoh^gical doctrines. The mutual animosities of 
 the two parlies gradua'ly emerged into the light of public life. First came con- 
 flicts in Parliament ; then civij 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. The 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 everv side extolled and woijhipped. 
 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 wounds 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 glimp«-e of a golden 
 age of union and glory, — a short interval of rest, which ha«i 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 influence of Bute, or to the profligacy of those who called thein- 
 selves the king's friends. "W^ith all deference to the eminent writers to whom 
 we have referred, we may venture to say that 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 const.antly widening, 
 had little in common with those which had divided it during the reigns of the 
 Tudors and the Stuarts. The symptoms of poi)ular feeling, indeed, will 
 always be in a great mea<:ure 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 disatfected 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 in which it really resides. A man whose leg is cut/ 
 off fancies that he feels a pain in his toe. And in the same manner the people, 
 in the earlier part of the late reign, sincerely attributed their discontent td 
 grievances which had been effectually lopped off. They imagined that the 
 prerogative was too strong for the Constitution, that the principles of th? 
 Revolution were abandoned, that the system of the Stuarts was restored. 
 Every impartial man must tiow acknowledge that these charges were gi vund- 
 
102 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 less. The proceedings of the government with respect to the Middlesex 
 election would have been contemplated with delight by the first generation of 
 Whigs. They would have thought it a splendid triumph of the cause of 
 liberty that the king and the Lords should resign to the House of Commons a 
 portion of the legislative power, and allow it to incapacitate without their 
 consent. This, indeed, Mr. Burke clearly perceived. "When the House of 
 Commons," says he, *'in an endeavour to obtain new advantages at th<» 
 expense of the other orders of the state, for the benefit of the commons a: 
 large, have pursued strong measures, if it were not just, it was at least natural, 
 that the constituents should connive at all their proceedings ; because we our- 
 selves were ultimately to profit. But when this submission is urged to us in a 
 conttsi between the representatives and ourselves, and where nothing can be put 
 into their scale which is not taken from ours, they fancy us to be children 
 when they tell us that they are our representatives, our own flesh and blood, 
 and that all the stripes they give us are for our good." These sentences 
 contain, in fact, the whole explanation of the mystery. The conflict of the 
 seventeenth century was maintained by the Parliament against the Crovm. 
 The conflict wliich commenced in the middle of the eighteenth century, which 
 still remains undecided, and in which our children and grandchildren will 
 probably be called to act or to suffer, is between a large portion of the 
 people on the one side, and the Crown and the Parliament united on the 
 other. 
 
 The privileges of the House of Commons, those privileges which, in 1642, 
 all London rose in arms to defend, which the people considered as synonymous 
 with their own liberties, and in comparison of which they took no account of 
 the most precious and sacred principles of English jurisprudence, have now 
 become nearly as odious as the rigours of martial law. That power of com- 
 mitting which the people anciently loved to see' the House of Commons 
 txercise, is now, at least when employed against libellers, the most unpopular 
 power in the Constitution. If the Commons were to suffer the Lords to amend 
 money-bills, we do not believe that the people would care one straw about 
 the matter. If they were to suffer the Lords even to originate money-bills, we 
 doubt whether such a surrender of their constitutional rights would excite half 
 so much dissatisfaction as the exclusion of strangers from a single important 
 discussion. The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate 
 of the realm. The publication of the debates, a practice which seemed to the 
 most liberal statesmen of the old school full of danger to the great safeguards 
 of public liberty, is now regarded by many persons as a safeguard tantamoimt, 
 (md more than tantamount, to all the rest together. 
 
 Burke, in a speech on parliamentary reform, which is the more remarkable 
 because it was delivered long before the French Revolution, has described, in 
 striking language, the change in public feeling of which we speak. "It 
 suggests melancholy reflections," says he, "in consequence of the strange 
 course we have long held, that we are now no longer quarrelling about the 
 character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenor of measures ; but we are 
 grown out of humour with the English Constitution itself ; this is become thi 
 object of the animosity of Englishmen. This Constitution in former days used 
 to be the envy of the world ; it was the pattern for politicians ; the theme of 
 the eloquent ; the meditation of the philosopher in every part of the world. 
 As to Englishmen, it was their pride, — their consolation. By it they lived, 
 and for it they were ready to die. Its defects, if it had any, were partly 
 covered by partiality, and partly borne by prudence. Now all its excellences 
 are forgot, its faults are forcibly dragged into day, exaggerated by every 
 artifice of misrepresentation. It is despij-.ed and rejected of men ; and every 
 
BALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY, 103 
 
 device and invention of ingenuity or idleness is set up in opposition, or in 
 preference to it." We neither adopt nortondemn the language of reproLation 
 which the great orator here employs. We call him only as a witness to the 
 fact. That the revolution of public feeling which he described was then in 
 progress is indisputable ;; and it is equally indisputable, we think, tliat it is in 
 progress si ill. 
 
 To investigate and classify the causes of so great a change would require fai 
 more thought, and far more space, than we at present have to bestow. But 
 some of them are obvious. During the contest which the Parliament carried 
 on against the Stuarts, it had only to check and complain. It has since had 
 to govern. As an attacking body, it could select its points of attack, and it 
 naturally chose those on which it was likely to receive public support. As a , 
 ruling body, it has neither the same liberty of choice nor the same motives to 
 gratify the people. With the power of an executive government, it has drawn 
 to itself some of the vices, and all the unpopularity of an executive govern- 
 ment. On the House of Commons above all, possessed as it is of the public 
 purse, and consequently of the public sword, the nation throws all the blame 
 of an ill-conducted war, of a blundering negociation, of a disgraceful treaty, oJ 
 an embarrassing commercial crisis. The delays of the Court of Chancery, the 
 misconduct of a judge at Van Diemen's Land, anything, in short, which in 
 any part of the administration any person feels as a grievance, is attributed to 
 the tyranny, or at least to the negligence, of that all-powerful body. Private 
 individuals pester it with their wrongs and claims. A merchant appeals to it 
 from the courts of Rio Janeiro or St. Petersburgh. A painter who can find 
 nobody to buy the acre of spoiled canvas, which he calls a historical picture, 
 pours into its sympathizing ear the whole story of his debts and his jealousies. 
 Anciently the Parliament resembled a member of opposition, from whom no 
 places are expected, who is not required to confer favours and propose mea- 
 sures, but merely to watch and censure, and who may, therefore, unless he is 
 grossly injudicious, be popular with the great body of the community. The 
 Parliament now resembles the same person put into office, surrounded ^y 
 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 f.' -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 CromweH 
 made any great difference in the conduct of the Parliament, Indeed, if tlM 
 
104 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 
 
 House of Commons had, during the reigii of Charles II., been electe<l by 
 aniversal suffrage, or if all the seats had been put up to sale, as in the 
 French 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 th<5 
 people on many important occasions ; and the reason is evident. Though it 
 did not emanate from the peo[)le, its whole consequence depended on the sup- 
 port of the people. From the time of the Revolution the House of Commons 
 has been gradually becoming what it now is, — a great council of state, con- 
 taining many members chosen freely by the people, and many others anxious 
 to acquire the favour 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 
 mfluenced 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 
 which it produces is much less evident to common perception than the evil 
 vhich it inflicts. It bears the bUme of all the mischief which is done, or 
 Supposed to be done, by its authority or by its connivance. It does not get 
 the credit, on the other hand, of having prevented those innumerable abuses 
 which 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 subject is loud and vehement. But it seems to us that, during 
 the remissions, the feeling gathers stren£jth, and that every successive burst is 
 more violent than that which preceded it. The public attention may be for a 
 time 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 
 vague presentiment of something great and strange which pervades the com- 
 munity, ^he 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 
 •itraws ; but even the direction of a straw, to borrow the illustration of Bacon, 
 tvill show from what quarter the storm is setting in. 
 
 A great statesman might, by judicious and timely reformations, by recon- 
 ciling the two great 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 whole of the middle class, that brave, honest, and sound-hearted 
 class, which is as anxious for the maintenance of order and the security of 
 property 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 great aii()rehensions. There are those who will be concented 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 franchisa. Between these 
 extremes there lies a more excellent way. Time is bringing round another 
 crisis analogous to that which occurred in the seventeenth century. We standi 
 
SOUTHED S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 105 
 
 in a situation similar to that in which ojix ancestors stood under tlie reign of 
 James I. It will soon again be necessary to reform that we may pre* 
 serve, to save the fundamental principles of the Constitution by a'*erations 
 in the subordinate parts. It will then be possible, as it was pos-ible two 
 hundred years ago, to protect vested rights, to secure every useful mstitution, — 
 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. Firmness is a great virtue in public' 
 affairs ; but it has its proper sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections in which 
 small minorities are engaged, the outbreakings 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 pervading taint with the slight local irritation. 
 No wise ruler wiil treat the deeply seated discontents of a great party, as he 
 trents the fury of a mob which destroys, mills and power-looms. The 
 ne^l.'ct of this distinction has been fatal even to governments strong in the 
 power of the sword. The present time is indeed a time of peac<? 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 symptons, 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 oiLSociety. By Robert 
 SouTMKY, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate. 2 vols. 8vo. fXond. 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. Yet we do not re.nember to have 
 read with so Kttle satisfaction any equal quantity of matter, wntten 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 - 
 irents 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 tread 
 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 m* asure so copious to 
 any human being, — the faculty of believing without a ret son, and the faculty 
 of hating without a provocation. 
 
 _ It is, indeed, most extraordinary that a mind like Mr. Southe/s, — a mind 
 richly endowed in many respects by nature, and highly cultivated by study, — 
 a mind which has exercised considerable influence on the most enlightened , 
 generation of the most enlightened people that ever existed -should be utterly 
 
io6 SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 
 
 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 i 
 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, he 
 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* 
 t^ent of Hastings, for example, and at the time of the French Revolution,-^ 
 siems 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 precipitence of so iL" 
 
 Hindostan, with its vast cities, its gorgeous pagodas, its infinite swarms of 
 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 the 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 kingsf 
 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 hojvever 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 
 work, however arduous, with marvellous dexterity and vigour. His 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, ^s either ' 
 ieader 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 
 flimself to answer the arguments of his opponents. It has nevej* 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 the way to settle it, — or that whef 
 
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 107 
 
 an 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 writer for political instruc- 
 tion. The utmost that can be expected from any system promulgated 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. Sou they 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, 
 v/orse than Pye's, and as bad as Gibber's ; nor do we think 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, 5iey 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 ail 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 deform 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 in^ance of a more exact hit between wind and water. 
 John Wesley, and the Peninsular War, were subjects 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 man 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 
 derision, to what he sincerely considered as the highest good of his species. 
 The History of the Peninsular War is already dead : — indeed, the second 
 volume was dead-born. The glory of producing an imperishable record of 
 that great conflict seems to be reserved for Colonel Napier. 
 
 The Book of the Church contains 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 profound thinker might hare 
 
lo8 SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 
 
 failed, unless his passions had been kept under strict controL In all those 
 work? in which Mr. Southey has completely abandoned narration, and under- 
 taken to argue moral and political questions, his failure has been cor.pleteand 
 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 in 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 unsa iroury name. A man might talk 
 folly 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 extraortlinary 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 stern 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 time 
 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 
 no notion of anything between the Platonic passion of the Glendoveer, who 
 gazes with rapture on his mistress's leprosy, and the brutal appetite of 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 
 \iuch of the prince's metheglin, offers to Goervyl. It would be the labour of 
 d, week to find in all the vast mass of Mr. Southey's poetry a single passagq 
 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 tendemesss and 
 filial duty, there is scarcely anything soft or humane in Mr. Southey's poetry. 
 What theologians call the spiritual sins are his cardinal virtues — hatred, pride, 
 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- 
 nobles them by uniting them with energy, fortitude, and a severe sanctity of 
 manners, and then holds them up to the admiration of mankind. This is the 
 spirit of Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Adosinda, of Roderick after his regenera- 
 tion. It is the spirit which, in all his writings, Mr. Southey appears to affect. 
 " I do well to be angiy," seems to be the predominant feeling of his mind. 
 Almost the only mark of charity which he vouchsafes to his opponents is to 
 pray for their conversion, and this he does in terms not unlike those in which 
 
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY, 109 
 
 we can imagine a Portuguese priest intei ceding with Heaven for a Jew 
 delivered over to the secular arm after <r relapse. 
 
 We have always heard, and fully believe, that 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 caprices 
 of human nature. Even Uncle Toby troubled himself very little about the 
 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 mtn who shun 
 extremes and who render reasons. He has treated Mr. Owen, ol Lanark, fc|f 
 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 
 l^overnment, 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, ne 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 observation 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 
 preface, we are iniormed that the author, notwithstanding some statements to 
 ihe contrary, was always opposed to the Citholic 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 w.-iat 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 fallj there is Mr. Southey, )t i$ UQt every bgdy who 
 
IW SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY, 
 
 tould have so dexferously avoided blundering on the daylight in the course of 
 a journey to the' Antipodes. 
 
 Mr, Southey has not been 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 Judgment. In November 1817, it 
 seems, the Laureate was sitting over his newspaper, and meditating about the 
 death of the Princess Charlotte. An elderly person, of very dignified aspect, 
 makes his appearance announces himself as a stranger from a distant country, 
 and apologises very politely for not having provided himself with lett.ers of 
 introduction. Mr. Southey supposes his visitor to be some American gDntle- 
 nian, who has come to see the lakes and the lake-poets, and accordingly pro- 
 ceeds to perform, with that grace which only long experience ca.i give, all the 
 duties which authors owe to starers. He assures his guest t'lat some of the 
 most agreeable visits which he has received have been from Americans, and 
 that he knows men among them whose talents and virtues would do honour to 
 any country. In passing, we may observe, to the honour of Mr. Southey, that, 
 though he evidently has no liking for the American institutions, he never 
 speaks of the people of the United States with that pitiful affectation of con- 
 tempt by which some members of his party have done more than wars or tariffs 
 can do to excite mutual enmity between two communities formed for mutua^ 
 friendship. Great as the faults of his mind are, paltry spite like this has no 
 place in it. Indeed, it is scarcely conceivable that a man of his sensibility and 
 his imagination should look without pleasure and national pride on the vigor- 
 ous and splendid youth of a great people, whose veins are filled with our blood, 
 whose minds are nourished with our literature, and on whom is entailed the 
 rich inheritance of our civilisation, our freedom, and our glory. 
 ' But we must return to Mr. Southey's study at Keswick. The visitor in- 
 forms the hospitable poet that he is not an American, but a spirit. Mr. 
 Southey, with more frankness than civility, tells him that he is a very queer 
 one. The stranger holds out his hand. It has neither weight nor substance. 
 Mr. Southey upon this becomes more serious ; his hair stands on end ; and he 
 adjures the spectre to tell him what he is, and why he comes. The ghost 
 turns out to be Sir Thomas More. The traces of martyrdom, it seems, are 
 worn in the other world, as stars and ribbands are worn in this. Sir Thomas 
 shows the poet a red streak round his neck, brighter than a ruby, and informs 
 him that Cranmer wears a suit of flames in paradise, — the right hand glove, 
 we suppose, of peculiar brilliancy. 
 
 Sir Thomas pays but a short visit on this occasion, but promises to cultivate 
 the new acquaintance which he has formed, and, after begging that his visit 
 m.ay be kept secret from Mrs. Southey, vanishes into air. 
 
 The rest of the book consists of conversations between Mr. Southey and the 
 spirit about trade, currency, Catholic emancipation, periodical literature, fe- 
 male nunneries, butchers, snuff, book-stalls, and a hundred other subjects. 
 Mr. Southey very hospitably takes an opportunity to lionize the ghost round 
 ^ the lakes, and directs his attention to the most beautiful points of view. Why 
 a spirit was to be evoked for the purpose of talking over such matters, and 
 seeing such sights — why the vicar of the parish, a blue-stocking from London, 
 or an American, such as Mr. Southey supposed his aerial visitor to be, might 
 not have done as well — we are unable to perceive. Sir Thomas tells Mr. 
 Southey nothing about future events, and indeed absolutely disclaims the gift 
 of prescience. He has learned to talk modem English : he has read all the 
 new publications, and loves a jest as well as when he jested with the executioner, 
 though we cannot say that the quality of his wit has materij Ily improved in 
 paradise. His powers of reasoning, too, are by no means in as great vigoof 
 
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. m 
 
 as when he sate on the woolsack ; and though he boasts that he is ** divested of 
 all those pHSsions which cloud the in^Uects and warp the understandings of 
 men," we think him — we must confess' — far less stoical than formerly. As to 
 levelations, he tells Mr. Souihey at the outset to expect none from him. The 
 Laureate expresses some doubts, which assuredly will not raise him in the 
 opinion of our modem millennarians, as to the divine authority of the Apoca- 
 lypse. But the ghost preserves an impenetrable silence. As far as we remember, 
 only one hint about the employments of disembodied spirits escapes him. lie 
 encourages Mr. Southey to hope that there is a Paradise Press, at which all 
 the valuable publications of Mr. Murray and Mr. Colbum are reprinted as 
 regularly as at Philadelphia ; and delicately insinuates, that Thalaba and the 
 Curse of Kehama are among the number. What a contrast does this absurd 
 fiction present to those charming narratives which Plato and Cicero prefixed to 
 their dialogues ! What cost in machinery, yet what poverty of effect I A 
 ghost brought in to say what any man might have said ! The glorified spirit 
 of a great statesman and philosopher dawdling, like a bilious old Nabob at a 
 watering-place, over quarterly reviews and novels — dropping in to pay long 
 calls — making excursions in search of the picturesque ! The scene of St. 
 George and St. Denys in the Pucelle is hardly more ridiculous. We know 
 what Voltaire meant. Nobody, however, can suppose that Mr. Southey means 
 to make game of the mysteries of a higher state of existence. The fact is, 
 that in the work before us, in the Vision of Judgment, and in some of his 
 other pieces, his mode of treating the most solemn subjects differs from that of 
 open scoffers only as the extravagant representations of sacred persons and 
 things in some grotesque Italian paintings differ from the caricatures which 
 Carlile exposes in the front of his shop. We interpret the particular act by 
 the general character. What in the window of a convicted blasphemer we 
 call blasphemous, we call only absurd and ill-judged in an altar-piece. 
 
 We now come to the conversations which pass between Mr. Southey and 
 Sir Thomas More, or rather between two Southeys, equally eloquent, equally 
 angry, equally unreasonable, and equally given to talk about what they do not 
 understand. Perhnps we could not select a better instance of the spirit which 
 pervades the whole book than the discussion touching butchers. These persons 
 are represented as castaways, as men who?e employment hebetates the facul- 
 ties and hardens the heart ; not that the poet has any scruples about the use of 
 animal food. He acknowledges that it is for the good of the animals them- 
 .selves that men should feed upon them. " Nevertheless," says he, " I can- 
 not but acknowledge, like good old John Fox, that the sight of a slaughter- 
 house or shambles, if it does not disturb this clear conviction, excites in me 
 uneasiness and pain, as well as loathing. And that they produce a worse 
 effect upon the persons employed in them, is a fact acknowledged by that law 
 or custom which excludes such persons from sitting on juries upon cases of life 
 and death." 
 
 This is a fair specimen of Mr. Southey's mode of looking at all moral ques- 
 tions. Here is a body of men engaged in an employment, which, by his own 
 account, is beneficial, not only to mankind, but to the very creatures on whom 
 we feed. Yet he represents them as men who are necessarily reprobates — a.s 
 men who must necessarily bef reprobates, even in the most improved state of 
 society — even, to use his own phrase, in a Christian Utopia. And what rea- 
 sons are given for a judgment so directly opposed to every principle of sound 
 and manly morality? Merely this, that he cannot abide the sight of their 
 apparatus — that, from certain peculiar associations, he ij« affected w'*^ disgust 
 V.'ien he passes by their shops. He gives, indeed, another reason ; w. certain 
 law or custom, which never existed but in the miaginaiions of old women, and 
 
Its SOUTHEY*S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 
 
 which, if it had existed, would have proved just as much against butchers as 
 the ancient prejudice against the practice of taking interest tor money, proves 
 against the merchants of Englaad. Is a surgeon a castaway ? We believe 
 that nurses, when they instruct children in that venerable laworcustor^ which 
 Mr. Southey so highly approves, generally join the surgeon to the .utcher. 
 A dissecting-room would, we should think, affect the nerves of most people as 
 much as a butcher's shambles. But the most amusing circumstance is, that 
 Mr. Southey, who detests a butcher, should look with special favour on a sol- 
 dier. He seems highly to approve of the sentiment of General Meadows, 
 who swore that a grenadier was the highest character in this world or in 
 the next ; and assures us, that a virtuous soldier is placed in the situation 
 which most tends to his improvement, and will most promote his eternal 
 interests. Human blood, indeed, is by no means an object of so much loathing 
 to Mr. Southey, as the hides and paunches of cattle. In 1814, he poured 
 forth poetical maledictions on all who talked of peace with Buonaparte. He 
 went over the field of Waterloo, — a field, beneath which twenty thousand of 
 the stoutest hearts that ever heat are mouldering, — and came back in an 
 ecstasy, which he mistook for poetical inspiration. In most of his poems, — 
 particularly in his best poem, Roderick, — and in most of his prose works, par- 
 ticularly in the history of the Peninsular War, he shows a delight in snuffing 
 up carnage, which would not have misbecome a Scandinavian bard, but which 
 sometimes seems to harmonize ill with the Christian morality. We do not, 
 however, blame Mr. Southey for exulting, even a little ferociously, in the 
 brave deeds of his countrymen, or for finding something "comely and 
 reviving" in the bloody vengeance inflicted by an oppressed people on its op- 
 pressors. Now, surely, if we find that a man whose business is to kill 
 Frenchmen may be humane, we may hope that means may be found to render 
 a man humane whose business is to kill sheep. If the brutalizing effect of 
 such scenes as the storm of St. Sebastian may be counteracted, we may hope 
 that in a Christian Utopia, some minds might be proof against the kennels 
 and dressers of Aldgate. Mr. Southey's feeling, however, is easily explained. 
 A butcher's knife is by no means so elegant as a sabre, and a calf does not 
 bleed with half the grace of a poor wounded hussar. 
 
 It is in the same manner that Mr. Southey appears to have formed his 
 opinion of the manufacturing system. There is nothing which he hates sq 
 bitterly. It is, according to him, a system more tyrannical than that of the feudal 
 ages, — a system of actual servitude, — a system which destroys the bodies and. 
 degrades the minds of those who are engaged in it. He expresses a hope that 
 the competition of other nations may drive us out of the field ; that our foreign 
 trade may decline, and that we may thus enjoy a restoration of national sanitu 
 and strength. But he seems to think that the extermination of the whoW 
 manufacturing population would be a blessing, if the evil could be removed in 
 tto other way. 
 
 Mr. Southey does not bring forward a single fact in support of these views, 
 and, as it seems to us, there are facts which lead to a very different conclusion. 
 In the first place, the poor-rate is very decidedly lower in the manufacturing 
 than in the agricultural districts. If Mr. Southey will look over the Parlia- 
 mentary returns on this subject, he will find that the amount of parish relief 
 required by the labourers in the different counties of England, is almost 
 exactly in inverse proportion to the degree in which the manufacturing system 
 has been introduced into tlio>e counties. The returns for the years ending in 
 Maich 1825, and in Match 182s, are now before us. In the former year, we 
 find the pv'or-rate highesi in Sussex, — about twenty -.hillings 10 every mhabi- 
 tantt Then come Bucking hum ahire, Essex, Suffolk, Bedloidaiurr., Huninvj- 
 
SOUTffEY*S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. is) 
 
 dinshire, Kent, and Norfolk. In all these the rate is above fifteen shilling* 
 a*head. We will not go through the whote. Even in Westmoreland, and the 
 North Riding of Yorkshire, the rate is at more than eight shillings. In 
 Cumberland and Monmouthshire, the most fortunate of all the agricultural 
 districts, it is at six shillings. But in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is as 
 low as five shillings ; and when we come to Lancashire, we find it at four 
 shillings, — one-fifth of what it is in Sussex. The returns of the year ending 
 in March, 1828, are a little, and but a little, "more unfavourable to the 
 manufacturing districts. Lancashire, even in that season of distress, required 
 a smaller poor-rate than any other district, and little more than one-fourth of 
 the poor-rate raised in Sussex. Cumberland alone, of the agricultural 
 districts, was as well otf as the West Riding of Yorkshire. These facts seem 
 to indicate that the manufacturer is both in a more comfortable and in a less 
 dependent situation than the agricultural labourer. 
 
 As to the effect of the manufacturing system on the bodily health, we must 
 I »eg leave to estimate it by a standard far too low and vulgar for a mind so 
 imaginative as that of Mr. Southey — the proportion of births and deaths. We 
 know that, during the growth of this atrocious system — this new misery, — (we 
 use the phrases of Mr. Southey,) — this new enormity — this birth of a porten- 
 tous age — this pest, which no man can approve whose heart is not seared, or 
 whose understanding has not been darkened — there has been a great diminu- 
 tion of mortality — and that this diminution has been greater in the manufac- 
 turing towns than anywhere else. The mortality still is, as it always was, 
 greater in towns than in the country. But the difference has diminished in an 
 extraordinary degree. There is the best reason to believe that the annual 
 •nortality of Manchester about the middle of the last century was one in twenty- 
 eight ; it is now reckoned at one in forty-five. In Glasgow and Leeds a simi- 
 lar improvement has taken place. Nay, the rate of mortality in those three 
 great capitals of the manufacturing districts is now considerably less tUan it 
 was fifty years ago over England and Wales taken together — open country and 
 all. We might with some plausibility maintain that the people live longer 
 because they are better fed, better lodged, better clothed, and better attended 
 in sickness ; and that these imorovements are owing to that increase of national 
 wealth which the manufactui-ing system has produced. 
 
 Much more might be said on this subject. But to what end ? It is not 
 from bills of mortality and statistical tables tiiat Mr. Southey has learned his 
 political creed. He cannot stoop to study the history of the system which he 
 abuses — to strike the balance between the good and evil which it has produced 
 —to compare district with district, or generation with generation. We will 
 pive his own reason for his opinion — the only reason which he gives for it — in 
 Lis own words : — 
 
 ** We remained awhile in silence, looking upon the assemblage of dwelh'ngs below. Here, 
 and in the adjoining hamlet of Millbeck, tlie effects of manufactures and of agriculture may 
 be seen and compared. The old cottages are such as the poet and the painter e<}ually 
 delight in beholding. Substantially built of the native .stone without mortar, dirtied wuh no 
 white lime, and their long, low roofs covered with slate, if they had been raised by the 
 magic of some indigenous Amphion's music, the materials could not have adjusted them- 
 selves more beautifully in accord with the surrounding scene ; and time has still further 
 harmonized them with weather-stains, lichens, and moss, short grasses, and short fern, and 
 stone-plants of various kinds. The ornamented chimneys, round or square, less adorned 
 than those which, like little turrets, crest the houses of the Portuguese peasantry ; and yet 
 not less h.ippily suited to their place, the hedge of dipt box bent-ath the windows, the rose- 
 busl esjbeside the door, ttie little patch of flower-ground, with its tall holl> hocks in front ; the 
 gai len l>esidc, the bee hives, and the orchard with its bank of dalTodiis and snow-drops, the 
 earnest and the profuse^, in these parts, indicate in the owners -omc portion of ease and 
 Wisure. some regard to ncatceas and comfort, some sense of natural, aiid innocent, and 
 
ni4 SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY, 
 
 healthful enjoyment _ The new cottages of the manufacturers are upon the manufacturing 
 pattern— naked, and in a row. 
 
 "How is it, said I, that everything which is connected with manufactures presents such 
 features of unqualified deformity? From the largest of Mammon's temples down to the 
 poorest hovel in which his helotry are stalled, these edifices have all one character. Time 
 will not mellow them ; nature will neither clothe nor conceal them ; and they will remain 
 always as offensive to the eye as to the mind." 
 
 Here is wisdom. Here are the principles on which nations are to be- go- 
 verned. Rose-bushes and poor-rates, rather than steam-engines and independ- 
 ence. Mortality and cottages with weather-stains, rather than health and 
 long life with edifices which time cannot mellow. We are told that our age 
 has invented atrocities beyond the imagination of our fathers ; that society has 
 been brought into a state compared with which extermination would be a 
 blessing ; — and all because the dwellings of cotton-spinners are naked and rect- 
 angular. Mr. Southey has found out a way, he tells us, in which the effects 
 of manufactures and agriculture may be compared. And what is this way ? To 
 stand on a hill, to look at a cottage and a manufactory, and to see which is the 
 prettier. Does Mr. Southey think that the body of the English peasantry live, 
 or ever lived, in substantial and ornamented cottages, with box-edges, flower- 
 gardens, bee-hives, and orchards? If not, what is his parallel worth? We despise 
 those ^/osnfas^ri, who think that they serve the cause of science by depreciating 
 literature and the fine arts. But if anything could excuse their narrowness of 
 mind, it would be such a book as this. It is not strange that when one enthu- 
 siast makes the picturesque the test of political good, another should feel in- 
 clined to proscribe altogether the pleasures of taste and imagination. 
 
 Thus it is that Mr. Southey reasons about matters with which he thinks 
 himself perfectly conversant. We cannot, therefore, be surprised to find that 
 he commits extraordinary blunders when he writes on points of which he ac- 
 knowledges himself to be ignorant. He confesses that he is not versed in poli- 
 tical economy — that he has neither liking nor aptitude for it ; and he then 
 proceeds to read the public a lecture concerning it which fully bears out his 
 V)nfession. 
 
 " All wealth," says Sir Thomas More, "in former times was tangible. It 
 consisted in land, money, or chattels, which wer'" either of real or convai« 
 tional value." 
 
 Montesinos, as Mr. Southey somewhat aflectedly calls himself, answers : — 
 
 "Jewels, for example, and pictures, as in Holland, — where indeed at one 
 time tulip bulbs answered the same purpose." 
 
 "That bubble," says Sir Thomas, " was one of those contagious insanities 
 to which communities are subject. All wealth was real, till the extent of 
 commerce rendered a paper currency necessary ; which differed from pre- 
 cious stones and pictures in this important point, that there was no limit to 
 its production." 
 
 " We regard it," says Montesinos, "as the representative of real wealth; 
 and, therefore, limited always to the amount of what it represents." 
 
 "Piarsuethat notion," answers the ghost, "and you will be in the dark 
 presently. Your provincial bank-notes, wtiich constitute almost wholly the 
 circulating medium of certain districts, paos current to-day. To-morrow, 
 tidings may come that the house which issued them has stopped payment, and 
 what do they represent then? You will find them the shadow of a shade." 
 
 We scarcely know at which end to begin to disentangle this knot of 
 absurdities. We might ask why it should be a greater proof of insanity in 
 men to set a high value on rare tulips than on rare stones, which are neither 
 more useful nor more beautiful ? We might ask how it can be said that 
 there is no limit to the production of paper money when a man is Jtianged ii 
 
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. tfj 
 
 he' ifeSiies atty in the name of another, and is forced to cash what he issues in 
 his own? But Mr. Southey's error lies^leeper 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 couMdered as part of his wealth one day is nothing at all the next day. 
 Mr. Southey refers to the picture galleries of Holland. The pictures were 
 undoubtedly real and tangible possessions. But surely, it might happen that 
 a burgninaster might owe a picture-dealer a thousand guilders for a Teniers. 
 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 ovv'es 
 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 to fulfil their obligations. In every society, therefore, there is wealth 
 which 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 a part," answers Montesinos, ** that the interest amounted, 
 during 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 lanas, 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. Sil 
 Thomas then proceeds ; — 
 
Il6 SOUTHED S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 
 
 " Another and far more momentous benefit must not be overlooked ; tbe 
 expenditure of an annual interest, equalling, as you have stated, the present 
 rental of all fixed property." 
 
 "That expenditure," quoth Montesinos, "gives e"nployment to half the 
 industry in the kingdom, and feeds half the mouths. Take, indeed, jha 
 weight of the national debt from this great and complicated social machine, 
 and the wheels must stop." 
 
 From this passage we should have been inclined to think that Mr. Southey 
 supposes the dividend to be a free-gift periodically sem uown from heaven to 
 the fundholders, as quails and manna were sent to the Israelites ; were it not 
 that he has vouchsafed, in the following question and answer, to give the 
 public some information which, we believe, was very little needed. 
 
 " Whence comes the interest? " says Sir Thomas. 
 
 ** It is raised," answers Montesinos, ** by taxation." 
 
 Now, has Mr. Southey ever considered what would be done with this sum 
 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 which he talks would appear to him to shrink strangely in amount. A 
 fundholder, we will suppose, spends an income of five hundred pounds a-year, 
 and his ten nearest neighbours pay fifty pounds each to the tax-gatherer, lor 
 the purpose of discharging the interest of the national debt. If the debt were 
 wiped out — a measure, be it understood, which we oy no means recommend — 
 the fundholder would cease to spend his five hundred pounds a-year. He 
 would no longer give employment to industry, or put food Into the mouths of 
 labourers. 'iKis Mr, Southey thinks a fearful evil. But is there no mitigating 
 circumstance ? Each of his ten neighbours has fifty pounds more than 
 formerly. Each of them will, as it seems to our feeble understandings, em- 
 ploy more industry, and feed more mouths, than formerly. The sum is exacly 
 the same. It is in different hands. But on what grounds does Mr. Southey 
 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 lormerly 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 sot 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 would try to 
 prove this principle, which is, indeed, the foundation ot his whole theory of 
 finance ; for we think it right to hint to him thai our hard-nearted 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 
 a political Diafoirus, in his 
 
 " Resaignare, repurgare, et reclysterizare." 
 
 **A people,'* he tells us, "may be too rich, but a government 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 national prosperity ; and the 
 benefit being still more obvious, of an expenditure directed to the purposes of 
 national improvenient. But a people may be too rich." 
 
 We Jiilly admit th^t a state qannoi hcive at its conjmand more wealth thikH 
 
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY, 117 
 
 may le employed for the general good. But neither can individuals, or bodies 
 of individuals, have at their command Qtore wealth than may be employed for 
 the general good. If there be no limit to the sum which may be usefully laid 
 out in public works and national improvement, then wealth, whether 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 possibly maintain that a government cannot be too 
 rich, but that a people may be too rich, must be this : that governments are 
 more likely to spend their money oa good objects than private individuals. 
 
 But what is useful expenditure ? ** A liberal expenditure in national works," 
 ?ays 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 state 
 has, the more wealth it will have. This is surely something 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 its riches in making the people richer. The v^ealth 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 
 them poor. But 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 !jrusied 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 
 public 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 
 which 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 rule the country richer? 
 If it is useless, 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 greaf 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 robbed. In a good age, it is much milder — merely to have tlie 
 dearest and the worst of everything. 
 
 Buildings for state purposes the state must erect. And here we think that, 
 in general, the state ought to stop. We firmly believe that five hundred thou- 
 sand pounds subscribed by individuals for railroads or canals would produce 
 more advantage to the public than five millions voted by Parliament for the. 
 same purpose. There are certain old saws about the master's 9yc »nd abo«t 
 everybody*? business in which wc place very great faitli. 
 
tiS SOUTHEY*S COLLOQUIES ON" SOCIETY. 
 
 There is, we have said, no consistency in Mr. Southey's political system. 
 But if there be in it any leading principle, if there be any one error which 
 diverges more widely and variously than any other, it is that of which his theory 
 about national works is a ramification. He conceives that the business of the 
 magistrate is not merely to see that the persons and property of the people are 
 secure from attack, but that he ought to be a perfect jack-of-all-trades, — archi- 
 tect, engineer, schoolmaster, merchant, theologian, — a Lady Bountiful in every 
 parish, — a Paul Pry in every house, spying, eaves-dropping, relieving, admo- 
 nishing, spending 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 ; thsl a 
 government approaches nearer and nearer to perfection in proportion as it 
 interferes more and more with the habits and notions of individuals. 
 
 He seems to be fully convinced that it is in the power of government to 
 reheve the distresses under which the lower orders labour. Naj', 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 tnousands in your metropolis," says Sir Thomas More, " rise every morning with- 
 out knowing how they are to subsist during the day ; as many of them, where they are tfi 
 lay their heads at night. All men, even the vicious themselves, know that wickedness leads 
 to misery ; but many, even among the good and the wise, have yet to ledrn that misery is 
 almost as often the cause of wickedness." 
 
 " There are many," says Montesinos, "who know this, but believe that it is not in the 
 power of human institutions to prevent this misery. They see the effect, but regard the 
 causes as inseparable from the condition of human nature." 
 
 "As surely as God is good," replies Sir Thomas, "so surely there is no such thing as 
 necessary evil. For, by the religious mind, sickness, and pain, and death, are not to be ac- 
 counted evils." 
 
 Now, if sickness, pain, and death are not evils, we cannot understand why 
 it should be an evil that thousands should rise without knowing how they are 
 to subsist. The only evil of hunger is that it produces first pain, then sick- 
 ness, and finally death. If it did not produce these it would be no calamity. 
 If these are not evils, it is no calamity. We cannot conceive why it should be 
 a greater impeachment of the Divine goodness, that some men should not be 
 able to find food to eat, than that others should have stomachs which derive no 
 nourishment from food when they have eaten it. Whatever physical effects 
 want produces may also be produced by disease. Whatever salutary effects 
 disease may produce may also be produced by want. If poverty makes men 
 thieves, disease and pain often sour the temper and contract the heart. 
 
 We will propose a very plain dilemma. Either physical pain is an evil, or 
 it is not an evil. If it is evil, then there is necessary evil in the universe. If 
 it is not, why should the poor be delivered from it ? 
 
 Mr. Southey entertains as exaggex*ated a notion of the wisdom of govern- 
 ments as of their power. He speaks with the greatest disgust of the respect 
 now paid to public opinion. That opinion is, according to him, to be dis- 
 trusted and dreaded ; its usurpation ought to be vigorously resisted, and the 
 practice of yielding to it is hkely to ruin the country. To maintain police is, 
 accord in^T to him, only one of the ends of government. Its duties are patri- 
 archal and paternal. It ought to consider the moral discipline of the people 
 lis its first object, to establish a religion, to train the whole community in 
 that religion, and to consider all dissenters as its own enemies. 
 
 " Nothing," says Sir Thomas, "is more certain than that religion is the basis upon which 
 civil government rests ; that from religion power derives its authority, laws their efficacy, 
 and both their zeal and sanction ; 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 and fro with every wind of doctrioe. A stat« is secure in proportion s|S the people »r« 
 
SOUTHED S COLLOQC/IES OiV SOCIETY, i|^ 
 
 ittached to its institutions ; it is, therefore, the first and plainest rule of sound policy, that th« 
 people be trained up in the way they should j|0. The state that neglects this prepares its 
 own destruction ; and they who train them in any other way are undermining it Nothing 
 in abstract science can be «iorc certain than these positions arc." 
 
 " All of which," answers Montesinos, " are nevertheless denied by OMr professors of the arts 
 Babblative and Scribblative ; some in the audacity of evil designs, and others in the glorious 
 'Issurance of impenetrable ignorance." , 
 
 The greater part of the two volumes before us is merely an amplification oi 
 \hcse 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 
 «nd supporting civil government, that no temporal advantage is derived from 
 civil government, that man would experience no temporal inconvenience 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 religion 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 
 from religion, — in times in which there was no religion 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 fikhing 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 
 corner of the world, — in ages of priestcraft, — in ages of fanaticism, — in ages of 
 Epicurean indifference, — in ages of enlightened piety. However pure or impure 
 the faith of the ^'eople 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 absolutfe 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 
 should 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. 
 
 Now, 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 
 governments, we consider as a clear evil. 
 
 The maxim that governments ought to train the people in the way 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 rij^ht way tlian the 
 
130 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 imponance 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? \Vhat 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'ch shall secure to us the guidance of an infallible opinion? 
 Can Mr. Southey select any family, — any profession — any class, in short, 
 distinguished by any plain badge 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 
 right in his own 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 rulers are appointed, — popular election, th« 
 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 the 
 former class is more likely to form just opinions than the latter. 
 
 The duties of government would be, as Mr. Soutley says that they 9X% 
 
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 121 
 
 paternal, if a government were necessarily as much superior in wisdom to a 
 people, as the most foolish father, for'S 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 paternal superiority of intellect. 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 whom 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 better 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 con- 
 tented himself with regulating his customer's shoes, about which he knev* 
 something, and did not presume to dictate about the coat and hat. But 
 Mr. Southey would have the rulers of a country prescribe opinions to the 
 people, not only about politics, but about matiers 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. 
 
 Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it 
 freely. A government can interfere in discussion only by making 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 truth, 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 on 
 controversy, not with reasons, but with threats and bribes. If it employs 
 reasons, it does so not in virtue of any powers which belong to it as a govern- 
 ment. Thus, instead of a contest between argument and argument, we^have a 
 contest between argument and force. Instead of a contesi in which truth, 
 from the natural constitution of the human mind, has a decided advantage 
 over falsehood, we have a contest in which truth can be victorious only by 
 accident. 
 
 And what, after all, is the security which this training gives 10 governments ? 
 Mr. Southey would scarcely recommend that discussion should be more effec- 
 tually shackled, that public opinion should be more strictly disciplined into 
 conformity with established institutions, than in Spain and Italy. Yet we 
 know that the restraints which exist in Spain and Italy have not prevented 
 atheism from spreading among the educated classes, and especially amons:^ 
 those whose office it is to minister at the altars of God. All our readers know 
 how, at the time of the French Revolution, priest after priest came forward to 
 declare that his doctrine, his ministry, his whole life, had been a lie — a mum- 
 mery during which he could scarcely compose his countenance sufliciently to 
 carry on the imposture. This was the case of a false, or at least a grossly 
 corrupted religion. Let us take, then, the case of all other-^ the most favour- 
 able to Mr. Souihey's argument. Let us take that form of religion which 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 and 
 regrets — the government of England in the time of Charles I. Would 
 he wish to see a closer connection between Church and State than then existed ? 
 Would he wish for more powerful ecclesiastical tribunals ? for a more zealous 
 kiig? for a more active primate? Would he wish to see a more complete 
 
122 SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY, 
 
 monopoly of public instruction given to the Established Church ? Could any 
 government do more to train the people in the way in which he would have 
 them go ? And in what did all this training end ? The report of the state 
 of the province of Canterbury, delivered by Laud to his master at the close of 
 1639, represents the Church of England as in the highest and most palmy 
 stare. So effectually had the government pursued that policy which Mr. 
 Southey wishes to see revived that there was scarcely the least appearance of 
 dissent. Most of the bishops stated that all was well among their flocks. 
 Seven or eight persons in the diocese of Peterborough had seemed ■ efractory 
 to the Church, but had made ample submission. In Norfolk and haff.)lk all 
 whom there had been reason to suspect had made profession of conformity, 
 and appeared to observe it strictly. It is confessed that there was a little 
 difficulty in bringing some of the vulgar in Suffolk 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 
 monarch and monarchy, were to perish together. 
 
 At which time would Mr. Southey pronounce the Constitution more secure 
 — ^in 1639, when Laud presented this report to Charles, or now, when thou- 
 sands of meetings openly collect millions 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 would 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, — which is flattered by the press and cursed in the inner chambers, 
 — which eailts in the attachment and obedicnceof its subjects, and, know^ 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 I 
 
 When the people whom Charles had so assiduously trained in the good way 
 tad rewarded his paternal care by cutting oflF his head, a new kind of training 
 came into fashion. Another government arose, which, like the former, con- 
 sidered religion as its surest basis, and the religious discipline of the people as 
 its first duty. Sanguinary laws were enacted against libertinism ; profane 
 pictures were burned ; drapery was put on indecorous statues ; the theatres 
 v/ere 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 v.-hat was the end of 
 tliis training. We know that it ended in impiety, in filthy and lieaitless sen- 
 suality, in the dissolution of all ties of honour and morality. We know that 
 at this very day scriptural phrases, scriptural names, perhaps 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 
 entortain many of the feelings and opinions qi Charles and Laud, thoQgti 
 
SOUTHEV'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. »^ 
 
 in a mitigated form ; nor is it difficult to see that the heirs of the Puritans are 
 still amongst us. It would be desiraWe that each of these parties should 
 remember how little advantage or honour it formerly derived from the closest 
 alliance with power, — that it fell by the support of rulers, and rose by their 
 opposition, — that of the two systems, that in which the people were at any 
 time being drilled, was always at that time the unpopular system, — that the 
 training of the High Church ended in the reign of the Puritans, and the train- 
 ing of the Puritans in the reign 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 meddling 
 government, — a government which tells them 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. Southey thinks that the yoke of 
 the 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 vehemence, 
 
 ** Is it possible that your laws should suffer the unbelievers to exist 
 as a party ? 
 
 " Vetitum est adeo sceleris nihil ?" 
 
 Montesinos answers. "They avow themselves in defiance of the laws. The 
 fashionable 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 pleases upon religious subjects, and to promul« 
 gate that opinion." 
 
 ^ It is clear, therefore, that Mr. Southey would not give full and perfect tolera- 
 tion to infidelity. In another passage, however, he observes with some truth, 
 though too sweepingly, 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 would 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 called upon, should decline to make a solemn profession of Christianity, 
 ought to suffer the same fate. We do not, however, believe that Mr. Southey 
 would recommend such a course, though his language would, in the case of 
 any other writer, justify 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-tumed 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. Immediately after censuring the government for not punishing 
 infidels, he proceeds to discuss the question of the Catholic disabilities — now, 
 thank God, removed — and defends them on the ground that the Catholic 
 doctrines t*Td to persecution, and that the Catholics persecuted when they 
 had power. 
 
i24 SOUTH J^Y'S COLLOQVIES 0^ SOC/MTV. 
 
 - — ■ — — — — — i «fif » [ i -i»tf n>i i 
 
 " They must persecute," says he, ** if they believe their own creed, for consci- 
 ence-sake ; and if they do not believe it, they must persecute for policy ; because 
 it is only by intolerance that so corrupt and injurious a system can be upheld." 
 
 That unbelievers should not be persecuted is an instance of national 
 depravity at which the glorified spirits stand aghast. Yet a sect of Christians 
 is to be excluded from power, because those who formerly held the same 
 opinions were guilty of persecution. We have said that we do not very wel' 
 know what Mr. Southey's opinion about toleration is. But, on the whole 
 we take it to be this, that everybody is to tolerate him, and that he is t 
 tolerate nobody. 
 
 We will not be deterred by any fear of misrepresentation from expressing 
 our hearty approbation of the mild, wise, and eminently Christian manner in 
 v/hich the Church and the Government have lately acted with respect to blas- 
 phemous publications. We praise them for not having thought it necessary ta 
 encircle a religion pure, merciful, and philosophical, — a religion to tha 
 evidences of which the highest intellects have yielded, — with the defences of 
 a false and bloody superstition. The ark of God was never taken till it was 
 surrounded by the arms of earthly defenders. In captivity, its sanctity was 
 sufficient to vindicate it from insult, and to lay the hostile fiend prostrate on the 
 threshold of his own temple. The real security of Christianity is to be found in 
 its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the human heart, in the 
 faci''vv with which its scheme accommodates itself to the capacity of eveiy 
 human 'ntellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, 
 in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave. To such 
 a system it can bring no addition of dignity or of strength that it is part and 
 parcel of the common law. It is not now for the first time left to rely on the 
 force of its own evidences, and the attractions of its own beauty. Its sublime 
 theology confounded the Grecian schools in the fair conflict of reason with 
 reason. The bravest and wisest of the Caesars found their arms and their 
 policy unavailing when opposed to the weapons that were not carnal, an^l the 
 kingdom that was not of this world. The victory which Porphyry and 
 Diocletian failed to gain, is not, to all appearance, reserved for any of those 
 who have in this age directed their attacks against the last restraint of the 
 powerful, and the last hope of the wretched. The whole history of the 
 Christian religioi] shows that she is in far greater danger of being corrupted 
 by the alliance of ^jower, than of being crushed by its opposition. Those who 
 thrust temporal sovereignty upon her, treat her as their prototypes treated her 
 author. They bow the knee, and spit upon her ; they cry Hail ! and smite 
 her on the cheek ; they put a sceptre into her hand, but it is a fragile reed ; 
 they crown her, but it is with thorns ; they cover with purple the wounds 
 tvhich their own hands have inflicted on her ; and inscribe magnificent titles 
 over the cross on which they have fixed her to perish in ignominy and pain. 
 
 The general vicvv which Mr. Southey takes of the prospects of society is 
 very gloomy ; but we comfort ourselves with the consideration that Mr. 
 Southey is no prophet. He foretold, we remember, on the very eve of the 
 abolition of the Test and Corporation Acts, that these hateful laws were im- 
 mortal, and that pious minds would long be gratified by seeing the most 
 solemn religious rite of the Church profaned, for the purpose of upholding hei 
 political supremacy. In the book before us, he says that Catholics cannot 
 possibly be admitted into Parliament until those whom Johnson called '* the 
 bottomless Whigs " come into power. While the book was in the press, the 
 prophecy was falsified, and a Tory of the Tories, Mr. Southey's own favourite 
 hero, won and wore that noblest wreath, *' Od cives servaios" 
 
 The sigpis of the times, Mr. Southey tells us, are very threatening. Ilti 
 
SOUTf/£Y*S COLLOQtJtES OJV SOCIETY. 125 
 
 it&fs for the country would decidedly preponderate over his hopes, but for his 
 firm reliance on tr.e mercy of God. 'Kow, as we know that God has once 
 suffered this civilized world to be overrun by savages, and the Christian 
 religion to be corrupted by doctrines which made it, for some ages, almost as 
 bad as Paganism, we cannot think it inconsistent with his attributes that 
 similar calamities shot* Id again befall mankind. 
 
 We look, however, on the state of the world, and of this kingdom in par- 
 ticular, with much greater satisfaction and with better hopes. Mr. Southey 
 speaks with contempt of those who think the savage state happier than the 
 social. On this sub.ect, he says, P.ousseau never imposed on him even in his 
 ^outh. But he conceives that a community which has advanced a little way 
 in civilization is happier than one which has made greater progress. The 
 Britons in the time of Caesar were happier, he suspects, than the English of 
 the nineteenth century. On the whole, he selects the generation which pre- 
 ceded the Reformation as that in which the people of this country were better 
 off than at any time before or since. 
 
 This opinion rests on nothing, as far as we can see, except his own in- 
 dividual associations. He is a man of letters ; and a Viie destitute of literary 
 pleasures seems insipid to him. He abhors the spirit of the present generation, 
 the severity of its studies, the boldness of its inquiries, and the disdain with 
 which it regards s'^uie old prejudices by which his own mind is held in 
 bondage. He dislikes an utterly unenlightened age. He dislikes an in- 
 vestigating and reforming age. The first twenty years of the sixteenth 
 century would have exactly suited him. They furnished just the quantity of 
 intellectual excitement which he requires. The learned few read and wrote 
 la.-gely. A scholar was held in high estimation; but the rabble did not 
 presume to think ; md even the most inquiring and independent of the 
 educated classes paiu more reverence to authority, and less to reason, than 
 is usual in our time. This is a state of things in which Mr. Southey would 
 have found himself quite comfortable ; and, accordingly, he pronounces it 
 the happiest state of things ever known in the world. 
 
 The savages were wi etched, says Mr. Southey ; but the people in the time 
 of Sir Thomas More were happier than either they or we. Now, we think it 
 quite certain that we have the advantage over the contemporaries of Sir Thomas 
 More in every point in which they had any advantage over savages. 
 
 Mr. Southey does not even pretend to maintain that the people in the six- 
 tcinth century were better lodged or clothed than at present. He seems to 
 admit that in these re«;pects there has been some little improvement. It is 
 indeed a matter about which scarcely any doubt can exist in the most perverse 
 mind, that the improvements of machinery have lowered the price of manu- 
 factured articles, and hiive brought within the reach of the poorest some con- 
 veniences which Sir Thomas More or his master could not have obtained at 
 any price. 
 
 The labouring classes, however, were, according to Mr. Southey, better fed 
 three hundred years ago than at present. We believe that he is completely in 
 error on tlTis point. The condition of servants in noble and worthy families, 
 and of scholars at the Universities, must surely have been better in those 
 tim-^ than that of common day-labourers ; and wf Are sure that it was not 
 betier than that of our workhouse paupers. Froj:i the household book of the 
 Northumberland family, we find that in one of the greatest estJtblishments of 
 the kingdom the servants lived almost entirely on salt meat, without any bread 
 at all. A more unwholesome diet can scarcely be conceived. In the reign 
 of Edward VI. the .state of the students at Cambridge is described to us, on 
 tlie very best authority, as most wretched. Many of them dined on pollage 
 
t^t SOUTHEY*S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETV, 
 
 made of a farthing's wor^h of beef with a little salt and oatmeal, and literally 
 nothing else. This account we have from a contemporary master of St. John's. 
 Our parish poor now eat wheaten bread. In the sixteenth century the labourer 
 was glad to get barley, and was often forced to content himself with poorer 
 fare. In Harrison's introduction to Holinshed we have an account of the stale 
 of our working population in the "golden days," as Mr. Southey calls them, 
 of good Queen Bess. "The gentilitie," says he, "commonly provide them- 
 selves sufficiently of wheat for their own tables, whylest their household and 
 poore neighbours in some shires are inforced to content themselves with rice 
 or barleie ; yea, and in time c>f dearth, many with bread made eyther of beanes, 
 peason, or otes, or of altogetiier, and somfe acomes among. I will not say 
 that this extremity is oft so well to be seen in time of plentie as of dearth , 
 but if I should I could easily bring my trial : for albeit there be much more 
 grounde eared no we almost in every e place then hath beene of late yeares, 
 yet such a price of come continueih hi eache towne and markete, with- 
 out any just cause, that the artificer and poore labouring man is not able to 
 reach unto it, but is driven to content himself with horse-corne ; I mean 
 beanes, peason, otes, tares, and lintelles." We should like to see what the 
 effect wou'd be of putting any parish in England now on allowance of "horse- 
 come."; The helotryof Mammon are noi, in our day, so easily enforced to 
 content themselves as the pea-antry of that happy period, a^ Mr. Soulhey 
 considers it, which elapsed between the fall of the feudal and the rise of the 
 commercial tyranny. 
 
 "The people," says Mr. Southey, "are worse fed than when they were 
 fishers." And yet in another place he complains that they will not eat fish. 
 " They have contracted, " says he, "I know not how, some obstinate prt'ju- 
 dice against a kind of food at once wholesome and delicate, and everywhere 
 to be obtained cheaply and in ab mdance, were the demand for it as general 
 as it ought to be." It is true that the lower orders have an obstinate preju- 
 dice against fish. But hunger has no siich obstinate prejudices. If what was 
 formerly a common diet is now eaten only in times of severe pressure, the 
 inference is plain. The people must be fed with what they at least think 
 better food than that of their ancestors. 
 
 The advice and medicine which the poorest labourer can now obtain, in 
 disease or after an accident, is far superior to what Henry VIII. could have 
 commanded. Scarcely any part of the country is out of the reach of practi- 
 tioners, who are probably not so far inferior to Sir Henry Halford as they are 
 superior to Sir Anthony Denny. That there has been a great improvement 
 in this respect Mr. Southey allows. Indeed, he could not well have denied it. 
 "But," says he, " the evils for which these sciences are the pallia*^^ive have 
 increased since the time of the Druids in a proportion that heavily overweighs 
 the benefit of improved therapeutics." We know nothing either of the dis- 
 eases or the remedies of the Druids. But we are quite sure that the improve- 
 ment of medicine has far mo''e than kept pace with the increase of disease 
 during the last three centuries. This is proved by the best possible evidence. 
 The term o^ human life is decidedly longer in England than in ai^ former 
 age respecting which we possess any information on which we can rely. AH 
 the rants in the world about picturesque cottages and temples of Mammop will 
 not shake this argument, . No test of the state of society can be named so 
 decisive as that which is furnished by bills of mortality. That the lives of 
 the people of thiis country have been gradually lengthening during the course 
 of several generations, is as certain as any fact in statistics ; and that the lives 
 of men should ^become longer and longer while their physical condition 
 daring life is becoming worse and worse is utterly incredible. 
 
sou THEY* S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 12)^ 
 
 Let our readers think over these circumstances. Let them take into account 
 the sweating sickness and the plague. LeJ them take into account that fearful 
 disease which first made its appearance inthe generation to which Mr. Southey 
 assigns the palm of felicity, and' raged through Europe with a fury at which 
 the physician stood aghast, and before which the people were swept away by 
 thousands. Let them consider the state of the northern counties, constantly 
 the scene of robberies, rapes, massacres, and conflagrations. Let them add 
 to all this the fact that seventy-two thousand persons suffered death by the 
 hands of the executioner during the reign of Henry VIIL, and judge between 
 the nineteenth and the sixteenth century. 
 
 We do not say that the lower orders in England do not suffer severe hard- 
 ships. But, in spite of Mr. Southey's assertions, and in spite of the assertions 
 of a class of politicians who, differing from Mr. Southey in every point, agree 
 ^ivith him in this, we are inclined to doubt whether they really suffer greater 
 physical distress than the labouring classes of the most flourishing countries 
 of the Continent. 
 
 It will scarcely be maintained that the lazzaroni who sleep under the por- 
 ticos of Naples, or the beggars who besiege the convents of Spain, are in a 
 happier situation than the English commonalty. The distress which has 
 lately been experienced in the northern part of Germany, one of the best 
 governed and most prosperous districts of Europe, surpasses, if we have been 
 correctly informed, anything which has of late years been known among us. In 
 Norway and Sweden the peasantry are compelled to constantly mix bark with 
 their bread, and even this expedient has not always preserved whole families and 
 neighbourhoods from perishing together of famine. An experiment has lately 
 been tried in the kingdom of the Netherlands, which has been cited to prove 
 the possibility of establishing agricultural colonies on the waste lands of 
 England ; but which proves to our minds nothing so clearly as this, that the 
 rate of subsistence to which the labouring classes are reduced in the Nether- 
 lands is miserably low, and very far inferior to that of the English paupe^-s. 
 No distress whicb the people here have endured for centuries approaches to 
 that which has been felt by the French in our own time. The beginning oi 
 tiie year 181 7 was a time of great distress in this island. But the state of the 
 lowest :lasses here was luxury compared with that of the people of France. 
 We find in Magendie's Journal de Physiologie Experimeniale, a paper on aE 
 point of physiology connected with the distress of that season. It appears 
 that the inhabitants of six departments— Aix, Jura, Doubs, Haute Saonesj 
 Vosges, and Saone et Loire — were reduced first to oatmeal and potatoes, and 
 at last to nettles, bean stalks, and other kinds of herbage fit only for cattle ; 
 that when the next harvest enabled them to eat barley bread, many of them 
 died from intemperate indulgence in what they thought an exquisite repast; 
 and that a dropsy of a peculiar character was produced by the hard fare of 
 the year. Dead bodies were found on the roads ar.d in the fields. A single 
 surgeon dissected six of these, and found the stomach shrunk, and filled with 
 the unwholesome aliments which hunger had driven men to share with beasts. 
 Such extremity of distress as this is never heard of in England, or even in 
 Ireland. We are, on the whole, inclined to think, though we would speaic 
 with diffidence on a point on which it would be rash to pronounce a positivie 
 judgment without a much longer and closer investigation than we have be- 
 stowed upon it, that the labouring classes of this island, though they have 
 their grievances and distresses, some produced by their own improvidence, 
 some by the errors of their rulers, are, on the whole, better off as to physical 
 comforts than the iiihabitants of any equally extensive district of the old 
 wdd. On this very siccount sufit ring is more acutely feit ftod more ioud^ 
 
laS SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 
 
 bewailed here than elsewhere. We must take into the account the liberty of 
 discussion, and the stiong interest which the opponents of a ministry always 
 have to exaggerate the extent of the pubhc disasters. There are many parts 
 of Europe in which the people quietly endure distress that here would shake 
 the foundations of the state, in which the inhabitants of a whole province 
 turn out to eat grass with less clamour than one S pi ta' fields weaver would 
 make here, if the overseers were to put him on barley bread. In those new 
 countries in which a civilized population has at its command a boundless 
 extent of the richest soil the condition of the labourer is probably happier 
 than in any society which has lasted for many centuries. But in the old world 
 we must confess ourselves unable to find any satisfactory record of any great 
 nation, past or present, in which the working classes have been in a more 
 comfortable situation than in England during the last thirty years. When this 
 island was thinly peopled, it was barbarous. There was httle capital ; and 
 that little was insecure. It is now the richest and the most highly civilized 
 spot in the world ; but the population is dense. Thus we have never 
 known that golden age which the lower orders in the United States are 
 now enjoying. We have never known an age of liberty, of order, and of 
 education, an age in which the mechanical sciences were carried to a great 
 height, yet in which the people were not sufficiently numerous to cultivate 
 even the most fertile valleys. But when we compare our own condition 
 with that of our ancestors, we think it clear that the advantages arising from 
 the progress of civilization have far more than counterbalanced the disadvan- 
 tages arising from the progress of population. While our numbers have 
 increased tenfold, our wealth has increased a hundredfold. Though there are 
 so many more people to share the wealth now existing in the country than 
 there were in the sixteenth century, it seems certain that a greater share falls 
 to almost every individual than fell to the share of any of the corresponding 
 class in the sixteenth century. The king keeps a more splendid court. The 
 establishments of the nobles are more magnificent. The esquires are richer, 
 the merchants are richer, the shopkeepers are richer. Tlie serving-man, the 
 artisan, and the husbandman, have a more copious and palatable supply if y 
 ibod, better clothing, and better furnitnre. This is no reason for tolerating 
 abuses, or for neglecting any means of ameliorating the condition of our 
 poorer countrymen. But it is a reason against telling them, as some of our 
 ]>hilosophers are constantly telling them, that they art the most wretched 
 people who ever existed on the face of the earth. 
 
 We have already adverted to Mr. Southey's amusing doctrine about nation;^ 
 v/ealth. A state, says he, cannot be too lich ; but a peopie may be too rich. 
 His reason for thinking this is extremely curious. 
 
 " A people may be too rich, because it is the tendency of the commercial, and more 
 especially of the manufacturing system, to collect wealth rather than to diffuse it Whe/e 
 wealth is necessarily employed \n any of the speculations of trade, i'* increase is in proportion 
 to its amount. Great capitalists become like pikes in a fish-pond, who devour the weaker 
 fish ; and it is but too certain, that the poverty of one part of the people seems to increaee 
 in the same ratio as the riches of another. There are example's of this in history, la 
 Porlug;al, when the high tide of wealth flowed in from the conquest*, 'n Africa and the East, 
 the effect of that great influx was not more visible in the augmented splendour of the court, 
 aud the luxury of the higher ranks, than in the distress of the people." 
 
 Mr. Southey's instance is not a very fortunate one. The vrealth which di-i 
 so little for the Portuguese was not the fruit, either of manufactures or <4 
 commerce carried on by private individuals. It was the wealth, not of the 
 pet pie, but of the government and its creatures, of those who, as Mr. 
 Southey thinks, can never be too rich. Tlie fact is, that Mr. Southey's pro. 
 position is opposed to all history, and to the phenomena which surround ua 
 
SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY, isg 
 
 on every side. England is the richest country in Europe, the most com- 
 mercial and the most manufacturing. Russia and Poland are the poorest 
 countries in Europe. They have scarcely any trade, and none but the rudeH 
 manufactures. Is wealth more diffused in Russia and Poland than in 
 England? There are individuals in Russia and Poland, whose incomes 
 are probably equal to those of our richest countrymen. It may be doubted, 
 whether there are not, in those countries, as many fortunes of eighty thousand 
 a-year as here. But are there as many fortunes of five thousand a-year, or of 
 one thousand a-year ? There are parishes in England which contain more 
 people of between five hundred and three thousand pounds a-f ear than could 
 be found 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 c , 
 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 arisin|; 
 from the collection of wealth in the hands of a few capitalists are to be 
 remedied by collecting it in the hands of one great capitalist, who has na 
 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 destiny 
 He thinks, that to all outward appearance, the country is hastening to de* 
 --.truction ; 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 interpositions, but in those general laws which it has. pleased 
 him to establish in the Physical and in the moral 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 of no 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 Spain is much dimmished. But 
 are Holland and Spain poorer than formerly ? We doubt it. Other 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 
 almost 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 the capital of 
 nations increasing, and all the arts of life approaching nearer and nearer to per- 
 fection, in spite of the grossest corruption and the wildest profusion on the part 
 of rulers. 
 
 The wreseut moment is one of great distress. But how small will that 
 
 I 
 
130 SOUTHEY*S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY, 
 
 distress appear when we think over the history of the last forty years ; — a war, 
 compared with which all other wars now sink into insignificance; — taxation, 
 such as the most heavily taxed people of former times could not have concei red; 
 ■ — a debt larger than all the public debts that ever existed in the world added 
 together ; — the food of the people studiously rendered dear ; — the currency im- 
 prudently debased, and imprudently restored. Yet is the country poorer than 
 in 1 790 ? We fully believe that, in spite of all the misgovernment of her rulers, 
 she has been almost constantly becoming richer and richer. Now and then 
 there has been a stoppage, now and then a short retrogression ; but as to the 
 general tendenpy 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, 
 better fed, clad, and lodged than the English of our time, will cover these 
 islands, — that Sussex and Huntingdonshire will be wealthier than the wealthiest 
 parts of the West-Riding of Yorkshire now are, — that cultivation, rich as that 
 of a flower-garden, will be carried to the veiy tops of Ben Nevis and lielvellyn, 
 — that machines, constructed on principles yet undiscovered, will be in every 
 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 giand- 
 children a trifling encumbrance, which might easily be paid off in a year or 
 two, — 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 1830 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;^io,ooo then living, there would be five men of ^^50,000 ; that 
 London would be twice as large and twice as populous, and that nevertheless 
 the mortality would have diminished to one^half what it then was, — that the 
 post-office would bring more into the exchequer than the 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 wind, 
 and would be beginning to ride without horses — our^ancestors would have given 
 as much credit to the prediction as they gave to Gulliver's Travels. Yet the 
 prediction would have been true ; and they would have perceived that it was 
 not altogether absurd, if they had considered that the country was then raising 
 every year a sum which would have purchased the fee-simple of the revenue of 
 the Plantagenets — ten times what supported the government of Elizabeth- 
 three times what, in the time of Oliver Cromwell, had been thought 'intolerably 
 oppressive. To almost all men the state of things under v/hich they have been 
 used to live seems to be the necessary state of things. We have heard it said 
 that five per cent, is the natural interest of money, that twelve is the natural 
 number of a jury, that forty shillings is the natural qualification of a county I 
 voter. Hence it is, that though, in every age, everybody knows that up to his 
 own time progressive improvement has been taking place, nobody seems to 
 reckon on any improvement during the next generation. We cannot absolutely 
 prove that those are in error who tell us that society has reached a turning 
 point, — that we have seen our best days. But so said all who came before us, 
 and with just as much apparent reason. "A million a-year will beggar us," 
 said the patriots of 1640. "Two millions a-year will grind the country to 
 powder," was the cry in 1660. *'Six millions a-year, and a debt of fifty 
 milUons ! " exclaimed Swift — " the high aUies have been the ruin of us." "A 
 hundred and forty millions of debt ! " said Junius — "well may we say that we 
 owe Lord Chatham more than we shall ever pay, if we owe him such a load as 
 this." "Two hundred and forty millions of debt 1 " cried all the statesmen of 
 
i/J?. RdHERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. i^i 
 
 1783 in clionis — "what abilities, or wlyit economy on the part of a mlniste;!^ 
 can save a country so burdened ? " We know that if, since 1 783, no fresh debt 
 had been incurred, the increased resources of the country would have enabled 
 us to defray that burden at which Pitt, Fox, and Burke stood aghast — to defray 
 it over and over again, and that with much lighter taxation than what we have 
 actually bome. On what principle is it, that when we see nothing but im- 
 provement behind us, we are to expect nothing but deterioration before us ? 
 
 It is not by the intermeddling of Mr. Southey's idol — the omniscient and 
 omnipotent State — but by the prudence and energy of the people that England 
 has hitherto been carried forward in civilisation ; and it is to the same prudence 
 and the same energy that we now look with comfort and good hope. Our 
 rulers will best promote the improvement of the people by strictly confining 
 themselves to their own legitimate duties — by leaving capital to find its most 
 lucrative course, commodities their fair price, industry and intelligence their 
 natural reward, idleness and folly their natural punishment — by maintaining 
 peace, by defending property, by diminishing the price of law, and by 
 observing strict economy in every department of the state. Let the govern- 
 ment do this — the people will assuredly do the rest. 
 
 MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 
 
 I. The Omnipresence of the Deity: A Poem. By Robert Montgomery. Eleveath 
 Edition. London. 1830. 
 -'. Satan : A Poem. By Robert Montgomery. Second Edition. London. 1830. 
 
 >TiiE wise men of antiquity loved to convey instruction under the covering of 
 apologue ; and, though this practice of theirs is generally thought childish, vre 
 sliall make no apology for adopting it on the present occasion. A generation 
 Vvhich has bought eleven editions of a poem by Mr. Robert Montgomery may 
 well condescend to listen to a fable of Pilpay. 
 
 A pious Brahmin, it is written, made a vow that on a certain day he would 
 ^jsacrince a sheep, and on the appointed morning he went forth to buy one. 
 There lived in his neighbourhood three rogues who knew of his vow, and laid 
 a scheme for profiting by it. The first met him and said, " Oh, Brahmin, 
 wilt thou buy a sheep ? I have one fit for sacrifice." ** It is for that very pur- 
 pose," said the holy man, "that I came forth this day." Then the impostor 
 opened a bag, and brought out of it an unclean beast, an ugly dog, lame and 
 blind. Thereon the Brahmin cried out, "Wretch, who touchest things im- 
 pure and utterest things untrue, callest thou that cur a sheep?" "Truly," 
 answered the other, " it is a sheep of the finest fleece, and of the sweetest 
 flesh. Oh, Brahmin, it will be an offering most acceptable to the gods." 
 " Friend," said the Brahmin, " either thou or I must be blind." 
 
 Just then one of the accomplices came up. "Praised be the gods," said 
 tlr.s second rogue, " that I have been saved the trouble of going to the market 
 for a sheep ! This is such a sheep as I wanted. For how much wilt thou 
 6ell it?" When the Brahmin heard this, his mind waved to and fro, like one 
 swinging in the air at a holy festival. " Sir," said he to the newcomer, 
 " take heed what thou dost ; this is no sheep, but an unclean cur." **0h, 
 Brahmin, "said the new comer, " thou art drunk or mad 1" 
 
 At this time the third confederate drew near. " Let us ask this man," said 
 the Brahmin, "what the creature is, and I will st^nd by what he shall say." 
 To this the others agreed ; and the Brahmin called out, " Oh, stranger, what 
 dost thou call this beast ?" " Surely, oh. Brahmin," said the knave; " it is a 
 fine sheep." Then the Brahmin said, " Surely the gods have taken awajf bw 
 
ISt MR. ROBERT MONfCOMERY^^ POEMS, 
 
 senses," — and he asked pardon of him who carried the dog, and bought it for 
 a measure of rice and a pot of ghee, and offered it up to the gods, who, being 
 wroth at this unclean sacrifice, smote him with a sore disease in all his 
 joints. 
 
 Thus, or nearly thus, if we remember rightly, runs the story of the S^inscrit 
 iEsop. The moral, like the moral of every fable that is worth the telling, 
 lies on the surface. The writer evidently means to caution us against the 
 practice of puffers, — a class of people who have more than once talked the 
 public into most absurd errors, but who surely never played a more curious or 
 a more difficult trick than when they passed Mr. Robert Montgomery off upon 
 
 the world as a great poet. ,^y 
 
 In an age in which there are so few readers that a writer cannot subsist <in 
 the sum arising from the sale of his works, no man who has not an indepen- 
 dent fortune can devote himself to literary pursuits, unless he is assisted by 
 patronage. In such an age, accordingly, men of letters too often pass their 
 lives in dangling at the heels of the wealthy and powerful ; and all the faults 
 which dependence tends to produce pass into their character. They become 
 the parasites and slaves of the great. It is melancholy to think how many ol 
 the highest and most exquisitely formed of human intellects have been cor- 
 demned to the ignominious labour of disposing the commonplaces of adulation* 
 in new forms, and brightening them into new splendour/^/_Hora£e, invoking 
 Augustus in the most enthusiastic language of religious *Veneration,"'-^Statius 
 flattering a tyrant, and the minion of a tyrant, for a morsel of bread, — Ariosto 
 versifying the whole genealogy of a niggardly patron, — Tasso extolling the 
 heroic virtues of the wretched creature who locked him up in a mad-house, — 
 these are but a few of the instances which might easily be given of the degra- 
 dation to which those must submit who, not possessing a competent fortune, 
 are resolved to write when there are scarcely any whp read. 
 
 This evil the progress of the human mind tends to remove. As a taste for 
 books becomes more and more common, the patronage of individuals becomes 
 less and less necessary. In the earlier part of the last century a marked 
 change took place. The tone of literary mep^ both in this country and in 
 France, became higher and more independent^ Pope boasted that he was the 
 ** one poet " who had ** pleased by manly ways ; '^""ne derided the soft dedica- 
 tions with which Halifax had been fed, — asserted his own superiority over the 
 pensioned Boileau, — and gloried in being not the follower but the friend of 
 nobles and princes. The explanation of all this is very simple. Pope was the 
 first Englishman who, by the mere sale of his writings, realized a sum which 
 enabled him to live in comfort and in perfect independence. Johnson extols 
 him for the magnanimity which he showed in inscribing his Iliad, not to a 
 minister or a peer, but to Congreve. In our time, this would scarcely be a 
 subject for praise. Nobody is astonished when Mr. Moore pays a compliment 
 of this kind to Sir Walter Scott, or Sir Walter Scott to Mr. Moore. The idea 
 of either of those gentlemen looking out for some lord who would be likely 
 to give him a few guineas in return for a fulsome dedication, seems laughably 
 incongruous. Yet this is exactly what Dryden or Otway would have done ; 
 and it would be hard to blame them for it. ptway is said to have been 
 choked with a piece of bread which he devoured in the rage of hunger ; and, 
 whether this story be true or false, he was beyond all question miserably poor. 
 Dryden, at near seventy, when at the head of the literary men of England, 
 without equal or second, received three hundred pounds for his fables, — a 
 collection of ten thousand verses, — and such verses as no man then living, 
 except himself, could have produced. Pope, at thirty, had laid up between 
 six and seven thousand pounds, —the fruits of his poetry. It was not, we 
 
MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 133 
 
 luspect, because he had a higher spirit,^r a more scrupulous conscience, than 
 his predecessors, but because he had a larger income, that he kept up the 
 dignity of the literary character so much better than they had done. 
 
 From the time of Pop« to the present day, the readers have been constantly 
 becoming more and more numerous ; and the writers, consequently, more and 
 more independent. \lt is assuredly a great evil that men, fitted by their 
 talents and acquirements to enlighten and charm the v/orld, should be 1 educed 
 to the necessity of flattering wicked and foolish patrons in return for the very 
 sustenance of lifer' But though we heartily rejoice that this evil is removed, 
 we cannot but see with concern that another evil has succeeded to it. The 
 public is now the patron, and a most liberal patron. All that the rich and 
 powerful bestowed on authors from the time of Maecenas to that of Harley 
 would not, we apprehend, make up a sum equal to that which has been paid 
 by English booksellers to authors during the last thirty years. Men of letters 
 have accordingly ceased to court individuals, and have begun to court the 
 public. They formerly used flattery. They now use 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, disgrace 
 their vocation the more deeply, — we shall not attempt to decide. ^ But of this 
 we are sure, — that it is high time to make a stand against the new trickery. The ^ 
 puffing of books is now so shamefully and so successfully practised that it is ' v 
 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. ';A11 the pens ^ 
 that ever were employed in magnifying Bish's lucky office, Ronlanis's fleecy ' 
 hosiery, Packwood's razor straps, and Rowland's Kalydor, — all the placard- 
 bearers of Dr. Eady, — all the wall-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 considered as disreputable are adopted without -^ 
 scruple, and improved upon with a despicable ingenuity by people engaged iu 
 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- i 
 rupt, all of the first quality, and going for half the value. We expect some 
 reserve, some decent pride, in our hatter and our bootmaker. But no . 
 
 artifice by which notoriety can be obtained is thought too abject for a man of ■* 
 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 periodical 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-minded people. "Pathetic," 
 ** sublime," •♦splendid," "graceful, brilliant wit," *' exquisite humour," and 
 oth^r phrases equally flattering, fall in a shower as thick and as sweet as 
 the sugar-plums at a Roman carnival. Sometimes greater art is used. A 
 sinecure has been offered 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 the 
 vices of the great ; and the puffer is glad to learn that the parties have been 
 bound over to keep the peace. Sometimes it is thought expedient that the 
 
t34 MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY* B POEMS, 
 
 puffer should put on a grave face, and utter his panegyric in tlie form of ad- 
 monition ! ** Such attacks on private character cannot be too much condemned. 
 Even the exuberant wit of our author and the irresistible power of his wither- 
 ing sarcasm, are no excuses for that utter disregard which he manifests for t\e 
 feelings of others. We cannot but wonder that a writer of such transcendent 
 talents, — a writer who is evidently no stranger to the kindly charities and 
 sensibilities of our nature, should show so little tenderness to the foibles of 
 noble and distinguished individuals, with whom it is clear, from every page of 
 his work, that he must have been constantly mingling in society." These are 
 but tame and feeble imitations of the paragraphs with which the daily papers 
 are filled whenever an attorney's clerk or an apothecary's assistant undertakes 
 to tell the public, in bad English and in worse French, how people tie their 
 neckcloths and eat their dinners in Grosvenor Square. The editors of the 
 higher and more respectable newspapers usually prefix the words * ' Adver- 
 tisement," or *' From a Correspondent," to such paragraphs. But this makes 
 little difference. The panegyric is extracted, and the significant heading 
 omitted. The fulsome eulogy makes its appearance on the covers of all the 
 Reviews and Magazines, with *' Times" or *' Globe " affixed, though the 
 editors of the Times and the Globe have no more to do with it than with 
 Goss's way of making old rakes young again. 
 
 That people who live by personal slander should practise these arts is not 
 surprising. Those who stoop to write calumnious books may well stoop to 
 puff them ; — and that the basest of all trades should be carried on in the 
 basest of all manners is quite proper, and as it should be. But bow any 
 man who has the least self-respect, the least regard for his own personal dig- 
 nity, can condescend to persecute the public with this Rag Fair importunity 
 we do not understand. Extreme poverty may, indeed, in some degree, be an 
 excuse for employing these shifts, as it may bean excuse for stealing a leg of 
 mutton. But we really think that a man of spirit and delicacy would quite as 
 soon satisfy his wants in one v/ay as in the other. 
 
 It is no excuse for an author that the praises of journalists are procured by 
 the money or influence of his publisher, and not by his own. It is his business 
 to take such precautions ds 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 
 lieard. At present, we too often see a vmter 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 sake ; and thus a crown is placed on a head which has no right to 
 it, by the huzzas of a few servile dependents^ 
 
 The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially in- 
 fluenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a right to 
 criticise. Nor is the public altogether to blame on this account. Most, even of 
 those who have really a great enjoyment in reading, are in the same state, with 
 respect to a book, in which a man, who has never given, particular attention 
 to the art of painting, is with respect to a picture. Every man who has the. 
 least sensibihty or imagination, derives a certir.in pleasure from pictures. Yet 
 
MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. I35 
 
 a man of the highest and finest intellect might, unless he had formed his taste 
 by contemplating the best pictures, be easily persuaded by a knot of con. 
 noisseurs that the worst daub in Somerset House was a miracle of art. If he 
 deserves to be laughed at, it is not for his ignorance of pictures, but ;^or his 
 ignorance of men. He knows that there is a delicacy of taste in painting 
 \yhich he does not possess ; that he cannot discriminate hands, as practised 
 iudges can ; that he is not familiar with the finest models ; that he has never 
 looked at them with close attention ; and that, when the general effect of a 
 piece has pleased him or displeased him, he has never troubled himself to 
 ascertain why. When, therefore, people whom he thinks more competent to 
 judge than himself, and of whose sincerity he entertains no doubt, assure him 
 that a particular work is exquisitely 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 iudge of a book. 
 They are ashamed to dislike what men, who speak as having authority, declare 
 to be good. At present, however contemptible a poem or novel may be, there 
 is not the least difficulty in procuring favourable notices of it from all sorts of 
 publications, daily, weekly, and monthly. In the meantime, little or nothing 
 is said on the other side. The author and the publisher are interested in crying 
 up the book. Nobody has any very strong interest in crying it down. Those 
 who are best fitted to guide the public opinion think it beneath them to 
 expose mere nonsense, and comfort themselves by reflecting that such popu- 
 larity cannot last. This contemptuous lenity has been carried too far. It is 
 perfectly true that reputations which have been forced into an unnatural bloom 
 lade almost as soon as they have expanded ; nor have we any... apprehensions 
 that puffing will ever raise any scribbler to the rank of a classicl .Itis, indeed, 
 amusing to turn over some late volumes of periodical works, and to see how 
 many immortal productions have, within a few months, been gathered to the 
 poems of Blackmore and the novels of Mrs. Behn ; how many "profound 
 views of human nature," and ** exquisite delineations of fashionable manners,'* 
 and "vernal, and sunny, and refreshing thoughts," and "high imaginings,** 
 and " young breathings," and ** embodyings," and '* 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 Stonehenge. Some of the well-pufted 
 ''fashionable novels" of the last, hold the pastry of the present year; and 
 others of the class, which are now extolled in language almost too high flown 
 for the merits of Don Quixote, will, we have no doubt, line the trunks of 
 eighteen hundred and thirty-one. But, though we have no apprehensions 
 that puffing will ever confer permanent reputation on the undeserving, we still 
 think its influence most pernicious. Men of real merit will, if they persevere, 
 at last reach the station to which they are entitled, and intruders will be 
 ejected with contempt and derision. But it is no small evil that the avenues 
 to fame should be blocked up by a swarm of noisy, pushing, elbowing pre- 
 tenders, who, though they will not ultimately be able to make good their ovra. 
 entrance, hinder, in the meantime, those who have a right to enter. All who 
 will not disgrace themselves by joining in the unseemly scuffle must expect to 
 be at first hustled and shouldered back. Some men of talents accordingly 
 turn away in dejection from pursuits in which success appears to bear no pro- 
 portion to desert. Others employ in self-defence the means by which com- 
 petitors, far inferior to themselves, appear for a time to obtaia a dc'^ided 
 
136 MR, ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 
 
 advantage. There are few who have sufficient confidence in theii awn powers* 
 and sufficient elevation of mind, to wait with secure and contemptuous 
 patience while dunce after dunce presses before them. Those who will not 
 stoop to the baseness of the modern fashion are too often discouraged. Those 
 who stoop to it are always degraded. 
 
 We have of late observed with great pleasure some symptoms which lesji 
 us to hope that respectable literary men of all parties are beginning to oe 
 impatient of this insufferable nuisance. And we purpose to do what in us 
 lies for the abating of it. We do not think that we can more usefully assist in 
 this good work than by showing our honest countrymen whatj that sort of 
 poetry is which puffing can drive through eleven editions j and how easily 
 any bellman might, if a bellman would stoop to the necessary degree of mean- 
 ness, become "a master-spirit of the age." We have no enmity to Mr. 
 Robert Montgomery. We know nothing whatever about him, except what 
 we have learned from his books, and from the portrait prefixed to one of them, 
 in which he appears to be doing his very best to look like a man of genius and 
 sensibility, though with less success than his strenuous exertions deserve. We 
 select him because his works have received more enthusiastic praise and have 
 deserved more unmixed contempt than any which, as far as our knowledge 
 extends, have appeared within the last three or four years. His writing bears 
 the same relation to poetry which a Turkey-carpet bears to a picture. There 
 are colours in the Turkey-carpet out of which a picture might be made. There 
 are words m Mr. Montgomery's verses which, when disposed in certain orders 
 and combinations, have made, and will again make good poetry. But, as 
 they now stand, they seem to be put together on principle, in such a manner 
 as to give no image of anything in the ** heavens above, or in the earth 
 beneath, or in the waters under the earth." 
 
 The poem on the Omnipresence of the Deity 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 Dryden, and 
 marred in the stealing — 
 
 " LaS'., softly beautiful as music's close. 
 Angelic woman into being rose." 
 
 The all-pervading influence of the Supreme Being is then described in a few 
 tolerable lines borrowed from Pope, and a great many intolerable lines of Mr, 
 Robert Montgomery's own. The following may stand as a specimen :- 
 
 " But who could trace Thine unrestricted course. 
 Though Fancy follow'd with immortal force ? 
 There's not a blossom fondled by the breeze. 
 There's not a fruit that beautifies the trees. 
 There's not a particle in sea or air, 
 But nature owns thy plastic influence there I 
 With fearful gaze, still be it mme lo see 
 How all is filled and vivified by Thee ; 
 Upon thy mirror, earth's majestic view. 
 To paint Thy Presence, and to feel it too." 
 
 V The last two lines contain an excellent specimen of Mr. Robert Montj 
 
 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 Montgomery paints 
 God's presence. The use of a mirror, we submit, is not to be painted upcwi. 
 
 A few more lines, as bad as those which we have quoted, bring us To on« 
 of the most amusing instances of literary pilfering which we remember. I^ 
 might be of use to plagiarists to know, as a general rule, that wliat they stea ' 
 is, to employ a phrase common in advertisements, of no use to any but tlie right 
 
MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY* S POEMS. 137 
 
 owner. We never fell in, however, with any plunderer who so little under- 
 stood how to turn his booty to good account^ Mr. Montgomery. Lord Byron, 
 in a passage which everybody knows by heart, has said, addressing the sea, 
 
 h ' Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow." ^^ 
 
 Mr. Robert Montgomery very coolly appropriates the image, and reproduces 
 the stolen goods in the following form : 
 
 " And Thou, vast Ocean, on whose awful face 
 Time's iron feet can print no ruin-trace." 
 
 So may such ill-got gains ever prosper ! 
 — The effect which the ocean produces on atheists is then described in the 
 
 following lofty lines : 
 
 "Oh ! never did the dark-soul'd Atheist stand. 
 And watch the breakers boiling on the strand, 
 And, while Creation stagger'd at his nod, 
 Mock the dread presence of the mighty God ! 
 We hear* Him in the wind-heaved ocean's roar, 
 Hurling her billowy crags upon the shore ; 
 We hear Him in the riot of the blast, 
 And shake, while rush the raving whirlwinds past I " 
 
 If Mr. Robert Montgomery's genius were not far too free and aspiring to be 
 shackled by the rules of syntax, we should suppose that it is at the nod of the 
 atheist that creation shudders, and that it is this same dark-souled atheist 
 who hurls billowy crags upon the shore. 
 
 A few more lines bring us to another instance of unprofitable theft. Sir 
 Walter Scott has these lines in the Lord of the Isles : 
 
 " The dew that on the violet lies, 
 Mocks the dark lustre of thine eyes." 
 
 This is pretty taken separately, and, as is almost always the case with good 
 things of good writers, much prettier in its place than can even be conceived 
 by those who use it only detached from the context. Now for Mr. Mont- 
 gomery-— 
 
 "And the bright dew -bead on the bramble lies, 
 Like liquid sapture upon beauty's eyes." 
 
 The comparison of a violet, bright with the dew, to a woman's eyes, is as ,< ; 
 perfect as a comparison can be. Sir Walter's lines are part of a song ad- "* ' 
 dressed to a woman, and the comparison is, therefore, peculiarly natural and 
 graceful. Dew 6n the branfible is no more like a woman's eyes than dew any- ^ 
 where else. There is a very pretty Eastern tale of which the fate of plagiarists 
 often reminds us. The slave of a magician saw his master wave his wand, 
 and heard him give orders to the spirits who arose at the summons. lie 
 accordingly stole the wand, and waved it himself in the air, but he had not 
 observed that his master used the left hand for that purpose. The spirits 
 thus irregularly summoned, tore him to pieces, instead of obeying his 
 orders. There are very few who can safely venture to conjure with the rod ol 
 Sir Walter, and we are sure that Mr. Robert Montgomery is not one of them, 
 
 Mr. Campbell, in one of his most pleasant pieces, has this line — 
 
 " The sentinel stars set their watch in the sky." 
 
 The thought is good — and has a very striking propriety where Mr,-Campbeli 
 has placed it— in the mouth of a soldier telling his dream. Eut, though 
 Shakespeare assures us that "every true man's apparel fits your thief," it is 
 by no means the case, as we have already seen, that every true poet's simili- 
 
138 Mk. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 
 
 tude fits your plagiarist. Let us see how Mr. Robert Montgomery uses the 
 Image — 
 
 "Ye quenchless stars ! so eloquently bright, 
 Untroubled sentries of the shadowy night, 
 While half the world is lapp'd in downy dreams, 
 ' And round the lattice creep your midnight beams, 
 
 How sweet to gaze upon your placid eyes. 
 In lambent beauty looking from the skies." 
 
 Certainly the ideas of eloquence— of untroubled repose — of placid eyes, on 
 the lambent beauty of which it is sweet to gaze, harmonize admirably v> ith, 
 tlie idea of a sentry ! 
 
 We would not be understood, however, to say, that Mr. Robert Montgomery 
 cannot make similitudes for himself. A very few lines farther on, we find one 
 which has every mark of originality, and on which, we will be bound, none of 
 the poets whom he has plundered will ever think of making reprisals ; 
 
 ' ' The soul, aspiring, pants its source to mount. 
 As streams meander level with their fdUnt." 
 
 We take this to be, on the whole, tlie worst similitude in the world. In 
 the first place, no stream meanders, or can possibly meander, level with its 
 fount. In the next place, if streams did meander level with their founts, no 
 two motions can be less like than that of meandering level and that of mount- ' 
 ing upwards. 
 
 \Ve have then an apostrophe to the Deity, couched in terms which, in any 
 writer who dealt in meanings, we should call profane, but to which, we 
 suppose, Mr. Robert Montgomery attaches no idea whatever. 
 
 •* Yes ! pause and think, within one fleeting hour. 
 How vast a universe obeys Thy power ; 
 Unseen, but felt. Thine interfused control 
 Works in each atom, and pervades the whole ; 
 Expands the blossom, and erects the tree, 
 Conducts each vapour, and commands each sea, 
 Beams in each ray, bids whirlwinds be unfurl'd, 
 Unrols the thunder, and upheaves a world ! " 
 
 No field-preacher ever carried his irreverent familiarity so far as to bid the 
 Supreme Being stop and meditate on the importance of the interests which 
 are under his care. The grotesque indecency of such an address throws into 
 rfiade the subordinate absurdities of the passage, the unfurling of whirlwinds, 
 trounroUing of thunder, and the upheaving of worlds. 
 
 Tb«n comes a curious specimen of our poet's English — , 
 
 " Yet not alone created realms engage 
 Thy faultless wisdom, grand, primeval sage ! 
 For all the thronging woes to life allied 
 Thy mercy tempers, and Thy cares provide." 
 
 We should be glad to know what the word * For ' means here. If it is a 
 preposition, it makes nonsense of the words, "Thy mercy tempers." If it 
 is 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 
 poem. 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 assuring us that the 
 Deity was present at the battle, murder, execution, maviage, or funeral, in 
 question. And this proposition, which might be safely predicated of every 
 event that ever happened, or ever will happen, forms the only link which 
 connects these. descriptions with the subject, or with each other. 
 
 How the descriptions are executed, our readers are probably by this timei 
 
MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 139 
 
 able to conjecture. The battle is ma^ up of the battles of all ages and 
 nations ; " red-mouth'd cannons, uproarmgto 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 in full uniform — and Curtius 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 last exploit, we can only 
 say, as Dante did on a similar occasion,— 
 
 *' Forse per forza gia di parlasia 
 Si stravolse cosi alcun del tutto ! 
 Ma io nol vidi, ne credo che sia," 
 
 The tempest is thus described — 
 
 ** But lo ! around the marsh'lHng clouds unite, 
 Like thick battalions 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 blasts. 
 Tear the loose sails, and split the creaking masts, 
 And the lash'd billows, rolling in a train, 
 Rear their white heads, and race along the main ! " 
 
 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 
 Bnd exactly when the latter commences ? 
 
 We cannot stop over each of Mr. Robert Montgomery's descriptions. We 
 have a shipwrecked sailor, who "visions a viewless temple in the air;" — a 
 murderer, who stands on a heath, "with ashy lips, in cold convulsion spread ;" 
 — a pious man, to whom, as he lies in bed at night, 
 
 '* The panorama of past life appears. 
 Warms his pure mind, and melts it into tears ; " 
 
 a traveller, who loses his way owing to the thickness of the " cloud-battalion," 
 and the want of " heaven-lamps, to beam their holy light." We have a de- 
 scription of a convicted felon, stolen from that incomparable passage in Crabbe's 
 Borough, which has made many a rough and cynical reader cry like a child. 
 We can, hov;^ever, conscientiously declare that persons of the most excitable 
 sensibility may safely venture upon it in Mr. Robert Montgomery's alteration. 
 Then we have the "poor, mindless, pale-faced, maniac boy," who 
 
 " Rolls his vacant eye, 
 To greet the glowing fancies of the sky." 
 
 What are the glowing fancies of the sky ? And what is the meaning of the 
 two lines which almost immediately follow? 
 
 *' A soulless thing, a spirit of the woods, 
 He loves to commune with the fields and floods." 
 
 How can a soulless thing be a spirit? Then comes a panegyric on the Sunday. 
 A baptism follows; — after that a marriage; — and we then proceed, in due 
 course, to the visitation of the sick and the burial of the dead. 
 
140 MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS, 
 
 Often as Death has been personified, Mr. Montgomery has found something 
 new to say about him. 
 
 " O Death ! thou dreadless vanquisher of earth. 
 The elements shrank blasted at thy birth ! 
 Careering round the world like tempest wind. 
 Martyrs before, and victims strew'd behind; 
 Ages on ages cannot grapple thee, 
 Dragging the world into eternity I " 
 
 If there be any one line in this passage about which we are more in the dark 
 than about the rest, it is the fourth. What the difference may be between the 
 victims and the mart)rrs, and why the martyrs are to lie before Death, and the 
 victims behind him, are to us great mysteries. 
 
 We now come to the third part, of which we may say with honest Cassio, 
 "Why, this is a more excellent song than the other." Mr. Robert Mont- 
 gomery is very severe on the infidels, and undertakes to prove that, as he ele- 
 gantly expresses it, 
 
 " One great Enchanter helm'd the harmonious whole." 
 
 W^hat an enchanter has to do with helming, or what a helm has to do with 
 hannony, we do not quite understand. He proceeds with his argument thus : 
 
 " And dare men dream that dismal Chance has framed 
 All that the eye perceives, or tongue has named ; 
 The spacious world, and all its wonders, born 
 Designless, self-created, and forlorn ; 
 Like \o the flashing bubbles on a stream, 
 Fire from the cloud, or phantom in a dream ? " 
 
 We should be sorry to stake our faith in a higher Power on Mr. Robert 
 Montgomery's logic. Does he believe that lightning, and bubbles, and the 
 phenomena of dreams, are designless and self-created ? If he does, we can* 
 not conceive why he may not believe that the whole universe is designless 
 and self-created. A few lines before he tells us that it is the Deity who bids 
 *' thunder rattle from the skiey deep." His theory is therefore this, that God 
 made the thunder, but that the lightning made itself. 
 
 But Mr. Robert Montgomery's metaphysics are not at present our game. 
 He proceeds to set forth the fearful effects of atheism. 
 
 " Then, blood-stain'd Murder, bare thy hideous arm. 
 And thou. Rebellion, welter in thy storm : 
 Awake ye spirits of avenging crime ; 
 Burst from your bonds, and battle with the time 1 " 
 
 Mr. Robert Montgomery is fond of personification, and belongs, we need 
 not say, to that school of poets who hold that nothing more is necessary to a 
 personification in poetry than to begin a word with a capital letter. Murder 
 may, without impropriety, bare her arm, — as she did long ago, in Mr. Camp- 
 bell's Pleasures of Hope. But what possible motive Rebellion can have for 
 weltering in her storm, — what avenging crime may be, — who its spirits may 
 be, — why they should burst from their bonds,— what their bonds may be, — 
 why they should battle with the time, — what the time may be, — and what a 
 battle between the time and the spirits of avenging crime would resemble, 
 we must confess ourselves quite unable to understand. 
 
 " And here let Memory turn her tearful glance 
 On the dark horrors of tumultuous France, 
 When blood and blasphemy defiled her land, 
 And fierce Rebellion shook her savage hand." 
 
 Whether Rebellion shakes her own hand, shakes the hand of Memory, or 
 
MR, ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS. 141 
 
 Rhakes the hand of France, or what any one of these metaphors would mean, 
 we know no more than we know whaf is the sense of the following passage : 
 
 " Let the foul orgies of infuriate crime 
 Picture the raging havoc of that time,^ 
 When leagued Rebellion march'd to kindle man. 
 Fright in her rear, and Murder in her van. 
 And thou, sweet flower of Austria, slaughter'd Queen, 
 Who dropp'd no tear upon the dreadful scene, 
 When gush'd the life-blood from thine angel form. 
 And martyr'd beauty perish'd in the storm. 
 Once worshipp'd paragon of all who saw. 
 Thy look obedience, and thy smile a law," &c 
 
 What is the distinction between the foul orgies and the raging havoc which 
 the foul orgies are to picture ? Why does Fright go behind Rebellion, and 
 Murder before? Why should not Murder fall behind Fright? Or why 
 should not all the three walk abreast ? We have read of a hero who had 
 
 " Amazement in his van, with Flight combined. 
 And Sorrow's faded form, and Solitude behind." 
 
 Gray, we suspect, could have given a reason for disposing the allegorical 
 attendants of Edward thus. But to proceed, — "Flower of Austria" is 
 stolen from Byron. ** Dropped " is false English. " Perish'd in the storm " 
 means nothing at all ; and '* thy look obedience" means the very reverse of 
 what Mr. Robert Montgomery intends to say. 
 Our poet then proceeds to demonstrate the immortality of the soul :— 
 
 *' And shall the soul, the fount of reason, die. 
 When dust and darkness round its temple He f 
 Did God breathe in it no ethereal fire, 
 Dimless and quenchless, though the breath expire." 
 
 The soul is a fountain ; and therefore it is not to die, though dust and dark- 
 ness lie round its temple, because an ethereal fire has been breathed into it, 
 which cannot be quenched though its breath expire. Is it the fountain or 
 the temple that breathes, and has fire breathed into it? 
 Mr. Montgomery apostrophizes the 
 
 " Immortal beacons, — spirits of the just," 
 and describes their employments in another world, which are to be, it seems, 
 bathing in light, hearing fiery streams flow, and riding on living cars of 
 lightning. The deathbed of the sceptic is described with what we suppose is 
 meant for energy. 
 
 " See how he shudders at the thought of death I 
 
 What doubt and horror hang upon his breath, 
 
 The gibbering teeth, glazed eye, and marble limb. 
 
 Shades from die tomb stalk out and stare at him." 
 
 A man as stiff as marble shuddering and gibbering violently would 
 certainly present so curious a spectacle that the shades, if they came in his 
 / way, might well stare. 
 
 / We then have the deathbed ot a Christian made as ridiculous as false 
 i—4magery and false English can make it. But this is not enough : — The Day 
 
 of Judgment is to be described, — and a roaring cataract of nonsense is poured I 
 
 forth upon this tremendous subject. Earth, we are told, is dashed into ( v| 
 eternity. Furnace blazes wheel round the horizon, and burst into bright 
 wizard phantoms. Racing hurricanes unroll and whirl quivering fire-clouds. 
 The white waves gallop. Shadowy worlds career around. The red and 
 raging eye of Imagination is then forbidden to pry further. But further 
 Mr. Robert Montgomery persists in prying. The stars bound through the 
 tiiy roar. The unbosomed deep yawns on the ruin. The billows of eternity 
 
 J 
 
141 MR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS, 
 
 then begin to advance. The world glares in fiery slumber. A car com 
 forward driven by living thunder. 
 
 ** Creation shudders with sublime dismi\y, 
 And in a blazing tempest whirls away." 
 
 And this is fine poetry ! This is what ranks its writer with the master- 
 spirits of the age ! This is what has been described over and over again, in 
 terms which would require some qualification if used respecting Paradise Lost ! 
 It is too much that this patchwork, made by stitching together old odds and 
 ends of what, when new, was, for the most part, but tawdry frippery, is to be 
 picked off the dunghill on which it ought to rot, and to be held up to admira- 
 tion as an inestimable specimen of art. And what must we think of a system, 
 by means of which verses like those which we have quoted — verses fit only 
 for the poet's corner of the Morning Post — can produce emolument and fame " 
 The circulation of this writer's poetry has been greater than that of Southey's 
 Roderic, and beyond all comparison greater than that of Gary's Dante, or of 
 the best works of Coleridge. Thus encouraged, Mr. Kobert Montgomery 
 has favoured the public with volume after volume. We have given so much 
 space to the examination.^ of his first and most popular performance that we 
 have none to spare for fiis Universal Prayer, and his smaller poems, which, 
 as the pufiing journals tell us, would alone constitute a sufficient title to 
 literary immortality. We shall pass at once to his last publication, entitled 
 Satan. 
 
 This poem was ushered into the world with the usual roar of acclamation. 
 But the thing was now past a joke. Pretensions so unfounded, so impudent, 
 and so successful, had aroused a spirit of resistance. In several magazines 
 and reviews, accordingly, Satan has been handled somewhat roughly, and the 
 arts of the puffers have been exposed with good sense and spirit. We shall, 
 therefore, be very concise. 
 
 Of the two poems, we rather prefer that on the Omnipresence of the Deity, 
 for the same reason which induced Sir Thomas More to rank one bad book 
 above another. ' ' Marry, this is somewhat. This is rhyme. But the other 
 is neither rhyme nor reason." Satan is a long soliloquy, which the Devil pro- 
 nounces in five or six thousand lines of blank verse conccerning geography, 
 politics, newspapers, fashionable society, theatrical amusements. Sir Walter 
 Scott's novels, Lord Byron's poetry, and Mr. Martin's pictures. The new 
 designs for Milton have, as was natural, particularly attracted the attention of 
 a personage who occupies, so conspicuous a place in them. Mr. Martin must be 
 pleased to learn that, whatever may be thought of those performances on 
 earth, they give full satisfaction in Pandemonium, and that he is there thoui;])t 
 to have hit off the likenesses of the various Thrones and Dominations very 
 happily. 
 
 The motto to the poem of Satan is taken from the Book of Job : — ** Whence 
 comest thou ? — From going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down 
 ^ in it." And certainly Mr. Robert Montgomery has not failed to make his hero 
 go to and fro, and walk up and down. With the exception, however, of this 
 propensity to locomotion, Satan has not one Satanic quality. Mad Tom had 
 told us that ' ' the prince of darkness is a gentleman ;" but we had yet to learn 
 that he is a respectable and pious gentleman, whose principle fault is that he 
 is something of a twaddle, and far too liberal of his good advice. Tliat 
 happy change in his character which Origen anticipated, and of which Tillot- 
 son did not despair, seems to be rapidly taking place. Bad habits are not 
 eradicated in a moment. It is not strange, therefore, that so old an offender 
 should now and then relapse for a short tinae into wrong dispositionsr :put to 
 
CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. 143 
 
 give him his due, as the proverb recommends, we must say that he always 
 returns, after two or three Unes of impfety, to his preaching tone. We would 
 seriously advise Mr. Montgomery to omit, or alter, about a hundred lines in 
 different parts of this large volume, and to republish it under the name of 
 Gabriel. The reflections of which it consists would come less absurdly, 
 us far as there is a more and a less in, extreme absurdity, from a good than 
 from a bad angel. 
 
 We can afford room only for a single quotation. We give one taken at 
 random — neither worse nor better, as far as we can perceive, than any other 
 equal number of lines in the book. The Devil goes to the play, and moralises 
 thereon as follows : — , . , . , • , 
 
 " Music and Pomp their mingling spirit shed 
 
 Around me ; beauties in their cloud-like robes 
 
 Shine forth, — a scenic paradise, it glares 
 
 Intoxication through the reeling sense 
 
 Of flush'd enjoyment. In the motly host 
 
 Three prime gardations may be ranked : the first 
 
 To mount upon the wings of Shakspeare's mind. 
 
 And win a flash of his Promethean thought,— 
 
 To smile and weep, to shudder, and achieve. 
 
 A round of passionate omnipotence 
 
 Attend : the second, are a sensual tribe 
 
 Convened to hear romantic harlots sing. 
 
 On forms to banquet a lascivious gaze, 
 
 While the bright perfidy of wanton eyes 
 
 Through brain and spirit darts delicious fire X 
 
 The last, a throng most pitiful ! who seem, 
 
 With their corroded figures, rayless glance 
 
 And death-like struggle of decaying age, 
 
 Like painted skeletons in charnel pomp 
 
 Set forth to satirize the human kind ! — 
 
 How fine a prospect for demoniac view ! 
 
 ' Creatures whose souls outbalance worlds awake ! ' 
 
 Methinks I hear a pitying angel cry." 
 
 Here we conclude. If our remarks give pain toi^r. Robert Montgomery, 
 we are sorry for it. But, -^t whatever cost of pain to individuals, literature 
 must be purified from this taint. And, to show that we are not actuated by 
 any feelings of personal enmity towards him, we hereby give notice thai,' aa 
 soon as any book shall, by means of puffing, reach a second edition, bur 
 intention is to do unto the writei: of it as jve Have done unto Mr. Robert 
 Montgomery. ■, .'•.:'■ f— ■ - ■ 
 
 P 
 
 CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. 
 
 Statement of the Civil Disabilities and Privations affecting Jews in England. 
 8vo. London. 1829. 
 
 The distinguished member of the House of Commons who, towards the close 
 of the late Parliament, brought forward a proposition for the relief of the 
 Jews, has given notice of his intention to renew it. The force of rerson, in 
 the last session carried it through one stage, ii\ spite of the opposition of 
 power. Reason and power are now on the same side ; and we have little 
 doubt that they will conjointly achieve a decisive victory. In order to con- 
 tribute our share to the success of just principles, we propose to pass in 
 review, as rapidly as possible, some of the "arguments, or phrases claiming 
 to be arguments, which have been employed to yituiicate a system full of 
 absurlity and injustice. ' >; j • 
 
 The Constitution — it is said — is essentially Christian ; and, therefore, to 
 admit Jews to office is to destroy the Constitution. Nor is the Jew injured 
 by being excluded from political power. For no man has any right to power. 
 
144 CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS, 
 
 A man has a right to his property j — a man has a right to be protected from 
 personal injury. These fights the 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 political power ; and no man can justly complain that he is 
 shut out from it. 
 
 We cannot but admire the ingenuity of this contrivance for shifting the 
 burden 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 mortification 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 it must be right that government 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 political 
 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 wifl accomplish the end. It is because men are not in 
 the habit of considering what the end of government is that Catholic disabilities 
 and Jewish disabilities have been suffered to exist so long. We hear of essen- 
 tially Protestant governments and essentially Christian governments — 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 industry, 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 
 propert>»ind 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 wears 
 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 compelling 
 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 OP THE JEWS, S45 
 
 Men act thus, not because they a/e indifferent to religion, but because they do 
 not see what religion has to do with tl)^ mending of their shoes. Yet religion 
 has as much to do with the mending of shoes as with the budget and the army 
 estimates. We have surely had several signal proofs within the last twenty years/ 
 tliat a very good Christian may be a very bad Chancellor of the Exchequer. / 
 
 But it would be monstrous, say the persecutors, that Jews should legislate 
 for a Christian community. This is a palpable misrepresentation.NC^hat is 
 proposed is, not that the Jews should legislate for a Christian community, but 
 that a legislature composed of Christians and Jews should legislate for a com- 
 munity composed of Christians and Jewsy On nine hundred and ninety-nine 
 questions out 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 monopolize 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 fortmnes, 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 juiyman. 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 tliought 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. Gaiton and Old 
 Sarum may be the property of a Hebrew. An elector of Penryn will 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 comnitind 
 eight votes on every division, 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 being, for one, free to say this 
 and to say that, would be a profanation sufficient to bring ruin on the country. 
 
 That a Jew should be privy councillor to a Christian king would be an eter- 
 nal disgrace to the nation. But the Jew may govern the money-market, and 
 
146 CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. 
 
 the money-market may govern the world. The minister may be in doubt as 
 to his scheme of finance till he has been closeted with the Jew. A congress 
 of sovereigns may be forced to summon the Jew to their assistance. The 
 scrawl of the Jew on the back of a piece of paper may be worth more than the 
 royal word of three kings, or the national faith of three new American repub- 
 lics. But that he should put Ri^ht Honourable before his name would be the 
 most frightful of national calamities. 
 
 It was in this way that some of our politicians reasoned about the Irish 
 CathoUcs. The Catholics ought to have no political power. The sun of 
 England is set for ever if the Catholics exercise political p,-.ywer. Give them 
 everything else ; but keep political power from them. These wise men did 
 not see that, when everything else had been given, political power had been 
 given. They continued to repeat their cuckoo song, when it was no longer a 
 question whether Catholics should have political power or not, when a Catho- 
 lic association bearded the Parliament, when a Catholic agitator exercised 
 infinitely more authority than the Lord Lieutenant. 
 
 If it is our duty as Christians to exclude the Jews from political power, it 
 must be our duty to treat them as our ancestors treated them — to murder them, 
 and banish them, and rob them. For in that 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 substance. 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 over all the world. An English 
 Jew looks on a Dutch or a Portuguese Jew as his countryman, and on an 
 English Christian as a stranger. This want of patriotic feeling, it is said, 
 renders a Jew unfit to exercise political functions. 
 
 The argument has in it something plausible ;-sbut.9j;^se examination shows 
 it to be quite unsound. Even if the alleged facts are admitted, still the Jews 
 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 affection which they would otherwise have felt for their coun- 
 try. The Huguenots of France called in the help of England against their 
 CathoHc kings. The Catholics of France called in the help of Spain against 
 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 
 willing, as they formerly were willing, to sacrifice the interests of their country 
 to the interests of their religious persuasion ? The reason is obvious : — be- 
 cause they were persecuted then, and are not persecuted now. The English 
 Puritans, under Charles I., prevailed on the Scotch to invade England. Do 
 the Protestant Dissenters of our time wish to see the Church put down by an 
 invasion of foreign Calvinists ? If not, to what cause are we to attribute the 
 change? Surely to this, that the Protestant Dissenters are far better treated 
 30W than in the seventeenth century. Some of the most illustrious public men 
 
CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS. 147 
 
 that England ever produced were inclined to take refuge from the tyranny of 
 Laud in North America. Was this- because Presbyterians are incapable of 
 loving their country? — But it is idle to multiply instances. Nothing is so 
 offensive to a man who knows anything of history or of human nature as to 
 hear those who exercise the powers of government accuse any sect of foreign 
 attachments. If there be any proposition universally true in politics, it is this, 
 that foreign attachments are the fruit of domestic misrule. It has always been 
 the trick of bigots to rxike their subjects miserable at home, and then to com- 
 plain that they look fo. ^lief abroad ; — to divide society, and to wonder that 
 it is not united ; — to f, jvern as if a section of the state were the whole, and to 
 censure the other sections of the state for their want of patriotic spirit. If 
 the Jews have not felt towards England like children, it is because she has 
 treated them like a stepmother. There is no feeling which more certainly 
 develops itself in the minds of men living under tolerably good government 
 than the feeling of patriotism. Since the beginning of the world there never 
 was any nation, or any large portion of any nation, not cruelly oppressed, 
 which was wholly destitute of that feeling. To make it, therefore, ground of 
 accusation against a class of men that they are not patriotic is the most 
 vulgar legerdemain of sophistry. It is the logic which the wolf employs 
 against the lamb. It is to accuse the mouth of the stream of poisoning the 
 source. It is to put the effect before the cause. It is to vindicate oppression 
 by pointing at the depravation which oppression has produced. 
 
 If the English Jews really felt a deadly hatred to England, — if the weekly 
 prayer of their synagogues were that all the curses denounced by Ezekiel on 
 Tyre and Egypt might fall on London, — if, in their solemn feasts, they called 
 down blessmgs on those who should dash their children to pieces on the 
 stones, still, we say, their hatred to their countrymen<ivould not be more 
 intense than that which sects of Christians have often borne to each other. 
 But, in fact, the feeling of the Jews is not such. ^ It is precisely what, in thi 
 situation in which they are placed, we should expect it to be. They are 
 treated far better than the French Protestants were treated in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries, or than our Puritans were treated in the time of 
 Laud. They, therefore, have no rancour against the government or against 
 their countrymen. It will not be denied that they are far better affected to the 
 state than the followers of Coligni or Vane. But they are not so well treated 
 as the dissenting sects of Christians are now treated in England ; and on this 
 account, and, we firmly believe, on this account alone, they have a more ex- 
 clusive spirit. Till we have carried the experiment farther, we are not entitled 
 to conclude that they cannot be made Englishmen altogether. The tyrant who 
 punished their fathers for not making bricks without straw, was not more unrea- 
 sonable than the statesman who treats them as aliens and abuses them for not 
 entertaining all the feelings of natives. 
 
 Rulers must not be suffered thus to absolve themselves of their solemn re- 
 sponsibility. It does not lie in their mouths to say that a sect is not patriotic 
 — it is their business to make it patriotic. History and reason clearly indicate 
 the means. The English Jews are, as far as we can see, precisely what our 
 government has made them. They are precisely what any sect, — what any 
 class of men, treated as they have been treated,— would have been. If all the 
 red-haired people in Europe had, for centuries, been outraged and oppressed, 
 banished from this place, imprisoned in that, deprived of their money, de- 
 prived of their teeth, convicted of the most improbable crimes on the feeblest 
 evidence, dragged at horses' tails, hanged, tortured, burned alive,— if, when 
 manners became milder, they had still been subject to debasing restrictions 
 ^nd exposed to vulgar insults, locked up in particular streets in some coun- 
 
148 CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS, 
 
 tries, pelted and ducked by the rabble in others, excluded everywhere from 
 magistracies and honours, — what would be the patriotism of gentlemen with 
 red hair? And if, under such circumstances, a proposition were made for 
 admitting red-haired men to office, how striking a speech might an eloquent 
 admirer of our old institutions deliver against so revolutionary a mea*^ ure ! ' 
 "These men," he might say, '* scarcely consider themselves as Englishjnen. 
 They think a red-haired Frenchman or a red-haired German more closely con- 
 nected with them than a man with brown hair bom in their own parish. If a 
 foreign sovereign patronises red hair, they love him better than their own native 
 king. They are not Englishmen : — they cannot be Englishmen : — nature has 
 forbidden it : — experience proves it to be impossible. Right to political power 
 they have none ; for no man has a right to political power. Let them enjoy per- 
 sonal security ; let their property be under the protection of the law. But if they 
 ask for leave to exercise power over a community of which they are only half 
 members — a community the constitution of which is essentially dark-haired — let 
 us answer them in the words of our wise ancestors, Nolumns leges Anglia mutari. " 
 
 But, it is said, the Scriptures declare that the Jews are to be restored to 
 their own country ; and the whole nation looks forward to that restoration. 
 They are, therefore, not so deeply interested as others in the prosperity of 
 England. It is not their home, but merely the place of their sojourn, — the 
 house of their bondage. This argument first appeared in the Times news- 
 paper, and has attracted a degree of attention proportioned rather to the 
 general talent with which that journal is conducted than to its own intrinsic 
 force. It belongs to a class of sophisms by which the most hateful persecu- 
 tions may easily be justified. To charge men with practical consequences 
 which they themselves deny is disengenuous in controversy ; — it is atrocious in 
 !j[overnment. The doctrine of predestination, in the opinion of many people, 
 t nids to make those who hold it utterly immoral. And certainly it would seem 
 ihat a man who believes his eternal destiny to be already irrevocably fixed is 
 likely to indulge his passions without restraint, and to neglect his religious 
 duties. If he is an heir of wrath, his exertions must be unavailing. If he is 
 preordained to life, they must be superfluous. But would it be wise to punish 
 every man who holds the higher doctrines of Galvanism, as if he had actually 
 committed all those crimes which we know some German Anabaptists to have 
 committed? Assuredly not. The fact notoriously is that there are many 
 Calvinists as moral in their conduct as any Arminian, and many Anninians as 
 loose as any Calvinist. 
 
 It is altogether impossible to reason from the opinions which a man pro- 
 fesses to his feelings and his actions ; and, in fact, no person is ever such a fool 
 as to reason thus, except when he wants a pretext for persecuting his neigh- 
 bours. A Christian is commanded, under the strongest sanctions, to do as he 
 would be done by. Yet to how many of the twenty-four millions of profess- 
 ing Christians in these islands would any man in his senses lend a thousand 
 pounds without security ? A man who should act, for one day, on the sup- 
 position that all the people about him were influenced by the religion which 
 they professed, would find himself ruined before night; and no man ever dots 
 act on that supposition in any of the ordinary concerns of life, in borrowing, 
 in lending, in buying, or in selling. But when any of our fellow-creatures are 
 to be oppressed, the case is different. Then we represent those motives which 
 we know to be so feeble for good as omnipotent for evil. Then we lay to the 
 charge of our victims all thj vices and follies to which their doctrines, how- 
 ever remotely, seem to tend. We forget that the same weakness, the same 
 laxity, the same disposition to prefer the present to the future, whigh m^ikc 
 men worse than a good religion, make them better than a bad one. 
 
CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS, 149 
 
 It was in this way that our ancestors- reasoned, and that some people in our 
 time still reason, about the Catholics. A Papist believes himself bound to 
 obey the pope. The pope has issued a bull deposing Queen Elizabeth. There- 
 fore every Papist will treat her grace as an usurper. Therefore every Papist 
 is a traitor. Therefore every Papist ought to be hanged, drawn, and quar- 
 tered. To this logic we owe some of the most hateful laws that ever disgraced 
 our history. Surely the answer lies on the surface. The Church of Rome 
 may have commanded these men to treat the queen as an usurper. But she 
 has commanded them to do many other things which they have never done. 
 She enjoins her priests to observe strict purity. You are always taunting 
 them with their licentiousness. She commands a'i her followers to fast often, 
 to be charitable to the poor, to take no interest for money, to fight no duels, 
 to see no plays. Do they obey these injunctions? If it be the fact that very 
 few of them strictly observe her precepts, when her precepts are opposed to 
 their passions and interests, may not loyalty, may not humanity, may not the 
 love of ease, may not the fear of death, be sufficient to prevent them from 
 executing those wicked orders which she has issued against the sovereign of 
 England ? When we know that many of these people do not care enough for 
 their religion to go without beef on a Friday for it, 'why should we think that 
 they will run the risk of being racked and hanged for it ? 
 
 People are now reasoning about the Jews as our fathers reasoned about the 
 Papists. The law which is inscribed on the waHs of the synagogues prohibits 
 covetousness. But if we were to say that a Jew mortgagee would not foreclose 
 because God had commanded him not to covet his neighbour's house, every- 
 body would think us out of our wits. Yet it passes for an argument to say that 
 a Jew will take no interest in the prosperity of the country in which he lives, 
 that he will not care how bad its laws and police may be, — hov/ heavily it may 
 he taxed, — how often it may be conquered and given up to spoil, — because 
 God has promised that, by some unknown means, and at some undetermined 
 .ime, perhaps ten thousand years hence, the Jews shall migrate to Palestine. 
 Is not this the most profound ignorance of human nature ? Do we not know 
 that what is remote and indefinite affects men far less than what is near and 
 certain ? Besides, the argument, too, applies to Christians as strongly as to 
 Jews. The Christian believes, as well as the Jew, that at some future period 
 the present order of things will come to an end. Nay, many Christians 
 believe that the Messiah will shortly establish a kingdom on the earth, and 
 reign visibly over all its inhabitants. Whether this doctrine be orthodox or 
 not we shall not here inquire. The number of people who hold it is very 
 much greater than the number of Jews residing in England. Many of those 
 who hold it are distinguished by rank, wealth, and ability. It is preached 
 from pulpits, both of the Scottish and of the EngUsh Church. Noblemen and 
 members of Parliament have written in defence of it. Now wherein does this 
 doctrine differ, as far as its political tendency is concerned, from the doctrine 
 of the Jews ? If a Jew is unfit to legislate for us because 4ie believes that he 
 or his remote descendants will be removed to Palestine, can we safely open 
 the House of Commons to a fifth-monarchy man, who expects that before this 
 generation shall pass away, all the kingdoms of the earth will be swallowed 
 up in one divine empire ? 
 
 Does a Jew engage less eagerly than a Christian in any competition which 
 the law leaves open to him? Is he less active and regular in his business tha>> 
 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- 
 e:jchange? Does he, in arranging his private aff?.irs, ever take into the 
 
ISO 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 suff'er them to be ruk's ? To 
 admit them to the rights of citizens is manifestly to insult 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 
 J 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 
 jiand 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, 
 )iuring 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 justifies 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 
 property 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 the 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 who, when He was called upon to explain 
 what He 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 monstroue 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 Friday. We should have had no objec- 
 tion ; nor do we believe that the day could be commemorated in a more worthy 
 manner. We know pf no day fitter for terminating long hostilities and repairing 
 
MOORE'S LIFE OP LORD BYROfT. 151 
 
 cruel wrongs than the day on which^e 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 glorified by a 
 yet. greater and holier name. '4 
 
 MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 Letters and Journals of Lord Byron ; with Notices of his Life. By Thomas Moore, Esq. 
 ' '"" J 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 Idfifidness, fairness, 
 and modesty. It has evidently been v.Titten, not for the purpose of showing, 
 v;hat, however, it often shows, how well its author can write, but for the pur- 
 pose of vindicating, as far as truth will permit, 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 j 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 sur\'ey, to deny that the task 
 nas 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 communicativeness, 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 arid correspondence of Lord Byron are in th« 
 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 
 which were sent from Italy, — are among the best in our language. Tliey are 
 less affected than those of Pope and Walpole j — they have more matter in them 
 than those of Cowper. Knowing that many of them were not written merely 
 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 spirited, bul 
 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 rar^ and admirable instance of that highest art which 
 cannot be distinguished from nature. 
 
 Of the deep and painful interest which this book excites no abstract can give 
 a just notion. So sad and dark a story is scarcely to be found in any work of 
 
152 MOORE'S LIFE OP 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 character 
 of her son the Regent might, 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 Byron, in his understandipg, in his 
 character, in his very person, there was a strange union of opposite extremes. 
 He was bom 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 unsound part 
 in his mind. He had naturally a generous and feeling heart ; but his temper 
 was wayward a^d irritable. He had a head which statuaries loved to copy, 
 and a foot the Qefonnity 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 
 •^ith 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 cruelty, 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 \n\\i 
 a contempt which, feeble as they were, they did not absolutely deserve. The 
 poem which he published on his return from his travels was, on the other 
 hand, extolled far above its merit. At twenty-four he found himself on the 
 highest 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 
 counti*y women 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" publications his works 
 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 came the reaction. Society, capricious in its indignation as it had 
 
MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 153 
 
 been capricious in its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward and petted 
 darling. He had been worshipped'^ith an irrational idolatry. He was per- 
 secuted with an irrational fury. Much has been written about those ur happy 
 domestic occurrences which decided the fate of his life. Yet nothing 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 might 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 Lord 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 cannot, 
 even in our own minds, form any judgment 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 
 periodical 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 religion and decency to be \'iolated. 
 We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the Eng- 
 lish people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly, ?ome 
 unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offences 
 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, sufhciently 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 ruined 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 punishment. It is the resource of judges too indolent 
 and hasty to investigate facts and to discriminate nicely between shades of 
 guilt. It is an irrational practice, even when adopted by military tribunals. 
 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 bad 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 hundredth, perhaps the most innocent of 
 
154 MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON, 
 
 the hundred, should pay for all. We remember to have seen a mob assembled 
 in Lincoln's Inn to hoot a gentleman against whom the 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 
 most popular men of the age, — Lord Nelson for example, — had not been un- 
 faithful husbands. We remember a still stronger case. Will posjierity believe 
 that, 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, presidai at the meetings of religious and benevolent institutions, — 
 were the delight of every society, and the favourites of the multitude, — a crowd 
 of 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 i\ 
 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- 
 thing 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 
 when 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 
 Caprese. 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 j 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 more 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 
 degradation of such a name. 
 
 The unhappy man left his country for ever. The howl of contumely followed 
 
MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRO^. tS5 
 
 him across the sea, up the Rhine^ over ^e Alps ; it gradually waxed fainter ; 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 chJised from them. His poetry 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 face. 
 
 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 tl»e country of his adoption, he had 
 nothing to dread. With the public opinion A 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 
 after 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 sucli as, if it were judged by the standard of 
 morality established in the country where he lived, might be called virtuous. 
 Ijut 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 great mover of an intellectual revolu- 
 tion J — to guide the public mind of England from his Italian retreat, as 
 Voltaire had guided the public mind of France from the villa of Femey. 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 ignominiously. Angry with himself, 
 angry with his coadjutors, he relinquished it, and turned to another project, the 
 last and noblest of his life. 
 
 A nation, once the first among the nations, pre-eminent in knowledge, pre- 
 eminent in military glory, the cradle of philosophy, of eloquence, and of the 
 fine arts, had been for ages bowed down under a cruel yoke. All the vices 
 wliich tyranny generates, — the abject vices which it generates in those who 
 submit to it, — the ferocious vices which it generates in those who struggle 
 against it, — had deformed the character of tliat miserable race. The valour 
 which had won the ^eat 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 assistance^-* 
 «omething of the energy of their fathers. 
 
IJ6 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 Italian in' 
 ^urgents 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 
 spirit 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 sword 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 hini. There, at thirty-six, the most celebrated Englishman of ihc 
 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 of 
 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 fuch 
 rare gifts, and tried by such strong temptations. It is unnecessary to make 
 any reflections. The history c&rries 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 our 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 Missolonghi. 
 
 It is always difficult to separate the 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 
 probably 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 with 
 unfeigned diffidence, to offisr some desultory remarks on his poetry. 
 
 His lot was cast in the time of a great literary revolution. That poetical 
 dynasty which has 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 those who cou- 
 ccirred in it. 
 
 If this question were proposed, '— wherein especiftUy dc$s the poetry of oiur 
 
MOORE^S LIFE OF LORD SYRON, 157 
 
 i«i Till imii II ■ • ■■ I I I I I II 
 
 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 ctld and 
 mechanical, and that the poetry of our time, though wild and irregular, 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 cons antly 
 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 
 correctness 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 foundation in truth 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 moimtains "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. 
 He 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 
 more correct writer, what sense is attached to the word correctness ? Is it 
 meant 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 anacluonism, 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 thcl 
 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 moire inaccuracies than can be found in all the Excur- 
 sion. There is not a single scene in Cato in which everything that ccnduces 
 to poetical illusion, — all the propriety of character, of language, of situation, 
 b not more grossly violated than in any part of the Lay of the Last Minstrel. 
 No man can possibly think that the Romans of Addi§on resemble the real 
 
158 MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BVkO^. 
 
 Romans so closely as the moss-troopers of Scott resemble the real moss- 
 troopers. Wat Tinlinn and "William of Deloraine are not, it is true, persons 
 of so much dignity as Cato. But the dignity of the persons represented has 
 as little to do with the correctness of poetry as with the correctness of paint- 
 ing. We prefer a gipsy by Reynolds to his Majesty's head on a sign-post, 
 and a Borderer by Scott to a Senator by Addison. 
 
 In what sense, then, is the word correctness used by those who say, with 
 the author of the Pursuits of Literature, that Pope was the most correct of 
 English Poets, and that next to Pope came the late Mr. Gifford? What is 
 the nature and value of that correctness the praise of which is denied to Mac- 
 beth, to Lear, and to Othello, and given to Hoole's translations and to all 
 the Seatonian prize-poems ? We can discover no eternal rule, — no rule 
 founded in reason and in the nature of things, — which Shakspeare does not 
 observe much more strictly than Pope. But if by correctness be meant the 
 confoiming to a narrow legislation which, while lenient to the mala in se, 
 multiplies, without a shadow of reason, the mala prohibita, if by correctness be 
 meant a strict attention to certain ceremonious observances, which are no 
 more essential to poetry than etiquette to good government, or than the wash- 
 ings of a Pharisee to devotion, then, assuredly, Pope may be a more correct 
 poet than Shakspeare : and, if the code were a little altered, Colley Gibber 
 might be a more correct poet than Pope. But it may well be doubted whether 
 this kind of correctness be a merit, — nay, whether it be not an absolute fault. 
 
 It would be amusing to make a digest of the irrational laws which bad 
 critics have framed for the government of poets. First in celebrity and in 
 absurdity stand the dramatic unities of place and time. No human being has 
 ever been able to find any thing that could, even by courtesy, be called an 
 argument for these unities, except that they have been deduced from the 
 general practice of the Greeks. It requires no very profound examination to 
 discover that the Greek dramas, often admirable as compositions, are, as 
 exhibitions of human character and human life, far inferior to the English 
 plays of the age of Elizabeth. Every scholar knows that the dramatic part 
 of the Athenian tragedies was at first subordinate to the lyrical part. It would, 
 therefore, have been little less than a miracle if the laws of the Athenian stage 
 had been found to suit plays in which there was no chorus. All the greatest 
 masterpieces of the dramatic art have been composed in direct violation of 
 the unities, and could never have been composed if the unities had not been 
 violated. It is clear, for example, that such a character as that of Hamlet 
 could never have been developed within the limits to which Alfieri confined 
 himself. Yet such was the reverence of literary men during the last century 
 for these unities that Johnson, who, much to his honour, took the opposite side, 
 was, as he says, "frightened at his own temerity," and "afraid to stand 
 against the authorities which might be produced against him." 
 
 There are other rules of the same kind without end. *' Shakspeare," says 
 Rymer, "ought not to have made Othello black; for the hero of a tragedy 
 ought always to be white." "Milton," says another critic, "ought not to 
 have taken Adam for his hero ; for the hero of an epic poem ought always to 
 be victorious." "Milton," says another, "ought not to have put so many 
 similes into his first book ; for the first book of an epic poem ought always to 
 be the most unadorned. There are no similes in the first book of the Iliad." 
 „ Milton," says another, ought not to have placed in an epic poem such lines as 
 these : — 
 
 " I also erred in overmuch admiring." 
 
 And why not? The critic is ready with a reason*— a lady's rsason. ** Sucli 
 
 'A 
 
MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. ir<Q 
 
 lines,** says^ he, * 'are not, it my^st -be allowed, unpleosing to the ear, but the 
 r^giElanaPsyllable-^pugTit to be confined to the drama, and not admitted 
 mto epic poetry." As to the redundant syllable in heroic rhyme on serious 
 subjects, it has been, from the time of Pope downward, prescribed by the 
 general consent of all the correct school. No magazine would have admitted 
 so incorrect a couplet as that of Drayton : 
 
 " As when we lived untouch'd with these disgraces. 
 When as our kingdom was our dear embraces." 
 
 Another law of heroic rhyme, which, fifty years ago, was considered as fun- 
 damental, was, that there should be a pause, — a comma at least, at the end 
 of every couplet. It was also provided that there should never be a full stop 
 except at the end of a couplet. Well do we remember to have heard a most 
 correct judge of poetry revile Mr. Rogers for the incorrectness of that most 
 sweet and graceful passage, 
 
 " 'Twas thine, Maria, thine without a sigh 
 At midnight in a sister's arms to die. 
 
 Nursing the young to health." 
 
 Sir Roger Newdigate is fairly entitled, we think, to be ranked among the 
 great critics of this school. He made a law that none of the poems written 
 for the Prize which he established at Oxfor4 should exceed fifty lines. This 
 law seems to us to have at least as much foundation in reason as any of those 
 which we have mentioned ; — nay, much more, for the world, we believe, is 
 pretty well agreed in thinking that the shorter a prize-poem is, the better. 
 
 We do not see why we should not make a few more rules of the same kind ;-— 
 why we should not enact that the number of scenes in every act shall be 
 three or some multiple of three, — that the number of lines in every scene shall 
 be an exact square, — that the dramatis per s ones shall never be more nor fewer 
 than sixteen, — and that, in heroic rhymes, every thirty-sixth line shall have 
 twelve syllables. If we were to lay down these canons, and to call Pope, 
 Goldsmith, and Addison incorrect writers for not having complied with our 
 whims, we should act precisely as those critics act who find incorr"ctness in 
 the magnificent imagery and the varied music of Coleridge and Shelley. 
 
 The correctness which the last century prized so much resembles the cor- 
 rectness of those pictures of the garden of Eden which we see in old Bibles. — 
 We have an exact square, enclosea by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, 
 and Euphrates, each with a convenient bridge in the centre, — rectangular beds 
 of flowers, — a long canal, neatly bricked and railed in, — the tree of knowledge, 
 clipped like one of the limes behind the Tuileries, standing in the centre of 
 the grand alley, — the snake twined round it, — the man on the rigl^ hand, the 
 woman on the left, and the beasts drawn up in an exact circle round them. 
 In one sense the picture is correct enough. That is to say, the squares are 
 correct ; the circles are correct ; the man and the woman are in a most 
 correct line with the tree j and the snake forms a most correct spiral. 
 
 But if there were a painter so gifted that he could place on the canvas that 
 glorious paradise, seen by the interior eye of him whose outward sight had 
 failed with long watching and labouring for liberty and truth, — if there were 
 a painter who could set before us the mazes of the sapphire brook, the lake 
 with its fringe of myrtles, the flowery meadows, the grottoes overhung, by 
 viues, the forests shining with Hesperian fruit and with the plumage of gor- 
 geous birds, the massy shade of that nuptial bower which showered doAvn 
 roses on the sleeping lovers, — what should we think of a connoisseur who 
 should tell us that this painting, though finer than the absurd picture in the 
 old Bible, was not so correct ? Surely we should answer^ — It is both finer anti 
 
i6o MOORE^S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 
 
 more correct ; and it is finer because it is more correct. It is not made up 
 nf correctly drawn diagrams ; but it is a correct painting, — a worthy repre- 
 sentation of that which it is intended to represent. 
 
 It is not in the fine arts alone that this false correctness is prized by narrow- 
 minded men, — by men who cannot distinguish means from ends, or what is 
 accidental from what is essential. M. Jourdain admired correctness in fencing. 
 *• You had no business to hit me then. You must never thrust in quart till 
 you have thrust in tiercel M. Tomes liked correctness in medical practice. 
 ** I stand up for Artemius. That he killed his patient is plain enough. But 
 still he acted quite according to rule. A man dead is a man dead ; and there 
 is an end of the matter. But if rules are to be broken, there is no sa5ring 
 what consequences may follow." We have heard of an old German officer 
 who was a great admirer of correctness in military opei-ations. He used to 
 revile Bonaparte for spoiling the science of war, which had been carried to 
 such exquisite perfection by Marshal Daun. "In my youth we used to 
 march and countermarch all the summer without gaining or losing a square 
 league, and then we went into winter quarters. And now comes an ignorant, 
 hot-headed young man, who flies about from Boulogne to Ulm, and from 
 Ulm to the middle of Moravia, and fights battles in December. The whole 
 system of his tactics is monstrously incorrect." The world is of opinion, in 
 spite of critics like these, that" the end of fencing is to hit, that the end of 
 medicine is so cure, that the end of war is to conquer, and that those means 
 are the most correct which best accomplish the ends. 
 
 And has poetry no end, — ^no eternal and immutable principles? Is poetry, 
 like heraldry, mere matter of arbitrary regulation ? The heralds tell us that 
 certain scutcheons and bearings denote certain conditions, and that to put 
 colours on colours, or metals on metals, is false blazonry. If all this were 
 , reversed, — if every coat of arms in Europe were new fashioned, — if it were 
 I decreed that or should never be placed but on argent ^ or argent but on or^ — 
 / that illegitimacy should be denoted by a lozenge, and widowhood by a bend, — 
 I the new science would be just as good as the old science, because both the 
 I 4ew and the old would be good for nothing. The mummery of Portcullis 
 j «id Rouge Dragon, as it has no other value than that which caprice has 
 I assigned to it, may well submit to any laws which caprice may impose on it. 
 ' But it is not so with that great imitative art, to the power of which all ages, 
 the rudest and the most enlightened, bear witness. Since its first great 
 masterpieces were produced, everything that is changeable in this world has 
 been changed. Civilisation has been gained, lost, gained again. Religions, 
 and languages, and forms of government, and usages of private life, and 
 modes or thinking, all have undergone a succession of revolutions. Every- 
 thing has passed away but'the great features of nature, and tue heart of man, 
 and "the miracles of that art of which it is the office to reflect back the heart 
 of man and the features of nature. Those two strange old poems, the wonder 
 of ninety generations, still retain all their freshness. They still command 
 the veneration of minds enriched by the literature of many nations and ages. 
 They are still, even in wretched translations, the dehght of schoolboys. 
 Having survived ten thousand capricious fashions, having seen successive 
 codes of criticism become obsolete, they still remain immortal with the 
 irtimortality of truth,— the same when perused in the study of an English 
 scholar as when they were first chanted at the banquets of the Ionian princes. 
 / Poetry is, as that most acute of human beings, Aristotle said more than 
 /two thousand years ago, imitation. It is an art analogous in many respects 
 /to the arts of painting, sculpture, and acting. The imitations of the painter, 
 / the sculptor, and the actor, are, indeed, within certain limits, more perfect 
 
MOORE'S LII<E OF LORD BYRON. i6l 
 
 than those of the poet. The machinery which the poet employs consists 
 merely of words ; and words cannot, even when employei^ by such an artist as 
 Homer or Dante, present to the mina images of visible objects quite so lively 
 and exact as those which we carry away from looking on the works cf the 
 brush and the (jhisel. But, on the other hand, the range of poetry is infinitely "A 
 wider than that of any; other imitative jirt, or than that of all the other Jmjtative 
 arfs together. The sculptor* can imitate only form ; the painter only form 
 and 'cdlt)ur ; the actor, until the poet supplies him with words, only form, 
 colour, and motion. Poetry holds the outer world in common with the other 
 arts. The heart of man is the province of poetry, and of poetry alone. The 
 painter, the sculptor, and the actor, when the actor is unassisted bv the poet, 
 can exhibit no more of human passion and character than that sniaU portion 
 which overflows into the gesture and the face, — always an imperfect, often a 
 deceitful sign — of that which is within. The deeper and more complex parts 
 of human nature can be exhibited by means of words alone. Thus the ob- 
 jects of the imitation of poetry are the whole external and the whole i internal 
 universe, the face of nature, the vicissitudes of fortune, (man as he is in himself, , 
 man as he appears in society, all things of which we can form an image in our 
 minds by combining together parts of things which really exist. The domain 
 of this imperial art is commensurate with the imaginative faculty. 
 
 An art essentially imitative ought not surely to be subjected to rules which 
 tend to make its imitations less perfect than they otherwise would be j and 
 those who obey such rules ought to be called, not correct, but incorrect 
 aitists. The true way to judge of the rules by which English poetry was 
 governed during the last century is to look at the effects which they 
 produced. 
 
 It was in 1780 that Johnson completed his Lives of the Poets. He tells 
 us in that work that, since the time of Dryden, English poetry had shown no 
 tendency to relapse into its general savageness, that its language had been 
 refined, its numbers tuned, and its sentiments improved. It may, perhaps, be 
 doubted whether the nation had any great reason to exult in the refinements 
 and improvements which gave it Douglas for Othello, and the Triumphs of 
 Temper for the Fairy Queen. 
 
 It was during the thirty years which preceded the appearance of Johnson's 
 Lives that the diction and versification of English poetry were, in the sense 
 in which the word is commonly used, most correct. Those thirty years form 
 the most deplorable part of our literaiy history. They have bequeathed to us 
 scarcely any poetry which deserves to be remembered. Two or three hundred 
 lines of Gray, twice as many of Goldsmith, a few stanzas of Beattie and 
 Collins, a few strophes of Mason, and a few clever prologues and satires, 
 were the masterpieces of this age of consummate excellence. They may all 
 be printed in one volume, and that volume would be by no means a volume 
 of extraordinary merit. It would contain no poetry of the very highest class, 
 and little which could be placed very high in the second class. The Paradise 
 Regained or Comus would outweigh it all. 
 
 At last, when poetry had fallen into such utter decay that Mr. Hayley was 
 thought a great poet, it began to appear that the excess of the evil was about 
 to work the cure. Men became tired of an insipid conformity to a standard 
 which derived no authority from nature or reason. A shallow criticism had 
 taught them to ascribe a superstitious value to the spurious correctness of 
 poetasters. A deeper criticism brought them back to the true correctness 
 of the first great masters. The eternal laws of poetry regained their pov/er, 
 and the temporaiy fashions which had superseded those Taws went after t]?fl 
 wie of Lovelace and the hoop cf Clarissa. 
 
 G 
 
MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON, 
 
 It was in a cold and barren season that the seeds of that rich haivest which 
 r/e have reaped were first sown. While poetry was every year becoming 
 ♦ sore feeble and more mechanical, — while the monotonous versification which 
 .^i*ope had introduced, no longer redeemed by his brilHant wit and his com- 
 Vactness of expression, palled on the ear of the public, — the great works of the 
 t^ad were every day attracting more and more of the admiration which they 
 f eservcd. The plays of Shakespeare were better acted, better edited, and 
 l>etter known than they had ever been. Our noble old ballads were agato 
 read with pleasure, and it became a fashion to imitate them. Many of the 
 imitations were altogether contemptible. But they showed tliat men had at 
 least begun to admire the excellence which they could not rival. A literary 
 revolution was evidently at hand. There was a ferment in the minds of men, 
 — a vague craving for something new, a disposition ^ hail with delight any- 
 thing which might at first sight v/ear the appearance of originality. A 
 reforming age is always fertile of impostors. The same excited state of 
 public feeling which produced the great separation from the see of Rome 
 produced also the excesses of the Anabaptists. The same stir in the public 
 mind of Europe which overthrew the abuses of the old French government, 
 produced the Jacobins and Theophilanthropists. Macpherson and Delia Crusca 
 were to the true reformers of English poetry what Knipperdoling was to 
 Luther, or Clootz to Turgot. The public was never more disposed to believe 
 stories without evidence, and to admire books without merit. Anything 
 which could break the dull monotony of the correct school was acceptable. 
 
 The forerunner of the great restoration of our literature was Cowper. His 
 literary career began and ended at nearly the same time with that of Alfieri. 
 A parallel between Alfieri and Cowper may, at first sight, seem as unpromising 
 ss that which a loyal Presbyterian minister is said to'have drawn, in 1745, be- 
 tween George II. and Enoch. It may seem that the gentle, shy, melancholy 
 Calvinist, whose spirit had been broken by fagging at school, — who had not 
 courage to earn a livelihood by reading the titles of bills in the House of 
 r|x)rds, — and whose favourite associates were a blind old lady and an evangeli- 
 «ial divine, could have nothing in common with the haughty, ardent, and 
 voluptuous nobleman, — the horse jockey, the libertine, who fought Lord 
 Ugonier in Hyde Park, and robbed the Pretender of his queen. But though 
 the private lives of these remarkable men present scarcely any points of 
 Tesemblance, their literary lives bear a close analogy to each other. They 
 l:oth found poetry in its lowest state of degradation, — feeble, artificial, and 
 altogether nerveless. They both possess precisely the talents which fitted 
 them for the task of raising' it from that deep abasement. They cannot, in 
 strictness, be called great poets. They had not in any very high degree the 
 creative power, 
 
 " The vision and the faculty divine ; " 
 
 j(at they had great vigour of thought, great warmth' of feeling, — and what, in 
 ^eir circumstances, was above all things important, a manliness of taste 
 which approached to roughness. They did not deal in mechanical versifica- 
 tion and conventional phrases. They wrote concerning things the thought 
 of which set their hearts on fire ; and thus what they wrote, even when it 
 planted every other grace, had that inimitable grace which sincerity ta\<3 
 (Strong passion impart to the rudest and most homely compositions. Eac',- 
 of them sought for inspiration in a noble and affecting subject, fertile ot 
 i3Sia|5;es which had not yet been hackneyed. Liberty was the muse of Alfieri, 
 —Religion was the muse of Cowper. The same truth is found in their lighter 
 f^trrsjes. They were not among those who deprecated the severity or deplored 
 
MOOR^^S LtPB OP LORD BYRO^T. 
 
 163 
 
 the absence of an unreal mistress in pa^Iodious commonplaces. In-jtead of 
 raving about imaginary Chloes and Sylvias, Cowper wrote of Mrs. 'Jnwin's 
 knitting-needles. The only love-verses of Alfieri were addressed t^> one 
 whom he truly and passionately loved. "Tutte le rim« amorose che 
 seguono," says he, "tutte sono per essa, e ben sue, e di .ei solamentej 
 poiche mai d' altra donna per certo non cantero." 
 
 These great men were not free from affectation. But their affectation was 
 directly opposed to the affectation which generally prevailed. Each of them 
 expressed, in strong and bitter language, the contempt which he felt for the 
 efTeminate poetasters who were in fashion both in England and in Italy. 
 Cowper complains that 
 
 " Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ. 
 The substitute for genius, taste, and wit." 
 
 ITe praised Pope ; yet he regretted that Pope had 
 
 " Made poetry a mere mechanic art. 
 And every warbler had his tune by heart.* 
 
 Allieri speaks with similar scorn of the tragedies of his predecessors. " Mi 
 cadevano dalle mani per la languid ezza, triviality e prolissitk dei modi e del 
 verso, senza parlare poi della snervatezza dei pensieri. Or perche mai questa 
 nostra divina lingua, si maschia anco, ed energica, e feroce, in boccA di 
 Dante, dovra ella farsi cosl sbiadata ed eunuca nel dialogo tragico?" 
 
 To men thus sick of the languid manner of their contemporaries ruggedness 
 seemed a venial fault, or rather a positive merit. In their hatred of mere- 
 tricious ornament, and of v/hat Cowper calls "creamy smoothness," they 
 erred on the opposite side. Their style was too austere, their versification too 
 harsh. It is not easy, however, to overrate the service wMch they rendered 
 to literature. Their merit is rather that of demolition than that of con- 
 struction. The intrinsic value of their poems is considerable. But the ex- 
 ample which they set of mutiny against an absurd system was invaluable. 
 The part which they performed was rather that of Moses than that of Joshua. 
 They opened the house of bondage \ — but they did not enter the promise^ 
 laudl,. 
 
 During tlfe twenty years which followed the death of Cowper, the revolu- 
 tion in hnglish poetry was fully consummated. None of the writers of this 
 period, not even Sir Walter Scott, contributed so much to the consummation 
 as Lord Byron. Yet Lord Byron contributed to it unwillingly, and with con- 
 stant self-reproach and shame. All his tastes and inclinations led him to take 
 part with the school of poetry which was going out against the school which 
 was coming in. Of Pope himself he spoke with extravagant admiration. 
 He did not venture directly to say that the little man of Twickenham was a 
 greater poet than Shakespeare or Milton ; but he hinted pretty clearly that 
 he thought so. Of his contemporaries, scarcely any had so much of his 
 admiration as Mr. Gifford, who, considered as a poet, was merely Pope, with- 
 out Pope's wit and fancy, and whose satires are decidedly inferior m vigour 
 and poignancy to the very imperfect juvenile perform.ance of Lord Byron 
 himself. He now and then praised Mr. Wordsworth and Mr. Coleridge, but 
 ungraciously and without cordiality. When he attacked them, he brought 
 his'whole soul to the work. Of the most elaborate of Mr. Wordsworth's 
 poems he could find nothing to say, but that it was "clumsy, and frowsy, 
 and his aversion." Peter Bell excited his spleen to such a degree that he 
 apostrophized the shades of Pope and Dryden, and demanded of them 
 whethe* it were possible that such trash could evade contempt ? In his heart 
 
i64 MOORE '3 LIFE OF LORD BYRON, 
 
 he thought his own Pilgrimage of Harold inferior to his Imitation of Horace's 
 Art of Poetry, — a feeble echo of Pope and Johnson. This insipid performance 
 he repeatedly designed to publish, and was withheld only by the solicitations 
 of his friends. He has distinctly declared his approbation of the unities, the 
 most absurd laws by which genius was ever held in servitude. In one of his 
 works, we think in his letter to Mr. Bowles, he compares the poetry of the 
 eighteenth century to the Parthenon, and that of the nineteenth to a Turkish 
 mosque, and boasts that, though he had assisted his contemporaries in build- 
 ing their grotesque and barbarous edifice, he had never joined them in defacing 
 the remains of a chaster and more graceful architecture. In another letter he 
 compares the change which had recently passed on English poetry to the decay 
 of Latin poetry after the Augustan age. In the time of Pope, he tells his 
 friend, it was all^Horace with us. It is all Claudian now. 
 
 For the great old masters of the art he had no very enthusiastic veneration. 
 In his letter to Mr. Bowles he uses expressions which clearly indicate that he 
 preferred Pope's Iliad to the original. Mr. Moore confesses that his friend 
 was no very fervent admirer of Shakespeare. Of all the poets of the first 
 class, Lord Byron seems to have admired Dante and Milton most. Yet in the 
 fourth canto of Childe Harold he places Tasso, — a writer not merely inferior 
 to them, but of quite a different order of mind, — on at least a footing of 
 equality with them. Mr. Ilunt is, we suspect, quite correct in saying that 
 Lord Byron could see little or no merit in Spenser. 
 
 But Lord Byron the critic and Lord Byron the poet were two very different 
 men. The effects of the noble writer's theory may indeed often be traced in 
 his practice. But his disposition led him to accommodate himself to the 
 literary taste of the age in which he lived ; and his talents v/ould have enabled 
 him to accommodate himself to the taste of any age. Though he said much 
 of his contempt for men, and though he boasted that amidst the inconstancy 
 of fortune and of fame he was all-sufficient to liimself, his literary career 
 indicated nothing of that lonely and unsocial pride which he affected. We 
 cannot conceive him, like Milton or Wordsworth, defying the criticism of his 
 contemporaries, retorting their scorn, and labouring on a poem in the full 
 assurance that it would be unpopular, and in the full assurance that it would 
 be immortal. He has said, by the mouth of one of his heroes, in speaking 
 of political greatness, that **he must serve who fain would sway;" and 
 this he assigns as a reason for not entering into political life. He did 
 not consider that the sway which he had exercised in literature had been 
 purchased by servitude, — by the sacrifice of his own taste to the taste of the 
 public. 
 
 He was the creature of his age ; and whenever he had lived he would have 
 been the creature of his age. Under Charles I. he would have been more 
 quaint than Donne. Under Charles II. the rants of his rhyming plays would 
 have pitted it, boxed it, and galleried it, with those of any Bayes or Bilboa. 
 Under George I. the monotonous smoothness of his versification and ths 
 terseness of his expression would have made Pope himself envious. 
 
 As it was, he was the man of the last thirteen years of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, and of the first twenty-three years of the nineteenth century. He be- 
 longed half to the old, and half to the new school of poetry. His personal 
 taste led him to the former ; his thirst of praise to the latter ; — his talents 
 were equally suited to both. His fame was a common ground on which the 
 zealots on both sides, — Gifford, for example, and Shelley, — might meet. He 
 was the representative, not of either literary party, but of both at once, and 
 of their conflict, and of the victory by which that conflict was terminated. 
 Ills poetry fills and measures the whole of the vast interval through which out 
 
uroORE'S LIPM OF LOkD BVRO^, t^ 
 
 literature has moved since the time of Tohnson. It touches the Essay on Man 
 at the one extremity, and the Excursion at the other. 
 
 There are several parallel instances in literary history. Voltaire, for example, 
 was the connecting link between the France of Louis XIV. and ne France of 
 Louis XVI., — between Racine and Boileau on the one side, and Condorcet 
 and Beaumarchais on the other. He, like Lord Byron, put himself at the 
 head of an intellectual revolution, — dreading it all the time, — murmuring at 
 it, — sneering at it, — ^yet choosing rather to move before his age in any direc- 
 tion than to be left behind and forgotten. Dryden was the connecting 
 link between the literature of the age of James I., and the literature of the 
 age of Anne. Oromasdes and Arimanes fought for him. Arimanes carried 
 him off. But his heart was to the last with Oromasdes. Lord Byron was, 
 in the same manner, the mediator between two generations — between two 
 hostile poetical sects. Though always sneering at Mr. Wordsworth, he was. 
 yet, though perhaps unconsciously, the interpreter between Mr. Wordswortlf 
 and the multitude. In the Lyrical Ballads and the Excursion Mr. Words^ 
 worth appeared as the high priest of a worship of which nature was the idol. 
 No poems have ever indicated a more exquisite perception of the beauty of 
 the outer world, or a more passionate love and reverence for that beauty. 
 Yet they were not popular ; — and it is not likely that they ever will be popular 
 as the poetry of Sir Walter Scott is popular. The feeling which pervaded 
 them was too deep for general sympathy. Their style was often too mysterious 
 for general comprehension. They made a few esoteric disciples, and many 
 scoffers. Lord Byron founded what may be called an exoteric Lake school of 
 poetry ; and all the readers of poetry in England, we might say in Europe, 
 hastened to sit at his feet. What Mr. Wordsworth had said like a recluse, 
 Lord Byron said like a man of the world — with less profound feeling, but with 
 more perspicuity, energy, and conciseness. We would refer our readers to the 
 last two cantos of Chiide Harold and to Manfred, in proof of these obser- 
 vations. A 
 
 Lord jiyron, like Mr. Wordsworth, had nothing dramatic in his genius. He 
 was indeed the reverse of a great dramatist, the very antithesis to a great dra- 
 matist. All his characters, — Harold looking back on the western sky, from 
 which his country and the sun are disappearing together, — the Giaour, stand- 
 ing apart in the gloom of the side-aisle, and casting a haggard scowl from under 
 his long hood at the crucifix and the censer, — Conrad leaning on his sword by 
 the watchtower, — Lara smiling on the dancers, — Alp gazing steadily on the 
 fatal cloud as it passes before the moon, — Manfred wandering among the 
 precipices of Berne, — Azzo on the judgment-seat, — Ugo at the bar, — Lambro 
 frowning on the siesta of his daughter and Juan, — Cain presenting his unac- 
 ceptable offering— are essentially the same. The varieties are varieties merely 
 of age, situation, and outward show. If ever Lord Byron attempted to 
 exhibit men of a different kind, he always made them either insipid or un- 
 natural. Selim is nothing. Bonnivart is nothing. Don Juan, in the first 
 and best cantos, is a feeble copy of the Page in the Marri^^e of Figaro. 
 Johnson, the man whom Juan meets in the slave-market, is a most striking, 
 failure. How differently would Sir Walter Scott have drawn a bluff, fearless 
 Englishman, in such a situation ! The portrait would have seemed to walk 
 out of the canvas. 
 
 Sardanapalus is more coarsely drawn than any dramatic personage that we 
 can remember. His heroism and his effeminacy, — his contempt of death and 
 his dread of a weighty helmet, — his kingly resolution to be seen in the fore- 
 most ranks, and the anxiety with which he calls for a looking-glass, that he 
 may be seen to advantage, are contrasted, it is true, with idl the point of 
 
l66 MOOkR'S LIFE OP LORD BYROUT, 
 
 Juvenal. Indeed, the hint of the character seems to have been taken from 
 what Juvenal says of Otho : 
 
 " Speculum civllis sarcina bslU. 
 Nimirum summi ducis est occidere Galbam, 
 Et curare cutem summi constantia civis, 
 Bedriaci in campo spolium affectare Palati, 
 Et pressum in faciem digitis extendere panem." 
 
 These aie excellent lines in a satire. But it is not the busineiB of the dra- 
 matist to exhibit characters in this sharp, antithetical way. It is not thus that 
 Shakespeare makes Prince Hal rise from the rake of Eastcheap into the hero 
 of Shrewsbury, and sink again into the rake of Eastcheap. It is not thus , 
 that Shakespeare has exhibited the union of effeminacy and valouT in Antony. 
 A dramatist cannot commit a greater error than that of following those pointed 
 descriptions of character in which 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 produces, not a man, but a personified epigram. 
 Very eminent writers have fallen into this snare. Ben Jonson has given us 
 a Hermogenes, 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 I^ord Byron ; his women, like his men, are all of one 
 breed. Haidee is a half-savage and girlish Julia; Julia is a civilized and 
 matronly Haidee. Leila is a wedded Zuleika, Zuleika a virgin Leila. 
 Gulnare and Medora appear to have been intentionally opposed to each other. 
 Vet the difference is a difference of situation only. A slight change of circum- 
 stances would, it should seem, have sent Gulnare to the lute of Medora, and 
 armed Medora with the dagger of Gulnare. 
 
 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. I2e 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 
 frtj'Bwers became short, and his brow gloomy. But we have none of Lara's 
 Is^; castic speeches or short answers. It is not thus that the great masters of 
 
MOORE'S LIFE OR LORD B'^^fON, 167 
 
 human nature have portrayed humatf" beings. Homer never tells us that 
 Nestor loved to relate long stories about his youth. Shakespeare never tells us 
 that in the mind of lago everything that is beautiful and endearing was asso- 
 ciated 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 
 Witch 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 Byrc«i*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 Hamlet. 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 b^ 
 given to a dramatist. '■■■-.<'- 
 
 On the other hand, it may be doubted whether there is, in all Lord Byron's 
 plays, a single remarkable passage 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 
 r/ithin 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 dramatic 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 Giaour, collections of fragments ; and, though there 
 may be no empty spaces marked by asterisks, it is still easy to perceive, by the 
 ckimsiness of the joining, where the parts for the sakp of which the whole 
 Vvas composed end and begin. 
 
 It v/as in description and meditation that he excelled. " Description," as 
 he said iu Don Tuan, " was his forte P His manner is indeed peculiar, and is 
 
V 
 
 168 MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON, 
 
 almost unequalled ; — rapid, sketchy, full of vigour ; the selection happy ; the 
 strokes few and bold. In spite of the reverence which we feel for the genius 
 of Mr. Wordsworth, we cannot but think 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 dwell on every feature, — and to mark every 
 change of aspect. Those beauties which strike the most negligent obsei-ver, 
 and those which only a close attention discovers, are equally familiar to him 
 and are equally prominent in his poetry. The proverb of old Hesiod, that 
 half 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 bettei' 
 than Lord Byron. Whatever his faults might be, he was never, while his 
 ttiind retained its vigour, accused of prolixity. 
 
 His descriptions, great as was their intrinsic merit, derived their principal 
 interest from the feeling which always mingled with them. He was himself 
 the beginning, the middle, and the end, of all his ow:?i poetry, — the hero ot 
 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 to believe that he meant them 
 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 bhaggy 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'the rock, or of Satan in the burning marl j who can master their agonies by 
 the force of their will, and who, to the last, defy the whole power of earth 
 and heaven. Ht 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 aflected, — 
 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, 
 may be doubted : but that he was not such a person \i beyond all doubt. It 
 
MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 169 
 
 is ridiculous to imagine that a man who mind was really im'jjued with scorn of 
 his fellow-creatures would have publisJied 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 his 
 farewell to his Avife, and his blessings on his child. In the second canto of 
 \hilde Harold, he tells us that he is inseasible 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 ;— his 
 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 j — 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 him 
 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. 
 
 There 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 
 understand 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 
 their 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 
 exhibited 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 him 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. We 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." 
 Among that lar^e class of young persons whose reading is almost eatirQlf 
 
170 . CROKER'S EDITION 0^ 
 
 confined to works of imagination the popularity of Lord Byron was un- 
 bounded. They bought pictures of him ; they treasured up the smallest relics 
 of him ; tney learned his poems by heart, and did their best to write like him, 
 and to look 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 pres% sent forth no novei 
 without a mysterious, unhappy, Lara-like peer. The number of hopeful 
 undergi-aduates and medical students who became things of dark imaginings, 
 — on whom the freshness of the heart ceased to fall like dew,— ^ whose pas- 
 sions had consumed themselves to dust, and to whom the relief of tears was 
 denied, passes all calculation. This was not the worst. There 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 which 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 
 children 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 JOHNSON. 
 
 The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides, by 
 James Boswell, Esq. A new Edition, with numerous Additions and Notes. By JOHM 
 Wilson Choker, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 vols. 8vo. London. 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 typographical 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 performance 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, iil kept, and ill dressed." That 
 part of the volumes before us for which the editor is responsible is ill com- 
 piled, ill arranged, ill written, and ill printed. 
 
 Noth »ng in the 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 swai-m with 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 master of the cere- 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OF yOHNSOI^. 171 
 
 monies at Bath, died very poor in >y6o.* 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, t And all this is in 1763. The fact is that 
 Derrick died in 1769. , 
 
 In one note we read, that Sir Herbert Croft, the author of that pompous 
 and foolish account of Young, which appears among the Lives of the Poets, 
 died in 1805.$ 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. Croker informs us that Sir William Forbes, of Pitsligo, the author of 
 the life of Beattie, died in 181 6. || A Sir William Forbes undoubtedly died 
 in that year, — but not the Sir William Forbes in question, whose death took 
 place in 1806. 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. Croker 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 had 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 'place Mr. Croker says, that at the commencement of the intimacy 
 between Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady was twenty-five 
 years old. ft In other places he says that Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year 
 coincided with Dr. Johnson's seventieth.++ Johnson was born in 1709. If, 
 therefore, Mrs. Thrale'9 thirty-fifth year coincided with 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 thirty-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 full ten years." || H 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, — and 
 other books." H^ " The History of Prince Titi," observes Mr. Croker, *' was 
 
 ♦ I. 394. t I. 404- , X IV. 321. § IV. 428. II II. a6?. 
 
 i IV. los. ♦« V. 281. tt I. 510. tX IV. 27t, 322. 
 
 §§ m. 463. I!!l XI. 151. %^ III. 27;. 
 
171 CROKER*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 which Mr. Croker refers, whether written by Prince 
 Frederick or by Ralph, was certainly never published. If Mr. 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 kdy'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 good Prince Titi 
 and naughty Prince Violent. Mr. Croker may find it in the Magasia des 
 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 with the Morning Post ; and the dispute took 
 place before ths 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 tiU 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 I329."t 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 printevis 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 
 Edin^furgh in 1650. J There is not a forward boy at any school in England 
 Avho 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 that 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 17 16, — and that he returned to the 
 office of secretary of state, not in 1720, but in 1721 ? Mr. Croker, indeed, is 
 
 • V. 190. t IV. 39. % n. 526 $ ni. 5». 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OF JOHNSON. 173 
 
 generally unfortunate in his statements respecting the Townshend family. He 
 tells us that Charles Townshend, tHe chancellor of the exchequer, 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 of 
 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 martjrr to political party. By a strange coincidence of circum- 
 stances, it happened that there was 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 that he was not a 
 political martyr. "$ Now, what will 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 
 office when the court-martial on B5nig commenced its sittings, through the 
 whole trial, at the condemnation, and at the execution. In the month of 
 November, I756> 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 mgligentia and that crassa ignorantia on 
 which the law animadverts in magistrates and surgeons, even when nialice 
 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 1788, 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. Boswell notices, when he says Johnson left her 
 table to go and sell the Vicar of Wakefield for Goldsmith. Now, Dr. Johnson 
 was not acquainted with the Thrales till 1765, four years after the booli had 
 
 • III. 368. t IV. aaa. \ I. agS. 
 
174 crok:er's edition of 
 
 been published,"* Mr. Croker, in repreliending the fancied inaccuracy of 
 Mrs. Thrale, 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 1 765 ; 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 Goldsmith, 
 — in that written by Mr. Chalmers, for example. It is a fact which, as 
 Boswell tells us, was distinctly stated by Johnson in a conversation with Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. It is, th&refore, 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 1 765. 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, 
 who 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, J and his Doctor's degree in 1775. § In the 
 spring of 1776 1| 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 
 all probability, did take place. The only real objection to the story Mr. 
 Croker has missed. Boswell statei, apparently on the best authority, that as 
 early, at least, as the year 1 763, 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 commenting, 
 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 
 Goldsmith's novel,— an error of twelve years with respect to the publication 
 of pari" 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 these three 
 errors he has committed while ostentatiously displaying his own accuracy and 
 correcting what he represents as the loose assertions of others. How can his 
 
 • V. 409. t V. 409. : I. a63- § ni. 3QS. 11 HI. 326. % 1/405. 
 
BOSIVELVS LIFE OF yOHNSON. 175 
 
 readers take on trust his statements ccMfffceming 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 assigning 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, that some of the satires of Juvenal are too gross for imita* 
 tion. Mr. 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 — some passages of them — for there are none of Juvenal's 
 satires to which the same objection may be made as to one of Horace's, that U 
 is «a!//<7^^//^<?/' gross and licentious."* Surely Mr. Croker can never have re«d 
 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. P>om 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 j 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's 
 situation, and for talking of the beauty of Lucina. **Lucina," he says, 
 "was never famed for her beauty. "f If Sir Robert Peel had seen this note, 
 he probably would 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. 1 
 
 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.. Floras Macdonald matrimoniali vinculo conjugatus turrem hand' 
 Beganodunensem prosevorum habitaculum longe vetustissimum, diu penitus 
 labefactatam, anno seras vulgaris mdclxxxvi. instauravit."' — "The minister," 
 says Mr. Croker, "seems to have been no contemptible Latinist. Is not 
 Pbilarchus a very happy term to express the paternal and kindly authority of 
 
 • I. 167. ♦ I. !» 
 
l^ CROKER'S EDITION OP 
 
 t! eJtead of a clan?*'* The composition of this eminent Latinist, short as it 
 is, cv)ntains 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 who loves rule. The Attic writers of the best age use the 
 A^ord ^[\apxos in the sense which we assign to it. Would Mr. Croker 
 translate 4>i\b(TO(f)o$, a man who acquires wisdom by means of love, or 
 (piKoKepdrjs, a man who makes money by means of love? In fact, it re- 
 quires no Bentley or Casaubon to perceive that Philarchus is merely a false 
 spelling for Phylarchus, — the chief of a tribe. 
 
 Mr. Croker has favoured us with some Greek of his own. "At the altar," 
 says Dr. Johnson, '*I recommended my 6 <f)." "These letters," says the 
 editor, "(which Dr. Strahan seems not to have understood) probably mean 
 dvrfTOL <f)CKoi., departed friends. ^''^ Johnson was not a first-rate Greek scholar; 
 but he knew more Greek than most boys when they leave school ? and no 
 schoolboy could venture to use the word dp-riToi in the sense which Mr. 
 Croker ascribes to it without imminent danger of a flogging. 
 
 Mr. Croker has also given us a specimen of his skill in translating Latin. 
 Johnson wrote a note in which he consulted his friend. Dr. Lawrence, on the 
 propriety of losing some blood. The note contains these words : — " Si per 
 te licet, imperatur nuncio Holderum ad me deducere." Johnson should 
 rather have written "imperatum est." But the meaning of the words is 
 perfectly clear. "If you say yes, the messenger has orders to bring Holder 
 to me." Mr. Croker translates the words as follows : " If you consent, pray 
 tell the messenger to bring Holder to me. "J If Mr Croker is resolved to 
 write on points of classical learning, we would advise him to begin by giving 
 an hour every morning to our old friend Corderius. 
 
 Indeed, we cannot open any volume of this work in any place, and turn it 
 over for two minutes in any direction, without lighting on a blunder. John- 
 son, in his life of Tickell, stated that a poem entitled the Royal Progress, 
 which appears in the last volume of the Spectator, was written on the 
 accession of George I. The word "arrival" was afterwards substituted for 
 "accession." "Tne reader will observe," says Mr. Croker, "that the Whig 
 term accession^ which might imply legality, was altered into a statement of 
 the simple fact of King George's arrival.^' % Now Johnson, though a bigoted 
 Tory, was not quite such a fool as Mr. Croker here represents him to be. In 
 the Life of Granville, Lord Lansdowne, which stands a very few pages from 
 the Life of Tickell, mention is made of the accession of Anne, and the acces- 
 sion of George I. The word arrival was used in the Life of Tickell for the 
 simplest of all reasons. It was used because the subject of the Royal Pro- 
 gress was the arrival of the king, and not his accession, which took place 
 near two months before his arrival. 
 
 The editor's want of perspicacity is, indeed, very amusing. He is perpetu- 
 ally telling us that he cannot understand something in the text which is as 
 plain as language can make it. " Mattaire," said Dr. Johnson, "wrote Latin 
 verses from time to time, and published a set in his old age, which he called 
 Senilia, in which he shows so little learning or taste in writing as to make 
 Carteret a dactyl."|| Hereupon we have this note: "The editor does not 
 understand this objection, nor the following observation." The following 
 observation, which Mr. Croker cannot understand, is simply this: "In 
 
 • II. 45S. t IV. 331. X V. 17. § IV. 485 IV. 33S. 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OP JOHNSON. 177 
 
 matters of genealogy," says Johnson, "it is necessary to give the bare names 
 as they are. But in poetry and in poose of any elegance in the writing, they 
 require to have inflection given to them." If Mr. Croker had told Johnson 
 that this was unintelligible, the doctor would probably have replied, as he 
 replied on another occasion, *'I have found you a reason, sir; I am not 
 bound to find you an understanding." Everybody who knows anything of 
 Latinity knows that, in genealogical tables, Joannes Baro de Carteret, or 
 Vicecomes de Carteret, may be tolerated, but that in compositions which 
 pretend to elegance, Carteretus, or some other form which admits of inflec 
 lions, ought to be used. 
 
 All our readers have doubtless seen the two distichs of Sir William Jones, 
 respecting the division of the time of a lawyer. One of the distichs is 
 •translated from some old Latin lines ; the other is original. The former 
 runs thus : 
 
 " Six hours to sleep, to law's grave study six, 
 Four spend in prayer, the rest on nature fix,** 
 
 ** Rather," says Sir William Jones, 
 
 " Six hours to law, to soothing slumbers seven. 
 Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven." 
 
 The second couplet puzzles Mr. Croker strangely. " Sir William," says 
 he, "has shortened his day to twenty-three hours, and the general advice 
 of *all to heaven,' destroys the peculiar appropriation of a certain period to 
 religious exercises,"* Now, we did net think that it was in human dulness to 
 miss the meaning of the lines so completely. Sir William distributes twenty- 
 three hours among various employments. One hour is thus left for devotion. 
 The reader expects that the verse will end with — "and one to heaven." The 
 whole point of the lines consists in the unexpected substitution' of " all" for 
 * one. " The conceit is wretched enough j but it is perfectly intelligible, and 
 never, we will venture to say, perplexed man, woman, or child before. 
 
 Poor Tom Davies, after failing in business, tried to live by his pen. Johnson 
 called him "an author generated by the corruption of a bookseller." This is 
 a very obvious and even a commonplace allusion to the famous dogma of the 
 old physiologists. Dryden made a similar allusion to that dogma before 
 Johnson was born. Mr. Croker, however, is unable to understand what the 
 doctor meant. "The expression," he says, " seems not quite clear." And 
 he proceeds to talk about the generation of insects, about bursting into gaudier 
 life, and Heaven knows what.f 
 
 There' is a still stranger instance of the editor's talent for finding out diffi- 
 culty in what is perfectly plain. "No man," said Johnson, "can now be 
 made a bishop for his learning and piety." "From this too just observa- 
 tion," says Boswell, "there are some eminent exceptions." Mr. Croker is 
 puzzled by Boswell's very natural and simple language. " That a general 
 observation should be pronounced too justy by the very person who admits 
 that it is not universally just, is not a little odd. "% 
 
 A very large proportion of the two thousand five hundred notes which thc- 
 editor boasts of having added to those of Boswell and Malone consists of the 
 flattest and poorest reflections, reflections such as the least intelligent reader 
 is quite competent to make for himself, — and such as no intelligent read?*" 
 would think it worth while to utter aloud. They remind us of nothing so 
 much as of those profound and interesting annotations which are pencilled by 
 sempstresses and apothecaries' boys on the dog-eared margins of novels 
 
 • V. 93J. t IV. 3*3. X III. aaSL 
 
178 CROKER'S EDITION OF 
 
 borrowed from circulating libraries ; — " How beautiful !" — " Cursed prosy!" 
 — *' I don't like Sir Reginald Malcolm at all."— **I think Pelham is a sad 
 dandy." — Mr. Croker is perpetually stopping us in our progress through the 
 most delightful narrative in the language, to observe that really Dr. Johnson 
 was very rude, — that he talked more for victory than for truth, — that his taste 
 for port wine with capillaire in it was very odd, — that Bos well was imperti- 
 nent, — that it was foolish in Mrs. Thrale to marry the music-master ; and other 
 ** merderies" of the same kind, to borrow the energetic word of Rabelais. 
 
 We cannot speak more favourably of the manner in which the notes are 
 written than of the matter of which they consist. We find in every page 
 words used in wrong senses, and constructions which violate the plainest 
 rules of grammar. We have the low vulgarism of "mutual friend," for 
 ''common friend." We have ''fallacy" used as synonymous with "false- 
 hood" or '* misstatement." We have many such inextricable, labyrinths of pro- 
 nouns as that which follows : " Lord Erskin^ v/as fond of this anecdote ; he 
 told it to the editor the first time that he had the honour of being in his com. 
 pany." Lastly, we have a plentiful supply of sentences resembling those 
 which we subjoin. " Markland, who, with Jortin and Thirlby, Johnson calls 
 three contemporaries of great eminence."* "Warburton himself did not 
 feel, as Mr. Boswell was disposed to think he did, kindly or gratefully of 
 Johnson. "t "It was hnii that Horace Walpole called a man who nevei 
 made a bad figure but as an author. "J We must add that the printer has 
 done his best to fill both the text and the notes with all sorts of blunders. In 
 truth, he and the editor have between them made the book so bad, that we 
 do not well see how it could have been worse. 
 
 When we turn from the commentary of Mr. Croker to the work of our old 
 friend Boswell; we find it not only worse printed than in any other edition 
 with which we are acquainted, but mangled in the most wanton manner. 
 Much that Boswell inserted in his narrative is, without the shadow of a reason, 
 degraded to the appendix. The editor has also tal^en upon himself to alter 
 or omit passages which he considers as indecorous. This prudery is quite 
 unintelligible to us. There is nothing immoral in Boswell's book, nothing 
 which tends to inflame the passions. He sometimes uses plain words. But 
 if this be a taint which requires expurgation, it would be desirable to begin 
 by expurgating the morning and evening lessons. Mr. Croker has performed 
 the delicate office which he has undertaken in the most capricious manner. 
 One strong, old-fashioned, English word, familiar to all who read their Bibles, 
 is exchanged for a softer synonym in some passages, and suffered to stand 
 unaltered in others. In one place a faint allusion made by Johnson to an 
 indelicate subject, — an allusion so faint that, till Mr. Crokcr's note pointed it 
 out to us, we had never noticed it, and of which we are quite sure that the 
 meaning would never be discovered by any of those for whose sake books 
 are expurgated, — is altogether omitted. In another place, a coarse and stupid 
 jest of Dr. Taylor on the same subject, expressed in the broadest language,— 
 almost the only passage, as far as we remember, in all Boswell's book, which 
 we should have been inclined to leave out, — is suffered to remain. 
 
 We complain, however, much more of the additions than of the omissions, 
 We have half of Mrs. Thrale's book, scraps of Mr. Tyers, scraps of Mr. 
 Murphy, scraps of Mr. Cradock, long prosings of Sir John Hawkins, and 
 connecting observations by Mr. Croker himself, inserted into the midst oa 
 Boswell's text. To this practice we most decidedly object. An editor might 
 as well publish Thucydides with extracts from Diodorus interspersed, or in- 
 
 • IV. 377. t IV. 41s. X n. 461. 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OF JOHNSON, 179 
 
 corporate the Lives of Suetonius with the History and Annals of Tacitus. 
 Mr. Croker tells us, indeed, that hp^ has done only what Boswell wished to 
 do, and was prevented from doing by the law of copyright. We doubt this 
 greatly. Bosweli has studiously abstained from availing himself of the in- 
 formation given by his rivals, on many occasions on which he might ha re 
 cited them without subjecting himself to the charge of piracy. Mr. Croker 
 has himself, on one occasion, remarked very justly that Boswell was very 
 reluctant to owe any obligation to Hawkins. But, be this as it may, if 
 Boswell had quoted from Sir John and from Mrs. Thrale, he would have been 
 guided by his own trste and judgment in selecting his quotations. On what 
 he quoted he would have commented with perfect freedom; and the borrowed 
 passages, so selected, and accompanied by such comments, would have be- 
 come original. They would have dovetailed into the work. — No hitch, no 
 crease, would have been discernible. The whole would appear one and 
 indivisible, 
 
 " Ut per Iseve severos 
 Effundat junctura ungues.' 
 
 This is not the case with Mr. Croker's insertions. They are not chosen as 
 Boswell would have chosen them. They are not introduced as Boswell 
 would have introduced them. They differ from the quotations scattered 
 through the original Life of Johnson, as a withered bough stuck in the ground 
 differs from a tree skilfully transplanted with all its life about it. 
 
 Not only do these anecdotes disfigure Boswell's book ; they are themselves 
 disfigured by being inserted in his book. The charm of Mrs. Thrale's little 
 volume is utterly destroyed. The feminine quickness of observation, — the 
 feminine softness of heart, — the colloquial incorrectness and vivacity of style, 
 — the little amusing airs of a half-leai-ned lady, — the delightful garrulity, — 
 the "dear Doctor Johnson, "-^-the **itwas so comical," — all disappear in 
 Mr. Croker's quotations. — The lady ceases to speak in the first person ; and 
 her anecdotes, in the process of transfusion, become as flat as champagne in 
 decanters, or Herodotus- in Beloe's version. Sir John Hawkins, it is true, 
 loses nothing ; and for the best of reasons. Sir John had nothing to lose. 
 
 The course which Mr. Croker ought to have taken is quite clear. He 
 should have reprinted Boswell's narrative precisely as Boswell wrote it ; and 
 in the notes or the appendix he should have placed any anecdotes which he 
 might have thought it advisable to quote from other writers. This would have 
 been a much more convenient course for the reader, who has now constantly to 
 keep his eye on the margin in order to see whether he is perusing Boswell, 
 Mrs. Thrale, Murphy, Plawkins, Tyers, Cradock, or Mr-. Croker. We greatly 
 doubt whetlier even the Tour to the Hebrides ought to have been inserted in 
 the midst of the Life. There is one marked distinction betv.-cen the two wa ks. 
 ISIost of the Tour was seen by Johnson in manuscript. It does not appear mat 
 he ever saw any part of the Life. 
 
 We love, we own, to read the great productions of the human mind as they 
 were written. We have this feeling even about scientific treatises ; though \\ c 
 know that the sciences are always in a state of progression, and that the altera- 
 tions made by a modem editor in an old book on any branch of natural or 
 political philosophy are likely to be improvements. Many errors have been 
 detected by writers of this generation in the speculations of Adam Smith. A 
 short cut has been made to much knowledge at which Sir Isaac Newton arrived 
 through arduous and circuitous paths. Yet we still look with peculiar venera- 
 tion on the Wealth of Nations and on the Principia, and should regret to see 
 either of those great works garbled even by the ablest hands. But in works 
 whigh owe much of their interest to the character and situation of the writers 
 
i8o CROKER'S EDITION OP 
 
 the case is infinitely stronger. What man of taste and feeling can endure 
 harmonies, ri/acimenii, abridgments, expurgated editions ? Who evrr 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 J ohn Bunyan's Pilgrim into modem English ? Who would lose, 
 in the confusion of a Diatessaron, the peculiar charm which bebngs to the 
 narrative of the disciple whom Jesus loved? The feeling of a reader who has 
 become intimate with any great original work is that which Adam expressed 
 towards his bride : 
 
 " Should God create another Eve, and I 
 
 Anotlier rib afford, yet loss of thee 
 
 Would never from my heart." 
 
 No substitute, however exquisitely formed, will fill the void left by the original. 
 The 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 Boswell would vindicate 
 the 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 being can doubt that Mr. Hume would have made great use of those 
 books in his 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. Hume'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 anothei 
 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. We 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 the writer had not been precisely what 
 he was. His character is displayed in every page, and this display of characte^ 
 gives a delightful interest to many passages which have no other interest, sj 
 
 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 that 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 
 Wxitten. Beauclerk used his name as a proverbial 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, to all the crowd which filled Stratford'On-Avcm, with a 
 
BOSlVELL*S LIFE OF JOHNSON. i8i 
 
 placard round his hat bearing the inscription of Corsica Boiwell. In his Tour, 
 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 blustering about the 
 dignity of a bom 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 office 
 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 
 weak and diseased mind. What silly things he said, — what bitter retorts he 
 provoked, — how at one place he was troubled with evil presentiments which 
 came to nothing, — how at another place, on waking from a drunken doze, he 
 read the Prayer-book and took a hair of the dog that had bitten him, — ^howhe 
 went to see men hanged, and came away maudlin, — how he added five hundred 
 pounds to the fortune of one of his babies because she was not frightened at 
 Johnson's ugly face, — ^how he was frightened out of his wits at sea, — and how 
 the sailors quieted him as they would have quieted'a child, — how tipsy he was at 
 Lady Cork's one evening, and how much his merriment annoyed the ladies, — how 
 impertinent he was to the Duchess of Argyle, and with what stately contempt 
 she put down his impertinence, — ^how Colonel Macleod sneered to his face at 
 his impudent obtrusiveness, — how his father and the very wife of his bosom 
 laughed and fretted at his fooleries ; — all these things he proclaimed to all the 
 world, as if they had been subjects for pride and ostentatious rejoicing. All 
 the caprices of his temper, all the illusions of his vanity, all his hypochondriac 
 whimsies, all his castles in the air, he displayed with a cool self-compiacency, 
 a perfect unconsciousness that he was making a fool of himself, to which it is 
 impossible to find a parallel in the whole history of mankind. He has used 
 many people ill j but assuredly he has used nobody so ill as himself. 
 
 That such a man should have written one of the best books in the world is 
 strange enough. But this is not all. Many persons who have conducted them- 
 selves foolishly in active life, and whose conversation has indicated no superior 
 powers of mind, have left us valuable works. Goldsmith was very justly 
 described by one of his contemporaries as an inspired idiot, and by another as 
 a be.*ng 
 
 " Who wrote like an angel, and talked like poor Poll." 
 
 La Fontaine was in society a mere simpleton. His blunders would not com6 
 in amiss among the stories of Hierocles. But these men attained literary 
 eminence in spite of their weaknesses. Boswell attained it by reason of his 
 weaknesses, i If he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a 
 great writer./ Without all the qualities which made him the jest and the torment 
 of those antong whom he lived, — without the officiousness, the inquisitive- 
 ness, the effrontery, the toad-eating, the insensibility to all reproof, he never 
 could have produced so excellent a book. He was a slave proud of his servi- 
 tude, — a Paul Pry, convinced that his own curiosity and garrulity were virtues, 
 — an unsafe companion who never scrupled to repay the most liberal hos* 
 pitality by the basest violation of confidence, — a man without delicacy, without 
 shame, without sense enough to know when he was hurting the feelings of 
 Others, or when he was exposing himself to derision j and because hQ was 
 
i82 CROKER'S EDITION OF 
 
 all this, he has, in an important department of literature, immeasurably 
 surpassed such writers as Tacitus, Clarendon, Alfieri, and his ovm idol, 
 Johnson. 
 
 Of the talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as writers, Boswell 
 had absolutely none. There is not in all his books a single remark of his 
 own on literature, politics, religion, or society, which is not either common- 
 place or absurd. His dissertations on hereditary gentility, on the sb^^e-trade, 
 and on the entailing of landed estates, may serve as examples. To say that 
 these passages are sophistical would be to pay them an extravagant compli- 
 nent. They have no pretence to argument, or even to meaning. He has 
 reported innumerable observations made by himself in the course of conver- 
 sation. Of those observations we do not remember one which is above the 
 intellectual capacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed many of his own 
 letters, and in these letters he is always ranting or twaddling. Logic, elo- 
 quence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally considered as making 
 a book valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He had, indeed, a quick 
 observation and a retentive memory. These qualities, if he had been a man 
 of sense and virtue, would scarcely of themselves have sufficed to make him 
 conspicious ; but as he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have 
 made him immortal. 
 
 Those parts of his book which, considered abstractedly, are most utterly 
 worthless, are delightful when we read them as illustrations of the cha- 
 racter of the writer. Bad 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 Csesar Borgia or Danton, than one who would 
 publish 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 tJiis rule. His 
 work is universally allowed to be interesting, instructive, eminently original : 
 yet it has brought him nothing but contempt. All the world reads it : all the 
 world 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 whom 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 that, in proportion to the celebrity of the work, was th^ 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OP' JOHNSON. 183 
 
 degradation of the author. The very editors of this unfortunate gentleman's 
 books have forgotten their ailegian^, 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. He was not ashamed 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 pertness and folly, and of the insults which his pertness 
 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 whicli 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 eloquence, 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 w^hich we have been surrounded from childhood. But 
 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 club 
 of which he was the most distinguished member contained few persons who 
 could remember a time when his fame was not fully established and his 
 habits completely foimed. 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 Cro^vn had 
 placed him above poverty. "^Of \hose eminent men who were his most inti- 
 mate associates towards the close of his life, the only one, as far as we remem- 
 ber, who knew him during the first ten or twelve years of his residence in the 
 
i84 CROKER'S EDITION OP 
 
 capital, was David Garrick ; and it does not appear that during those years 
 David Garrick saw much of his fellow-townsman. 
 
 Johnson came up to London precisely at the time when the condition of a 
 man of letters was most miserable and degraded. It was a dark night between 
 two 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 subsist 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 mdre 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, perhaps, never a time at which the rewards of literary merit were so 
 splendid, — at which men who could write well found such easy admittance 
 into ihe most distinguished society, and to the highest honours of the state. 
 The 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 rewarded for his first comedy with places 
 which made him independent for life. Smith, though his Hippolytus and 
 Phaedra failed, would have been consoled with three 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. 
 Arthur 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, — Harley and Boling- 
 broke 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 for Parliamentary support much of that patronage which had been 
 employed 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 
 as idle. He had eminent talents for government and for debate. But he had 
 
BOS WELL* S LlfE OF JOHNSON. i8s 
 
 paid little attention to books, and felt little respect for authors. One of the 
 coarse jokes of his friend Sir Charle^Hanbury Williams was far more pleasing 
 to him than Thomson's Seasons or Richardson's Pamela. He had observed that 
 some of the distinguished 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 their 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 imremitting industry could do little more than provide for 
 the day which wa-^i passing over him. The lean kine had eaten up the fat 
 kine. The thin and withered ears had devoured the good ears. The season 
 of rich harvests was over, and the period 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 arid 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^;© another, from Grub Street to St. George's Fields, 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 one 
 writer who, if he had lived thirty years earlier, would have been admitted to 
 the sittings of the Kitdat or the Scriblerus club, would have satin 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-cradded all the faults which are commonly found in mepi whose livelihood 
 is precarious, and whose 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-making were scarcely 
 less ruinous than the blanks. 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 onjoy those 
 luxuries 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- 
 cellars. Such was the life of Savage, of Boyse, and of a aowd of others. 
 
rSS CROKER'S EDITION OB 
 
 Sometimes blazing in gold-laced hats and waistcoats ; sometimes lying 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 Betty 
 Careless ; sometimes standing at the window of an eating-house in Porridge 
 Island, to snuff up the scent of what they could not afford to taste ; they 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 v^hich an old gipsy or a Mohawk hunter 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 
 notj like beasts of a still fiercer* race, tear the hands v/hich ministered to 
 their necessities. To assist them was impossible ; and the most benevolent 
 of mankind at length became weai-y 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 taverns. All order was destroyed ; 
 all business was suspended. The most good-natured host began to repent of 
 his eagerness to serve a man of genius in distress when he heard his guest 
 roaring 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 i5 well known that they were all four arrested for debt. 
 
 Into calamities and difficulties such as these Johnson plunged in his 
 twenty-eighth 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 c-pulent. 
 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 vi'aiked about 
 
BOSWELVS LlFk OF JOHNSOH. 187 
 
 with him all night in the streets for want of a lodging. Burke, Robertson, 
 the Wartons, Gray, Mason, GibboiC 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 Churchill was the only ©ne in whom we can trace the stronger linea« 
 ments of that character which, 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 
 peculiarities 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 df 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. 
 He 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. He ace 
 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 lie 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. 
 Pie scarcely ever took wine. But when he drank it, he drank it greedily 
 and in large tumblers. There were, in fact, mitigated symptoms of that 
 same moral disease which raged with such deadly mali^ity 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 
 all 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 had sympathy, and not only sym- 
 pathy, but munificent relief. But for the suffering which a harsh word in- 
 flicts upon a delicate mind he had no pity ; for it was a kind of suffering . 
 which he could scarcely ccaceive. He would carry home on his shoulders « 
 
i88 C^CItEA'S BDtrtON OP 
 
 -'--"• — '^ — i-i—— i ^ . i'- . 1. -1 .. .1 1 ., , 1 1 1. 1 
 
 sick and starving girl from the streets. He turned his house into a place ci 
 refuge for a crowd of wretched old creatures who could find no other asylum ; 
 nor could all their peevishness and ingratitude weary out his benevolence. But 
 the pangs of wounded vanity seemed to him ridiculous ; and he scarcely felt 
 sufficient compassion even for the pangs of wounded affection. He had 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 pecuniary losses, unless they reduced the loser abso- 
 lutely to beggary, moved him very little. People whose hearts had 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 sarcasm 
 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 Holoiernes?" 
 *'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 fourpence-halfpenny 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 
 place him almost as high as he was placed by the idolatry of Boswell ; — if by 
 the worst parts of his mind, we should place him even below Boswell himself. 
 Where he was not under the influence of some strange scruple, or some 
 domineering passion, which prevented him from boldly and fairly investigating 
 a subject, he was a wary and acute reasoner, 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 sophisms and exposing false testimony, 
 some childish prejudices, such as would excite laughter in a well managed 
 nursery, came across him, he was smitten as if by enchantment. His mind 
 dwindled away under the spell from gigantic elevation to dwarfish littleness. 
 Those who had lately been admiring its amplitude and its force were now as 
 much astonished at its strange narrowness and feebleness as the fisherman in 
 the Arabian tale, when he saw the Genie, whose stature had overshadowed 
 the whole sea-coast, and whose might seemed equal to a contest with armies, 
 contract himself to the dimensions of his small prison, and lie there the help- 
 less slave of the charm of Solomon. 
 
 Johnson was in the habit of sifting with extreme severity the evidence for 
 all stories which were merely odd. But when they were not only odd but 
 miraculous, his severity relaxed. He began to be credulous precisely at the 
 point where the most credulous people begin to be sceptical. It is curious to 
 observe, both in his writings and in his conversation, the contrast between the 
 disdainful manner in which he rejects unauthenticated anecdotes, even when 
 they are consistent with the general laws of nature, and the respectful manner 
 in which he mentions the wildest stories relating to the invisible world, A 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OF JOHNSON, 189 
 
 man who told him of a water-spout ^ a meteoric stone generally had the lie 
 direct given him for his pains. A man who told him of a prediction or a dream 
 wonderfully accomplished was sure of a courteous hearing. "Johnson," 
 observed Hogarth, "like king David, says in his haste that aJ) men are liars." 
 "His increduhty," says Mrs. Thrale, "amounted almost to disease." She 
 tells us how he browbeat a gentleman who gave him an account of a hurricane 
 in the West Indies, and a poor Quaker who related some strange circumstance 
 about the red-hot balls fired at the siege of Gibraltar. "It is not so. It 
 cannot be true. Don't tell that story again. You cannot think how poor a 
 figure you make in telling it." He once said, half-jestingly, we suppose, that 
 for six months he refused to credit the fact of the earthquake at Lisbon, and 
 that he still believed the extent of the calamity to be greatly exaggerated. 
 Yet he related with a grave face how old Mr. Cave of St. John's Gate saw a 
 ghost, and how this ghost was something of a shadowy being. He went him- 
 self on a ghost-hunt to Cock Lane, and was angry with John Wesley for not 
 following up another scent of the same kind with proper spirit and perseve- 
 rance. He rejects the Celtic genealogies and poems without the least hesita- 
 tion ; yet he declares himself willing to believe the stories of the second sight. 
 If he had examined the claims of the Highland sec/^ with half the severity 
 with which he sifted the evidence for the genuineness of Fingal, he would, we 
 suspect, have come away from Scotland with a mind fully made up. In his 
 Lives of the Poets we find that he is unwilling to give credit to the accounts 
 of Lord Roscommon's early proficiency in his studies ; but he tells with great 
 solemnity an absurd romance about some intelligence pretematurally impressed 
 on the mind of that nobleman. He avows himself to be in great doubt about 
 che truth of the story, and ends by warning his readers not wholly to slight 
 such impressions. 
 
 Many of his sentiments on religious subjects are worthy of a liberal and 
 enlarged mind. He could discern clearly enough the folly and meanness of 
 all bigotry except his own. When he spoke of the scruples of the Puritans, 
 he spoke like a person who had really obtained an insight into the divine 
 philosophy of the New Testament, and who considered Christianity as a noble 
 scheme of government, tending to promiote the happiness and to elevate the 
 moral nature of man. The horror which the sectaries felt for cards, Christ- 
 mas ale, plum-porridge, mince-pies, and dancing bears, excited his contempt. 
 To the arguments urged by some very worthy people against showy dress he 
 replied with admirable sense and spirit, "Let us not be found, when our 
 Master calls us, stripping the^ lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of conten- 
 fion from our souls and tongues. Alas ! sir, a man who cannot get to heaven 
 in a green coat will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one." Yet 
 he was himself under the tyranny of scruples as unreasonable as those of 
 Hudibras or Ralpho, and carried his zeal for ceremonies and for ecclesias- 
 tical dignities to lengths altogether inconsistent with reason or with Christian 
 charity. He has gravely noted down in his diary that he once committed the 
 sin of drinking coffee on Good Friday. In Scotland he thought it his duty 
 to pass several months without joining in public worship solely because the 
 ministers of the kirk had not been ordained by bishops. His mode of esti- 
 mating the piety of his neighbours was somewhat singular. "Campbell," 
 said he, " is a good man, — a pious man. I am afraid he has not been in the 
 inside of a church for many years ; but he never passes a church without pull- 
 ing off his hat: — this shows he has good principles." Spain and Sicily must 
 surely contain many pious robbers and well-principled assassins. Johnson 
 could easily see that a Roundhead who named all his children after Solomon's 
 liiigers, and talked in the House of Commons about seeking the Lordr might 
 
190 CHOKER'S EDITION OP 
 
 be an unprincipled villain, whose religious mummeries only aggravated his 
 guilt. But a man who took off his hat when he passed a church episcopally 
 consecrated must be a good man, a pious man, a man of good principles. 
 Johnson could easily see that those persons who looked on a dance or a laced 
 waistcoat as sinful deemed most ignobly of the attributes of God and of the 
 ep.ds of revelation. But with what a storm of invective he would have over- 
 v.'helmed any man who had blamed him for celebrating the close of Lent 
 v/ith sugarless tea and butterless buns ! 
 ^ Nobody spoke more contemptuously of the cant of patriotism. Nobody 
 saw more clearly the error of those who represented liberty not as a means, 
 but as an end, and who proposed to themselves, as the object of their pursuit, 
 the prosperity of the state as distinct from the prosperity of the individuals 
 who compose the state. His calm and settled opinion seems to have been 
 that forms of government have little or no influence on the happiness of 
 society. This opinion, erroneous as it is, ought at least to have preserved hira 
 from all intemperance on political questions. It did not, however, preserve 
 liim from the lowest, fiercest, and most absurd extravagances of party spirit, — 
 from rants which, in everything but the diction, resembled those of Squire 
 Western. He was, as a politician, half ice and half fire. On the side 'of; hh 
 intellect he was a mere pococurante, — far too apathetic about public affairs,— 
 far too sceptical as to the good or evil tendency of any form of polity. His 
 passions, on the contrary, were violent even to slaying against all who leaned 
 to Whiggish principles. The well-known lines which he inserted in Gold- 
 smith's Traveller express what seems to have been his deliberate judgment : 
 
 " How small, of all that human hearts endure. 
 That part which kings or laws can cause or cure ! " 
 
 He had previously put expressions very similar into the mouth of Rasselas. 
 It is amusing to contrast these passages with the torrents of raving abuse 
 which he poured forth against the Long Parliament and the American Con- 
 gress. In one of the conversations reported by Boswell this inconsistency 
 displays itself in the most ludicrous manner. 
 
 "Sir Adam Ferguson," says Boswell, "suggested that luxury corrupts a 
 people, and destroys the spirit of liberty. Johnson : ' Sir, that is all visionary. 
 I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather 
 than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual. Sir, 
 the danger of the abuse of power is nothing to a private man. What French- 
 man is prevented passing his life as he pleases? — Sir Adam : * But, sir, in 
 the British Constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit in the 
 people, so as to preserve a balance ag^^inst the crown.' — ^Johnson : * Sir, I 
 perceive you are a vile Whig. Why all this childish jealousy of the power 
 of the crown? The crown has not power enough.'" 
 
 One of the old philosophers. Lord Bacon tells us, used to say that life ^and 
 death were just the same to him. "Why then," said an objector, "do you 
 not kill yourself?" The philosopher answered, "Because it is just the 
 same." If the difference between two forms of government be not wortj 
 half a guinea, it is not easy to see how Whiggism can be viler than Toryism, 
 or how the crown can have too little power. If private men suffer nothing 
 from political abuses, zeal for liberty is doubtless ridiculous. But zeal for 
 monarchy must be equally so. No person could have been more quick 
 sighted than Johnson to such a contradiction as this in the logic of an 
 antagonist. 
 
 The judgments which Johnson passed on books were, in his own time, re- 
 garded with superstitious veneration, and, in our time, are generally treated 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OF JOHNSON, iqi 
 
 with incliscnminate contempt. They are the judgrnents of a stijng; but 
 'Hislaved understanding. The min(^f the critic was hedged round by an 
 aninterrupted fence oi prejudices and superstitions. Within his narrow 
 limits, he displayed a vigour and an activity which ought to have enabled 
 Vim to clear the barrier that confined him. 
 
 How it chanced that a ma n who reasoned on his premises so ably shouM 
 assume his premises so foolishly is one of the great mysteries of human 
 nature. The same inconsistency may be observed in the schoolmen of the 
 middle ages. Those writers show so much acuteness and force of mind in 
 arguing on their wretched data that a modern reader is perpetually at a loss 
 to cpmprehend how such minds came by such data. Not a flaw in the super- 
 structure of the theory which they are rearing escapes their vigilance. Yet 
 they are blind to the obvious unsoundness of the foundation. It is the same 
 with some eminent lawyers. Their legal arguments are intellectual pro- 
 digies, abounding with the happiest analogies and the most refined distinc- 
 tions. The principles of their arbitrary science being once admitted, the 
 statute-book and the reports being once assumed as the foundations of juris- 
 prudence, these men must be allowed to be perfect masters of logic. But if a 
 question arises as to the postulates on which their whole system rests, — if they 
 are called upon to vindicate the fundamental maxims of that system which 
 they have passed their lives in studying, these very men often talk the lan- 
 guage of savages or of children. Those who have listened to a man of this 
 class in his own court, and who have witnessed the skill with which he 
 analyses and digests a vast mass of evidence, or reconciles a crowd of pre- 
 cedents which at first sight seem contradictory, scarcely know him again 
 when, a few hours later, they hear him speaking on the other side of West- 
 minster Hall in his capacity of legislator. They can scarcely believe that 
 the paltry quirks which are faintly heard through a storm of coughing, arid 
 which cannot impose on the plainest country gentleman, can proceed from 
 the same sharp and vigorous intellect which had excited their admiration 
 under the same roof, and on the same day., 
 
 Johnson decided literary questions like a la\Aryer, not lil-ce a legislator. He 
 never examined foundations where a point was already ruled. His whole 
 code of criticism rested on pure assumption, for which he sometimes quoted 
 a precedent or an authority, but rarely troubled himself to give a reason drawn 
 from the nature of tilings. He took it for granted that the kind of poetry 
 which flourished in his own time, which he had been accustomed to hear 
 praised from his childhood, and which he had himself written with success, 
 tv'as the best kind of poetry. In his biographical work he has repeatedly 
 laid it dovv^n as an undeniable proposition that during the latter part of the 
 seventeenth century, and the earlier part of the eighteenth, English poetry 
 had been in a constant progress of improvement. Waller, Denham, Drydcn, 
 and Pope, had been, according to him, the great reformers. He judged o( 
 all works of the imagination by the standard established among his own 
 contemporaries. Though he allowed Homer to have been a greater man 
 than Virgil, he seems to have thought the .^Eneid a greater poem than the 
 Iliad. Indeed, he well might have thought so ; for he preferred Pope's Iliad 
 to Homer's. He pronounced that, after Hoole's translation of Tasso, Fairfax's 
 would hardly be reprinted. He could see no merit in our fine old English 
 ballads, and always spoke with the most provoking contempt of Percy's 
 fondness for them. Of all the great original works which appeared during 
 his time, Richardson's novels alone excited his admiration. He could see 
 little or no merit in Tom Jones, in Gulliver's Travels, or in Tristram Shandy, 
 To Thomson's Castle of Indolence he vouchsafed only a line of cold com« 
 
192 CROKER'S EDITION OF 
 
 mendation, — of commendation much colder than what he has bestowed on the 
 creation of that portentous bore, Sir Richard Blackmore. Gray was, in his 
 dialect, a barren rascal. Churchill was a blockhead. The contempt which 
 he felt for the trash of Macpherson was, indeed, just ; but it was, we suspect, 
 just by chance. He despised the Fingal for the very reason which led many 
 men of genius to admire it. He despised it, not because it was essentially 
 commonplace, but because it had a superficial air of originality. 
 
 He was undoubtedly an excellent judge of compositions fashioned on his 
 own principles. But when a deeper philosophy was required, — when he 
 undertook to pronounce judgment on the works of those great minds which 
 "yield homage only to eternal laws," — his failure was ignominious. He criti- 
 cised Pope's epitaphs excellently. But his observations on Shakespeare's 
 plays and Milton's poems seem to us for the most part as wretched as if they 
 had been written by Rymer himself, whom we take to have been the worst 
 critic that ever lived. 
 
 Some of Johnson's whims on literary subjects can be compared only to that 
 strange nervous feeling which made him uneasy if he had not touched every 
 post between the Mitre tavern and his own lodgings. His preference of Latin 
 epitaphs to English epitaphs is an instance. An English epitaph, he said, 
 would disgrace Smollett. He declared that he would not pollute the walls of 
 \Vestminster Abbey with an English epitaph on Goldsmith. What reason 
 there can be for celebrating a British writer in Latin, which there was not for 
 covering the Roman arches of triumph with Greek inscriptions, or for com- 
 memorating the deeds of the heroes of Thermopylae in Egyptian hieroglyphics, 
 we are utterly unable to imagine. 
 
 On men and manners, — at least on the men and manners of a particular 
 place and a particular age, — ^Johnson had certainly looked with a most obser- 
 vant and discriminating eye. His remarks on the education of children, on 
 marriage, on the economy of families, on the rules of society, are always 
 striking, and generally sound. In his writings, indeed, the knowledge of life 
 which he possessed in an eminent degree is very imperfectly exhibited. Like 
 those unfortunate chiefs of the middle ages who were suffocated by their own 
 chain-mail and cloth of gold, his maxims perish under that load of words 
 which was designed for their ornament and their defence. But it is clear from 
 the remains of his conversations, that he had more of that homely wisdom 
 which nothing but experience and observation can give than any writer 
 since the time of Swift. If he had been content to write as he talked, he 
 might have left books on the practical art of living superior to the Directions to 
 Servants. 
 
 Yet even his remarks on society, like his remarks on literature, indicate 
 a mind at least as remarkable for narrowness as for strength. He was no 
 master of the great science of human nature. He had studied, not the genus 
 man, but the species Londoner. Nobody was ever so thoroughly conver- 
 sant with all the forms of life and all the shades of moral and intellectual 
 character which were to be seen from Islington to the Thames, and from 
 Hyde-Park comer to Mile-end green. But his philosophy stopped at the 
 first turnpike-gate. Of the rural life of England he knew nothing' ; and he 
 took it for granted that every body who lived in the country was either stupid 
 or miserable. ** Country gentlemen," said he, **must be unhappy; for they 
 have not enough to keep their lives in motion ; " — as if all those peculiar 
 habits and associations which made Fleet Street and Charing Cross the finest 
 views in the world to himself had been essential parts of human nature. Of 
 remote countiies and past times he talked with wild and ignorant presump- 
 tion. "The Athenians of the age of Demosthenes," he said to Mrs. ThralCi 
 
BOSWELVS LIFE OF yOHNSON. 193 
 
 " were a people of brutes, a barbarous people." In convei-sation with Sir 
 Adam Ferguson he used similar lang*mge. "The boasted Athenians," he 
 said, **were barbarians. The mass of every people must be barbarous where 
 there is no printing." The fact was this : he saw that a Londoner who could 
 not read, was a very stupid and brutal fellow : he saw that great retinemcnt 
 of taste and activity of intellect were rarely found in a Londoner who had 
 not read much ; and, because it was by means of books that people acquired 
 almost all their knowledge in the society with which he was acquainted, he 
 concluded, in defiance of the strongest and clearest evMence, that the human 
 mind can be cultivated by means of books alone. An Athenian citizen 
 might possess very few volumes ; and the largest lib ary to which he had 
 access might be much less valuable than Johnson's bookcase in Bolt Court. 
 But the Athenian might pass every morning in conversation with Socrates, 
 and might hear Pericles speak four or five times every month. He saw the 
 plays of Sophocles and Aristophanes : — he walked amidst the friezes o\ 
 Phidias and the paintings of Zeuxis : — he knew by heart the choruses ot 
 .^schylus : — he heard the rhapsodist at the corner of the street reciting the 
 Shield of Achilles or the Death of Argus : — ^he was a legislator conversant with 
 nigh questions^of alliance, revenue, and war : — he was a soldier trained under 
 a liberal and generous discipline : — -he was a judge, compelled every day to 
 weigh the effect of opposite arguments. These thinj^s were in themselves an 
 education, — an education eminently fitted, not, indeed, to form exact or pro- 
 found thinkers, but to give quickness to the perceptions, delicacy to the taste, 
 fluency to the expression, and politeness to the manners. All this was over- 
 looked. An Athenian who did not improve his mind by reading was, in 
 Johnson's opinion, much such a person as a Cockney who made his mark, — 
 much such a person as black Frank before he went to school, ai 1 far inferior 
 to a parish clerk or a printer's devil. 
 
 Johnson's friends have allowed that he carried to a ridiculous extreme his 
 unjust contempt for foreigners. He pronounced the French to be a very silly 
 people, — much behind us, — stupid, ignorant creatures. And this judgment 
 he formed after having been at Paris about a month, during which he would 
 not talk French for fear of giving the natives an advantage over him in con- 
 versation. He pronounced them, also, to be an indelicate people, because a 
 French footman touched the sugar with his fingers. That ingenious and 
 amusing traveller, M. Simond, has defended his countrymen very success- 
 fully against Johnson's accusation, and has pointed out some English practices 
 which, to an impartial spectator, would seem at least as inconsistent with 
 physical cleanliness and social decorum as those which Johnson so bitterly 
 reprehended. To the sage, as Boswell loves to call him, it never occurred 
 to doubt that there must be something eternally and immutably good in the 
 usages to which he had been accustomed. In fact, Johnson's remarks on 
 society beyond the bills of mortality are generally of much the same kind 
 with those of honest Tom Dawson, the English footman in Dr. Moore's 
 Zeluco, "Suppose the king of France has no sons, but only a daughter, then, 
 when the king dies, this here daughter, according to that there law, cannot 
 be made queen, but the next near relative, provided he is a man, is made 
 king, and not the last king's daughter, which, to be sure, is very unjust. 
 The French footguards are dressed in blue, and all the marching regiments 
 in white, which has a very foolish appearance for soldiers ; and as for blue 
 regimentals, it is only fit for the blue horse or the artillery." 
 
 Johnson's visit to the Hebrides introduced him to a state of society com- 
 ^;)letely new to him ; and a salutary suspicion of his own deficiencies seemi 
 on that oQcasion to have crossed his mind for the first time. He confes^tdf 
 
 ■ ' ' H 
 
194 CROKER'S EDITIOJ^ OP j 
 
 in the last paragraph of his Journey, that his thoughts /on national manners 
 were the thoughts of one who had seen but little,— of one who had passed his 
 lime almost wholly in cities. This feeling, however, soon passed away. It 
 is remarkable that to the last he entertained a fixed contempt for all those 
 modes of life and those studies which lead to emancipate tli e mind from the 
 prejudices of a particular age or a particular nation. Of foreign travel and 
 of history he spoke with the fierce and boisterous contempt of ignorance. 
 ** What does a man learn by travelling? Is Beauclerk the tetter for travel- 
 ling? What did Lord Charlemont learn in his travels, except that there was 
 a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt ? " History was, in his opinion, to 
 use the fine expression of Lord Plunkett, an old almanack : historians could, 
 as he conceived, claim no higher dignity than that of almanack-makers ; and 
 his favourite historians were those who, like Lord Hailes, aspired to no higher 
 dignity. He always spoke with contempt of Robertson. Hume he would 
 not even read. He affronted one of his friends for talking to him about 
 Catiline's conspiracy, and declared that be never desired to hear of the Punic 
 war again as long as he lived. 
 
 Assuredly ©ne fact which does not directly affect our own interests, con- 
 sidered in itself, is not better worth knowing than another fact. The fact 
 that there is a snake in a pyramid, or the fact that Hannibal crossed the 
 Alps by the great St. Bernard, are in themselves as unprofitable to us as the 
 fact that there is a green blind in a particular house in Threadneedle Street, 
 or the fact that a ^Ir. Smith comes into the city every morning on the top of 
 one of the Blackwall stages. But it is certain that those who will not crack 
 the shell of history will not get at the kernel. Johnson, with hasty arrogance, 
 pronounced the kernel worthless, because he saw no value in the shell. The 
 real use of travelling to distant countries and of studying the annals of past 
 times is to preserve men from the contraction of mind which those can hardly 
 escape whose whole communion is with one generation and one neighbourhood, 
 who arrive at conclusions by means of. an induction not sufficiently copious, 
 and who, therefore, constantly confound exceptions with rules, and accidents 
 with essential properties. In short, the real use of travelling and of studying 
 history is to keep men from being what Tom Dawson was in fiction, and 
 Samuel Johnson in reality. 
 
 Johnson, as Mr. Burke most justly observed, appears far greater in Bos- 
 . well's books than in his own. His conversation appears to have been quite 
 ; equal to his writings in matter, and far superior to them in manner. When 
 he talked, he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expressions. 
 As soon as he took his pen in his hand to write for the public, his style became 
 systematically vicious. All his books are written in a learned language, in a 
 language — which nobody hears from his mother or his nurse,— in a language 
 in which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love, — in a lan- 
 guage in which nobody ever thinks. It is clear that Johnson himself did not 
 think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to 
 his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for pub- 
 lication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from 
 the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that, work of which the Jour- 
 ney to tire Hebrides is the translation j and it is amusing to compare the two 
 versions. " When we were taken upstairs," says he in one of his letters, " a 
 dirty fellow bounced out of the bed in which one of us was to lie." This 
 incident is recorded in the Journey as follows : "Out of one of the beds on 
 which we were to repose started up, at our entrance, a man black as a 
 Cyclops from the forge." Sometimes Johnson translated aloud. '* The 
 Rehearsal," he said, very unjustly, "has not wit enough to keep it sweet ;** 
 
^OSWELVS LIFE OF JOHNSON. I95 
 
 tlien, after a pause, "it has not vitality enough to preserve it from putro 
 faction." > , , j^ ■,, ..-, ;• 
 
 Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, when Ihe 
 manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, for example, would be 
 willing to part with the mannerism of Milton or of Burke. But a mannerism 
 which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on prin- 
 ciple, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive. 
 And such is the mannerism of Johnson. 
 
 The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar to all our readers, and 
 have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost superfluous to point them out. 
 It is well known that he made less use than any other eminent write/ of those 
 strong, plain words, Anglo-Saxon or Norman-French, of which the roots lie 
 in the inmost depths of our language : and that he felt a vicious partiality for 
 terms which, long after our own speech had been fexed, were borrowed from 
 the Greek and Latin, and which, therefore, even when lawfully naturalised, 
 must be considered as bom aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's 
 English. His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets, 
 till it became as stiff as the bust of an exquisite, — ^liis antithetical forms of ex» 
 pression, constantly employed even where there is no opposition in the ideas 
 expressed, — his big words wasted on little things, — his harsh inversions, so 
 widely different from those graceful and easy inversions which give variety, 
 spirit, and sweetness to the expression of our great old writers, — all these 
 peculiarities have been imitated by his admirers, and parodied by his assailants, 
 till the public has become sick of the subject. 
 
 Goldsmith said to him, very wittily and very justly, " If you were to write a 
 fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little fishes talk like 
 whales. " No man surely ever had so little talent for personation as Johnson. 
 Whether he wrote in the character of a disappointed legacy-hunter or an' 
 empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or a flippant coquette, he wrote in the 
 same pompous and unbending style. His speech, like Sir Piercy Shafton's 
 euphuistic eloquence, betrayed him under every disguise. Euphelia and Rho- • 
 doclea talk as finely as Imlac the poet, or Seged, Eniperor of Ethiopia. The 
 gay Cornelia describes her reception at the country-house of her relations in 
 such terms as these : — ** I was surprised, after the civilities of my first recep- 
 tion, to find, instead of the leisure and tranquillity which a rural life always 
 promises, and, if well-conducted, always affords, a confused wildness of care, 
 and a tumultuous hurry of diligence, by which every face was clouded, and 
 every motion agitated." The gentle Tranquilla informs us that she "had 
 not passed the earlier part of life without the flattery of courtship, and the 
 joys of triumph ; but had danced the round of gaiety amidst the murmurs of 
 envy and the gratulations of applause,— had been attended from pleasure to 
 pleasure by the great, the sprightly, and the vain, and had seen her regard soli- 
 cited by the obsequiousness of gallantry, the gaiety of wit, and the timidity of 
 love." Surely Sir John Falstaff himself did not wear his petticoats with a 
 worse grace. The reader may well cry out, with honest Sir Hugh Evans, 
 *' I like not when a 'oman has a great peard ; I spy a great peard under her ■ 
 muffler." 
 
 We had something more to say. But our article is already too long ; and 
 we must close it. We would fain part in good humour from the hero, from 
 the biographer, and even from the editor, who, ill as he has performed his 
 task, has at least this claim to our gratitude, that he has induced us to read 
 Boswell's book again. As we close it the club-room is before us, and the 
 table on which stand the omelet for Nugent, and the lemons for Johnson. 
 There are assembled those heads which tve for ever on the canvas of R«f« 
 
196 ^OOTtTEV'S EblTIOM 6P 
 
 nolds. There are the spectacles of Burke and the tall, thin form of Langton, 
 the courtly sneer of Beauclerk, and the beamuig 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 dirty hands, 
 the nails bitten and pared to the quick. We see the eyes and mouth moving 
 with convulsive twitches ; we see the heavy form rolling ; we hear it puffing j 
 and then comes the ** Why, sir!" and the ** What then, sir?" and the **No, 
 sir !" 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 commonly the most transient is, in his case, the most durable. The 
 reputation of 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. 
 
 Ite Pilgrim's Progress, with a Life of John Bunyan. By Robert Southev, 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 tol^ation. 
 
 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 tlie 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 ift 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 t^t we pronounce judgment on any question relating 
 to the art of painting. ^^^^ it appears to us that Mr. Martin has not of late 
 been fortunate in his cnoice of subjects. He should never have attempted 
 to illustrate the Paradise Lost, There can be no two manners more directly 
 
7HE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, 19? 
 
 Opposed to each other than the manner of his paintingf and the manner of 
 Milton's poetry. Those things whidK 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 veiy 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 infernal 
 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. 
 n\ 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 insulted 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, — mhabited- by people for whom nobody 
 cares, — these aTe^s proper domain. He would succeed admirably in the 
 enchanted ground of Alcin.a,i pr the mansion of Aladdin. But he should 
 avoid Milton and Buuyajiu [' 
 
 The chafacteristic peculiarity of the Pilgrim's Progress is that it is the only 
 work of its kind which possesses a strong human interest. Other allegories 
 'a only amuse the fancy^-^The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many 
 ^ ; thousands with tears, sphere are some good allegories in Johnson's works, 
 J^' and some of still highlTmerit 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'Tl It is a pleasure which belongs wholly to the under- 
 standing, and in l^mich the feelings have no part whatever. Nay, even 
 Spenser himself, though assuredly one of the greatest poets that^yer lived, 
 could not succeed in the attempt to make allegory interesting.! It was in 
 vain 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 Qi^een. We become sick of Cardin^.Virtue? 
 and Deadly Sins, and long for the society of plain men and women. Of the 
 persons wno~ read the first canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the first 
 book, add 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 heart less stout than that of a com* 
 mentatcr would have held out to the end. 
 
 / 
 
%N 
 
 198 mUTHBV^S £:DlfiON' OP 
 
 ■■ ■ . . . ^' ' ir-.Vi-rrVgk 
 
 It is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. That wonderful book, while it 
 obtains admiration from the most fastidious critics, is loved by those who are 
 too simple to admire it. Dr. Johnson, all whose studies were desultory, and 
 who hated, as he said, to read books throug;h, made an exception in favour 
 of the Pilgrim's Progress. That xvork, he said, was one of the two or three 
 works which he wished longer. It was Toy no common merit that the illiterate 
 sectary extracted praise like this from the most pedantic of critics and the most 
 bigoted of Tories. In the wilde.st parts of Scotland the Pilgrim's Progress is 
 the delight of the peasantry; . Jn every nursery the Pilgrim's Progress is a 
 greater favourite than Tack tnetjiant-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 imaginations 
 of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. And this 
 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 whick 
 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 p^lUj* was Set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought theiv? 
 good fight. TAs we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The 
 shade of tlT&*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 giaiits 
 dwelt, amidst the bones of those whom they had slaini ; 
 
 Then the road passes straight on through a waste nfoor, 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 louixgerSj jabbering all the languages of the earth. ' ' _ 
 
 Thence we go on by the" little hill of the silver mine, and through thd'~^ 
 meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river which is bordered ou> 
 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 
 pilgri tTis ; and right onward are the sheepfolds and orchards of the Delectable 
 Mountains. ' ^ 
 
 From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies through the fogs and briefs of 
 the Enclr>anted 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 
 night and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements and stjreets 
 
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, 199 
 
 of pearl, on the otJtiei: side. of that blapk and cold river over which there is no 
 bridge. 
 
 All the Stages of the journey, — all the forms which cross or overtake the 
 pilgrims, — giants, and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones and shining ones,— the 
 tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and 
 her fingers playing with the money, — the black man in the bright vesture, 
 Mr. Worldly Wiseman and my Lord Hategood,-t;-Mr. Talkative and Mrs, 
 Timorous, — all are actually existing beings to us. 3 We follow the travellers 
 through their allegorical progress with interest not Inferior to that with which 
 we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgli 
 to London. Bunyan is almost the only writer who ever gave to the abstract 
 the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors, men 
 are mere personifications. We have not an Othello, but jealousy, not an 
 lago, but perfidy, not a Brutus, but patriotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the 
 contrary, was so imaginative that personifications, when he dealt with them, 
 became men. A dialogue between two qualities, in his dream, has more 
 dramatic effect than a dialogue between two human beings in most plays; In 
 this respect the genius of Bunyan bore a great resemblance to that of a man 
 who had very little else in common with him, Percy Bysshe Shelley. The 
 strong imagination of Shelley made him an idolator in his own despite. Out 
 of the most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark metaphysical system, he 
 made a gorgeous Pantheon, full of beautiful, majestic, and life-like formi;. 
 He turned atheism itself into a mythology, rich with visions as glorious as 
 the gods that live in the marble of Phidias, or the virgin saints that smile on 
 us from the canvas of Murillo. The Spirit of Beauty, the Principle of Good, 
 the Principle of Evil, when he treated of them, ceased to be abstractions. 
 They took shape and colour. They were no longer mere words ; but " intel- 
 ligible forms," "fair humanities," objects of love, of adoration, or of fear. 
 As there can be no stronger sign of a mind destitute of the poetical faculty 
 than that tendency which was so common among the writers of the French 
 school to turn images into abstractions — Venus, for example, into Love, 
 Minerva into Wisdom, Mars into War, and Bacchus into Festivity, — so thero 
 can be no stronger sign of a mind truly poetical than a disposition Jp^jeVerse 
 this abstracting process, and to make individuals out of generalities. | Some 
 of the metaphysical and ethical theories of Shelley were certainly most absurd 
 and pernicious. But we doubt whether any modern poet has possessed in an 
 equal degree some of the highest qualities of the great ancient masters. The 
 words bard and inspiration, which seem so cold and affected when applied to 
 other modem writers, have a perfect propriety when applied to him. He 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 ! 
 
 Toi» tiXmaaK ^iXov avdpa, toy oi tfvfKpaiatv ciirex^^. 
 
 But we must return to Bunyan. The Pilgrim's Progress undoubtedly is 
 not a perfect allegory. The types are often inconsistent with each other ; ami 
 sometimes the allegorical disguise is altogether thrown off. The river, for 
 example, is emblematic of death ; and we are told that every human being 
 must pass through the river. But Faithful does not pass through it. He is 
 martyred, not in shadow, but in reality, at Vanity Fair. Hopeful talks to 
 Christian about Esau's birthright and about his own convictions of sin as 
 ■punyan might have talked with on^ of his own coiigr«gation. The damsels 
 
200 SOUTHED S EDITION' OF 
 
 at the House Beautiful catechize Christiana's boys, as any good ladies might 
 catechize any boys at a Sunday Scliool. But we do not believe th^-t any man, 
 whatever might be liis genius, and whatever his good luck, could long con- 
 tinue a figurative history without faUing into many inconsistencies. We ar& 
 sure that inconsistencies, scarcely less gross than the worst into v;hich Bun- 
 yan has fallen, may be found in the shortest and most elaborate allegories of 
 the Spectator and the Rambler. The Tale of a Tub and the History of John 
 Bull swarm with similar errors, — if the name of error can be properly applied 
 to that which is unavoidable. It is not easy to make a simile go on all-fours. 
 But we believe that no human ingenuity could produce such a centipede as 
 a long allegory in which the correspondence between the outward sign and 
 the thing signified should be exactly preserved. Certainly no writer, ancient 
 or modern, has yet achieved the adventure. The best thing, on the whole, 
 that an allegorist can do, is to present to his readers a succession of analogies, 
 each of which may separately be striking and happy, without looking very 
 nicely to see whether they harmonize with each other. This Bunyan has 
 done ; and, though a minute scrutiny may detect inconsistencies in every 
 page of his tale, the general effect which the tale produces on all persons, 
 learned and unlearned, proves that he has done well. The passages which it is 
 most difficult to defend are those in which he altogether drops the allegory, 
 and puts in the mouth of his pilgrims religious ejaculations and disquisitions 
 better suited to his own pulpit at Bedford or Reading than to the Enchanted 
 Ground or to the Interpreter's Garden. Yet even these passages, though we 
 will not undertake to defend them against the objections of critics, we feel 
 that we could ill spare. We feel that the story owes much of its charm to 
 these occasional glimpses of solemn and affecting subjects, which will not be 
 hidden, which force themselves through the veil, and appear before us in their 
 native aspect. The effect is not unlike that which is said to have been pro- 
 duced on the ancient stage, when the eyes of the actor were seen flaming 
 through his mask, and giving life and expression to what would else have been 
 an inanimate and uninteresting disguise. 
 
 It is very amusing and very instructive to compare the Pilgrim's Progress 
 with the Grace Abounding. The latter work is, indeed, one of the most 
 remariiable pieces of autobiography in the world. It is a full and open con- 
 fession of the fancies which parsed through the mind of an illiterate man, 
 whose affections were warm, whose nerves were irritable, whose imagination 
 was ungovernable, and who' was under the influence of the strongest religious 
 excitement. In whatever age Bunyan had livqd; the history of his feelings 
 would, in all probability, have been very curious!.] But the time in which his 
 lot was cast was the time of a great stirring of the hiiman mind. A tremendous 
 burst of public feeling, produced by the tyranny of the hierarchy, nfenaced the 
 old ecclesiastical institutions with destruction. To the gloomy regularity of 
 one intolerant Church had succeeded the licence of mnumerable sects, drunk 
 with the sweet and heady must of their new liberty. Fanaticism, engendered 
 by persecution, and destined to engender fresh persecution in turn, spread 
 rapidly through society. Even the strongest and most commanding mind? 
 were not proof against this strange taint. Any time might have produced 
 George Fox and James Naylor. But to one lime alone belong tlie frantic 
 delusions of such a statesman as Vane, and the hysterical tears of such a 
 soldier as Cromwell. ; ,j ,. 
 
 '"""'The history of Bunyan is the history of a most exitable kim^ in an age of 
 excitement. By most of his biographers he has been treated with gross 
 injustice. They have understood in a popular sense all those strong terms of 
 self-condemnation which he employed in a theological sense. They have, 
 
THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 201 
 
 therefore, represented him as an abandoned wretch, reclaimed by mean* 
 almost miraculous ; — or, to use their favourite metaphor, **as a brand plucked 
 from the burning." Mr. Ivimey calls him the depraved Bunyan and the. 
 wicked tinker of Elstow. Surely Mr. Ivimey ought to have been too familiar 
 with the bitter accusations which the most pious people are in the habit of 
 bringing against themselves, to understand literally all the strong expressions 
 which are to be found in the Grace Abounding. It is quite cleans as Mr. 
 Southey most justly remarks, that Bunyan never was a vicious man; He 
 married very early ; and he solemnly declares that he was strictly faithful to 
 his wife. He does not appear to have been a drunkard. He owns, indeed, 
 that when a boy he never spoke without an oath. But a single admonition 
 cured him of this bad habit for life ; and the cure must have been wrought 
 early; for at eighteen he was in the army of the Parliament j and, if he had 
 carried the vice of profaneness into that service, he would doubtless have 
 received something more than an admonition from Serjeant Bind-their-kings- 
 in-chains, or Captain Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before-the-Lord. Bell-ringing and 
 playing at hockey on Sundays seem to have been the worst vices of this 
 depraved tinker. They would have passed for virtues with Archbishop Laud. 
 It is quite clear that, from a very early age, Bunyan was a man of a strict life 
 and of a tendei conscience. '* He had been," says Mr. Southey, "a black- 
 guard." Even this, we think, too hard a censure. Bunyan was not, we 
 admit, so fine a gentleman as Lord Digby; but he was a blackguard no 
 otherwise than as every labouring man that ever lived has been a blackguard. 
 Indeed, Mr. Southey acknowledges this. '* Such he might have been expected 
 to be by his Dirth, breeding, and vocation. Scarcely, indeed, by possibiUty, 
 could he have been otherwise. " A man whose manners and sentiments are 
 decidedly below those of his class deserves to be called a blackguard. But it is 
 surely unfair to apply so strong a word of reproach to o^e who is only what 
 the great mass of every community must inevitably be. f 
 
 Those horrible internal conflicts which Bunyan has desWibed with so much 
 power of language prove, not that he was a worse man than his neighbours, 
 but that his mind was constantly occupied by religious considerations, — that 
 his fervour exceeded his knowledge, — --^nd that his imagination exercised 
 despotic power over his body and mind. He heard voices from heaven; he 
 saw strange visions of distant hills, pleasant and sunny as his own Delectable 
 Mountains: from those abodes he was shut out, and placed in a dark and 
 horrible wilderness, where he wandered through ice and snow, striving to 
 make his way into the happy reg^ion of light. \ At one time he was seized with 
 an inclination to work^niracles. ^At another tWe he thought himself ttc^ually 
 possessed by the devil, S He'could distinguish the blasphemous whispers. -He 
 felt his infernal enemy pulling at his clothes behind him. '\He spurned with 
 his feet and struck with his hands at the destroyer. Sometimes he was tempted 
 to sell his part in the salvation of mankind.^ v, Sometimes a violent impulse 
 urged him to start up from his food, to fall on his knees, and to break forth 
 into prayeX At length he fancied that he had committed the unpardonable 
 sin/\His agony convulsed his robust frame>s^e was, he says, as if his breast 
 bone would split ; ^d this he took for a sign that he was destined to burst 
 Asunder like JudasX The agitation of his nerves made all his movements 
 tremulous; and this trembling, he supposed, w^s a visible mark of his repro- 
 bation, like that which had been set on Cain. X At one time, indeed, an 
 encouraging voice seemed to rush in at the window, like the noise of wind, 
 but very pleasant, and commanded, as he says, a great calm in his soul. At 
 another time, a word of comfort " was spoke loud unto him ;" — it showed **a 
 great word; — it seemed to be writ in great letters." But these intervals of 
 
502 SOUTHEYS EDITION OP 
 
 ■ -■■•■- ^- 
 
 case were short. His state, during two years and a half, was generally the 
 most horrible that the human mind can imagine. *' I walked," says he. with 
 his own peculiar eloquence, "to a neighbouring town, and sat down upon a 
 settle in the street, and fell into a very deep pause about the most fearful state 
 my sin had brought me to; and, after long musing, I lifted up my head ; but 
 methought I saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens dli grudge to give 
 me light ; and as if the very stones in the street, and tiles upon the houses, 
 did band themselves against me. Methought that they all combined together 
 to banish me out of the world. I was abhorred of them, and unfit to dwell 
 among them, because I had sinned against the Saviour. Oh, how happy now 
 was every creature over I 1 for they stood fast, and kept their station. But I 
 was gone and lost." Scarcely any madhouse could produce an instance of 
 delusion so strong, or of misery so acute. 
 
 It was through this Valley of the Shadow of Death, overhung by darkness, 
 peopled with devils, resounding with blasphemy and lamentation, and passing 
 amidst quagmires, snares', and pitfalls, close by the very mouth of hell, that 
 Bunyan journeyed to that bright and fruitful land of Beulah, in which he 
 sojourned during the latter period of his pilgrimage. The only trace which 
 his cruel sufferings" and temptations seem to have left behind them was an 
 affectionate compassion for those who were still in the state in which he had 
 once been. Religion has scarcely ever worn a form so calm and soothing as 
 in his allegory. The feeling which predominates through the whole book is 
 a feeling of tenderr>ess for weak, timid, and harassed minds. The eharacter 
 of Mr. Fearing, of Mr. Feeblemind, of Mr. Despondency and his daughter 
 Miss Muchafraid, th&'adCOUTit of poor Littlefaith' who was robbed by the three 
 |;hieves of his spending money, the description of Christian's terror in the 
 dungeons of Giant Despair and in his passage through the "fiver, all clearly 
 show how strong a sympathy Bunyan felt, after his own mind had become 
 clear and cheerful, for persons afilicted 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 Cathohcs had also their 
 Pilgrim's Progress, without a Giant Pope, in which the Interpreter is the 
 Dii-ector, and the House Beautiful, Grace's Hall. It is surely a remarkable 
 proof of the power 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 Prograes 
 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 the allegory is not strictly preserved. He delivers a sermon on imputed 
 righteousness to his 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 
 sallies out to attack Slaygood, who was of the nature of flesh-eaters, in his 
 
. ^(l*lUK^^i5 PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, 203 
 
 d«n. These are inconsistencies ; bufThey 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 many 
 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 strumpets— 
 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 runagate, heretic, and traitor, hast thou heard what these honest gentle- 
 men have witnessed against thee ? . , 
 
 " Faithful. May I speak a few words in my own defence? 
 
 •' Judge. Sirrah, sirrah ! 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- 
 gatt, 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 still," 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 wl-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 terras 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 what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehe- 
 ment exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the 
 pfator, and the divine, this homely dialect,— the dialect of plain working men, 
 
6CH LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OJf HAMPDEN, 
 
 ' ' — ■ — - — — ■ — »i 
 
 — 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 wealthy 
 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 Banyan 
 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 superior 
 (K 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 centur}*, there were only two great creative 
 minds. One of those 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 NUGENT. 
 2 vols, 8vo. London. 1831 
 
 "We have read this book with great pleasure, though not exactly with tha 
 kind of pleasure which we had expected. We had hoped that Lord Nugent 
 would have been able to collect, from family papers and local traditions, 
 much fiew and interesting information respecting the life and character of 
 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 
 Bound 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 
 »?f 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 memorials of him which still exist, belong to the family of his 
 friend. Sir John Eliot. 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 
 all the new information that Lord Nugent has been able to procure respecting 
 the private pursuits of the great man whose memory he worships with an 
 enthusiastic, but 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 attentivel}? perused. They contain some 
 curious facts which, to us at lea^t, 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 Bosvvell 
 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 his country neigh- 
 l)0urs 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, anci sensible member of Parliament, 
 
LORD NUGENT*S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEil 205 
 
 not eager to display his talents, staneii to his party, and attentive to the 
 iliterests of his constituents. A great and terrible crisis came. A direct 
 ^ttack Avas 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 Hollis, that 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 prrdence, 
 piety, and peaceable counsels, having the most universal praise of any gentle- 
 man that I remember of that age. I remember a moderate, 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 early life is so<?n told. He was the head of a family which 
 
fio6 LORD NUGENT^ MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN, 
 
 had been settled in Buckinghamshire before the Conquest. Part of the estate 
 which he inherited had been bestowed by Edward the Confessor on Baldwyi> 
 de Hampden, whose name seems to indicate that he was one of the Norman 
 favourites of the last Saxon king. During the contest between the 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 161 9 
 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 9btained a miserable celebrity, the boroi\gh 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 enjoyments 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 
 him 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 Plouse 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 fonn. From a very early age, 
 the English had enjoyed a far larger share of liberty than had fallen to the lot 
 
lOkD NUG^NT'^ MBMOklALS OP IIAMPLEN. zoy 
 
 of any neighbouring people. How it zhanced that a country conquered and 
 enslaved by invaders — a country of which the soil had been portioned out 
 among foreign adventurers, and of Vt^hich the laws were written in a foreign 
 tongue — a country given over to that worst tyranny, the tyranny of caste ovei 
 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 philosophy of history. But the fact is certain. Within a centiU7 and o 
 half after the Norman conquest, the Great Charter was conceded. Witliin 
 two centuries after the Conquest, the first House of Commons met. Froissart 
 tells us, what, indeed, his whole narrative sufHciently 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 qui soit au monde, et plus 
 outrageux et orgueilleux." The good canon probably did not perceive that all 
 the prosperity and internal peace which this dangerous people enjoyed were 
 the fruits 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 marchandises 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,^ 
 seem 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 an^( 
 liberal when compared with that of Louis XI., 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 di|. 
 monde, dont j'ay connoissance, oil la chose pubiique est mieulx traitee, et ou. 
 regne moins de violence sur le peuple, et ou il n'y a nuls edifices abbatus ny 
 demolis pour guerre, c'est Angleterre ; et tombe le sort et le malheur sur ceulx 
 qui font la gueiie. :,. / , - ' '? 
 
 About the close of the fifteenth and the commencement of the sixtcentlji^ 
 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 VHI, 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 effect o/ 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. II 
 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 
 peatest 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 NVGkNT^S MEMOklALS OF HAMPDEN, 
 
 <tamental 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 taken 
 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 
 4lay 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. Eut Protestant intolerance, — despotism in an upstart sect, — infallibility 
 claimed by guides who acknowledged that they 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 hereticonly 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 v/ere 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 who 
 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 promptly and cordially. Before a bill 
 could be framed or an address preserted, she applied a remedy to the evil of 
 
LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 209 
 
 which the nation complained. She expressed in the warmest 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 II. would never have 
 seen St. Germain's. 
 
 She died ; and the kingdom passed to one who was, in his own opinior, 
 the greatest master of kingcraft that ever lived, — but who was, in truth, one 
 of those kings whom God seems to send for the express purpose of hastening 
 revolutions. Of all the enemies of liberty whom Britain has produced, he 
 was at once the most harmless and the most provoking. His office resembled 
 that of the man who, in a Spanish bull-fight, goads 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 of 
 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 
 Cowries 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 Spoms and Locusta. 
 
 This was not all. The most ridiculous weaknesses seemed to meet in the 
 wretched Solomon of "Whitehall, — pedantry, buffoonery, garrulity, low curiosity, 
 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, 
 his slobbering mouth, his broad Scotch accent, were imperfections which 
 might have been found in the best and greatest man. Their effect, however,, 
 was to make James and his office objects of contempt, and to dissolve those 
 associations which had been created by the noble bearing of preceding mon- 
 archs, and which were in themselves no inconsiderable fence to royalty. 
 
 The sovereign whom James most resembled was, we think, Claudius Coesar. 
 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 
 almost incredible that men so foolish sl^uld have written or spoken. Tlio 
 
210 LORD MUGENT'3 MEMORIALS OP HAMPDEN-. 
 
 follies and indecencies of James are well described in the words which S iieto- 
 nius uses respecting Claudius : ** Multa talia, etiam privatis deformia, Hecdum 
 principi, neque infacundo, neque indocto, immo etiam, pertinaciter liberalibus 
 studiis dedito." The description given by Suetonius of the manner in which 
 the Roman prince transacted business exactly suits the Briton. *' In cogno- 
 scendo ac decernendo mira varietate animi fuit, modo circumspectiis et sagax, 
 modo inconsultus ac prseceps, nonnumquara frivolus amentique simiiii." 
 Claudius was ruled successively by two bad women : James succesiively by 
 two bad men. Even the description of the person of Claudius, which we find 
 in the ancient memoirs, might, in many points, serve for that of James. 
 * * Ceterum et ingredientem destituebant poplites minus firmi, et remisse quid 
 vel serio agentem multa dehonestabant, risus indecens, ira turpior, spumante 
 rictu, — prseterea linguae titubantil." . • 
 
 Tiie Parliament which James had' called soon after his accession had feeen 
 refractory. His second Parliament, called in the spring of 1614, had been 
 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. During those six years, melancholy and disgraceful events, at 
 home and abroad, had followed one another in rapid succession ; — the divorce 
 of I.ady 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 Halnp^en , 
 made his first appearance as a public man. ■ , '.y''' 
 
 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 pov/er of robbing 
 the nation, was fined and imprisoned for life. Mompesson, the original, it 
 is said, of Massinger'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 the 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 Spanish war. In February, 1624, a Parliament met, 
 during the whole sitting of which James was a mere puppet in the hands of hia 
 ••baby,'* and of his "poor slave and dog." The Commons were disposed to 
 
LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDE17, air 
 
 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 impeached 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 details 
 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 >ome other 
 boroughs on which the popular party could depend recovered the 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 
 fatker. 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. Hampdep 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 Parliamenti 
 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 
 vindicating his measures, and committed some of the most distinguished mem- 
 bers of the Opposition to close custody .JNIoney was raised by a forced loan, 
 which was apportioned among the people according to the rate at which they 
 had 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 c. farthing. Pie 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 
 aaswer the Privy Council committed him close prisoner to the Gate House> 
 
213 LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OJP HAMPDEN. 
 
 After some time he was again brought up ; but he persisted in hiy 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 ♦he meantime soldiers were billeted on the people. Crimes 
 of which ordinary justice should have taken cognisance were punish e'' by 
 martial law. Near eighty gentlemen were imprisoned for refusing to contribate 
 to the forced loan. The lower people who showed any signs of insubordination 
 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 another 
 Parliament. In the hope of conciliating his subjects, he set at liberty the 
 jiersons who had been imprisoned for refusing to comply with his unlawiul 
 demands. Hampden regained his freedom, and was immediately re-elected 
 burgess 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 Parliament, 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 
 January, 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 national liberties 
 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 ton- 
 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 I^ondon. 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 remonstrated vehemently against the disgraceful language 
 which had been heard from 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, and several of its most eminent members, among whom were 
 Hollis and Sir John Eliot, were committed to prison. 
 
 Though Hampden had as yet taken little part in the debates of the House. 
 b« had been a member of many very important committees, and had read ^^ 
 
LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 213 
 
 wiitten much concerning the law of -P'arliatnent. 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. Tiie house, wliich 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 g^tleman. 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 s\ nmer in the field, all winter in his study— in whose fall fame makes 
 this kirvgdom 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 
 converts ; * of whose mind neither am I superstitiously. But had my opinion 
 
 • Lord Nugent, we think, has misunderstood this passage. Hampden seems to allude to 
 Bishop Hall's sixth satire, in which the custom of sending young men abroad is censured, 
 and an academic life recommended. We have a general recollection that ther? »• spmeUling 
 ^ the same effect iiJ Hull's prose-work ; but fei^ve not tipie 10 search thcoj. 
 
214 LORD NUGEJNT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN, 
 
 been asked, I should, as vulgar conceits use me to do, have showed my power 
 rather to raise objections than to answer them. A temper* between Franct 
 and Oxford, might have taken away his scruples, with more advantage to hi» 
 
 years For although he be one of those that, if his age were looked for 
 
 in no other book but that of the mind, would be found no ward if he should 
 die to-morrow, yet it is a great hazard, methinks, to see so sweet a disposition 
 guarded with no more, amongst a people whereof many make it their religion 
 to be superstitious in impiety, and their behaviour to be affected in ill 
 manners. But God, who only knoweth the periods of life and opportunities 
 to come, hath designed him, I hope, for his own service betime, and stirred 
 up your providence to husband him so early for great affairs. Then shall he 
 be sure to find Him in France that Abraham did in Sechem and Joseph in 
 Egypt, under whose wing alone is perfect safety.'* 
 
 Sir John Eliot employed himself, during his imprisonment, in writing a 
 treatise on government, which he transmitted to his friend. Hampden's 
 criticisms are strikingly characteristic. They are written with all that "flow- 
 ing courtesy '* which is ascribed to him by Clarendon. The objections are 
 insinuated with so much delicacy that they could scarcely gall the most irri- 
 table author. We see too how highly Hampden valued in the writings of 
 others that conciseness which was one of the most striking peculiarities of 
 his own eloquence. Sir John Eliot's style was, it seems, too diffuse, and it is 
 impossible not to admire the skill with which this is suggested. **The 
 piece," says Hampden, "is as complete an image of the pattern as can be 
 drawn by lines, — a lively character of a large mind, — the subject, method, and 
 expression, excellent and homogeneal, and, to say the truth, sweetheart, some- 
 what exceeding my commendations. My words cannot render them to the 
 life. Yet,— < to show my ingenuity rather than wit, — would not a less model 
 have given a full representation of that subject, — not by diminution but by 
 contraction of parts? I desire to learn. I dare not say. — The variations 
 upon each particular seem many ; — all, I confess, excellent. The fountain 
 was full, the channel narrow ; that may be the cause ; or that the author 
 resembled Virgil, who made more verses by many than he intended to write. 
 To extract a just number, had I seen all his, I could easily have bid him 
 make fewer ; but if he had bade me tell him which he should have spared, I 
 had been posed." 
 
 This is evidently the writing not only of a man of good sense and natural 
 good taste, but of a man of literary habits. Of the studies of Hampden littla 
 is known. But, as it was at one time in contemplation to give him th« 
 charge of the education of the Prince of Wales, it cannot be doubted that 
 his acquirements were considerable. Davila, it is said, was one of his favourite 
 writers. The moderation of Davila's opinions and the perspicuity and manli- 
 ness of his style could not but recommend him to so judicious a reader. It is 
 not improbable that the parallel between France and England, the Huguenots 
 and the Puritans, had struck the mind of Hampden, and that he already felt 
 vithin himself powers not unequal to the lofty part of Coligni. 
 
 While he was engaged in these pursuits, a heavy domestic calamity fell on 
 him. His wife, who had borne him nine children, died in the summer of 
 1634. She lies in the parish church of Hampden, close to the manor-house. 
 The tender and energetic language of her epitaph still attests the bitterness of 
 her husband's sorrow, and the consolation which he found in a hope full of 
 immortality. 
 
 In the meantime, the aspect of public affairs grew darker and darker. The 
 
 »-'■ ■■ ■ ' — — ■ 'I - . . ' "■ . ■- , ' I 'l. i HJ 
 
 ^ mi^dlp course — ^ comproijiisg. 
 
LORD NUdENTS MEMORIALS OP BAMPDEN. 215 
 
 health of Eliot had sunk under an unlawful imprisonment of several years. 
 The brave sufferer refused to purcnase liberty, though liberty would to him 
 have been life, by recognizing the authority which had confined him. In 
 consequence of the representations of his physicians, the severity of restraint 
 was somewhat relaxed. But it was in vain. He languished and expired, a 
 martyr to that good cause for which his friend Hampden was destined to 
 meet a more brilliant, but not a more honourable death. 
 
 All the promises of the king were violated without scruple or shame. The 
 Petition of Right, to which he had, in consideration of moneys duly num- 
 bered, given a solemn assent, was set at naught. Taxes were raised by the 
 royi authority. Patents of monopoly were granted. The old usages of 
 feudal times were made pretexts for harassing the people with exactions 
 unknown during many years. The Puritans were persecuted with cruelty 
 worthy of the Holy Office. They were forced to fly from the country. They 
 were imprisoned. They were whipped. Their ears were cut off. Their 
 noses were slit. Their cheeks were branded with red-hot iron. But the 
 cruelty of the oppressor could not tire cut the fortitude of the victims. The 
 mutilated defenders of liberty again defied the vengeance of the Star Chamber, 
 — came back with undiminished resolution to the place of their glorious 
 infamy, and manfully presented the stumps of their ears to be grubbed out 
 by the hangman's knife. The hardy sect grew up and flourished in spite of 
 everything that seemed likely to stunt it — struck its roots deep into a barren 
 soil, and spread its branches wide to an inclement sky. The multitude 
 thronged round Prynne in the pillory with more respect than they paid to 
 Mainwaring in the pulpit, and treasured up the rags which the blood of 
 Burton had soaked, with a veneration such as mitres and surplices had 
 ceased to inspire. 
 
 For the misgov.ernment of this disastrous period Charles himself is prin* 
 cipally responsible. After the death of Buckingham, he seems to have been 
 his own prime minister. He had, however, two counsellors who seconded 
 him, or went beyond him, in intolerance and lawless violence ; the one a 
 superstitious driveller, as honest as a vile temper would suffer him to be, the 
 other a man of great valour and capacity, but licentious, faithless, corrupt, 
 and cruel. 
 
 Never were faces more strikingly characteristic of the individuals to whom 
 they belonged, than those of Laud and Strafford, as they still remain por- 
 trayed by the most skilful hand of that age. The mean forehead, the pinched 
 features, the peering eyes, of the prelate, suit admirably with his disposition. 
 They mark him out as a lower kind of Saint Dominic, — differing from the 
 fierce and gloomv enthusiast who founded the Inquisition, as we might 
 '■magine the familiar imp of a spiteful witch to differ from an archangel of 
 darkness. When we read his judgments, — when we read the report which 
 he drew up, setting forth that he had sent some separatists to prison, and 
 imploring the royal aid against others, — we feel a movement of indignation. 
 We turn to his Diary, and we are at once as cool as contempt can make 
 us. There we learn how his picture fell down, and how fearful he was lest 
 the fall sho r5d be an omen : how he dreamed that the Duke of Buckingham 
 came to bed to him, — that King James walked past him, — that he saw 
 Thomas Flaxage in green garments, and the Bishop of Worcester with his 
 shoulders wrapped in linen. In the early part of 1627, the sleep of this great 
 crnameftt of the Church seems to have been much disturbed. On the fifth of 
 January, he saw a merry old man with a wrinkled countenance, named Goove, 
 lying on the ground. On the fourteenth of the same memorable month he 
 saw the Bishop of Lincoln Jump on a horse and ride away« A day or twa 
 
2l6 LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN* 
 
 after this he dreamed that he gave the king drink in a silver cup, and that the 
 king refused it, and called for a glass. Then he dreamed that he had turned 
 Papist ; — of ail his dreams the only one, we suspect, which came through the 
 gate of horn. But of these visions, our favourite is that which, as he has re- 
 corded, he enjoyed on the night of Friday, the ninth of February, 1627. " I 
 dreamed," says he, " that I had the scurvy ; and that forthwith all my teeth 
 became loose. There was one in especial in my lower jaw, which I could 
 scarcely keep in with my finger till 1 had called for help." Here was a man 
 to have the superintendence of the opinions of a great nation ! 
 
 But Wentworth, — who ever names him without thinking of those harsh, dark 
 features, ennobled by their expression into more than the majesty of an antique 
 Jupiter ; — of that brow, that eye, that cheek, that lip, wherein, as in a 
 chronicle, are written the events of many stormy and disastrous years, — high 
 enterprise accomplished, frightful dangers braved, power unsparingly exercised, 
 suffering unshrinkingly borne ; — of that fixed look, so full of severity, of 
 mournful anxiety, of deep thought, of dauntless resolution, which seems at 
 once to forbode and to defy a terrible fate, as it lowers o« us from the living 
 canvas of Vandyke ? Even at this day the haughty earl overawes posterity 
 as he overawed his contemporaries, and excites the same interest when 
 arraigned before the tribunal of history which he excited at the bar of the 
 House of Lords. In spite of ourselves, we sometimes feel towards his 
 memory a certain relenting similar to that relenting which liis defence, as Sir 
 John Denham tells us, produced in Westminster Hall. 
 
 This great, brave, bad man entered the Plouse of Commons at the same 
 time with Hampden and took the same side with Hampden. Both were 
 among the richest and most powerful commoners in the kingdom. Both 
 were equally distinguished by force of character, and by personal courage. 
 Hampden had more judgment and sagacity than Wentworth. But no orator 
 of that time equalled Wentworth in force and brilliancy of expression. In 1626 
 both these eminent men were committed to prison by the king ; Wentworth, 
 who was among the leaders of the Opposition, on account of his parliamentary 
 conduct ; Hampden, who had not as yet taken a prominent part in debate, for 
 refusing to pay taxes illegally imposed. 
 
 Here their path separated. After the death of Buckingham, the king 
 attempted to seduce some of the chiefs of the Opposition from their party ; 
 and Wentworth was among those who yielded to the seduction. He aban- 
 doned his associates, and hated them ever after with the deadly hatred of a 
 renegade. High titles and great employments were heaped upon him. He 
 became Earl of Strafford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, President of the Council 
 of the North ; and he employed all his power for the purpose of crushing 
 those liberties of which he had been the most distinguished champion. His 
 counsels respecting public affairs were fierce and arbitrary. His correspondence 
 with Laud abundantly proves that government without parliaments, govern- 
 ment by the sword, was his favourite scheme. He was unwilling even that 
 the course of justice between man and man should be unrestrained by the 
 royal prerogative. He grudged to the Court of King's Bench and Common 
 Pleas even that measure of liberty which the most absolute of the Bourbons 
 allowed to the Parliaments of France. 
 
 In Ireland, where he stood m the place of the king, his practice was in 
 strict accordance with his theory. He set up the authority of the executive 
 government over that of the courts of law. He permitted no person to leave 
 the island without his licence. He established vast monopolies for his own 
 private benetit. He imposed taxes arbitrarily. He levied them by military 
 orce. Some of his acts are described even by the partial Clarendon as 
 
LORD NUGENT^S MEMORIALS OP HAMPDEN, 217 
 
 powerful acts, — acts which marke^a nature excessively imperious, — acts 
 which caused dislike and terror in sober and dispassionate persons, — high 
 acts of oppression. Upon a most jfrivolous charge, he obtained a capital 
 sentence from a court-martial against a man of high rank who had given him 
 offence. He debauched the daughter-in-law of the Lord Chancellor of Ire- 
 land, and then comnlanded that nobleman to settle his estate according to the 
 wishes of the lady. The Chancellor refused. The Lord Lieutenant turned 
 him out of office, and threw him into prison. When the violent acts of the 
 Long Parliament are blamed, let it not be forgotten from what a tyranny they 
 rescued the nation. 
 
 Among the humbler tools of Charles were Chief Justice Finch and Noy 
 the Attorney-General. Noy had, like Wentworth, supported the cause of 
 liberty in Parliament, and had, like Wentworth, abandoned that cause for 
 the sake of office. He devised, in conjunction with Finch, a scheme of ex* 
 action which made the alienation of the people from the throne complete. A 
 writ was issued by the king, commanding the city of London to equip and 
 man ships of war for his service. Similar writs were sent to the towns along 
 the coast. These measures, though they were direct violations of the Petition 
 of Right, had at least some show of precedent in their favour. But, after 
 a time, the government took a step for which no precedent could be pleaded, 
 and sent writs of Ship-money to the inland counties. This was a stretch of 
 power on which Elizabeth herself had not ventured, even at a time when ali 
 laws might with propriety have been made to bend to that highest law, the 
 safety of the state. The inland counties had not been required to furnish 
 ships, or money in the room of ships, even when the Armada was approaching 
 our shores. It seemed intolerable that a prince who, by assenting to the 
 Petition of Right, had relinquished the power of levjring Ship-money even in 
 the out-ports, should be the first to levy it on parts of the kingdom where it 
 had been unknown under the most absolute of his predecessors. 
 
 Clarendon distinctly admits that this tax was intended, not only for the 
 support of the navy, but "for a spring and magazine that should have no 
 bottom, and for an everlasting supply of all occasions." The nation well 
 understood this ; and from one end of England to the other the public mint 
 was strongly excited. 
 
 Buckinghamshire was assessed at -a ship of four hundred and fifty tons, o; 
 a sum of four thousand five hundred pounds. The share of the tax whici 
 fell to Hampden was very small ; so small, indeed, that the sheriff was 
 blamed for setting so wealthy a man at so low a rate. But, though the sum 
 demanded was a trifle, the principle of demand was despotism. Hampden, 
 after consulting the most eminent constitutional lawyers of the time, refused 
 to pay the few shillings at which he was assessed, and determined to incur ill 
 the certain expense, and the probable danger, of bringing to a solemn 
 hearing this great controversy between the people and the crown. ** Till 
 this time," says Clarendon, *' he was rather of reputation in his own country 
 thai of public discourse or fame in the kingdom ; but then he grew the argu« 
 ment of all tongues, every man inquiring who and what he was that durst, 
 at his own charge, support the liberty and prosperity of the kingdom. " 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1636, this great cause came on in the Ex- 
 chequer Chamber before all the judges of England. The leading counsel 
 against the writ was the celebrated Oliver St. John, a man whose temper 
 was melancholy, whose manners were reserved, and who was as yet little 
 known in Westminster Hall, but whose great talents had not escaped the 
 penetrating eye of Hampden. The Attomey-Gcnerml and Solicitor-General 
 appeared for the Crown. 
 
2i8 LORD NUGENT*S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 
 
 The arguments of the counsel occupied many days ; and the Exchequer 
 Chamber took a considerable time for deliberation. The opinion of the bench 
 was divided. So clear was the law in favour of Hampden that, though the 
 judges held their situations only during the royal pleasure, the nvajority 
 against him was the least possible. Four of the twelve pronouncec. in his 
 favour ; a fifth took a middle course. The remaining seven gave their voices 
 or the writ. 
 
 The only effect of this decision was to make the public indignation stronger 
 and deeper. *'The judgment," says Clarendon, "proved of more advantage 
 and credit to the gentleman condemned than to the king's service." The 
 courage which Hampden had shown on this occasion, as the same historian 
 tells us, "raised his reputation to a great height generally throughout the 
 kingdom." Even courtiers and crown-lawyers spoke respectfully of him. *' His 
 carriage," says Clarendon, '* throughout that agitation, was with that rare 
 temper and modesty, that they who watched him narrowly to find some advan- 
 tage' against his person to make him less resolute in his cause, were compelled 
 to give him a just testimony." But his demeanour, though it impressed Lord 
 Falkland with the deepest respect, — though it drew forth the praises of Soli- 
 citor-General Herbert, — only kindled into a fiercer flame the ever-burning 
 hatred of Strafford. That minister, in his letters to Laud, murmured against 
 the lenity with which Hampden was treated. "In good faith," he wrote, 
 "were such men rightly served, they should be whipped into their right wits." 
 Again, he says, " I still wish Mr. Hampden, and others to his likeness, were 
 well whipped into their right senses. And if the rod be so used that it smart 
 not, I am the more sorry." 
 
 The person of Hampden was now scarcely safe. His prudence and moder- 
 ation had hitherto disappointed those who would gladly have had a pretence 
 for sending him to the prison of Eliot. But he knew that the eye of a tyrant 
 was on him. In the year 1637 mi?government had reached its height. Eight 
 years had passed without a Parliament. The decision of the Exchequer 
 Chamber had placed at the disposal of the Crown the whole property of the 
 English people. About the time at which that decision was pronounced, 
 Prynne, Bast wick, and Burton were mutilated by the sentence of the Star 
 Chamber, and sent to rot in remote dungeons. The estate and the person of 
 every man who had opposed the Court were at its mercy. 
 
 Hampden determined to leave England. Beyond the Atlantic Ocean, a few 
 of the persecuted Puritans had formed, in the wilderness of Connecticut, a set- 
 tlement which has since become a prosperous commonwealth, and which, in 
 spite of the lapse of time, and of the change of government, still retains some- 
 thing of the character given to it by its first founders. Lord Saye and Lord 
 Brooke were the original projectors of this scheme of emigration. Hampden 
 had been early consulted respecting it. He was now, it appears, desirous to 
 withdraw himself beyond the reach of oppressors who, as he probably sus- 
 pect<2d, and as we know, were bent on punishing his manful resistance to their 
 tyranny. He was accompanied by his kinsman Oliver Cromwell, over whoir 
 fie posse:;sed great influence, and in whom alone he had discovered, under an 
 exterior appearance of coarseness and extravagance, those great and command- 
 ing talents which were afterwards the admiration and the dread of Europe. 
 
 The cousins took their passage in a vessel which lay in the Thames, and 
 which was bound for North America, They were actually on board when an 
 order of council appeared, by which the ship was prohibited from sailing. 
 Seven other ships, filled with emigrants, were stopped at the same time. 
 
 Hampden and Cromwell remained; and with them remained the Evil 
 Genius of the House of Stuart. The tide of public affairs was even npw on 
 
Lokt) nugent'S Memorials oP hampdei^, ar^ 
 
 «Mi> ___ 
 
 the turn. The king had resolved to^hange the ecclesiastical constitution of 
 Scotland, and to introduce into the public worship of that kingdom ceie^ 
 monies which the great body of the Scots regarded as popish. This absurd 
 attempt produced first discontents, then riots, and at length open rebellion. ' 
 A provisional government was established at Edinburgh, and its authority 
 was obeyed throughout the kingdom. This government raised an army, ap- 
 pointed a general, and called a general assembly of the Kirk. The famous 
 instrument called the Covenant was put forth at this time, and was eagerly 
 subscribed by the people. ' 
 
 The beginnings of this formidable insurrection were strangely neglected by 
 the king and his advisers. But towards the close of the year 1638 the danger 
 became pressing. An army was raised, and early in the following spring 
 Charles marched northward at the head of a force sufficient, as it seemed, to 
 reduce the Covenanters to submission. 
 
 But Charles acted at this conjuncture as he acted nt every important con* 
 
 J'uncture throughout his life. After oppressing, threatening, and blustering, 
 le hesitated and failed. He was bold in the wrong place, and timid in thj 
 wrong place. He would have shown his wisdom by being afraid before the 
 liturgy was read in St. Giles's church. He put off his fear till he had reached 
 the Scottish border with his troops. Then, after a feeble campaign, he con- 
 cluded a treaty with the insurgents, and withdrew his army. But the terms 
 of the pacification were not observed. Each party charged the other with 
 foul play. The Scots refused to disarm. The king found great difficulty 
 in re-assembling his forces. His late expedition had drained his treasury. 
 The revenues of the next year had been anticipated. At another time he 
 might have attempted to make up the deficiency by illegal expedients ; but 
 such a course would clearly have been dangerous when part of the island was 
 in rebellion. It was necessary to call a Parliament. After eleven years of 
 suffering, the voice of the nation v/as to be heard once more. 
 
 In April, 1640, the Parliament met ; and the king had another chance 
 of conciliating his people. The new House of Commons was, beyond all 
 comparison, the least refractory House of Commons that had been known 
 for many years. Indeed, we have never been able to understand how, after 
 so long a period of raisgovernment, the representatives of the nation shoulji 
 have shown so moderate and so loyal a disposition. Clarendon speaks with ■ 
 admiration of their dutiful temper. "The house, generally," says he, "was 
 exceedingly disposed to please the king, and to do him service." "It could 
 never be hoped," he observes elsewhere, "that more sober or dispassionate 
 men would ever meet together in that place, or fewer who brought ill pur- 
 poses with them." 
 
 In this Parliament Hampden took his seat as member for Buckinghamshire, 
 and thenceforward, till the day of his death, gave himself up, with scarcely 
 any intermission, to public affairs. He took lodgings in Gray's Inn Lane, 
 near the house occupied by Pym, with whom he lived in habits of the closest 
 intimacy. He was now decidedly the most popular man in England. The 
 Opposition looked to him as their leader, and the servants of the king 
 treated him with marked respect. Charles requested the Parliamen't to vote 
 an immediate supply, and pledged his word that if they would gratify hini in 
 this request, he would afterwards give them time to represent their grievances 
 to him. The grievances under which the nation suffered were so serious, and 
 the royal word had been so shamefully violated, that the Commons could 
 hardly be expected to comply with this request. During the first week of the 
 session, the minutes of the proceedings against Hampden were laid on the 
 tuble by Oliver St. John, and a committee reported that the case was matter* 
 
aao LORD NVGENTS MEMORIALS OF ffAMPDEI/c 
 
 • .. I ■ ■■ ii r% 
 
 of grievance. The king sent a message to the Commons, offering, if they 
 would vote him twelve subsidies, to give up the prerogative of Ship-money* 
 Many years before, he had received five subsidies in consideration of his assent 
 to the Petition of Right. By assenting to that petition, he had given up the 
 right of levying Ship-money, if he ever possessed it. How he had obs'^rved 
 the promises made to his third Parliament, all England knew ; and it was not 
 strange that the Commons should be somewhat unwilling to buy from him, 
 over and over again, their own ancient and undoubted inheritance. 
 
 His message, however, was not unfavourably received. The Commons 
 were ready to give a large supply ; but they were not disposed to give it in 
 exchange for a prerogative of which they altogether denied the existence. If 
 they acceded to the proposal of the king, they recognized the legality of the 
 writs of Ship-money. 
 
 Hampden, who was a greater master of parliamentary tactics than any 
 man of his time, saw that this was the prevailing feeling, and availed himself 
 of it with great dexterity. He moved that the question should be put, 
 " Whether the House would consent to the proposition made by the king, as 
 contained in the message." Hyde interfered, and proposed that the question 
 should be divided ; — that the sense of the House should be taken merely on 
 the point, "Supply or no supply;" and that the manner and the amount 
 should be left for subsequent consideration. 
 
 The majority of the House was for granting a supply, but against granting 
 it in the manner proposed by the king. If the House had divided on 
 Hampden's question, the Court would have sustained a defeat ; if on Plyde's, 
 the Court would have gained an apparent victory. Some members called for 
 Hyde's motion,— ^others for Hampden's. In the midst of the uproar, the 
 secretary of state. Sir Harry Vane, rose and stated that the supply would not 
 be accepted unless it were voted according to the tenor of the message. Vane 
 was supported by Herbert, the solicitor-general. Hyde's motion was, there- 
 fore, no further pressed, and the debate on the general question was adjourned 
 till the next day. 
 
 On the next day the king came down to the House of Lords, and dis- 
 solved the Parliament with an angry speech. His conduct on this occasion 
 has never been defended by any of his apologists. Clarendon condemns it 
 severely. *' No man," says he, ** could imagine what offence the Commons 
 had given." The offence which they had given is plain. They had, indeed, 
 behaved most temperately and most respectfully. But they had shown a 
 disposition to redress wrongs and to vindicate the laws ; and this was enough 
 to make them hateful to a king whom no law could bind, and whose whole 
 government was one system of wrong. 
 
 The nation received the intelligence of the dissolution with sorrow and 
 indignation. The only persons to whom this event gave pleasure were those 
 few discerning men who thought that the maladies of the state were beyond 
 the reach of gentle remedies. Oliver [St. John's joy was too great for con- 
 cealment. It lighted up his dark and melancholy features, and made him, 
 for the first time, indiscreetly communicative. He told Plyde tiiat things 
 musJ be worse before they could be better, and that the dissolved Parliament 
 WOU.J never have done all that was necessary. St. John, we think, was in 
 the right. No good could then have been done by any Parliament which 
 did not adopt as its great principle that no confidence could safely be placed 
 in the king, and that, while he enjoyed more than the shadow of power, the 
 nation would never enjoy more than the shadow of liberty. 
 
 As soon as Charles had dismissed the Parliament, he threw several members 
 ©f the House of Commons into prison. Ship-money was exacted more rigor* 
 
lORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS Of frAMP£>E!<r. 2it 
 
 ..feii ■... ■ 
 
 ously than ever ; and the mayor and sheriffs of London were prosecuted 
 before the Star Chamber for slackne^in levying it. Wentworth, it is said, 
 observed with characteristic insolence and cruelty, that things wou.d never go 
 right till the aldermen were hanged. Large sums were raised by forte on those 
 counties in which the troops were quartered. All the wretched shifts of a 
 beggared exchequer were tried. Forced loans were raised. Great quantities 
 of goods were bought on long credit and sold for ready money. A scheme for 
 debasing the currency was under consideratic«. At length, in August, the 
 king again marched northward. 
 
 The Scots advanced into England to meet him. It is by no means im- 
 probable that this bold step was taken by the advice of Hampden, and of 
 those with whom he acted ; and this has been made matter of grave accusation 
 against the English Opposition. To call in the aid of foreigners in a domestic 
 quarrel is the worst of treasons, it is said, and that the Puritan leaders, by 
 taking this course, showed that they were regardless of the honour and 
 independence of the nation, and anxious only for the success of their own 
 faction. We are utterly unable to see any distinction between the case of the 
 Scotch invasion in 1640 and the case of the Dutch invfiision in 1688; — or, 
 rather, we see distinctions which are to the advantage of Hampden and his 
 friends. We believe Charles to have been, beyond all comparison, a worse 
 and more dangerous king than his son. The Dutch were strangers to us, — 
 the Scots a kindred people, speaking the same la«nguage, subjects of the same 
 crown, not aliens in the eye of the law. If, indeed, it had been possible that 
 a Scotch army or a Dutch army could have enslaved England, those who 
 persuaded Leslie to cross the Tweed, and those who signed the invitation to 
 the Prince of Orange, would have been traitors to their country. But such a 
 result was out of the question. All that either a Scotch or a Dutch invasion 
 could do was to give the public feeling of England an opportunity to show 
 itself. Both expeditions would have ended in complete and ludicrous dis- 
 comfiture, had Charles and James been supported by their soldiers and their 
 people. In neither case, therefore, was the independence of England 
 endangered ; in both cases her liberties were preserved. 
 
 The second campaign of Charles against the Scots was short and igno- 
 minious. His soldiers, as soon as they saw the enemy, ran away as English 
 soldiers have never run either before or since. It can scarcely be doubted that 
 their flight was the effect, not of cowardice, but of disaffection. The four 
 northern counties of England were occupied by the Scotch army, and the kin^ 
 retired to York. \ 
 
 The game of tyranny was now up. Charles had risked and lost his last 
 stake. It is impossible to retrace the mortifications and humiliations which 
 this bad man now had to endure, without a feeling of vindictive pleasure. His 
 army was mutinous ; — his treasury was empty ; — his people clamoured for a 
 Parliament ; addresses and petitions against the government were presented. 
 Strafford was for shooting those who presented them by martial law: but the 
 king could not trust the soldiers. A great council of Peers was called at York ; 
 but the king could uot trust even the Peers. He struggled, he evaded, he; 
 hesitated, he tried every shift, rather than again face the representatives of his 
 injured people. At length no shift was left^ He made a truce with the Scots, 
 and summoned a Parliament. 
 
 The leaders of the popular party had, after the late dissolution, remained in 
 London for the purpose of organizing a scheme of opposition to the Court, 
 They now exertea themselves to the utmost. Hampden, in particular, rode 
 from county to county, exhorting the electors to give their votes to men 
 worth/ of their confidence. The great majority of the returns was on th« 
 
222 LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF LIAMPDE^, 
 
 side of the Opposition. Hampden was himself chosen member both for 
 Wendover and Buckinghamshire. He made his election to serve for the 
 county. 
 
 On the third of November, 1640, — a day to be long remembered, — met that 
 great Parliament, destined to every extreme of fortune, — to empire anil to 
 servitude, — to glory and to contempt ; — at one time the sovereign of its so- 
 rereign, — at another time the servant of its servants, and the tool of its tools. 
 From the first day of meeting the attendance was great ; and the aspect ot 
 the members was that of men not disposed to do the work negligently. The 
 dissolution of the late Parliament had convinced most of them that half 
 measures would no longer suffice. Clarendon tells us, that "the same men 
 who, six months before, were observed to be of very moderate tempers, and 
 to wish that gentle remedies might be applied, talked now in another dialect 
 both of kings and persons ; and said that they must now be of another tempiet 
 than they were the last Parliament." The debt of vengeance was swollen by 
 all the usury which had been accumulating during many years ; and payment 
 was made to the full. 
 
 This memorable crisis called forth parliamentary abilities such as England 
 had never before seen. Among the most distinguished members of the House 
 of Commons were .Falkland, Hyde, Digby, young Harry Vane, Oliver St. 
 John, Denzil HolHs, Nathaniel Fiennes. But two men exercised a paramount 
 influence over the legislature and the country, — Pym and Hampden ; and by 
 the universal consent of friends and enemies, the first place belonged to 
 Hampden, 
 
 On occasions which required set speeches Pym generally took the lead. 
 Hampden very seldom rose till late in a debate. His speaking was of that 
 kind which has, in every age, been held in the highest estimation by English 
 Parliaments, — ready, weighty, perspicuous, condensed. His perception of the 
 feelings of the House was exquisite, — his temper unalterably placid — his 
 manner eminently courteous and gentlemanlike. ** Even with those,'' says 
 Clarendon, "who were able to preserve themselves from his infusions, and who 
 .discerned those opinions to be fixed in him with which they could not comply, 
 he always left the character of an ingenious and conscientious person." His 
 'talents for business were as remarkable as his talents for debate. ** He was," 
 says Clarendon, "of an industry and vigilance not to be tired out or wearied 
 by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed upon by the most 
 subtle and sharp." Yet it was rather to his moral than to his intellectual 
 qualities that he was indebted for the vast influence which he possessed. 
 •' When this parliament began," — we again, quote Clarendon, — *'the eyes of 
 all men were fixed upon him, as their patrics pater, and the pilot that must 
 steer the vessel through the tempests and rocks which threatened.it. And I 
 am persuaded his power and interest at that time were greater to do good or 
 hurt than any man's in the kingdom, or than- any man of his rank hath had in 
 any time ; for his reputation of honesty was universal, and his affections ■ 
 seemed so publicly guided, that no corrupt or private ends could bias themi>t 
 . . . He was, indeed, a very wise man, aud of great parts, and possessed ' 
 with the most absolute spirit of popularity, and the moat absolute faculties tn 
 govern the people, of any man I ever knew." . , ' 
 
 It is sufficient to recapitulate shortly the acts of the Long Parliament during 
 its first session. Strafford and Laud were impeaclied and imprisoned. Strafford 
 was afterwards attainted by bill, and executed. Lord Keeper Finch ned tai 
 Holland, Secretary Windebank to France. All those whom the king ha(i;r 
 during the last twelve years, employed for the oppression of his people, — from'' 
 the servile judges who had pronounced in, favour of the crown against Hampden 
 
LORD NUGENT S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDE^. .%i'^ 
 
 down to the sheriffs who had distrained for Ship-money, and the custom 
 house officers who had levied tonrj^e and poundage, — were summoned to 
 answer for their conduct. The Star Chamber, the High Commission Court, 
 the Council of York, were abolished. Those unfortunate victims of Laud 
 who, after undergoing ignominious exposure and cruel manglings, hac been 
 Rent to languish in distant" prisons, were set at liberty, and conducted th rough 
 "London in triumphant procession. The king was compelled to g've the 
 fudges patents for life or during good behaviour. He was .deprived of thoss 
 oppressive powers which were the last relics of the old feudal tenures. The 
 Forest Courts and the Stannary Courts were reformed. It was provided that 
 the Parliament then sitting should not be prorogued or dissolved without its 
 own consent, and that a Parlianient should be held at least once every three 
 years. , , ' :.,'.- , -.,-y_- . , , ... ' 
 
 Many ojf* these measures Lord Clarendon allows to have been most salutary ; 
 and few persons will, in our times, deny that, in the laws passed during ihi.'> 
 session, the good greatly preponderated over the evil. The abolition of those 
 three hateful courts, — the Northern Council, the Star Chamber, and the High 
 Commission, would alone entitle the Long Parliament to the lasting gratitude 
 of Englishmen. 
 
 The proceeding against Strafford undoubtedly seems hard to people living in 
 our days. It would probably have seemed merciful and moderate to people 
 li\'ing in the sixteenth century. It is curious to compare the trial of Charles's 
 minister with the trial, if it can be so called, of Lord Sudley, in the blessed 
 reign of Edward VI. None of the great reformers of our Church doubted the 
 propriety of passing an act of Parliament for cutting off Lord Sudley 's head 
 without a legal conviction. . The pious Cranmer voted for that act ; the pious 
 Latimer preached for it ; the pious Edward returned thanks for it ; and all the 
 pious Lords of the council together exhorted their victim to what they were 
 pleased facetiously to call *'the quiet and patiei^t suffering of justice." 
 
 But it is not necessary to defend the proceedings against Strafford by any such 
 comparison. They are justified, in our opinion, by that which alone justifies 
 capital punishment or any punishment, — by that which alone justifies war, — 
 by the public danger. That there is a certain amount of public danger .which 
 will justify a legislature in sentencing a man to death by an ex post facto law, 
 few people, we suppose, will deny. Few people, for example, will deny that 
 the French Conventpn was perfectly justified in placing Robespierre, St. Just, 
 and Couthon hors la lot without a trial. This proceeding differed from the pro- 
 reeding against Strafford only in being much more rapid and violent. Strafford 
 t7as fully heard. Robespierre was not suffered to defend himself. Was there, 
 then, in the case of Strafford, a danger sufficient to justify an act of attainder? 
 We believe that there was. We believe that the contest in which the Parlia- 
 ment was engaged against the king was a, contest for the security of our pro- 
 perty, — for the liberty of our persons, — for every thing which makes us to differ 
 from the subjects of Don Miguel. We believe that the cause of the Commons 
 was such as justified them in resisting the king, in raising an aimy, in sending 
 thousands of brave men to kill and to be killed. An act of attainder is surely 
 rot rriore a departure from the ordinary course of law than a civil war. An act 
 of attainder produces much less suffering than a civil w-ar. We are, therefore, 
 unable t® discover on what principle it can be maintained that a cause which 
 justifies a civil war will not justify an act of attainder. 
 
 Many specious arguments have been urged against t4ie ex post facto law by 
 which Strafford was condemned to death. But all these arguments proceed on 
 the supposition that the crisis was an ordinary crisis. The attainder was, in 
 truth, a revolutionary measure. It was part of a system of resistance which 
 
224 ^ORD NUGEN7 *S MEMORIALS OF NAMPDEJT. 
 
 oppression had rendered necessary. It is as unjust to judge of the conduct 
 pursued by the Long Parliament towards Strafford on ordinary principles, as it 
 would have been to inflict Fairfax for murder because he cut down a cornet at 
 Naseby. From the day on which the houses met there was a war waged by 
 them against the king, — a war for all that they held dear, — a war carried on at 
 first by means of parliamentary forms, — at last by physical force ; and, as in the 
 second stage of that war, so in the first, they were entitled to do many things 
 which, in quiet times, would have been culpable. 
 
 We must not omit to mention that those men who were afterwards *^ 
 most distinguished ornaments of the king's party supported the bill of attainder. 
 It is almost certain that Hyde voted for it. It is quite certain that Falkland 
 both voted and spoke for it. The opinion of Hampden, as far as it can be 
 collected from a very obscure note of one of his speeches, seems to have bee/ 
 that the proceeding by bill was unnecessary, and that it would be a better 
 course to obtain judgment on the impeachment. 
 
 During this year the court opened a negotiation with the leaders of the 
 Opposition. The Earl of Bedford was invited to form an administration on 
 popular principles. St. John was made solicitor-general. Hollis was to have 
 been secretary of state, and Pym chancellor of the exchequer. The post ol 
 tutor to the Prince of Wales was designed for Hampden. The death of the 
 Earl of Bedford prevented this arrangement from being carried into effect; and 
 it may be doubted whether, even if that nobleman's life had been prolonged, 
 Charles would ever have consented to surround himself with counsellors whom 
 he could not but hate and fear. 
 
 Lord Clarendon admits that the conduct of Hampden during this year was 
 mild and temperate,— that he seemed disposed rather to soothe than to excite 
 the public mind, and that, when violent and imreasonable motions were made 
 by his followers, he generally left the House before the division, lest he should 
 seem to give countenance to their extravagance. His temper was moderate. 
 He sincerely loved peace. He felt also great fear lest too precipitate a move- 
 ment should produce a reaction. The events which took place early in the 
 next session clearly showed that this fear was not unfounded. 
 
 During the autumn the Parliament adjourned for a few weeks. Before the 
 recess, Hampden was despatched to Scotland by the House of Commons, 
 nominally as a cojnmissioner, to obtain security for a debt which the Scots had 
 contracted during the late invasion ; but in truth that he might keep watch 
 over the king, who had now repaired to Edinburgh, for the purpose of finally 
 adjusting the points of difference which remained between him and his northern 
 subjects. It was the business of Hampden to dissuade the Covenanters from 
 making their peace with the Court, at the expense of the popular party in 
 England. 
 
 While the kmg was in Scotland the Irish rebellion broke out. The sud- 
 denness and violence of this terrible explosion excited a strange suspicion in 
 the public mind. The queen was a professed Papist. The king and the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury had not indeed been reconciled to the see of Romej' 
 but they had, while ac ing towards the Puritan party with the utmost rigour, 
 and speaking of that party with the utmost contempt, shown great tenderness 
 and respect towards the Catholic religion and its professors. In spite of the 
 wishes of successive Parliaments, the Protestant separatists had been cruelly 
 persecuted. And at the same time, in spite of the wishes of those very 
 Parliaments, the laws — the unjust and wicked laws — which were in force 
 against the Papists had not been carried into execution. The Protestant 
 nonconformists had not yet learned toleration in the school of suffering. 
 They reprobated the partfal lenity which the government showed towardj 
 
• LORD NUGENT 'S MEMORIALS OB HAMPDEN. 225 
 
 idolaters, and, with some show of reason, ascribed to bad motives con- 
 iluct which, in such a king as Charl^, and such a prelate as Laud, could not 
 possibly be ascribed to humanity or to liberality of sentiment. The violent 
 Arminianism of the archbishop, — his childish attachment to ceremonies, 
 his superstitious veneration for altars, vestments, and painted windows, his 
 bigoted zeal for the Constitution and the privileges of his order, his known 
 opinions respecting the celibacy of the clergy, — had excited great disgust 
 throughout that large party which was every day becoming more and more 
 liostile to Rome, and more and more inclined to the doctrines and the dis- 
 cipline of Geneva. It was believed by many that the Irish rebellion had been 
 secretly encouraged by the court ; and, when the Parliament met again in 
 November, after a short recess, the Puritans were more intractable than ever. 
 But that which Hampden had feared had come to pass. A reaction had 
 taken place. A large body of moderate and well-meaning men, who had 
 heartily concurred in the strong measures adopted during the preceding year, 
 were inclined to pause. Their opinion was that, during many years, the 
 country had been grievously misgoverned, and that a great reform had been 
 necessary ; — but that a great reform had been made, — that the grievances ot 
 the nation had been fully redressed, — that sufficient vengeance had been 
 exacted for the past, that sufficient security had been provided for the future, — 
 and that it would, therefore, be both ungrateful and unwise to make any 
 further attacks on the royal prerogative. In support of this opinion many 
 plausible arguments have been used. But to all these arguments there is one 
 short answer. — The king could not be trusted. 
 
 At the head of those who may be called the Constitutional Royalists were 
 Falkland, Hyde, and Culpeper. All these eminent men had, during the 
 former year, been in very decided opposition to the court. In some of those 
 very proceedings with which their admirers reproach Hampden, they had 
 taken at least as great a part as Hampden. They had all been concerned 
 in the impeachment of Straffiard. They had all, there is reason to believa, 
 voted for the Bill of Attainder. Certamly none of them voted against it. 
 They had all agreed to the act which made the consent of the Parliament 
 necessary to its own dissolution or prorogation. Hyde had been among the 
 most active of those who attacked the Council of York. Falkland had voted 
 for the exclusion of the bishops from the Upper House. They were now in- 
 clined to halt in the path of reform, perhaps to retrace a few of their steps. 
 
 A direct collision soon took place between the two parties into which the 
 House of Commons, lately at almost perfect unity with itself, was now 
 divided. The opponents of the government moved that celebrated address 
 to the king which, is known by the name of the Grand Remonstrance. In 
 this address all the oppressive acts of the preceding fifteen years were set 
 forth with great energy of language ; and, in conclusion, the king was en- 
 treated to employ no ministers in whom the Parliament could not confide. 
 
 The debate on the Remonstrance was long and stormy. It commenced 
 at nine in the morning of the 21st of November, and lasted till after 
 midnight. The division showed that a great change had taken place in the 
 temper of the House. Though many members had retired from exhaustion, 
 three hundred voted ; and the Remonstrance was carried by a majority of 
 only nine. A violent debate followed, on the question whether the minority 
 should be allowed to protest against this decision. The excitement was so 
 great that several members were on the point of proceeding to personal vio- 
 lence. " We had sheathed our swords in each other's bowels," says an eye- 
 witness, "had not the sagacity and great calmness of Mr. Hampden, by a 
 short speech, prevented it.^' The House did not rise till two in the morning. 
 
 I 
 
226 LORD NUGENT*S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN, 
 
 The situation of the Puritan leaders was now difficult and full of peril. The 
 small majority which they still had might soon become a minority. Out of 
 doors, their supporters in the higher and middle classes were beginning to 
 fall off. There was a growing opinion that the king had been hardly used. 
 The English are always inclined to side with a weak party which is in the 
 wrong, rather than with a strong party which is in the right. Even the idlers 
 in the street will not suffer a man to be struck down. And as it is with a 
 boxing-match, so it is with a political contest. Thus it was that a violent 
 reaction took place in favour of Charles II. against the Whigs in i68r. Thus 
 it was that an equally violent reaction took place in favour of George III. 
 against the coalition in 1 784. A similar reaction was beginning to take place 
 during the second year of the Long Parliament. Some members of the 
 Opposition "had resumed," says Clarendon, "their old resolution of leaving 
 the kingdom." Oliver Cromwell openly declared that he and many others 
 would have emigrated if they had been left in a minority on the question of 
 the Remonstrance. 
 
 Charles had now a last chance of regaining the affection of his people. If 
 he could have resolved to give his confidence to the leaders of the moderate 
 party in the House of Commons, and to regulate his proceedings by their 
 advice, he might have been, not, indeed, as he had beeix, a despot, but the 
 powerful and respected king of a free people. The nation might have en- 
 joyed liberty and repose under a government with Falkland at its head, 
 checked by a constitutional Opposition under the conduct of Hampden. It 
 was not necessary that, in order to accomplish this happy end, the king 
 should sacrifice any part of his lawful prerogative, or submit to any conditions 
 inconsistent with his dignity. It was necessary only that he should abstain 
 from treachery, from violence, from gross breaches of the law. This was all 
 that the nation was then disposed to require of him And even this was 
 too much. 
 
 For a short time he seemed inclined to take a wise and temperate course. 
 He resolved to make Falkland secretary of state, and , Culpeper chancellor 
 of the exchequer. He declared his intention of coiiferring in a short time 
 some important . office on Hyde. He assured these three persons that he 
 would do nothing relating to the House of Commons without their joint 
 advice, and that he would communicate all his designs to them in the most 
 unreserved manner. This resolution, had he adhered to it, would have 
 averted many years of blood and mourning. But "in very few days," says 
 Clarendon, "he did fatally swerve from it." 
 
 On the 3rd of January, 1642, without giving the slightest hint of his in- 
 tention to those advisers whom he had solemnly promised to consult, he sent 
 down the attorney-general to impeach Lord Kimbolton, Hampden, Pym, 
 Hollis, and two other members of the House of Commons, at the bar of the 
 Lords, on a charge of high treason. It is difficult to find in the whole 
 history of England such an instance of tyranny, perfidy, and folly. The 
 most precious and ancient rights of the subject were violated by this act. 
 The only way in which Hampden and Pym could legally be tried for treason 
 at the suit of the king, was by a petty jury on a bill found by a grand jury. 
 The attorney-general had no right to impeach them. The House of Lords 
 had no right to try them. 
 
 The Commons refused to surrender their members. The Peers showed 
 BO inclination to usurp the unconstitutional jurisdiction which the king 
 attempted to force on them. A contest began, in which violence and weak- 
 ness were on the one side, law and resolution on the other. Charles sent 
 an officer to s^ up the lodgings and trunks of the accused members, The 
 
tOkl:) MUGENT'S MEMORIALS OP HAMPDEK. 22) 
 
 Commons sent their sergeant to break the seals. The tyrant resolved to 
 follow up one outrage by another. '&\ making the charge, he had struck at 
 the institution of juries. In executing the arrest, he struck at the privileges 
 of Parliament. He 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 of 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 eifect 
 by violence ; and, if necessary, to shed the blood of the chiefs of the Oppo- 
 sition on the very floor of the Parliament House. 
 
 Lady Carlisle conveyed intelligence of the design to Pym. The five members 
 had time to withdraw before the arrival of Charles. They left the House as 
 he was entering New Palace Yard. He was accompanied by about two 
 hundred halberdiers of his guard, and by many gentlemen of the court armed 
 with swords. He walked up Westminster Hall. At the southern door of that 
 vast building his attendants divided to the right aud left, and formed a lane to 
 the door of the House of Commons. He knocked, — entered, — darted a look 
 towards the place which P)nn usually occupied, and, seeing it empty, walked 
 up to the table. The Speaker fell on his knee. The members rose and 
 uncovered their heads in profound silence, and the king took his seat in 
 the chair. He looked round the House. But the five members were nowhere 
 to be seen. He interrogated the Speaker. The Speaker answered, that he 
 was merely the organ of the House, and had neither eyes to see, nor tongue 
 to speak, but according to their direction. The baffled tyrant muttered a few 
 feeble sentences about his respect for the laws of the realm, [and the privileges 
 of Parliament, and retired. As he passed along the benches, several resolute 
 voices called out audibly — " Privilege ! " He returned to Whitehall with his 
 company of bravoes, who, vrhile he was in the House, had been impatiently 
 waiting in the lobby for the word, cocking their pistols, and crying ** Fall 
 on." That night he put forth a proclamation, directing that the posts should 
 be stopped, and that no person should, at his peril, venture to harbour the 
 accused members. 
 
 Hampden and his friends had taken refuge in Coleman Street. The city 
 of London was indeed the fastness of public liberty, and was, in those times, 
 a place of at least as much importance as Paris during the French Revolution. 
 The city, properly so called, now consists in a gi-eat measure of immense 
 warehouses and counting-houses, which are frequented by traders and their 
 clerks during the day, and left in almost total solitude during the night. It' 
 was then closely inhabited by three hundred thousand persons, to whom it was 
 not merely a place of business, but a place of constant residence. This great' 
 body had as complete a civil and military organization as if it had been 
 an independent republic. Each citizen had his company ; and the com- 
 panies, which now seem to exist only for the delectation of epicures and of' 
 antiquaries, were then formidable brotherhoods, the members of which were 
 almost as closely bound together as the members of a Highland clan. How 
 strong these artificial ties were, the numerous and valuable legacies anciently 
 bequeathed by citizens to their corporations abundantly proYC. The muni*' 
 
2*8 LbRb kUGENtS MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEJt^, 
 
 . cipal offices were filled by the most opulent and respectable merchants of the 
 kingdom. The pomp of the magistracy of the capital was inferior only to 
 that which surrounded the person of the sovereign. The Londoners loved 
 their city with that patriotic love which is found only in small communities, 
 like those of ancient Greece, or like those which arose in Italy during the 
 middle ages. The numbers, the intelligence, the wealth of the citizens, the 
 democratical form of their local government, and their vicinity to the court 
 and to the Parliament, made them one of the most formidable bodies in the 
 kingdom. Even as soldiers they were not to be despised. In an age in 
 which war is a profession, there is something ludicrous in the idea of bat- 
 talions composed of apprentices and shopkeepers, and officered by aldermen. 
 But, in the early part of the seventeenth century, there was no standing army 
 in the island ; and the militia of the metropolis was not inferior in training 
 to the militia of other places. A city which could furnish many thousands 
 of armed men, abounding in natural courage, and not absolutely untinctured 
 with military discipline, was a formidable auxiliary in times of internal 
 dissension. On several occasions during the civil war, the trainbands of 
 London distinguished themselves highly ; and at the battle of Newbury, in 
 particular, they repelled the fiery onset of Rupert, and saved the army of the 
 Parliament from destruction. 
 
 The people of this great city had long been thoroughly devoted to the 
 national cause. Great numbers of them had signed a protestation in which 
 they declared their resolution to defend the privileges of Parliament. Their 
 enthusiasm had of late begun to cool. But the impeachment of the five 
 members, and the insult offered to the House of Commons, inflamed them 
 to fury. Their houses, their purses, their pikes, were at the command 
 of the Commons. London was in arms all night. The next day the shops 
 were closed ; the streets were filled with immense crowds. The multitude 
 pressed round the king's coach, and insulted h^'m with opprobrious cries. 
 The House of Commons, in the meantime, appointed a committee to sit 
 in the city, for the purpose of inquiring into the circumstances of the late 
 outrage. The members of the committee were welcomed by a deputation of 
 the common council. Merchant Tailors' Hall, Goldsmiths' Hall, and Grocers' 
 Hall, were fitted up for their sittings. A guard of respectable citizens, duly 
 relieved twice a day, was posted at their doors. The sheriffs were charged 
 to watch over the safety of the accused members, and to escort them to and 
 from the committee with every mark of honour. 
 
 A violent and sudden revulsion of feeling, both in the House and out of it, 
 was the effect of the late proceedings of the king. The Opposition regained 
 in a few hours all the ascendency which it had lost. The Constitutional 
 Royalists were filled with shame and sorrow. They felt that they had been 
 cnielly deceived by Charles. They saw that they were unjustly, but not un- 
 reasonably, suspected by the nation. Clarendon distinctly says that they per- 
 fectly detested the counsels by which the king had been guided, and were 
 so niuch displeased 'and dejected at the unfair manner in which he had treated 
 them that they were inclined to retire from his service. During the debates 
 on the subject they preserved a melancholy silence. To this day the advocate 
 of Charles take care to say as little as they can about his visit to the House of 
 Commons, and, when they cannot avoid mention of it, attribute to infatuation 
 an act which, on any other supposition, they must admit to have been a 
 frightful crime . 
 
 The Commons, in a few days, openly defied the king, and ordered the 
 accused members to attend in their places at Westminster and to resume 
 theii parliamentary duties. The citizens resolved to bring back the champions 
 
tbkb mi^ESff'S MEMORIALS OP irAMPDEN. 229 
 
 •"^ 7 
 
 df liberty in triumph before the windows of Whitehall. Vast preparations 
 were made by land and water for this great festival. 
 
 The king had remained in his palace, humbled, dismayed, and bewildered, 
 "feeling," says Clarendon, "the trouble and agony which usually attend 
 * generous and magnanimous minds upon their having committed errors ;" 
 feeling, we should say, the despicable repentance which attends the bungling 
 rillain who, having attempted to commit a crime, finds that he has only com- 
 mitted a folly. The populace hooted and shouted all day before the gates of 
 the royal residence. The wretched man could not bear to see the triumph 
 of those whom he had destined to the gallows and the quartering-block. On 
 the day preceding that which was fixed for their return, he fled, with a few 
 attendants, from that palace which he was never to see again till he was led 
 through it to the scaffold. 
 
 On the iith of January the Thames was covered with boats, and its 
 shores with the gazing multitude. Armed vessels, decorated with streamers, 
 were ranged in two lines from London Bridge to Westminster Hall. The 
 members returned by water in a ship manned by sailors who had volun- 
 teered their services. The trainbands of the city, under the command of the 
 sheriffs, marched along the Strand, attended by a vast crowd of spectators, 
 to guard the avenues to the House of Commons ; and thus, with shouts and 
 loud discharges of ordnance, the accused patriots were brought back by the 
 people whom they had served and for whom they had suffered. The restored 
 members, as soon as they had entered the House, expressed, in the warmest 
 terms, their gratitude to the citizens of London. The sheriffs were warmly 
 thanked by the Speaker in the name of the Commons ; and orders were given 
 that a guard selected from the trainbands of the city should attend daily to 
 watch over the safety of the Parliament. 
 
 The excitement had not been confined to London. When intelligence of 
 the danger to which Hampden was exposed reached Buckinghamshire, it 
 excited the alarm and indignation of the people. Four thousand freeholders 
 of that county, each of them wearing in his hat a copy of the protestation in 
 favour of the privileges of Parliament, rode up to London to defend the person 
 of their beloved representative. They came in a body to assure Parliamt-nt 
 of their full resolution to defend its privileges. Their petition was couched in 
 the strongest terms. *' In respect," said they, **of that latter attempt upon 
 the honourable House of Commons, we are now come to offer our service to 
 that end, and resolved, in their just defence, to live and die." 
 
 A great struggle was clearly at hand. Hampden had returned to West- 
 minster much changed. His influence had hitherto been exerted rather to 
 restrain than to excite the zeal of his party. But the treachery, the contempt 
 of law, the thirst for blood, which the king had now shown, left no hope of a 
 peaceable adjustment. It was clear that Charles must be either a puppet or a 
 t3rrant, — that no obligation of love or of honour could bind him, — and that 
 the only way to make him harmless was to make him powerless. 
 
 The attack which the king had made on the five members was not merely 
 irregular in manner. Even if the charges had been preferred legally, if the 
 Grand Jury of Middlesex had found a true bill, if the accused persons had 
 been arrested under a proper warrant and at a proper time and place, there 
 would still have been in the proceeding enough of perfidy and injustice to 
 vindicate the strongest measures which the Opposition could take. To im- 
 peach Pyra and Hampden was to impeach the House of Commons. It was 
 notoriously on account of what they had done as members of that House that 
 they were selected as objects of vengeance ; and in what they had done as 
 members of that House the majority had concurred. Most of the charges 
 
230 LORD NUGENT S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN. 
 
 brought against them were common between them and the Parliament. Thejt 
 were accused, indeed, and it may be with reason, of encouraging the Scotcli 
 army to invade England. In doing this they had committed what was, in 
 strictness of law, a high offence, — the same offence which Devonshire and 
 Shrewsbury committed in 1688. But the king had promised pardon and 
 oblivion to those who had been the principals in the Scotch insurrection. Did 
 it then consist with his honour to punish the accessories ? He had bestowed 
 marks of his favour on the leading Covenanters. lie had given the great seal 
 of Scotland to Lord Louden, the chief of the rebels, a marquisate to the Earl of 
 Argyle, an earldom to Leslie, who had brought the Presbyterian army across 
 the Tweed. On what principle was Hampden to be attainted for advising 
 what Leslie was ennobled for doing? In a court of law, of course, no Eng- 
 lishman could plead an amnesty granted to the Scots. But, though not An 
 illegal, it was surely an inconsistent and a mostunkingly course, after patdon* 
 ing the heads of the rebellion in one kingdom, to hang, draw, ahd quarter 
 their accomplices in another. 
 
 The proceedings of the king against the five members, or rather against 
 that Parliament which had concurred in almost all the acts of the five 
 members, was the cause of the civil war. It was plain that either Charles or 
 the House of Commons must be stripped of all real power in the state. The 
 best course which the Commons could have taken would perhaps have 
 been to depose the king, as their ancestors had deposed Edward II. and 
 Richard II., and as their children afterwards deposed James. Had they 
 done this, — had they placed on the throne a prince whose character and 
 whose situation would have been a pledge for his good conduct, they might 
 safely have left to that prince aU the constitutional prerogatives of the Crown, 
 the command of the armies of the state, the power of making peers, the 
 power of appointing ministers, a veto on bills passed by the two Houses. 
 Such a prince, reigning by their choice, would have been under the necessity 
 of acting in conformity with their wishes. But the public mind was not ripe 
 for such a measure. There was no Duke of Lancaster, — no Prince of Orange, 
 — no great and eminent person, near in blood to the throne, yet attached to 
 the cause of the people. Charles was then to remain king ; and it was there- 
 fore necessary that he should be king only ia name. A William III., or 
 a George L, whose title to the crown was identical with the title of the 
 people to their liberty, might safely be trusted with extensive powers. But 
 new freedom could not exist in safety under the old tyrant. Since he was not . 
 to be deprived of the name of king, the only course which was left was to 
 make him a mere trustee, nominally seised of prerogatives of which others had 
 the use, — a Grand Lama, — a Roi Faineant, — a phantom resembling those 
 Dagoberts and Childeberts who wore the badges of royalty, while Ebroin and 
 Charles Martel held the real sovereignty of the state. 
 
 The conditions which the Parliament propounded were hard, but, we are 
 sure, not harder than those which even the Tories, in the Convention of 1689, 
 would have imposed on James, if it had been resolved that James should con- 
 tinue to be king. The chief condition was that the command of the militia 
 and the conduct of the war in Ireland should be left to the Parliament. On 
 this point was that great issue joined, whereof the two parties put themselves 
 on God and on the sword. 
 
 We think, not only that the Commons were justified in demanding for 
 themselves the power to dispose of the military force, but that it would have 
 been absolute insanity in them to leave that force at the disposal of the king. 
 From the very beginning of his reign it had evidently been his object to 
 govern by an army. His tliird Parliament had complained, in the Petition oi' 
 
LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN, 231 
 
 "T-" ; ^ . 
 
 Right, of his fondness for martial law, and of the vexatious nianter in which 
 he billeted his soldiers on the people. The wish nearest the heart of Strafford 
 was, as his letters prove, that the revenue might be brought into such a state 
 as would enable the king to keep a standing military establishment. In 1640 
 Charles had supported an army in the northern counties by lawless exactions. 
 In 1 64 1 he had engaged in an intrigue the object of which was to bring that 
 army to London for the purpose of overawing the Parliament. His late con- 
 duct had proved that, if he were suffered to retain even a small body-guard of 
 his own creatures near his person, the Commons would be in danger of out- 
 rage, perhaps of massacre. The Houses were still deliberating under the 
 protection of the militia of London. Could the command of the whole 
 armed force of the 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 Republic became, — an instrument of despotism ? Was it 
 pot 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 opponents, he would establish an arbitrary 
 government, and exact a bloody revenge?. 
 
 Our own times fimiish a parallel case. Suppose that a revolution should 
 take place in Spain, — that the constitution of Cadiz should be re-established, — 
 that the Cortes should meet again, — that the Spanish Prynnes 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 were to leave him 
 the name of king, to leave him more than the name ? Would not all Europe 
 scoff at them, if they were to permit 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 that 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, — the fate of Riego 
 and of the Empecinado ? We are not disposed to pay compliments to Ferdi« 
 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 some very 
 important points, King Charles I. Like Charles, he is pious after a certain 
 fashion ; like Charles, he has made large concessions to his people, after a cer- 
 tain fashion. It is well for him that he has had to deal with men who bore 
 very little resemblance to the English Puritans. 
 
 The Commons would have the power of the sword j 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, — pity for fallen-neatness, — fear of violent iimovation, 
 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 gay and dissolute youth of that age f o 
 the royal standard. Many good, brave, and moderate rssftxi^ who disliked his 
 
2$2 LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPLEN, 
 
 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 military experience, was appointed to 
 the command of the Parliamentary army. 
 
 Hampden spared neither his fortune nor his person in the cause. He sub« 
 scribed two thousand pounds to the public service. He took a colonel's com- 
 mission in the army, and went into Buckinghamshire to raise a regiment of 
 infantry. His neighbours 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 welJ 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 
 moving one overwhelming force successively against all the scattered fragments 
 of the 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, — 
 <ind 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 
 general than all the diagrams of Jomini. This, however, is ccrtainj that 
 
itRjb j^uGkNPs Memorials ofi liAMPDEi^. 233 
 
 Mampden 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 geveral occasions, 
 particularly during the operations in the neighbourhood (i>f 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 employmentv 
 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 genei'al, 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 
 v;ith 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 Chiselhampton 
 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 wa« 
 not their commander. He did not even belong to their branch of the service, 
 
234 t^ORD NUGRNT'B 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 the 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 
 bridge, and made his retreat unmolested to Oxford. 
 
 Hampden, with his head drooping, and his hands leaning on his horse's 
 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 
 pruyers 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 spirit. 
 
 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 they 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 watch in the night. 
 
 The news of Hampden's death produced as great a consternation in his 
 party, according to Clarendon, as if their whole army had been cut off. The 
 journals of the time amply prove that the Parliament and all its friends were 
 f.Ued 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 every 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, — whose 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. 23S 
 
 in Kampden, and in Hampden alpne, were united all the qualities vliich, a 
 such a crisis, were necessary to sa"^ the State, — the valour and energy of Crom- 
 well, the discernment and eloquence of Vane, the humanity and moderation 
 of Manchester, the stern 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 Washingtoo alone. 
 
 BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. 
 
 Memoirs of the Life and Administration of the Right Honourable William Cecil Lord 
 Burghley, 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 Persona 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 Edward 
 Nares, D.D., Regius Professor of Modern History in the UniVersity of Oxford. 3 vols. 
 4to. London: 1828, 1832. 
 
 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 unhappily 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 labour 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 nr>t 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 ai 
 many pages as another man ; and one of his pages is as tedious as another 
 
2$6 BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES, 
 
 lean's three. His book is swelled to its vast dimensions by endless repetitionsj 
 by episodes which have nothing to do with the main action, by quotations from 
 books which are in every circulating library, and by reflections which, when 
 they happen to be just, are so obvious that they must necessarily occur to the 
 mind of every reader. He employs more words in expounding and defending 
 a truism than any other writer would employ in supporting a paradox. Of tl t 
 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 
 Germany are detailed at almost as much length as in Robertson's life of that 
 prince. The troubles of Scotland are related as fully as in M 'Crie's Life of 
 John Knox. It would be naost unjust to deny that Doctor Nares is a man of. 
 great industry 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 their 
 original repositories. 
 
 Neither the facts which Doctor Nares has discovered, nor the argume^its 
 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 very advantageous to be a Papist — recom- 
 mended a tolerant policy to his mistress as strongly as he could recommend it 
 Avithout 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 ^iipreraaqy of Henry VIH. He was 
 
\:v-. BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES, * 23^ 
 
 subsequently favoured and promotedby the Duke of Somerset. lie not only 
 contrived to escape unhurt when ms 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 Falstaff'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 instrument 
 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 the primtim 
 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 
 tidvanced 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 
 natural 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 m.inds abundantly satisfied that, during this very 
 trying reign, he never abandoned the prospect of another revolution in favour 
 of Protestantism." In another place, the Doctor tells us that Cecil went to 
 jnass "with no idolatrous intention." Nobody, we believe, ever accused him 
 of idolatrous intentions. The very ground of the charge against him is that 
 lie 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 tlie 
 gophistTy 9f the Jesuits, and with ^ust 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 for 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 well 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 issue between the Churches, seem to have 
 placed their chief hope in the wisdom and humanity of the gentle Cardinal. 
 Cecili it is clear, cultivated the friendship of Pole with great assiduity, and 
 received great advantage n-om the Legate's protection. 
 
 . But the 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. Pie 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. ^Vhat 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 commancL 
 And such a minister sh^ found in Burghley. No arts could shake the confi* 
 
BVRGHLEV AND HIS TIMES. 235 
 
 dence which she reposed in her old an4 trusty servant. The courtly graces of 
 Leicester, the brilliant talents and sfccomplishments of Essex, touched the 
 fancy, perhaps the heart of the woman ; but no rival could deprive tb<» 
 Treasurer of the place which he possessed in the favour of the Queen. Shj^ 
 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 to which 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 theDe 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 ro}'-al 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 born when the great religious schism, 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 civilised 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 struggle 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 likely 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 century, was zealously encouraged by the heads 
 of that very Church to which Uberal 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 
 freedr.m of their opinions. The violence of the democratic party in France 
 made Burke a Tory and Al fieri a courtier. 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- 
 thrown deeply-seated errors, shook all the principles on which society resw 
 
240 BURGHLEY 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. Frightful cruelties 
 were committed. Immense masses of property were confiscated. Every part 
 of Europe swarmed with exiles. In moody and turbulent spirits zeal soured 
 into malignity, 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 murdered 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 Prassian 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 
 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 lias 
 covered with a rich incrustation the fields which it onc« devastated, and, after 
 having turned a garden into a desert, has again turned the desert into a still 
 more beautiful and fruitful garden. The second great eruptioi^ is not yet 
 
BVRGHLEY A^D HIS TIMES. 24 1 
 
 -^- — ■ — — — ___^.^_____________^______ 
 
 over. The marks of its ravages are sjLill 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 pieceded 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 of 
 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 established 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 was then, as a matter of cour-se, 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 
 Englisn Protestants, after several years of domination, sank down with scarcely 
 a struggle imder the tyranny of Mary. The Catholics, after having regained 
 and abused 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 
 Tery simple, but by no means satisfactory. The power of the crown, it is 
 said, was then at its height, and was, Jii 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 
 describe 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 which 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 was often employed, in defiance of the laws of 
 England, for the purpose of extorting confessions from those who were shut 
 up in her dungeons. The authority of the Star Chamber and of the Ecclesi- 
 
242 BURGHLEY AND II/S TJMM, 
 
 astical Commission was at its highest point. Severe restraints were imposed 
 on political and religious discussion. The number of presses \^exe 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^\is 
 whose writings were displeasing to the Court were cruelly mutilated, lixce 
 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. 
 
 Such 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 forms of despotism. 
 At first sight, it may seem that the prerogatives of Elizabeth were not less 
 ample thani 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, commanded by the 
 merchants and esquires of England. 
 
 Thus, when intelligence arrived of the vast preparations which Philip was 
 making for the subjugation of the realm, the first person to whom the govern- 
 rrient 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 
 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 loyalty 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 meana 
 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 
 cf freedom ; but they had the reality. They had not as good a constitution 
 
BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES. 243 
 
 as we have ; but they had that with^Kt which the best constitution is as use- 
 less as the king's proclamation against vice and immorahty, — 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 misgovernment, far stronger than all the parchment that 
 was ever marked v/ith 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 defen(i 
 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 assem^blies sit in vain unless they have at their command, in the last 
 resort, the physical power which is necessary to make Iheir 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 against 
 reform. 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 measure 
 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 the top of water, 
 — a people of such temper and self-government that the wildest 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, 
 iiut 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 rules 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 monarcny of England in the sixteenth century was a monarchy of tbif 
 
2.14 BURGIILEY AND' HIS TIMES. 
 
 kind. It is called an absolute monarchy, because little respect was paid by 
 the Tudors to those institutions which we have been accustomed to consider 
 as the sole checks on the power of the sovereif^n. A modern Englishman can 
 hardly understand how the people can have had any real security for good 
 government under kings who levied benevolences, and chid the House of Corn* 
 mons as they would have chid a pack of dogs. People do not sufficiently con- 
 sider that, though the legal checks were feeble, the natural checks were strong. 
 There was one great and effectual limitation on the royal authority, — the 
 knowledge that, if the patience of the nation were severely tried, the nation 
 would put forth its strength, and that its strength would be found irresistible. 
 If a large body of Englishmen became thoroughly discontented, instead of pre- 
 senting requisitions, holding large meetings, passing resolutions, 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 Pomfret. He haji 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, ajid trained in the simpl/j 
 discipline of the militia. 
 
 It has been said that the Tudors were as absolute as the Coesars. Never was 
 parallel so unfortunate. The government of the Tudors was the direct oppo- 
 site to the government of Augustus and his successors. The Csesars ruled 
 despotically, by means of a great standing army, under the decent forms of a* 
 republican constitution. They 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 people 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 Eamige, to be a favourite 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 pai-doned. For the nation was proud of the high and fiery 
 ^lood o( its magnificent princes, and saw, in m?iny proceedings which a lawyer 
 
" BURGHLEV AND HIS TIMES. 245 
 
 would even then have condemned, the oi^reak of the same noble spirit which 
 BO manfully hurled foul scorn at Panna 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, it 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, 
 said that, if they were treated thus, "then were it worse than the taxes of 
 France ; 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 
 persisted, would, in all probability, have taken the form of a general rebellion. 
 Towards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, the people felt themselves 
 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 checking 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 people were not disposed to engage in 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 
 property, 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 
 compelled to give way. If she was able to establish the Catholic worship and 
 to persecute those who would not conform 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 
 these parties were, we believe, very small. We doubt whether both together 
 made 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 revolutioH in the government, for the purpose of giving to 
 either 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 ci James I., 
 a majority of the population of England were Catholics. This is pure asser- 
 tion ; and is not only unsupported by evidence, but, we think, completely 
 disproved by the strongest evidence. Dr. Lingard is of opinion that the 
 Catholics were one half of the nation in the middle of the reign of Elizabeth. 
 Richton 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 
 one, they should have borne the government of Mary, or that, if the Catholics 
 »-ere jeally twp \o oije, they should UavQ borae the government of Elizabeth, 
 
246 BURGHLEY AND HIS 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 persecute a religion to which the majority of his subjects are 
 sincerely attached. In fact, the Protestants did rise up against one sister, 
 and the Catholics against the other. Those risings clearly showed how 
 small and feeble both the parties were. Both in the one case and in the 
 other the nation ranged itself on the side of the government, and the in- 
 surgents were speedily put down and punished. The Kentish gentlemen who 
 look up arms for the reformed doctrines against Mary, and the great Northern 
 Eai'ls who displayed the banner of the Five Wounds against Elizabeth, were 
 alike considered by the great body of their countrymen as wicked disturbers 
 of the public peace. 
 
 The account which Cardinal 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 at four fifths of the nation. We believe this account to have been 
 very near the truth. We believe that the people, whose minds were made 
 ■ up on either side, who were inclined to make any sacrifice or run 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 stirred 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 the 
 reign of He?iry 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 
 4»riyileges. 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 
 muthority of the Popedom. A considerable reaction took place. It cannot, 
 
BURGHLEY. AND Ills TIMES,- 247 
 
 however, be doubted, that there was still some concealed Lollardism in Eng- 
 land ; or that many who did not absoliffely 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 to make them zealous Protestants. It was 
 not under the direction of men like that fiery Saxon who swore that he would 
 go to Worms, though he had to face as many devils as there were tiles on the 
 houses, or like that brave Switzer who was struck down while praying in 
 front of the ranks of Zurich. No preacher of religion had the same power 
 here which Calvin had at Geneva and Knox in Scotland. The government 
 put 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 Plenry 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 which, as Machiavelli says, the inhabitants of the Roman 
 empire were, during the transition from heathenism to Christianity: "sendo 
 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 
 cli/ldhood. 
 
 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. ,.y 
 
248 BVRGHLEY AND JT/S TIMES, 
 
 The greatest and most popular dramatists of the Elizabethan age treat re- 
 ligious subjects in a very remarkable manner. They speak respectfully of the 
 fundamental doctrines of Christianity. But they speak neither like Catholics 
 nor like Protestants, but like persons who are wavering between the two 
 systems, 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, — . 
 and, in later times, so common a subject for ribaldry, — with mysterious rever- 
 ence. The members of a religious order whom they introduce 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 
 book 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 the Mexican Indians, 
 who, during many generations after the subjugation of t^eir race, continued to 
 unite with the rites learned from 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, with wax lights burning round 
 it, stood in her private chapel. She always spoke with disgust 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 she would only connive ; and the children sprung from such marriages 
 were illegitimate till the accession of James I. 
 
 That which is, as we have said, the great stain on the character of Burghley 
 is also the great stain on the character of Elizabeth. Being herself an Adia. 
 phorist, — having no scruple about conforming to the Romish Church when 
 conformity was necessary to her own safety, — retaining to the last moment of 
 her life a fondness for much of the doctrine and much of the ceremonial of 
 that church, — she yet subjected that church to a persecution even more odion<5 
 than the persecution with which her sister had harassed the Protestants. W o 
 
BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES, 249 
 
 say more odious. For Mary had at l^st the plea of fanaticism. She did 
 nothing for her religion which she was not prepared to suffer lor 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 was little more 
 than half a Protestant. She had professed, when it suited her, to be w>ii)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 
 Englishmen, 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'PIospital 
 regulated his conduct in her own time, how different would be the colour of 
 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 Chui-ch 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 
 with 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 still 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 
 migh t have united all conflicting sects under the shelter of the same impartial 
 lavs and the same paternal throne, and thus have placed the nation in the 
 same situation, as far as the rights of conscience are concerned, in which we 
 at 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 charac^r. Yet she surely was a great woman. 
 Of all the sovereigns who exercised a power which was seemingly absolute, 
 but which in fact depended for suppoi't 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 no 
 good plea for her successors : and for this plain reason, that they were her 
 successors. She governed one generation, they governed another ; and between 
 the two generations there was almost as little in common as between the 
 people of two different countries. It was not by looking at the particular 
 measures which Elizabeth had adopted, but by looking at the great general 
 
Hio BURGHLEY AND HIS TIMES, 
 
 principles of her government, that those who followed her were likely to 
 learn the art of managing untractable subjects. If, instead of searching the 
 records of her reign for precedents which might seem to vindicate the mu- 
 tilation of Prynne and the imprisonment of Eliot, the Stuarts had attempted 
 to discover the fundamental rules which guided her conduct in all her 
 dealings with her people, they would have perceived that their policy 
 was • then most unlike to hers, when to a superficial observer it would 
 have seemed most to resemble hers. Firm, haughty, — sometimes unjust 
 and cruel, in her proceedings towards individuals or towards small parties, 
 — she avoided with care, or retracted with speed, every measure which 
 seemed likely to alienate the great mass of the people. She gained more 
 honour and more love by the manner in which she repaired 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. Pie 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 barda 
 saw in vision from the top of Snowdon, encircling the Virgin Queen, 
 " Many a baron bold, 
 And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old 
 ', In bearded majesty." 
 
 ' Wfe had intended to say something concerning the dexterous Walsiiigham, 
 the impetuous Oxford, the graceful Sackville, the all-accomplished Sydney; — 
 concerning Essex, the ornament of the court and of the camp, the model of 
 chivalry, the munificent patron of genius, whom great virtues, great courage, 
 great talents, the favour of his sovereign, the love of his countrymen — all that 
 s€Ci».cdto ensure a happy and gloriom life, led to an early and an ignominio-a^j 
 
ITJJ^ OP TH& SUCCESSION m SPAIN, 251 
 
 death ;-— concerning Raleigh, the soldiejr'the sailor, the scholar, the courtier, 
 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 the 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 especially 
 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, oi 
 Augustus, or of Leo. But subjects so vast require a space far larger than 
 we can at present afford. We therefore stop here, fearing that, if we proceed, 
 cur 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. 8va 
 
 London, 1832. :,..:' 
 
 The 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 scandalum 
 magnatu7n. 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 he has in any instance for- 
 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 
 modem 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, that law to which all other laws are subordinate, is 
 this — that the words employed shall be such as convey to the reader the 
 meaning of the writer. Now an Abbot is the head of a religious house; an 
 
Abbe is quite a different sort of person. It is better undoubtedly to use ati 
 English word than a French word j 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 rather than a para- 
 dox. Every boy has written on the thesis ** Odisse quern Iceseris." 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 II. 
 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 
 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 Antwerp, of Florence, and of Rome, was suffering painfully from the want 
 
iP-AA dF fiik SUCCESSION m Spaii^. 253 
 
 of luxuries which use had made nece^aries. While pillara and arches were 
 rising to commemorate the French conquests, the conquerors were trying to 
 manufacture coffee out of succory, and sugar out of beetroot. Th e 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 
 never 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, her 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 pow^r 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 gi-eat soever he was before, he is now thereby mani- 
 festly more great : . . . He keepeth a navy armed to impeach 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 
 m 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, Germany 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 imperio popiUos^^^ — was not better 
 understood by the Romans in the proudest days of their republic, than by 
 Gonsalvo and Ximcnes, 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 tlie 
 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 the Roman, did not disdain to study the arts and the language r^ Uiosa 
 
2S4 ^^^^ <^^ "^HE St) C CESSION m SPAW. 
 
 whom he oppressed. A revolution took place in the literature of Spain, not 
 unlike that revolution which, as Horace tells us, took place in the poetry of 
 Latium : ** Capta ferum victorem cepii." The slave took prisoner the en- 
 slaver. The old Castilian ballads gave place to sonnets in the style of Petrarch, 
 and to heroic poems in the stanza of Ariosto, as the national songs of Rome 
 were driven out by imitations of Theocritus, and translations from Menander. 
 
 In no modern society, — not even in England during the reign of Elizabeth, 
 — has there been so great a number of men eminent at once in literature and 
 in the pursuits of active life, as Spain produced during the sixteenth century. 
 Almost every distinguished writer was also distinguished as a soldier or a 
 politician. Boscan bore arms with high reputation. Garcilaso de Vega, 
 the author of the sweetest and most graceful pastoral poem of modern times, 
 after a short but splendid military career, fell sword in hand at the head of a 
 storming party. Alonzo de Ercilla bore a conspicuous part in that war of 
 Arauco, which he afterwards celebrated in one of the best heroic poems that 
 Spain has produced. Hurtado de Mendoza, whose poems have been compared 
 to those of Horace, and whose charming little novel is evidently the model of 
 Gil Bias, has been handed down to us by history as one of the sternest of 
 those iron proconsuls who were employed by the House of Austria to crush 
 the lingering public spirit of Italy. Lope sailed in the Armada ; Cervantes 
 was wounded at Lepanto. 
 
 It is curious to consider with how much awe our ancestors in those times 
 regarded a Spaniard. He was, in their apprehension, a kind of demon, 
 horribly malevolent, but withal most sagacious and powerful. * * They be 
 verye wyse and politicke," says an honest Englishman, in a memorial ad- 
 dressed to Mary, "and can, thorowe ther wysdome, reform and brydell ther 
 owne natures for a tyme, and applye ther conditions to the maners of those 
 men with whom they meddell gladlye by friendshippe ; whose mischievous 
 maners a man shall never knowe untyll he come under ther subjection : but 
 then shall he parfectlye parceyve and fele them : which thynge I praye God 
 England never do : for in dissimulations untyll they have ther purposes, and 
 afterwards in oppression and tyrannye, when they can obtayne them, they 
 do exceed all other nations upon the earthe." This is just such language as 
 Arminius would have used about the Romans, or as an Indian statesman of 
 our times might use about the English. It is the language of a man burning 
 ivith hatred, but cowed by those whom he hates ; and painfuUy sensible of 
 Iheir superiority, not only in power, but in intelligence. 
 
 But how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ! How 
 art thou cut down to the ground, that didst weaken the nations ! If we over- 
 leap a hundred years, and look at Spain towards the close of the seventeenth 
 century, what a change do we find ! The contrast is as great as that which 
 the Rome of Gallienus and Honorius presents to the Rome of Marius and 
 Caesar. Foreign conquest had begun to eat into every part of that gigantic 
 monarchy on which the sun never set. Holland was gone, and Portugal, and 
 Artois, and Roussillon, and Franche Comte. In the East, the empire founded 
 by the Dutch far surpassed in wealth and splendour that which the old tyrants 
 still retained. In the West, England had seized, and still held, settlements 
 in the midst of the Mexican sea. The mere loss of territory was, however, of 
 little moment. The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs 
 more than it is worth. 
 
 Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little 
 timely pruning. Adrian acted judiciously when he abandoned the conquests 
 of Trajan, and England was never so rich, so great, so formidable to foreign 
 "princes, so absolutely mistress of the sea, as since the loss of her American 
 
WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 255 
 
 colonies. The Spanish empire wajr^till, in outward appearance, great and 
 magnificent. The European dominions subject to the last feeble Prince of 
 the House of Austria were far more extensive than those of Louis XIV. 
 The American dependencies of the Castilian crown still extended to the north 
 of Cancer and to the south of Capricorn. But within this immense body there 
 was an incurable decay, an utter want of tone, an utter prostration of strength. 
 An ingenious and diligent population, eminently skilled in arts and manufac- 
 tures, had been driven into exile by stupid and remorseless bigots. The glory of 
 the Spanish pencil had departed with Velasquez and Murillo. The splendid agt 
 of Spanish literature had closed with Solis and Calderon. During the seven- 
 teenth century many states had formed great military establishments. But the 
 Spanish army, so formidable under the command of Alva and Famese, had 
 dwindled away to a few thousand men, ill paid and ill disciplined. England, 
 Holland, and France had great navies. But the Spanish navy was scarcely equal 
 to the tenth part of that mighty force which, in the time of Philip II., had 
 been the terror of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The arsenals were 
 deserted. The magazines were unprovided. The frontier fortresses were 
 ungarrisoned. The police were utterly inefficient for the protection of the 
 people. Murdei's were committed in the face of day with perfect impunity. 
 Bravoes and discarded s6rving-men, with swords at their sides, swaggered 
 every day through the most public streets and squares of the capital, disturb- 
 ing the public peace, and setting at defiance the ministers of justice. The 
 finances were in frightful disorder. The people paid much. The Government 
 received little. The American viceroys and the farmers of the revenue became 
 rich, while the merchants broke — while the peasantry starved — while the body- 
 servants of the sovereign remained unpaid — while the soldiers of the royal 
 guard repaired daily to the doors of convents, and battled there with the 
 crowd of beggars for a porringer of broth and a morsel of bread. Every 
 remedy which was tried aggravated the disease. The currency was altered ; 
 and this frantic measure produced its never-failing effects. It destroyed all 
 credit, and increased the misery which it was intended to relieve. The Ame- 
 rican gold, to use the words of Ortiz, was to the necessities of the state but as 
 a drop of water to the lips of a man raging with thirst. Heaps of unopened 
 despatches accumulated in the offices, while the ministers were concerting 
 with bedchamber-women and Jesuits the means of tripping up each other. 
 Every foreign power could plunder and insult with impunity the heir of Charles 
 the Fifth. Into such a state had the mighty kingdom of Spain fallen, while 
 one of its smallest dependencies — a country not so large as the province of 
 Estremadura or Andalusia, situated under an inclement sky, and preserved 
 only by artificial means from the inroads of the ocean — had become a power 
 of the first class, and treated on terms of equality with the courts of London 
 and Versailles, 
 
 The manner in which Lord Mahon explains the financial situation of Spain 
 by no means satisfies us. "It will be found," says he,** that those indivi- 
 duals deriving their chief income from mines, whose yearly produce is un- 
 certain and varying, and seems rather to spring from fortune than to follow 
 industry, are usually careless, unthrifty, and irregular in their expenditure. 
 The example of Spain might tempt us to apply the same remark to states." 
 Lord Mahon would find it difficult, we suspect, to make out his analogy. No- 
 thing could be more imcertain and varying than the gains and losses of those 
 who were in the habit of putting into the state lotteries. But no part of the 
 public income was more certain than that which was derived from the lotteries. 
 We believe that this case is very similar to that of the American mines. Some 
 veins of ore exceeded expectation ; some fell below it. Some of the private 
 
256 WAR OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 
 
 speculators drew blanks, and others gained prizes. But the revenue of the state 
 depended, not on any particular vein, but on the whole annual produce of two 
 great continents. This annual produce seems to have been almost constantly 
 on the increase during the seventeenth century. The Mexican mines were, 
 through the reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., in a steady course of im- 
 provement ; and in South America, though the district of Potosi was not so 
 productive as formerly, other places more than made up for the deficiency. 
 We very much doubt whether Lord Mahon can prove that the income which 
 the Spanish government derived from the mines of America fluctuated more 
 than the income derived from the internal taxes of Spain itself. 
 
 All the causes of the decay of Spain resolve themselves into one cause, 
 bad government. The valour, the intelligence, the energy which, at the 
 'tlose of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, had made 
 die Spaniards the first nation in the world, were the fruits of the old insti- 
 tutions of Castile and Arragon, institutions eminently favourable to public 
 liberty. These institutions the first Princes of the House of Austria attacked 
 and almost wholly destroyed. Their successors expiated the crime. The 
 effect of a change from good government to bad government is not fully felt 
 for some time after the change has taken place. The talents and the virtues 
 which a good constitution generates may for a timQ survive that constitution. 
 Thus the reigns of princes who have established absolute monarchy on the 
 ruins of popular forms of government often shine in history with a peculiar 
 brilliancy. But when a generation or two has passed away, then comes signally 
 to pass that which was written by Montesquieu, — that despotic governments 
 resemble those savages who cut down the tree in order to get at the fruit. 
 During the first years of tyranny, is reaped the harvest sown during the last 
 years of liberty. Thus the Augustan age was rich in great minds formed in 
 the "generation of Cicero and. Ccesar. The fruits of the policy of Augustus 
 were reserved for posterity. Philip II. was the heir of the Cortes and of the 
 Justiza Mayor ; and they left him a nation which seemed able to conquer all 
 the world. What Philip left to his successors is well known. 
 
 The shock which the great religious schism of tTie sixteenth century gave 
 to Europe, was scarcely felt in Spain, In England, Germany, Holland, 
 France, Denmark, Switzerland, Sweden, that shock had produced, with some 
 temporary evil, much durable good. The principles of the Reformation had 
 triumphed in some of those countries. The Catholic Church had maintained 
 its ascendency in others. But though the event had not been the same in all, 
 all had been agitated by the conflict. Even in France, in Southern Germany, 
 and in the Catholic cantons of Switzerland, the public mind had been stirred 
 to its inmost depths. The hold of ancient prejudice had been somewhat 
 loosened. The Church of Rome, warned by the danger which she had 
 narrowly escaped, had, in those parts of her dominion, assumed a milder and 
 more liberal character. She sometimes condescended to submit her high pre- 
 tensions to the scrutiny of reason, and availed herself more sparingly than in 
 former times of the aid of the secular arm. Even when persecution was 
 employed, it was not persecution in the worst and most frightful shape. The 
 severities of Louis XIV., odious as they were, cannot be compared with those 
 which, at the first dawn of the Reformation, had been inflicted on the heretics 
 in many parts of Europe, 
 
 The only effect which the Reformation had produced in Spain had been to 
 make the Inquisition more vigilant and the commonalty more bigoted. The 
 times of refreshing came to all neighbouring countries. One people alone 
 remained, like the fleece of the Hebrew warrior, dry in the midst of that 
 benignant and fertilising dew. While other nations were putting away 
 
WAR OF TUB SUCCESSION IN SPAIN, 157 
 
 childish things, the Spaniard still tluyight as a child and understood as a 
 child. Among the men of the sevemeenth century, he was the man of the 
 fifteenth century or of a still darker period, — delighted to behold an Auto- 
 da-fe, and ready to volunteer on a Crusade. 
 
 The evils produced by a bad government and a bad religion seemed to have 
 attained their greatest height during the last years of the seventeenth century.. 
 While the kingdom was in this deplorable state, the King was hastening to 
 an early grave. His days had been few and evil. He had been unfortunate 
 in all his wars, in every part of his internal administration, and in all his 
 domestic relations. His first wife, whom he tenderly loved, died very young. 
 His second wife exercised great influence over him, but seems to have been 
 regarded by him rather with fear than with love. He was childish ; and his 
 constitution was so completely shattered that, at little more than thirty years 
 of age, he had given up all hopes of posterity. His mind was even more 
 distempered than his body. He was sometimes sunk in listless melancholy, 
 and sometimes harassed by the wildest and most extravagant fancies. He 
 was not, however, wholly destitute of the feelings which became his station. 
 His sufferings were aggravated by the thought that his own dissolution might 
 not improbably be followed by the dissolution of his empire. 
 
 Several princes laid claim to the succession. The King's eldest sister had 
 married Louis XIV. The Dauphin would, therefore, in the common course 
 of inheritance, have succeeded to the crown. But the Infanta had, at the 
 time of her espousals, solemnly renounced, in her own name, and in that of 
 her posterity, all clainL ro the succession. This renunciation had been con- 
 finned in due form by the Cortes. A younger sister of the King had been the 
 first wife of Leopold, Emperor of Germany. She too had at her marriage re- 
 nounced her claims to the Spanish crown ; but the Cortes had not sanctioned the 
 renunciation, and it wa? therefore considered as invalid by the Spanish jurists. 
 The fruit of this marriage was a daughter, who had espoused the Elector of 
 Bavaria. The Electoral Prince of Bavaria inherited her claim to the throne 
 of Spain. The Emperor Leopold was son of a daughter of Philip III., and 
 was therefore first cousm to Charles. No renunciation whatever had been 
 exacted from his mother at the time of her marriage. 
 
 The question was certainly very complicated. That claim which, according 
 to the ordinary rules of inheritance, was the strongest, had been barred by a 
 contract executed in the most binding form. The claim of the Electoral 
 Prince of Bavaria was weaker. But so also was the contract which bound 
 him not to prosecute his claim. The only party against whom no instrument 
 of renunciation could be produced was the party who, in respect of blood, 
 had the weakest claim of all. 
 
 As it was clear that great alarm would be excited throughout Europe if 
 either the Emperor or the Dauphin should become King of Spain, each of 
 those Princes offered to waive his pretensions in favour of his second son ; — 
 the Emperor, in favour of the Archduke Charles ; the Dauphin, in favour of 
 Phihp Duke of Anjou. 
 
 Soon after the peace of Ryswick, William III. and Louis XIV. deter* 
 mined to settle the question of the succession without consulting either 
 Charles or the Emperor. France, England, and Holland, became parties to 
 a treaty by which it was stipulated that the Electoral Prince of Bavaria should 
 succeed to Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands, The imperial family was to 
 be bought off with the Milanese ; and the Dauphin was to have the Two Sicilies. 
 
 The great object of the King of Spain and of all his counsellors was to ave|J^, 
 the dismemberment of the monarchy. In the hope of attaining this en4^ 
 Charles determined to name a successor. A will was accordingly framed bf 
 
 K 
 
2S8 WAIi OP THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 
 
 which the crown was bequeathed to the Bavarian Prince. Unhappily, this 
 will had scarcely been signed when the Prince died. The question was again 
 unsettled, and presented greater difficulties than before. 
 
 A new Treaty of Partition was concluded between France, England, and 
 Holland. It was agreed that Spain, the Indies, and the Netherlands, should 
 descend to the Archduke Charles. In. return for this great concession made 
 by the Bourbons to a rival house, it was agreed that France should have the 
 Milanese, or an equivalent in a more commodious situation, — if possible, the 
 Province of Lorraine. 
 
 Arbuthnot, some years later, ridiculed the Partition Treaty with exquisite 
 humour and ingenuity. Everybody must remember his description of the 
 paroxysm of rage into which poor old Lord Strutt fell, on hearing that his 
 runaway servant Nick Frog, his clothier John Bull, and his old enemy Louis 
 Baboon, had come with quadrants, poles, and inkhoms, to survey his estate,| 
 and to draw his will for him. Lord Mahon speaks of this arrangement with 
 grave severity. He calls it, "an iniquitous compact, concluded without the 
 slightest reference to the welfare of the states so readily parcelled and allotted ; 
 insulting to the pride of Spain, and tending to strip that country of its hard- 
 won conquests." The most serious part of this charge would apply to half 
 the treaties which have been concluded in Europe, quite as strongly as to the 
 Partition Treaty. What regard was shown in the treaty of the Pyrenees to 
 the welfare of the people of Dunkirk and Roussillon, — in the treaty of Nime- 
 guen to the welfare of the people of Franche Comte, — in the treaty of Utrecht 
 to the welfare of the people of Flanders, — in the treaty of 1735 to the wel- 
 fare of the people of Tuscany? All Europe remembers, and our latest posterity 
 will, we fear, have reason to remember how coolly, at the last great pacifi- 
 cation of Christendom, the people of Poland, of Norway, of Belgium, and 
 of Lombardy, were allotted to masters whom they abhorred. The statesmen 
 who negotiated the Partition Treaty were not so far beyond their age and ours 
 in wisdom and virtue as to trouble themselves much about the happiness of 
 the people whom they were apportioning among foreign masters. But it will 
 be difficult to prove that the stipulations which Lord Mahon condemns were 
 in any respect unfavourable to the happiness of those who were to be trans- 
 ferred to new rulers. The Neapolitans would certainly have lost nothing by 
 being given to tlie Dauphin, or to the Great Turk. Addison, who visited 
 Naples about the time at which the Partition Treaty was signed, has left us 
 a frightful description of the misgovernment under which that part of the 
 'Spanish Empire groaned. As to the people of Lorraine, a union with. 
 I'rance would have been the happiest event which could have befallen them. 
 Louis was already their sovereign for all purposes of cruelty and exaction. 
 He had kept their country during many years in his own hands. At the 
 peace of Ryswick, indeed, their Duke had been allowed to return. But the 
 conditions which had been imposed on him made him a mere vassal of France. 
 
 We cannot admit that the Treaty of Partition was objectionable because it 
 "tended to strip Spain of hard-won conquests." The inheritance was so 
 vast, and the claimants so mighty, that without some dismemberment it was 
 scarcely possible to make a peaceable arrangement. If any dismemberment 
 was to take place, the best way of effecting it surely was to separate from the 
 monarchy those nations which were at a great distance from Spain,--^which 
 were not Spanish in manners, in language, or in feelings, — which were both 
 worse governed and less valuable than the old provinces of Castile and Aria- 
 gon, and which, having always been governed by foreigners, would not be 
 likely to feel acutely the humiliation of being turned over from one master to 
 another. 
 
U^AX OF THE SVCCESSWN IN SPAM 
 
 ^i 
 
 That England and Holland had apght to interfere is plain. The question 
 of the Spanish succession was not an internal question, but a European 
 question. And this Lord Mahon admits. He thinks that, when the evil had 
 been done, and a French Prince was reigning at the Escurial, Englarid and 
 Holland were justified in attempting, not merely to strip Spain of its remote 
 dependencies, but to conquer Spain itself: — that they were justified in at* 
 tempting to put, not merely the passive Flemings and Italians, but the 
 reluctant Castilians and Asturians, under the dominion of a stranger. The 
 danger against which the Partition Treaty was intended to guard was precisel;^ 
 the same danger which afterwards was made the ground of war. It will be 
 difficult to prove that a danger which was sufficient to justify the war was in- 
 sufficient to justify the provisions of the treaty. If, as Lord Mahon contends^, 
 it was better that Spain should be subjugated by main force than that she 
 should be governed by a Bourbon, it was surely better that she should be 
 deprived of Lombardy and the Milanese than that she should be governed by 
 a Bourbon, 
 
 Whether the treaty was judiciously framed is quite another question. We 
 disapprove of the stipulations. But we disapprove of them, not because we 
 think them bad, but because we think that there was no chance of their being 
 executed. Louis was the most faithless of politicians. He hated the Dutch. 
 He hated the Government which the Revolution had established in England. 
 He had every disposition to quarrel with his new allies. It was quite certain 
 that he would not observe his engagements, if it should be for his interest to 
 violate them. Even if it should be for his interest to observe them, it might 
 well be doubted whether the strongest and clearest interest would induce a 
 man so haughty and self-willed to co-operate heartily with two governments 
 which had always been the objects of his scorn and aversion. 
 
 When intelligence of the second Partition Treaty arrived at Madrid it 
 roused to momentary energy the languishing ruler of a languishing state. Th& 
 Spanish ambassador at the court of London was directed tp remonstrate with 
 ihe government of William ; and his remonstrances were so insolent that he 
 was commanded to leave England. Charles retaliated by dismissing the 
 English and Dutch ambassadors. The French King, though the chief author 
 of the Partition Treaty, succeeded in turning the whole wrath of Charles and 
 of the Spanish people from himself, and in directing it against the two mari- 
 time powws. Those powers had now no agent at Madrid. Their perfidious 
 ally was at liberty to carry on his intrigues unchecked ; and he fully availed 
 himself of this advantage. 
 
 A long contest was maintained with varying success by the factions which 
 surrounded the miserable King. On the side of the Imperial family was the 
 Queen, herself a Princess of that family j with her were allied the confessor 
 of the King, and most of the ministers. On the other side were two of the 
 most dexterous politicians of that age, Cardinal Porto Carrero, Archbishop of 
 Toledo, and Harcourt, the ambassador of Louis. 
 
 Harcourt was a noble speciihen of the French aristocracy in the days of its 
 highest splendour, — a finished gentleman, a brave soldier, and a skilful diplo- 
 matist. His courteous and insinuating manners, — his Parisian vivacity, tem- 
 pered with Castilian gravity, — made him the favourite of the whole court. 
 He became intimate with the grandees. He caressed the clergy. He dazzled 
 the multitude by his magnificent style of living. The prejudices which the 
 people of Madrid had conceived against the French character, — the vindictive 
 feelings generated during centuries of national rivalry, — gradually yielded to 
 his arts ; while the Austrian ambassador, a surly, pompous, ni^ardly German, 
 made himself and his country more and more unpopular every day. 
 
±6b WAlt OP THE SUCCESSlOI^ W SPAIN. 
 
 Harcourt won over the court and the city ; Porto Carrero managed the 
 King, Never were knave and dupe better suited to each other. Charles 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 
 ^ovisions 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 gi-ave to which 
 he was hastening. In the cemetery which PhiUp 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 arid 
 mind. The Escurial became hateful to him j 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, be 
 returned to Madrid to die. 
 
 He was now beset on every &^de by the bold and skilful agents of the 
 House of Bourbon. The leading politicians of his court assured him that 
 Lottis^ and Louis done, was sufficiently powerful to preserve the Spanish 
 
tVAJ^ OP THE SUCCESSION W SPAIN, 261 
 
 inonardiy unclivideJ, 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 late Queen 
 of France ought to be construed according to the spirit, and not according te 
 the letter. The letter undoubtedly excluded the French princes. The spirit 
 was merely this, — that ample security should be taken agamst the union «f 
 the French and Spanish crowns on one head. ' 
 
 In all probability, 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 Porto Carrero employed those terrors wi«-^ 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 intellect 
 of Charles were strongly wrought upon by these appeals. At length Porto 
 Carrero ventured on a master-stroke. He advised Charles to apply for 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 ; 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 he 
 affixed his name to the instrument, he burst into teai-s. **God,** he said, 
 ** gives kingdoms and takes them av^ay. 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 Abrantes came 
 forth, and announced that the whole Spanish monarchy was bequeathed^ to 
 Philip, Duke of Anjou. Charles had directed that, during the interval which 
 might elapse between his death and the arrival of his successor, the govern- 
 ment should be administered by a council, of which Porto Carrero was 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. His 
 brothers escorted him to that frontier which, as they weakly imagined, was to 
 
262 IP'AIi 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 intel- 
 lectual character resembled his own, he could n«t 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 v/ill. 
 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 for 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 frefe 
 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 affabiUty 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 largo 
 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 which was believed to be 
 peculiarly favoured by the court — the moneyed interest. The middle classes 
 were fully determined to keep out James and his family. But they regarded 
 William only as the less of two evils ; and, as long as there was no imminent 
 
H^AJS OF THE SUCCESSION' IN SPAIN. 263 
 
 danger of a counter-revolution, wer^ disposed to thwart and mortify the 
 sovereign, by whom they were, nevertheless, ready to stand, in case of neces- 
 sity, with their lives and fortunes. They were sullen and dissatisfied. "There 
 was," as Somers expressed it in a remarkable letter to William, ** a deadness 
 and want of spirit in the nation universally." - - 
 
 Everything in England was going on as Louis could have wished. The 
 leaders of the Whig party had retired from power, and were extremely un- 
 popular, on account of the unfortunate issue of the Partition Treaty. The 
 Tories, some of whom still cast a lingering look towards St. Germain's, were 
 in office, and had a decided majority in the House of Commons. William 
 was so much embarrassed by the state of parties in England that he could 
 not venture to make war on the House of Bourbon. He was suffering under 
 a complication of severe and incurable diseases. There was every reason to 
 believe that a few months would dissolve the fragile tie which bound up that 
 feeble body with that ardent and unconquerable soul. If Louis could succeed 
 in preserving peace for a short time, it was probable that all his vast designs 
 would 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 pai(J him a farewell visit, and was 
 so much moved 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 Emperor 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 
 new 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 AUiance of the Eiu-opean 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, 1702, 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 
 the 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 Italy, in Ger- 
 
264 fVAH OF THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN, 
 
 many, and in the Netherlands, great means were at the disposal of great 
 generals. Mighty batdes were fought. Fortress after fortress was subdued. 
 The iron chain of the Belgian strongholds was broken. By a regular and 
 connected series of operations extending through several years, th** French 
 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 those which 
 take place in a dream. Victory and defeat are not followed by their usual 
 consequences. Armies spring out of nothing, and melt into nothing. Yet, 
 to judicious readers of history, the Spanish conflict is perhaps more interesting 
 than the campaigns of Marlborough and Eugene. The fate of the Milanese 
 and of the Low Countries was decided by military skill. The fate of Spain 
 was decided by the peculiarities of the national character. 
 
 When the war commenced, the young king was in a most deplorable 
 tituation. On his arrival at Madrid he found Porto Carrero at the head of 
 affairs, and he did not think fit to displace the man to whom he owed his 
 crown. The Cardinal was a mere intriguer, and in no sense a statesman. He 
 had acquired, in the court and in the confessional, a rare degree of skill in all 
 the tricks by which weak minds are managed. — But of the noble science of 
 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- 
 tiast 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 hi» 
 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 
 countrymen of the new sovereign might cheat and insult with impunity. The 
 King sate eating and drinking all night, lay in bed all day, — yawned 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 natuie was susceptible. His grandfather consented to let him haVe a 
 vyife. The choice 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 
 selected. The King resolved to give her the meeting in Catalonia. He left 
 his capital, of which he was already thoroughly tired. At setting out he was 
 mobbed by a gang of beggars. He, however, made his way through them, 
 and repaired to Barcelona. 
 
 Louis was perfectly aware that the Queen would govern Philip. He, ac- 
 cordingly, looked about for somebody to govern the Queen. He selected 
 the Princess Orsini to be first lady of the bedchamber, — no insignificant post 
 in the household of a very young wife and a very uxorious husband. The 
 lady was the daughter of a French peer, and the widow of a Spanish grandee. 
 She 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 Mamtenon; 
 
tVAIi OP THE SUCCESSION W SPAIM. 265 
 
 turner ■ < ^ 111 . , .. 
 
 and the appellation was well deserved. She aspired to play in Spain the part 
 which Madame de Maintenon had played in France. But, though at least 
 equal to her model in wit, information, and talents for intrigue, she had not that 
 self-command, that patience, that imperturbable evenness of temper, 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 carried 
 her flirtations so far as to give occasion for scandal. She was, however, 
 polite, eloquent, and not deficient in strength of mind. The bitter Saint 
 Simon owns that no person whom she wished to attach could long resist the 
 graces of her manners and of her conversation. 
 
 We have not time to relate how she obtained, and how she preserved her 
 empire over the young couple in whose household she was placed,— how sha 
 became so powerful that neither minister of Spain nor ambassador from 
 France could stand against her, — how Louis himself was compelled to court 
 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, shuffling, 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, 1702, 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 Mahon, 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 great emergencies require. No disci- 
 pline was kept; the soldiers were suffered to rob ^id insult those whom it 
 was most desirable to conciliate. Churches were robbed ; images were pulled 
 down ; nuns wtre violated. The officers shared the spoil, instead of punishing 
 the spoilers; and at last the armament, loaded, to use the words of Stanhope, 
 "with a great deal of plunder and infamy," quitted 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 intelligence that the treasure-ships from Ame- 
 rica had just arrived in Europe, and had, in order to avoid his armament, 
 repaired to the harbour of Vigo. The cargo consisted, it was said, of more 
 than three millions sterling in gold and silver, besides much valuable mer- 
 chandise. The prospect of plunder reconciled all disputes. Dutch and Eng- 
 lish, admirals and generals, were equally eager for action. The Spaniards 
 
266 IVAI^ OF THE SUCCESSION' 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 feeble 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 basin ; and a few French ships of war, 
 which had convoyed the galleons from America, were moored within. But 
 all was to no purpose. The English ships broke the boom : Ormond and 
 his soldiers scaled the forts ; the French burned their ships, and escaped to 
 the shore. The conquerors shared some millions of dollars ; — some millions 
 more were sunk. When all the galleons had been captured or desttoyed 
 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 without 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 
 stem, 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 ; yet he was never suspected 
 of treachery, or even of slackness. 
 
 Early in 1704 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 
 flag was placed on those ramparts from which the combined armies and navies 
 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 
 
THE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. s67 
 
 excepted. Indeed, Peterborough mp.y 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 beyond 
 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 deportment 
 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 
 Europe faster than a travelling courier. He was at the Hague one week, at 
 Vienna the next. Then he took a fancy to see Madrid ; and he had scarcely 
 reached Madrid, when he ordered horses and set off for Copenhagen. N4» 
 attendants could keep up with his speed. No bodily infirmities could confin* 
 him. Old age, disease, imminent death, produced scarcely any effect on his 
 intrepid spirit. Just before he underwent the most horrible of surgical opera- 
 tions, his conversation was as sprightly as that of a young man in the full 
 vigour of health. On the day after the operation, in spite, of the entreaties 
 of his medical advisers, he would set out on a journey. His figure was that 
 of a skeleton. But his elastic mind supported him under fatigues and suf- 
 ferings which seemed sufficiGnt to bring the most robust man to the grave. 
 Change of employment was as necessary to him as change of place. He 
 loved to dictate six or seven letters at once. Those who had to transact 
 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 manage 
 it so as to make it the most serviceable to his purpose." What Peterborough 
 was to Bolingbroke as a writer, he was to Marlborough as a general. He 
 was, in truth, the last of the knights-errant, — brave to temerity, — Uberal to 
 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 iu which the author of that clever little poem, Moitks and Giants, 
 has described Sir Tristram. 
 
 *' His birth, it seems, by Merlin's calculation, 
 Was under Venus, Mercurj^, 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 acquireipents had he made : 
 His chief delight was, on some festive day, 
 T© 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 project, and impelled the blow ; 
 And most his fortune and success were seen 
 With means the most inadequate and low ; 
 Most master of himself, and least encumber'd. 
 When overmatch'4, entangled, and outnumber'ij,'* 
 
268 LORD MAHON'S WAR OF 
 
 In June, 1705, this remarkable man arrived in Lisbon with five thousand 
 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. The wretched inisgovemment of Philip had excited 
 great discontent throughout this province. The invaders were eagerly wel- 
 comed. The peasantry flocked to the shore, bearing provisions, and shouting, 
 — " Long live Charles III." The neighbouring fortress of Denia surrenders! 
 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 capital there was 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 kingdom with an army of only seven thousand men, was 
 too daring to please tha 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, thut 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 
 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 
 suggested 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 men 
 should not be sent to certain death when there was no chance of obtaining 
 any 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 officers 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 publip entertainments in 
 
ThJE SUCCESSION IN SPAIN. 269 
 
 Barcelona 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 say 
 of us." The Prince was startled. 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 thousand 
 more had been 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 
 halted 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, leaped into the ditch, put the Spaniards to flight, 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. Their 
 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 tlieir former position. 
 
 The Prince of Hesse had fallen in the confusion of the assault ; but every- 
 tjiing else went well. Staiihope arrived; the detachment which had marched 
 out of Barcelona retreated ; the heavy cannon were disembarked, and brought 
 to bear on che inner fortifications of Monjuich, which speedily fell. Peter- 
 borough, ivith his usual generosity, rescued the Spanish soldiers from the 
 ferocity of his victorious array, and paid the last honours with great pomp to 
 his rival the Prince of Hesse. 
 
 The reduction of Monjuich was the first of a series of brilliant exploits. 
 Barcelona fell ; and Peterborough had the glory of taking, with a handful] of 
 men, one of the largest and strongest towns of Europe. He had also the 
 glory, not less dear to his chivalrous temper, of saving the life and honour of 
 the beautiful Duchess of Popoli, whom he met flying with dishevelled hair 
 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, 
 Gerona, Lerida, San Mat°o, threw open their gates. The Spanish Govern- 
 ment sent the Count of Las Torres with seven thousand men to reduce San 
 Mateo. The Earl of Peterborough, with only twelve hundred men, raised the 
 siege. Hi.« officers adyised him to be content with this extraordinary success. 
 
270 LORD MAHOirS WAR OF 
 
 Charles urged him to return to Barcelona ; but no remonstrances could stop 
 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 surretidered to the mere terror of his name ; and, on the 4th of 
 February, 1 706, 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 OJit 
 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 by 
 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 seji 
 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 wife, could endure the misery of separation no 
 longer, 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 
 I into the heart of Spain. Berwick retreated. Alcantara, Ciudad Rodrigo, 
 and Salamanca 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 the imperial city, Arragon, ever jealous of thej 
 
THE SUCCESSION W SPAIN. i^i 
 
 ; Castilian ascendency, followed the a}&.mple of Catalonia. Saragossa revolted 
 without seeing an enemy. The governor whom Philip had set over Carthagena 
 betrayed his trust, and surrendered to the Allies the best iu«enal 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 her influence. The Cardinal, having held power just long 
 enough to convince all parties of his incompetency, had been dismissed to his 
 See, cursing his own folly and the ingratitude of the House which he had 
 served too well. Common interests and common enmities reconciled the fallen 
 rivals. The Austrian troops were admitted into Toledo without opposition. 
 The Queen Dowager flung ofl" 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 difiicult 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-main: 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 Castilians 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 aU hope — the national spirit awoke, fierce, 
 
27« LORD MAffON'S WAR OF 
 
 proud, and unconquerable. The people had been sluggish when the circum- 
 stances might well have inspired hope; they reserved ail 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 began, 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 tht Queen. *My flock,* 
 said he, *are ashamed to send you so little; but they 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 
 Allies 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 dawdling in 
 Catalonia. Peterborough had taken Requena, and wished to march towards 
 Madrid, and to effect 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 Mediten-anean, reading Don 
 Quixote, giving balls and suppers, trying in vain to get 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, arid 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. His 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 che 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 government of Philip might commit unpopular acts. Defeats in the 
 
THE SUCCESSION, . 273 
 
 Netherlands might compel Louis to^ withdraw the succours which he had 
 furnished to his grandson. Then wtmld be the time to -Strike a decisive blow. 
 This excellent advice was rejected. Peterborough, who had now received 
 formal letters of 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 general 
 had ever displayed iequal 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 adored by the Catalonians and Valencians; but he was hated 
 by the prince whom he had all but made a great king, and by the generab 
 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 
 infantry 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 1 707 in the most scientific manner. On the plain 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 \Yhich 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 stai-ved. , 
 
 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 Philip at Almenara, defeated them again 
 
274 I-ORD MAHON'S WAR OP 
 
 at Saragossa, and advanced to Madrid. The king was again a fugitive. The 
 Castilians sprang to arms with the same enthusiasm which they had displayed 
 in 1706. The conquerors found the capital a desert. The people shut them- 
 selves up in their houses, and refused to pay any mark of respect to the Aus- 
 trian prince. It was liecessary 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 his new residence. Women of rank, rather than remain 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 Uow the Allies could 
 have maintained themselves, through so unpropilious a s( »son, in the midst of 
 so hostile a population. Charles, whose personal safety \ fas the first object of 
 the generals, was sent with an escort of cav?>y to Catdonia 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 frpm Talavera with 
 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 bat 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 cannon. 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 geiieral 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 
 fruits of the engagement. The Allies spiked their cannon, and retired towards 
 
THE SUCCESSION. 2^5 
 
 Arragon. But even in Arragon the/lfound 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 dispurited men, 
 the remains of a great and victorious army, took refuge is 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 Bourbon 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 in 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. Cowper became Chan- 
 cellor. Sunderland, in spite of the very just antipathy of Anne, was nxade 
 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 17 10 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. Stanhope, who had in 
 
276 LORD MAHON*S WAR OP 
 
 his absence been put in nomination for Westminster, was defeated by a Tory 
 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 country 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. \et, if he were to retain his command, every 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 Queea 
 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 half we 
 altogether dissent. We allow that a modern Tory resembles, in many things, 
 a Whig of Queen Anne's reign. It is natural that gtich 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 trust to the apothecary of a modem village than to the 
 physician of a large town in Anne's reign. A modern boarding-school miss 
 could tell the most learned Professor of Anne's reign some 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 wfth 
 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 custalorum 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 betweett 
 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 remains 
 unchanged. Through the whole of that great movejnenti which began befoM 
 
THE SUCCESSION, . S77 
 
 these party-names existed, and whiclv-will continue after they have become 
 obsolete — 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, undtr 
 some name or other, two sets of men — those who were before their age, and 
 those who were behind it — those who were the wisest among their con tempo- 
 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 
 :e,zx 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 j 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 
 laws for the purpose of closing the entrance of the House of Commons against 
 the new interests created by trade ? Do the modem Whigs hold the doctrine 
 of divine right ? Have the modem Whigs laboured to exclude all dissenters 
 from office and power? The modem Whigs are, indeed, at the present 
 moment, like the Tories of 1712, desirous of peace, and of close union with 
 France. But is there no diflference between the France of 17 12 and the France 
 of 1832? Is France now the stronghold of the "Popish tyranny" 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 Whigs 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 true that they were men bom in the seventeenth 
 century, and that they were therefore ignorant of many tmths which ai-e> 
 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 Commons have been since — the leaders of their species in a right 
 direction. It is tme 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 tme 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 wisdom 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 
 tjie l^t fom years of Anne's reign, the Tories vrgre in the right and the Whig* 
 
278 LORD MAHON'S WAR OF 
 
 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 Bill, has been so violent as that which took place between the 
 authors of the Treaty of Utirecht 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 prerog&.tives she would exercise — whether she 
 would create Peers, or dissolve the Parliament. The ties of party superseded 
 the ties of neighbourhood and of blood ; the members of the hostile factions 
 would scarcely speak to each other, or bow to each other j 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- 
 exhaustible fertility of fancy, and his graceful simplicity of style. In the front 
 of the opposite ranks appeared a darker and fiercer spirit — the apostate poli- 
 tician, the ribald priest, the perjured lover — a heart burning with hatred against 
 the whole human race — a mind richly stored with images from the dunglull 
 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 confidence 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 
 Ormond 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 arid 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. ■ ■'t^ 
 
 The; dangers which were to be apprehended from the Peace were twdT 
 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 with 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 united under one 
 sovereign. 
 
 The first danger appears to us altogether chimerical. Family affection 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 be 
 very great. But Louis was more than seventy years old ; he could not livf 
 
THE SUCCESSION. 279 
 
 long J 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 the 
 league of Pilnitz. 
 
 The second danger was that Philip might have succeeded to the crown .of 
 his native country. This did not happen. But 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 French crown. But the manner 
 in which he had obtained possession of the Spanish crown had proved the 
 inefficacy of such renunciations. The French lawyers 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 the 
 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 written, 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 
 would 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 migJ.t be. King of France. The certainty of the less evil might 
 well be set agamst the chance of the greater evil. 
 
 But, in facti we do not believe that Spain would long have remained under 
 the government either of an Emperor or of a King of France. The character 
 of the Spanish 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 
 •ver them at home. If Philip had become King of Franco, and had attempted 
 
tSo LORD MAttOirS WAR OF THE SUCCESSION. 
 
 to 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- 
 kther ; 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 truth 
 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 the 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 Ramifies, — if Paris had fallen, — if Lewis had bee» 
 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<4 
 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 
 Phvlip, 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 hterature. 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, aS*. 
 
 HORACE WALPOLE. (October, 1833,) 
 
 Leittrs of Horace Walpole, Earl of Or/ord, to Sir Horace Mann, Britllh Envoy at iJu 
 Court of Tuscany. Now first published from the Originals in the Po^ession of the 
 Earl of Waldhqrave. 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 ren- 
 dered to literature by a nobleman of amiable manners, of imtamished public 
 and private character, and of cultivated mind. On this, as on other occasions. 
 Lord Dover performed his part diligently, judiciously, and without the slightesi; 
 ostentation. He had two merits which are rarely found together in a com- 
 mentator. He was content to be merely a commentator — to keep in the back- 
 ground, and to leave . the foreground to the author whom he had undertaken 
 to 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 
 literary 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 pati-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 pretematurally 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 affisctations. 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 immeasurable 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 Ranelagh and White's — to record divorces and bets. Miss Chudleigh's 
 absurdities and George Selwyn'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 employments 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 Mar/s comb. 
 
282 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANlT, 
 
 Wolsey's red hat, the pipe which Van Tromp smoked during his last sea-fight, 
 and the spur which King William struck into the flank of Sorrel. 
 ' In everything in which he busied himself— in the fine arts, in literature, in 
 public affairs — he was drawn by some strange attraction from the great to the 
 fittle, and from the useful to the odd. The politics in which he took the 
 keenest interests, were politics scarcely deserving of the name. The growHngs 
 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 Buckhounds — 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 glass, and from setting up 
 memorials of departed cats and dogs. While he was fetching and carrying 
 the gossip of Kensuigton 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. 
 
 He was, as he himself has told us, fond of faction as an amusement. Hd 
 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 disHke 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 ol 
 the death-warrant of Charles, with ^e inscription, " Major Ckarta.'^ 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- 
 sirable 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 I^nd, 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 
 iyears old. His republicanism, likci 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 revQ- 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANJ^. 283 
 
 lutionary spirit really began to stir in ^rope — as soon as the hatred of kings 
 became something more than a sonorous phrase — he was frightened into a 
 fanatical royalist, 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 cellars 
 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 
 ©f 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 Walpole'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 
 parties, the rise and fall of statesmen, the ebb and flow of public opinion, 
 moved only to a smile of mingled compassion 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 1 
 
a84 WALPOLE*S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 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 malce before posterity. But he had set his heart on 
 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 nothing 
 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 society of authors. 
 He spoke with lordly contempt of the most distinguished among them. He 
 j_, tried to find out some way of writing books, as M. Jourdain's father sold cloth, 
 without derogating from his character of Gentilhomme. ' ' Lui, marchand ? 
 C'est pure medisance : il ne I'a jamais ete. Tout ce qu'il faisait, c'est qu'il 
 etait fort obhgeant, fort officieux j 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 the 
 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 world ; 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 How I 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 
 and 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 — 
 the vanity, the jealousy, the irritability of a man of letters — the affected super- 
 ci liousn 3ss and apathy of a man of ton. 
 
 His judgment of literature — of contemporary literature especially — was alto- 
 gether perverted by his aiistocratical feelings. No writer surely was ever 
 guilty of so much false and a.bsurd cnticism. 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 first 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, ^arburton, Collins, Akenside Gray, Dyer, Youi^g, -Warton, Mason, 
 or some of those distinguished men, were in the list. Not one of them. Our 
 .first writers, it seems, were Lord Chesterfield, X-ord Bath, Mr. W, W/iithed, 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 285 
 
 Sir Charles Williams, Mr. Soame Jpiyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Coventry. Of 
 these seven personages, Whithed was the lowest in station, but was 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 occa.^ional 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 with 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 
 the 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 countries 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 interpretatibii'Wafe'iii full activity. 
 The great French writers were busy in proclaiming through Eiirope 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 doctrines 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 
 Montfort put down the growing heresies of Provence. A wise man would 
 
286 WAIPOLM'S LETTERS TO Sik HORACE MAJ^N. 
 
 ; — — — ■ A 
 
 have seen with Kegret the excesses into which the reformers were running j 
 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 them 
 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-wasting destruction—' 
 he would yet have looked forward to the final close with 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 Fronde. 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 
 Iess_ 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 Sopka and of the Lettres Athe- 
 niennes had little respect to spare for the men who were then at the head of 
 French literature. He 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 Walpole's squib against 
 Rousseau. " I hope, " says Walpole, * ' that nobody will attribute D* Alembert's 
 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, there would be another Raphael before there was another Claude. 
 And we own that we expect to see fresh Humes and fresh Burkes before we 
 again fall in with that peculiar combination of moral and intellectual qualitiei 
 9 which the witings of Walpole owe ihftii'extraordinarj p'»pularity. 
 
WALPOLB'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, 287 
 
 It is easy to describe him by negatives. He had not a creative imagination. 
 He had not a pure taste. He was ^ot a great reasoner. There is indeed 
 scarcely any writer in whose works it would be possible to find so many contra- 
 dictory j udgments, so many sentences of extravagant nonsense. Nor was it only 
 in his familiar correspondence that he wrote in this flighty and inconsistent 
 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 Kp 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 Knellef. 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 Walpole's manner. Everybody who 
 reads his works with attention will find that they swarm with loose and foohsh 
 observations like those which we have cited ; — observations which might pass 
 in conversation or in a hasty letter, but which are unpardonable in books 
 deliberately written and repeatedly corrected. 
 
 He appears to have thought that he saw very far into men j but we are under 
 the necessity, of altogether dissenting from his opinion. We do not conceive 
 that he had stoiy 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 (Sscernment with ninety-nine people out of a hun- 
 «,tred. He sneered at everybody, put on every action the worst construction ' 
 it would bear, "spelt every man backward, 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 
 
 who sat to him as soon as he had sketched their faces, and to paint the figure and 
 
2^ WALPOLE^S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 hands from his housemaid. 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 and 
 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 sketches of character which 
 abound in Walpole's works. But if we were to form 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, 
 — Charles Townsend an impudent and voluble jack-pudding, — Murray a 
 demure, cold-blooded, cowardly hypocrite, — Hardwick an insolent upstart, with 
 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, — Lord Townsend 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. Wlaen 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 Moli^re 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. 
 
 What 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 
 ,\ strange ingenuity peculiarly his own, — an ingenuity which appeared in all 
 that he did, — in his building, in his gardening, in 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 with the Sublime and the Beautiful 
 Walpole had nothing to do, but that the third province, the Odd", was his 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 2S9 
 
 peculiar domain. The motto which ha^srefixed to his " Catalogue of Ro)>al and 
 Noble Authors" might have been inscribed with perfect propriety over the doo'- 
 of every room in his house, and on the title-page of every one of his books ; 
 ** Dove diavolo, Messer Ludovico, avete pisjliate tante coglionerie?" In his 
 villa, every apartment is a museum ; ever) -j/iece 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 the 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 which 
 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 il 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 of 
 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 the topics of the 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 t© 
 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 Maiy Queen of Scots; — when we compare the Anec- 
 dotes of Painting with Nichols's Anecdotes, or even with Mr. DTsraeli'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- 
 ' r-ciesj—the brains of singing-birds, the roe cf mullets, the sunny halves of 
 
 I. 
 
290 WALPOLES LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, 
 
 peaches. 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 t3rrant, 
 Jerome as commonplace a confessor, Theodore as commonplace a young 
 gentleman, Isabella and Matilda as commonplace a pair of young ladies, as 
 «.re to be found in any of tiie thousand Italian castles in which condottieri 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 down. 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 
 can-ies 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- 
 spondence than in his books. His wild, absurd, and ever-changing opinions 
 about men and things are easily pardoned in familiar letters. His bitter, 
 scoffing, 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 effect of art. We are never sure that what appears to be 
 art is not mei^ely 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 Walpolean battle," to use the words of Junius, which 
 terminated in the retirement of Sir Robert. Horace entered the House of 
 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 Reserved this high eulogium, we think, as little as he deserved 
 
WALPOLES LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 291 
 
 the abusive epithets which have often .treen coupled with his name. A fair 
 character of him still remains to be drawn : and, whenever it shall be drawn, 
 it will be equally unlike the portrait by Coxe and \he 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 brilhant 
 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 literature 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 
 station. 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 office. Of foreign affairs he knew little ; but 
 his judgment was so good that his little knoWl;pdge went very far. He was an 
 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 ; yet 
 no minister had so much leisure. 
 
 He was a good-natured man who had during tHrty 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 had 
 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 twenty 
 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 wanted 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, vihfied, 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 cen- 
 
292 WALPOLE' S LETIERS TO SIR HORACE MAm\K 
 
 sured for not being beyond his age in virtue. To buy the votes of constituents 
 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 hundi-ed 
 guineas to the member. Yet we know that, in our own time, no man is 
 thought wicked or dishonourable, — no man is cut, — no man is black-balled, 
 because, under the old system of election, he v/as returned, in the oixly way in 
 which he couhV be returned, for East Retford, for Liverpool, or for Stafford. 
 Walpole governed by corruptior because, in his time, it was impossibre to 
 govern otherwise. Corruption was unnecessary to the Tudors ; for their 
 Parliaments were feeble. The 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 before the reform 
 of the representation, a faint suspicion that a minister had given pecuniary 
 gratifications to Members of Parliament 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 managed by corruption or cannot be managed 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 votes 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 these 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 were 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 with 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 been absolutely necessary in times when the Privy Council was 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 the most 
 powerful minister from his post. 
 
 The Government could not go on unless the Parliament could be kept in 
 order. And how was the Parliament to be kept in order? Three hundred 
 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 have beea enough to have both Crown and 
 people on his side. The Parliament had shaken off the control of the Royal 
 prerogative. It had not yet fallen under the 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 circiunstances, 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 the 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 extortion 
 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, guieia non viovere. 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 that, 
 though he was at the head of affairs during more than twenty yeai-s, not one 
 great measure, not one important change for the better or for the worse in 
 any part of our institutions, marks the period of his supremacy. Nor was this 
 because he did not clearly see that many clianges 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 
 sufferers represented to him the injustice with which they were treated, boasted 
 of their firm attachment to the House of Brunswick 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 whioh 
 the foolish prosecution of a foolish parson had occasioned in the days of 
 Queen Anne. If the Dissenters had been turbulent he would probably have 
 relieved them : but while he apprehended no danger from them, he would not 
 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 empirei 
 
294 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANX 
 
 Yet, during his long tenure of power, he never attempted to perform what 
 was then the most obvious and pressing duty of a British Statesman, — to break 
 the power of the Chiefs, and to estabh'sh 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 feai 
 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. Pulteney 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 rfegard 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, "present 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 pubhc 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 whioh 
 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 stormy session. It is imposible to say of a Minister who acted thus 
 that the love of peace was the one grand principle to which all his conduct is 
 to be referred. The governing principle of his conduct was neither love of 
 peace nor love of war, but love of power. 
 
 The prais'e 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 was 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 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 295 
 
 submit to his ascendency was turned out or forced to resign. Liberal 
 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 ancj 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 inflamed 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 enthusiasm 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 y^ung republican, fresh from his Livy and his Lucan, and flowing 
 with admiration of Hampden, of Russell, and of Sydney, hastened with 
 e^ual eagerness to those benches from which eloquent voices thundered 
 nightly against the t3rranny 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 asfiect 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, Wyndham, Doddington, 
 Pitt, Lyttleton, Barnard, Pope, Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, Fielding, Johnson, 
 Thomson, Akenside, Glover. 
 
 The circumstance that the opposition was divided into two parties 
 diametrically opposed to each other in political opinions was long the sjvfety 
 of Walpole. It was at last his ruin. The leaders of the minority kMe^ 
 
tg6 WALPOLB'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, 
 
 that it would be difficult for them to bring forward any important measure 
 without producing an immediate schism in their 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 viith 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'X)ss ignorance, or 
 gross dishonesty, they represented the minister as the main grievance of the 
 state. His dismissal, — his punishment, — would prove the certain cure for all 
 the evils whicli the nation suffisred. What was to be done after his fall, — 
 how misgovemment 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 
 their 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 1 741, have 
 been able to weather the storm. 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 murmur of sazive qui peut 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 security, 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, wlyich 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 confifdence, — while their 
 foBowers were clamouring for reward, a still louder voice was heard from 
 without,— the terrible cry of a people angry, they hardly knew with whom,— 
 
WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, 297 
 
 and impatient, they hardly knew for^hat. The day of retribution had 
 arrived. The opposition reaped that which ^they had sown. Inflamed with 
 hatred and cupidity, despairing of success by any ordinary mode of political 
 warfare, and blind to consequences which, though remote, were certain, they 
 had conjured up a devil whom they could not lay. They had made the public 
 mind drunk with calumny and declamation. They had raised expectations 
 which it was impossible to satisfy. The downfall of Walpole was to be the 
 beginning of a political millennium ; and every enthusiast had figured to 
 himself that millennium according to the fashion of his own wishes. The 
 republican 'Expected that the power of the Crown would be reduced to a mere 
 shadow, — the high Tory that the Stuarts would be restored, — the moderate 
 Tory that the golden days which the Church and the landed interest had en- 
 joyed during the last years of Queen Anne, would immediately return. 
 It would have been impossible 10 satisfy everybody. The conquerors 
 satisfied nobody. 
 
 We have no reverence for the memory of those who were then called the 
 patriots. We are for the principles of good government against Walpole, and 
 for Walpole against the opposition. It was most desirable that a purer system 
 should be introduced ; but, if the old system was to be retained, no man was 
 so fit as Walpole to be at the head of affairs. There were frightful abuses in 
 the government — abuses more than sufficient to justify a strong opposition. But 
 the party opposed to Walpole, while they stimulated the popular fury to the 
 highest point, were at no pains to direct it aright. Indeed they studiously 
 misdirected it. They misrepresented the evil. They prescribed inefficient 
 and pernicious remedies. They held up a single man as the sole cause of all 
 the vices of a bad system which had been in full operation before his entrance 
 into public life, and which continued to be in full operation when some of 
 these very brawlers had succeeded to his power. They thwarted his best 
 measures. They drove him into an unjustifiable war against his will. Con- 
 itlantly talking in magnificent language about tyranny, corruption, wicked 
 ministers, servile courtiers, the liberty of Englishmen, the Great Charter, the 
 rights for which our fathers hVA — Timoleon, Bnitus, Hampden, Sydney — 
 they had absolutely nothing to propose which would have been an improvement 
 on our institutions. Instead of directing the public mind to definite reforms 
 which might have completed tht work of the revolution, — which might have 
 brought the legislature into harmony with the nation, and which might have 
 prevented the Crown from doing by influence what it could no longer do by 
 prerogative, — they excited a vague craving for change, by which they profited for 
 a single moment, and of which, as they well deserved, they were soon the victims. 
 
 Among the reforms which the state then required, there were two of 
 paramount importance, — two which would alone have remedied almost 
 every abuse, and without which all other remedies would have been unavailing, 
 — the publicity of parliamentary proceedings, and the abolition of the rotten 
 boroughs. Neither of these was thought of. It seems to us clear that, if 
 these were not adopted, all other measures would have been illusory. Some 
 of the patriots suggested changes which would, beyond all doubt, have in- 
 creased the existing evils a hundredfold. These men wished to transfer the 
 disposal of employments and the command of the army from the Crown to the 
 Parliament ; and this on the verj ground that the Parliament had long been 
 a grossly corrupt body. The secur-ty against corruption was to be that the 
 members, instead of having a portion of the public plunder doled out to 
 them by a minister, were to help themselves. 
 
 The other schemes of which the public mind was full were less dangerous 
 than this. Some of th»»3 wcr/s in themselves harmless. But none of them 
 
igS IVALPOLE *S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN, 
 
 wpuld have done much good, and most of them were extravagantly absurd. 
 What they were we may learn from the instructions which many constituent 
 bodies, immediately after the change of administration, sent up to their re- 
 presentatives. A more deplorable collection of follies can hardly be imagined. 
 There is, in the first place, a general cry for Walpole's head. Then there are 
 bitter complaints of the decay of trade — a decay which, in the judgment of 
 these enlightened politicians, was brought about by Walpole and corruption. 
 They would have been nearer to the truth if they had attributed their suffer- 
 ings to the war into which they had driven Walpole against his better judg- 
 ment. He had foretold the effects of his unwilling concession. On the day 
 when hostilities against Spain were proclaimed, when the heralds were at- 
 tended into the city by the chiefs of the opposition, when the Prince of Wales 
 himself stopped at Temple Bar to drink success to the English arms, the 
 Minister heard all the steeples of the city jingling with a merry peal, and 
 muttered, " They may ring the bells now : they will be ringing their hands 
 before long." 
 
 Another grievance, for which of course Walpole and corruption were 
 answerable, was the great exportation of English wool. In the judgment of 
 the sagacious electors of several large towns, the remedying of this evil was 
 a matter second only in importance to the hanging of Sir Robert. There 
 were also earnest injunctions that the members should vote against standing 
 armies in time of peace, — injunctions which were, to say the least, ridiculously 
 unseasonable in the midst of a war which was likely to last, and which did 
 actually last, as long as the Parliament. The repeal of the Septennial Act, 
 as was to be expected, was strongly pressed. Nothing was more natural 
 than that the voters should wish for a triennial recurrence of their bribes and 
 their ale. We feel firmly convinced that the repeal of the Septennial Act, 
 unaccompanied by a complete reform of the constitution of the elective body, 
 wodld have been an unmixed curse to the country. The only rational recom- 
 mendation which we can find in all these instructions is, that the number of 
 Placemen in Parliament should be limited,- and that pensioners should not 
 be allowed to sit there. It is plain, however, that this cure was far from 
 going to the root of the evil, and that, if it had been adopted the consequence 
 would probably have been that secret bribery would have been more practised 
 than ever. 
 
 We will give one more instance of the absurd expectations which the de- 
 clamations of the opposition had raised in the country. Akenside was one 
 of the fiercest and most uncompromising of the young patriots out of Parlia- 
 ment. When he found that the change of administration had produced no 
 change of system, he gave vent to his indignation in the ** Epistle to Curio," 
 the best poem that he ever wrote, — a poem, indeed, which seems to indicate 
 that, if he had left lyric composition to Gray and Collins, and had employed 
 his powers in grave and elevated satire, he might have disputed the pre- 
 eminence of Dryden. But, whatever be the literary merits of the epistle, we 
 ».an say nothing in praise of the political doctrines which it inculcates. The 
 poet, in a rapturous apostrophe to the Spirits of the Great Men of Antiquity, 
 tells us what he expected from Pulteney, at the moment of the fall of the tyrant. 
 
 " See private life by wisest arts reclaimed, 
 See ardent 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 
 8tint the young Duke of Marlborough to a bottle of brandy n day, and to 
 prevail on Lady Vane to be content with three lovers at a time. 
 
WALFOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR 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- 
 ruption 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 modem 
 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 siiides ; 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 not 
 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 Enel'sh. 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 
 ^{utterals 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 
 hme 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, 
 tnd in the royal favour, be neglected all those means by which the power ol 
 
300 WALPOLE'S 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 House of Bourbon. He contemptuously abandoned to others all the 
 drudgery, and, with the drudgery, all the fruits of corruption. The patronage 
 of the Church and of the Bar he left to the Pelhams as a trifle unworthy of his 
 care. One of the judges, — Chief Justice Willes, if we remember 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 1 benefices will go to those who have 
 more leisure." The prediction was accomplished. It would have been a 
 busy time indeed in which 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, conscious 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 Walpole, 
 "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. Hlr. 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 gen » us 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 taknts, 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 Walpole, 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 tJie height of his greatness he fell 
 in love at fii-st 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 v:hom Engrland had pro- 
 
WALPOLE 'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 301 
 
 duced within his memory, concludes hgr saying, that in genius none of them 
 equalled Lord Granville. Smollett, in Humphrey Clinker, pronounces 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 the 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^m 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 contrived to keep together a smaU 
 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, but 
 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 opposition 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 secretar}'-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 ixx 
 rather have contended with the strongest minority, under the ablest leaderSi 
 
303 WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE MANN. 
 
 ^vhan 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^Inn 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 passed 
 his 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 
 hobleman's plasters. No man was ever so unmercifully satirised. But in 
 truth 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 cliaracter. 
 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 1 — 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 resemj)led 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 even of his own bro^^her. Under the disguise of levity he 
 
WAlPOlE'S LUTTEkS TO StR ItOkACE MAN^. 303 
 
 was false beyond all example of political falsehood. All the able men of hia 
 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 other 
 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' War 
 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 Williant Pitt, Earl of Chatham, containing his 
 Speeches in Parliament, a considerable portion of his Correspondence when Secretary 
 of State, upon French, Spanish, and American Affairs, never before published ; and 
 an Account of the principal Events and Persons of his Time connected with his Life, 
 Sentiments, and Administration. By the Rev. Fkancis Thackeray, A.M, 2 vols. 
 , 4to. Loadon, 1827. 
 
 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 
 Annual Register, and other works equally common. 
 
 Almost every mechanical employmeut, 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 Lues 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 we 
 lire 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^/wfe." 
 
 Pitt was in tlv» ^nny for a few months in time of peace. Mr. Thackeray 
 
304 TBACKERA V'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, was 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 to estabv 
 lish an inquisition, and to give bounties for perjury, in order to get Walpole's 
 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 his 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 xbund 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 and 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 cratch 
 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 vnrong, — very wrong. But, to quote the language 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 rain 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. His- 
 
THA CKERA TS HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM, 305 
 
 tory owes to him this attestation, — that, at a time when anything short of direct 
 embezzlement of the public money wag' 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 Aristocratical 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 unwiUing 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 born 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 that 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 
 wortliless 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 Caesar, 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- 
 out having received much benefit from his excursion, and continued, 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. 
 If was necessary that William should choose a profession. He decided for 
 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- 
 ment met in 173S, Thomas made his election to serve for Oakhampton, and 
 Williasa was returned for Old Sanun. 
 
3o6 7 HA CKERA Y 'S HISTOR V OF EARL CHA THAM, 
 
 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 exclusively enjoyed the confidence of 
 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, good 
 and bad, of Sunderland's administration. When the South-Sea Company 
 were voting dividends of fifty per cent, — when a hundred pounds of their stock 
 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 preserved 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 ^^ple 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 parricide^ in 
 ancient Rome, tied up in sacks, and thrown 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, and 
 the lead in the House of Commons had been intrusted to Craggs and Aislabie. 
 Stanhope was no more. Aislabie was expelled froiA Parliament on account of 
 his disgraceful conduct regarding the Sou4:h-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 dislikd 
 
 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 
 making x% om here and there for a Tory not unfriendly to the House of Bruns- 
 wick, — "V^ alpole might have averted the tremendous conflict in which he passed 
 the later /ears 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 a.nd 
 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, 
 
THACKERA Y'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM, -iffi 
 
 wb«i Walpole returned to power, Puljeney 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 Commons 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 that 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 Harley 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 influenee 
 of Sunderland had declined. Their opinions on public affairs almost always 
 coincided. They were both men of frank, generous, and compassionate 
 natives ; 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, and old colleagues, was prevented. But the dis- 
 putants could not long continue to act together. Townshend retired, and, 
 with rare moderation and pubhc 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 tony 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 in Cleveland Square, 
 now occupied by Mr. EUice, the Secretary at War. It was then the residence of Colonel 
 Sclwyn. 
 
3o8 THACKERA Y'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 staff 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 Cobhara, 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 
 i minent of those public men who agreed with the Minister in their general 
 \iews of policy left him, one after another, with sore and irritated minds, we 
 6nd It impossible not to believe that the real explanation of the phenomenon 
 i<5 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, 
 ^ave 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. 
 
 *-■' — '■ — ' ' — • ' — — ' r--. r^. T - . - ;. Ji, . ny 
 
 * Memoirs, Vol. i, p. ?cj. 
 
THA CKERA Y'S HISTOR V OF EARL CHA TIIAM. 309 
 
 -—- 7^ 
 
 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 fek all the 
 enthusiasm which the name of liberty natural] y excites in young and ardent 
 minds. They conceived that the theory of the Tory Opposition and the 
 practice of Walpole's Government were alike inconsistent with the principles 
 of liberty. They accordingly repaired to the standard which Pu.teney 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 generated 
 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 
 Ihis 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 iu which the 
 young statesman enrolled himself. The Prince of Wales was gradually be- 
 coming more and more estranged from his father and his 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 had. 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 strugglmg 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 tliree 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- 
 clined to att?ick the reigning family, yet considered the introduction of that 
 
310 THACKERAY'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 oflSice and for revenge, did not scruple to serve the purposes oi a faction 
 hostile to the Protestant succession. The appearance of Frederic t 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, — tRough 
 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 safer road to power opening before 
 them, and thought it far better to wait till, in 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, 1736, 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 with 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 has been a hundred times quoted. That it should 
 ever have been quoted, except to be laughed at, is strange. The vogue which 
 it has obtained may serve to show in how slovenly a way most people are con- 
 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 Giant O'Brien, — fatter than the Anaiomie Vivante, and more 
 slender than Daniel 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 V OF EARL CHA THAM. 311 
 
 wordy as a maiden speech on such aifbccasion might be expected to be. But 
 the fluency and the personal advantages of the young orator instantly caught 
 the ear and ej'e of his audience. He was, from the day of hi? first appear^ce, 
 always 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 ; but, tn 
 the reports which are read the next day by hundreds of thousands, the differ- 
 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 passed 
 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 th* 
 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 quaUfications 
 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 
 still remain, it is not difficult to discover the nature and extent of his oratorical 
 powers. 
 
 He was no speaker of set speeches. His few prepared discourses were 
 complete failures. I'he elaborate panegyric which he pronounced on General 
 Wolfe was considered as the very worst of all his performances. " No man," 
 
312 THACKERA Y'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM, 
 
 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 Uke 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 House 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. Fox 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. Pie 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. His 
 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 vo 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 cornet. Pitt wftS 
 accordingly dismissed from the service, Mr. Thackeray absurdly says that 
 the Minister took this step, because he plainly saw that it would have been 
 
THACKERAY'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM. 313 
 
 «dn 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 off 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 
 mouih, 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 Bedchamber 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. Thatkeray 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, r— 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 origmal documents concerning 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 unconcemedL"* 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, Lyttleton, 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 
 would be superfluous if the great leaders of the Opposition could be gained. 
 
 * L«tt9rs on a Regicide Peace. 
 
314 THA CKBRA TS HISTOR V OF EARL CHA THAM. 
 
 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^^e 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 iftight 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-spirited 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 v/hich he had left 
 vacant was soon occupied by Carteret. Against Carteret Pitt began to 
 thunder with as much 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 j 
 
 " To heirs unknown descends the unguarded store* 
 Or wanders, heaven-directed, to the poor." 
 
TBA CKERA Y'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM. 315 
 
 ■*i-> _______ 
 
 Pitt was poor enough ; and to him heaven directed a portion of the wealth 
 of the haughty dowager. She left hira^ 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 countrj'." 
 
 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." Lyttelton 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 highly 
 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 Pitt 
 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 ^d 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 
 
|l6 THACKERAY'^ HISTORY OF 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 Pajnnaster of 
 the Forces a small per centage on the subsidies. These ignominious vails 
 Pitt resolutely declined. 
 
 Disinterestedness of this kind was, in his days, very rare. His conduct 
 surprised and amused politicians. It excited the wannest 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 1 748. 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 WalpoTe 
 and of the party which had opposed him were united under his successor. The 
 fiery and vehement spirit of Pitt had for a time been laid to rest. He silently 
 acquiesced in that very system of Continental measures which he had lately 
 condemned. He ceased to talk disrespectfully about Hanover. Pie did not 
 object to the treaty with Spain, though that treaty left us exactly where we 
 had been when he uttered his spirit-stirring 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, which make men great in stirring times. His heart was a 
 little cold, his temper cautious even to timidity, his manner decorous even to 
 formality. He never exposed his fortunes or his fame to any risk which 
 he could avoid. At one time he might, in all probability, have been Prime 
 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 Cumberland, and with 
 
^ f£tA CKkRA V-S BIST OR Y OP ^ARL CHA THAM. 317 
 
 W-«r7T>.-^-r.. 
 
 some of the most powerful individu^ of the great Whig connection. 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 
 tmderstanding ; 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 undoubtedly 
 many virtues. In natural disposition as v;ell 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 
 canine carried on only by means of corruption, — and that the state is given as 
 a pney 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 humbugs often ran 
 cctravagantly and offensively into the opposite extreme. The loose political 
 moralicy of Fox presented a remarkable contrast to the ostentatious purity of 
 Pitt. The nation distrusted the former, and placed implicit confidence in the 
 latter. But almost all the statesmen of the age had still to learn that thfe 
 confidence of the nation was worth having. While things 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 1754 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 aspire was left vacant; and at the same moment, 
 the influence which had yoked together and reined iu 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 assembly, 
 abounding with able and experienced men ? 
 
 Pope has said of that wretched miser Sir John Cutler, 
 
 ** Cutler saw tenants break and houses fall 
 ' ^ For vtry want ^-he could not build « waU." 
 
3 18 THA CKERA Y'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM. 
 
 , - - -t w\ 
 
 Newcastle's love of power resembled Cutler's love of money. It was ail 
 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 wbuld be willing to accept the lead of the House of 
 Commons on terms similar to those on v.^hich Secretary Craggs had acted 
 under Sunderland, five-and-thirty years before. Craggs could hardly be called 
 a minister. He w^as 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 Covernment 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 employed. 
 
 To these conditions 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 rr embers 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 State on such terms ; and 
 the Duke confided the management of the House of Commons to a dull, 
 harmless man, whose name is almost forgotten in our time, — Sir Thomas 
 Robinson. 
 
 When Pitt retuimed from Bath he affected great moderation, though hit 
 haughty soul was l-'oiling with resentment. He did not complain of tke 
 
THACKERA Y'S HISTORY OP EARL CHATHAM. 319 
 
 manner in which he had been pa^d 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 
 had us !'* said Pitt to Fox. "The Duke might as well send his jack-boot 
 toleadus." 
 
 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, — tirr^s which 
 would call for abilities very different 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 an4 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 offered 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 observer 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 
 whidi 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 kis 
 mother, held very menacing language. In this perplexity Newcastle sent 
 for Pitt, hugged him, patted him, smirked at him, wept over him, and lisped 
 out the highest compliments, and the most splendid promises. The King, 
 who had hitherto been as sulky as possible, would be civil to him at the 
 lev^e, — ^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 subsidy 
 in the House of Commons. Pitt coldly declined the proffered seat in th«» 
 Cabinet, — expressed the highest love and reverence for the King, — and said 
 that, if his Majesty felt a strong personal interest in the Hessian treaty he 
 would so far deviate froip the line which he had traced out for himself as to 
 give that treaty his support. •* Well, and the Russian subsidy," said New- 
 castle. ** No," said Pitt, "not a system of subsidies." The Duke summoned 
 Lord Hardwicke to his aid ; but Pitt was inflexible. Murray would do 
 nothing, — Robinson could do nothing. It was necessary to have recourse 
 to Fox. Pie became Secretary of State, with the full authority of a leader 
 in the House of Commons ; and Sir Thomas was pensioned off on the Irish 
 establishment. 
 
 In November, 1755, the Houses met. Public expectation was wound up 
 to the height. After ten quiet years there was to be an Opposition, counte. 
 nanced by the heir-apparent of the throne, and headed by the most brilliant 
 orator of the age, and backed by a strong party throughout the country. The 
 debate on the address was long remembered as one of the greatest parlia- 
 mentary conflicts of that generation. It began at three in the afternoon, and 
 lasted till five the next morning. It was on this night that Gerard Hamilton 
 delivered that single speech from which his nickname was derived. H,'* 
 eloquence threw into the shade every orator except Pitt, who declaimed 
 against the subsidies for an hour and a half with extraordinary energy and 
 effect. Those powers which had formerly spread terror through the majorities of 
 Walpole and Carteret were now displayed in their highest perfection before an 
 audience long unaccustomed to such exhibitions. One fragment of this 
 celebrated oration remains in «, state of tolerable preservation. It is the 
 comparison between the coalition of Fox and Newcastle, and the junction of 
 the Rhone and the Saone. "At Lyons," said Pitt, "I was taken to see 
 the place where the two rivers meet, — the one gentle, feeble, languid, and, 
 though languid, yet of no depth, the other a boisterous and impetuous torrent ; 
 but different as they are, they meet at last. " The amendment moved by the 
 Opposition was rejected by a great majority ; and Pitt and Legge were imme- 
 diately dismissed from their offices. Lyttleton, whose friendship for Pitt 
 had, during some time, been cooling, succeeded Legge as Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. 
 
 During several months the contest in the House of Commons was ex- 
 tremely sharp. Warm debates took place on the estimates, — debates still 
 warmer on the subsidiary treaties. The Government succeeded in every divi- 
 sion ; but the fame of Pitt's eloquence, and the influence of his lofty and 
 determined character, continued to increase through the Session ; and the 
 events which followed the prorogation made it utterly impossible for any 
 other person to manage the Parliament or the country. 
 
 The war began in every part of the world with events disastrous to England, 
 and even more shameful than disastrous. But the most humiliating of these 
 events was the loss of Minorca, The Duke of Richelieu, an old fop who had 
 passed his life from sixteen to sixty in seducing women for whom he cared 
 not one straw, landed on that island with a French army, and succeeded in 
 reducing it. Admiral Byng was sent from Gibraltar to throw succours into 
 Port-Mahon ; but he did not think fit to engage the French squadron, and 
 sailed back without having effected his purpose. The people were inflamed 
 to madness. A storm broke forth, which appalled even those who remem- 
 bered the days of "Excise" and of "South-Sea." The shops were filled 
 with labels and caricatures. The walls were covered with placards. The 
 City of London called for vengeance, and the cry was echoed from every 
 
THACKERA Y'S HISTORY OF EARL CHATHAM^ 321 
 
 comer of the kingdom, Dorsetshire, Huntingdonshire, Bedfordshire, Buck- 
 inghamshire, Somersetshire, Lancashire, Suffolk, Shropshire, Surrey, sent 
 up strong addresses to the throne, and instructed their representatives to vote 
 for a strict inquiry into the causes of the late disasters. In the great town* the 
 feeling was as strong as in the counties. In some of the instructions it was 
 even recommended that the supplies should be stopped. 
 
 The nation was in a state of ang^ and sullen despondency, almost un- 
 paralleled in history. People have, in all ages, been in the habit of talking 
 about the good old times of their ancestors, and the degeneracy of their con- 
 temporaries. This is in general merely a cant. But in 1756 it was something 
 more. At this time appeared Brown's ** Estimate," a book now remembered 
 only by the allusions in Cowper's "Table Talk," and in Burke's "Letters 
 on a Regicide Peace." It was universally read, admired, and believed. The 
 author fully convinced his readers that they were a race of cowards and 
 scoundrels ; that nothing could save them j that they were on the point of 
 being enslaved by their enemies, and that they richly deserved their fate. 
 Such were the speculations to which ready credence was given at the outset 
 of the most glorious war in which England had ever been engaged. 
 • Newcastle now began to tremble for his place, and for the only thing which 
 was dearer to him than his place, — his neck. The people were not in a mood 
 to be trifled with. Their cry was for blood. For this once they might be con- 
 tented with the sacrifice of Bjmg. But what if fresh disasters should take 
 place ? What if an unfriendly sovereign should ascend the throne ? What 
 if a hostile House of Commons should be chosen ? 
 
 At length, in October, the decisive crisis came. Fox had been long sick of 
 the perfidy and levity of Newcastle, and now began to fear that he might be 
 made a scapegoat to save the old intriguer who, imbecile as he seemed, never 
 wanted dexterity where danger was to be avoided. Fox threw up his office. 
 Newcastle had recourse to Murray ; but Murray had now within his reach the 
 favourite object of his ambition. The situation of Chief Justice of the King's 
 Bench was vacant ; and the Attorney- General was fully resolved to obtain it, 
 or to go into Opposition. Newcastle offered him any terms, — the Duchy of 
 Lancaster for life, — a tellership of the Exchequer, — any pension that he chose 
 to ask, — two thousand a year, — six thousand a year. When the Ministers found 
 that Murray's mind was made up, they pressed for delay, — the delay of a 
 session, a month, a week, a day. Would he only make his appearance once 
 more in the House of Commons ? Would he only speak in favour of the 
 address? He was inexorable, and peremptorily said that they might give 
 or withhold the Chief-Justiceship, but that he would be Attorney-General 
 no longer. 
 
 Newcastle now contrived to overcome the prejudices of the King, and 
 overtures were made to Pitt, through Lord Hardwicke. Pitt knew his 
 power, and showed that he knew it. He demanded as an indispensable 
 condition that Newcastle should be altogether excluded from the new arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 Ihe Duke was now in a state of ludicrous distress. He ran about chatter- 
 ing and crying, aslcing advice and listening to none. In the mean time, th« 
 Session drew near. The public excitement was unabated. Nobody could 
 be found to face Pitt and Fox in the House of Commons. Newcastle's heart 
 failed him, and he tendered his resignation. 
 
 The King sent for Fox, and directed him to form the plan of an adminis- 
 tration in concert with Pitt. But Pitt had not forgotten old injuries, and 
 positively refused to act with Fox. 
 
 The King now applied to the Duke of Devonshire, and this mediator sue* 
 
 M 
 
322 THA CKERA Y'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM. 
 
 ceeded in making an arrangement. He consented to take the Treasury, 
 Pitt became Secretary of State, with the lead of the House of Commons. The 
 Great Seal was put into commission ; Legge returned to the Exchequer ; and 
 Lord Temple, whose sister Pitt had lately married, was placed at the head of 
 the Admiralty. 
 
 It was clear from the first that this administration would last but a very 
 short time. It lasted not quite five months ; and, during those five months, 
 Pitt and Lord Temple were treated with rudeness by the King, and found 
 but feeble support in the House of Commons. It is a remarkable fact that 
 the Opposition prevented the re-election of some of the new Ministers. Pitt, 
 who sat for one . of the boroughs which were in the Pelham interest, found 
 some difficulty in obtaining a seat after his acceptance of the seals. So des- 
 titute was the new Government of that sort of influence without which no 
 Government ccaild then be durable. One of the arguments most frequently 
 urged against the Reform Bill was that, under a system of popular representa- 
 tion, men whose presence in the House of Commons was necessary to the con- 
 ducting of public business might often find it impossible to find seats. Should 
 this inconvenience ever be felt there cannot be the slightest difficulty in devising 
 and applying a remedy. ' But those who threatened us with this evil ought tg 
 have remembered that, under the old system, a great man called to povv^er at 
 a great crisis by the voice of the whole nation was in danger of being excluded 
 by an aristocratic coterie from that House of which he was the most distin- 
 guished ornament. 
 
 The most important event of this short administration was the trial of Byng. 
 On that subject public opinion is still divided. We think the punishment of 
 the Admiral altogether unjust and absurd. Treachery, cowardice, ignorance 
 amounting to what lawyers have called crassa ignorantia, are fit objects of severe 
 penal inflictions. But Byng was not found guilty of treachery, of cowardice, 
 or of gross ignorance of his profession. He died for doing what the most loyal 
 subject, the most intrepid warrior, the most experienced seaman, might have 
 done. Pie died for an error in judgment, — an error such as the greatest com- 
 manders, — Frederic, Napoleon, Wellington, — have often committed, and have 
 often acknowledged. Such errors are not proper objects of punishment, for this 
 reason, — that the punishing of them tends not to prevent them, but to produce 
 them. The dread of an ignominious death may stimulate sluggishness to exertion, 
 may keep a traitor to his standard, may prevent a coward from running away, but it 
 has no tendency to bring out those qualities which enable men to form prompt 
 and judicious decisions in great emergencies. The best marksman may be ex- 
 pected to fail when the apple which is to be his mark is set on his child's 
 head. • We cannot conceive anything more likely to deprive an officer of his 
 self-possession at the time when he most needs it than the knowledge that, 
 if the judgment of his superiors should not agree with his, he will be executed 
 with every circumstance of shame. Queens, it has often been said, run far 
 greater risk in childbed than private women, merely because their medical 
 attendants are more anxious. The surgeon who attended Marie Louise was 
 altogether unnerved by his emotions. ** Compose yourself," said Bona- 
 parte; "imagine that you are assisting a poor girl in the Faubourg St. 
 Antoine." This was surely a far wiser course than that of the Eastern king 
 in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, who proclaimed that the physicians 
 who failed to cure his daughter should have their heads chopped off. Bona- 
 parte knew mankind well ; and, as he acted towards this surgeon, he acted 
 towards his officers. No sovereign was ever so indulgent to mere errors of 
 judgment ; and it is certain that no sovereign evei: had in his service so many 
 military men fit for the highest command?. 
 
THACKERA Y'S history op earl CHATHAM. 323 
 
 *Wwii.. ' -■ 
 
 Pitt certainly acted a brave and honest part on this occasion. He ventured 
 to put both his power and his popularity to hazard, and spoke manfully for 
 Byng, both in Parliament and in the royal presence. But the King was 
 inexorable. "The. House of Commons, Sir," said Pitt, ** seems inclined to 
 mercy." "Sir," answered the King, "you have taught me to look for the 
 sense of my people in other places than the House of Commons." The 
 saying has more point than most of those which are recorded of George the 
 Second, and, though sarcastically meant, contains a high and just compli- 
 ment to Pitt. 
 
 The King disliked Pitt, but absolutely hated Temple. The new Secretary 
 of State, his Majesty said, had never read Vatel, and was tedious and pom- 
 pous, but respectful. The First Lord of the Admiralty was grossly imperti- 
 nent. Walpole tells one story, which, we fear, is much too good to be true. 
 He assures us that Temple entertained his royal master with an elaborate 
 parallel between Byng's behaviour at Minorca, and his Majesty's behaviour 
 at Oudenarde. The advantage was all on the side of the Admiral ; and the 
 obvious inference was, that if Byng ought to be shot, the King must richly 
 deserve to be hanged. 
 
 . This state of things could not last. Early in April, Pitt and all his friends 
 were turned out, and Newcastle was summoned to St. James's. But the 
 public discontent was not extinguished. It had subsided when Pitt was 
 called to power. But it still glowed under the embers ; and it now burst at 
 once into a flame. The stocks fell. The Common Council met. The free- 
 dom of the city was voted to Pitt. All the greatest corporate towns followed 
 the example. "For some weeks," says Walpole, "it rained gold boxes." 
 
 This was the turning point of Pitt's life. It might have been expected that 
 a man of so haughty and vehement a nature, treated so ungraciously by the 
 Court, and supported so enthusiastically by the people, would have eagerly 
 taken the first opportunity of showing his power and gratifying his resent- 
 ment ; and an opportunity was not wanting. The members for many counties 
 and large towns had been instructed to vote for an enquiry into the cirjcum- 
 stances which had produced the miscarriage of the preceding year. A motion 
 for enquiry had been carried in the House of Commons, without opposition ; 
 and, a few days after Pitt's dismissal, the investigation commenced. New- 
 castle and his colleagues obtained a vote of acquittal ; but the minority were 
 so strong that they could not venture to ask for a vote of approbation, as 
 they had at first intended ; and it was thought by some shrewd observers 
 that, if Pitt had exerted himself to the utmost of his power, the enquiry 
 might have ended in a censure, if not in an impeachment. 
 
 Pitt showed on this occasion a moderation and self-government which was 
 n©t habitual to him. He had found by experience that he could not stand 
 alone. His eloquence and his popularity had done much, — very much for 
 him. Without rank, without fortune, without borough interest, — hated by 
 the ICing, hated by the aristocracy, — he was a person of the first importance 
 in the state. He had been suffered to form a ministry, and to pronounce 
 sentence of exclusion on all his rivals, — on the most powerful nobleman of the 
 Whig party, — on the ablest debater in the House of Commons. And he now 
 found that he had gone too far. The English Constitution was not, indeed, 
 without a popular element. But other elements generally predominated. 
 The confidence and admiration of the nation might make a statesman for- 
 midable at the head of an Opposition, — ^might load him with framed and 
 glazed parchments and gold boxes, — might possibly, under very peculiar cir- 
 cumstances, such as those of the preceding year, raise him for a time to 
 power. But, constituted as Parliament then was, the favourite of the people 
 
324 THACKERA TS HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM, 
 
 could not depend on a majority in the people's own House. The Duke of 
 Newcastle, however contemptible in morals, manners, and understanding, 
 was a dangerous enemy. His rank, his wealth, his unrivalled parlianr.«itary 
 interest, would alone have made him important. But this was not all. The 
 "Whig aristocracy regarded him as their leader. His long possession of power 
 had given him a kind of prescriptive right to possess it still. The House of 
 Commons had been elected when he was at the head of affairs. The mem- 
 bers for the ministerial boroughs had all been nominated by him. The public 
 offices swarmed with his creatures. 
 
 Pitt desired power, — and he desired it, we really believe, from higtt and 
 'generous motives. He was, in the strict sense of the word, a patriot. He 
 had no general liberality, none of that philanthropy which the great French 
 writers of his time preached to all the nations of Europe. He loved England 
 as an Athenian loved the City of the Violet Crown — as a Roman loved the 
 "maxima rerum Roma." He saw his country insulted and defeated. He 
 saw the national spirit sinking. Yet he knew what the resources of the 
 empire, vigorously employed, could effect ; and he felt that he was the man 
 to employ them vigorously. ** My Lord," he said to the Duke of Devonshire, 
 *• I am sure that I can save this country, and that nobody else can." 
 
 Desiring, then, to be in power, and feeling that his abilities and the public 
 confidence were not alone sufficient to keep him in power against the wishes 
 of the Court and of the aristocracy, he began to think of a coalition with 
 Newcastle. 
 
 Newcastle was equally disposed to a reconciliation. He, too, had profited 
 by his recent experience. He had found that the Court and the aristocracy, 
 though powerful, were not everything in the state. A strong oligarchical 
 connection, a great borough interest, ample patronage, and secret-service- 
 money, might, in quiet times, be all that a Minister needed ; but it was 
 unsafe to trust wholly to such support in time of war, of discontent, and of 
 agitation. The composition of the House of Commons was not wholly aristo- 
 cratical ; and, whatever be the composition of large dehberative assemblies, 
 their spirit is always in some degree popular. Where there are free debates, 
 eloquence must have admirers, and reason must make converts. "Where there 
 is a free press, the governors must live in constant awe of the opinions of the 
 governed. 
 
 Thus these two men, so unlike in character, so lately mortal enemies, were 
 necessary to each other. Newcastle had fallen in November, for want of 
 that public confidence which Pitt possessed, and of that parliamentary sup- 
 port which Pitt was better qualified than any man of his time to give. Pitt 
 had fallen in April, for want of that species of influence which Newcastle 
 had passed his whole life in acquiring and hoai-ding. Neither of them had 
 power enough to support himself. Each of them had power enough to 
 overturn the other. Their union would be irresistible. Neither the King 
 nor any party in the state would be able to stand against them. 
 
 Under these circumstances, Pitt was not disposed to proceed to extremities 
 against his predecessors in office. Something, however, was due to consist- 
 ency ; and something was necessary for the preservation of his popularity. 
 "He did little ; but that little he did in such 'c.> manner as to produce great 
 effect. He came down to the House in all the pomp of gout, his legs swathed 
 in flannels, his arm dangling in a sling. He kept his seat through several 
 fatiguing days, in spite of pain and languor. He uttered a few sharp and 
 vehement sentences j but, during the greater part of the discussion, his 
 language was unusually gentle. 
 "When the inquiry had terminated without a vote either of approbation oi 
 
TtiA CKkkA V'S Hl^TOk V OF EARL CRA TI/AM. 325 
 
 W llff i ff 'I __ __ __ 
 
 of censure, the great obstacle to a coalition was removed. Many obstacles, 
 however, remained. The King was still rejoicing in his deliverance from the 
 proud and aspiring Minister who had been forced on him by the cry of the 
 nation. Plis Majesty's indignation was excited to the highest point when it 
 appeared that Newcastle, who had, during thirty years, been loaded with 
 marks of royal favour, and who had bound himself, by a solemn promise, 
 never to coalesce with Pitt, was meditating a new perfidy. Of all the states- 
 men of that age, Fox had the largest share of royal favour. A coalition 
 between 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 the most impopular 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, (^r to form a Government without 
 them. At one time he applied to Lord Waldegrave, an honest and sensible 
 man, but unpractised in affairs. Lord Waldegrave had the courage to accept 
 the Tieasury, but soon found that no administration formed by him had the 
 smallest chance of standing a single week. 
 
 At 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 lead 
 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 the office of Paymaster, which, 
 during the continuance of that war, was probably the most lucrative place in 
 the whole Government. He was poor, and the situation was tempting ; yet 
 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 Imd 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 a 
 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 characterised rather by 
 vigour than by judgment. Expedition» were sent against different part* of 
 
326 THA CKERA Y'S HISTOR V OP EARL CHA TEAM, 
 
 — M\ 
 
 the French coast with little success. The small island of Aix was taken, 
 Rochefort threatened, a few ships burned in the harbour of St. Maloes, and 
 a few guns and mortars brought home as trophies from the fortifications of 
 Cherbourg. But before long conquests of a very different kind filled the 
 kingdom with pride and rejoicing. A succession of victories undoub ^dly 
 brilliant, and, as it was thought, not barren, raised to the highest point the 
 fame of the minister to whom the conduct of the war had been intrusted. 
 In July, 1758, Louisbourg fell. The whole island of Cape Breton was re- 
 duced ; the fleet to which the Court of Versailles bad 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 
 immense multitude. Addresses of congratulation came in from all the great 
 towns of England. Parliament met only to decree thanks and monuments, 
 and to bestow, without one murmur, supplies more than double of those 
 which had been given during the war of the Grand Alliance. 
 
 The year 1759 opened with the conquest of Goree. Next fell Guada- 
 loupe J 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 
 Math each other in extolling the genius and energy of Pitt. His colleagues 
 ■wnere never talked of or thought of. The House of Commons, the nation, 
 tne-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 for fresh rejoicings. The Brest fleet, under the command of 
 Conflans, had put out to sea. It was overtaken by an English squadron 
 under Havvke. 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 1 760 came ; and still triumph followed triumph. Montreal was 
 taken ; the whole province of Canada was subjugated ; the French fleets 
 underwent a succession of disasters in the seas of Europe and America. 
 
 In the mean time conquests 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 founde;! a mighty empire. The French 
 had been defeated 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 but 
 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 
 
7^HA CKERA V'S HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA Til AM. 327 
 
 and 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 people 
 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 
 he would conquer America for them in Germ.any. 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, his 
 Ikigh situation, his pride, and his intrepidity had obtained for him, that he 
 took liberties witt 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 unfortunate man made the attempt, and was 
 so much disconcerted by the scornful demeanour of the Minister, that he 
 stammered, stopped, and sat down. Even the old Tory country gentlemen, 
 to whom the very name of Hanover had been odious, gave their hearty ayts 
 to subsidy 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-faddle 
 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, Hanover 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 inscription on the monument 
 of Lord Chatham in Guildhall records the general opinion of the citizens of 
 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 situation, 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 countrymen 
 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 
 and severely felt by the nation. 
 
 Even as a war minister, Pitt is scarcely entitled to all the praise which 
 
328 THA CKERA TS HISTOR Y OF EARL CHA THAM, 
 
 - — — • — • ■ — ——• •<* 
 
 his contemporaries lavished on him. We, perhaps, from ignorance, 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 had only to follow his temper. The 
 wealth of a rich nation, the valour of a brave nation, were ready to support 
 him in every attempt. 
 
 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 emergency, — 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 impetuous, adventurous, and defying character. They, 
 like him, were disposed 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 spread 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 j 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 which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George the 
 Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in English 
 history. 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 England 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. The Dissenters were tolerated ; the Catholics not cruelly perse- 
 cuted. The Church was drowsy and indulgent. The great civil and re- 
 ligious conflict which 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 despised by the nation, England set against Scctland, 
 Britain set against America, a rival legislature sitting beyond the Atlantic, 
 English bjpod shed by English bayonets, our arniies capitulating, our cod-^ 
 
MA CKINTOSWS HlSTOR V OF THE kE VOL tJTtO^. 329 
 
 quests wrested from us, our enemies listening 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. But the history of this great revo- 
 lution requires far more space than we can at present bestow. "We leave the 
 ** Great Commoner " in the zenith of his glory. It >• not impossible that we 
 may take some other opportunity of tracing his life to its melancholy, yet not 
 inglorious close. 
 
 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION/ 
 
 QULY, 1835.) 
 
 History of the Revolution in England, in 1688. Com;^rising a View of the Reig* 
 of James the Second, from his Accession to the Enterprise of the Prince of Orange, by 
 late Right Honourable Sir James Mackintosh, and completed to the Settlejnent oj 
 the Crown, by the Editor. To which is prefixed a Notice of the Life, Writings, and 
 Speeches of Sir James Mackintosh, 410. London: 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. All the little peculiar cadences of that voice from 
 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 
 virtuous 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 
 ihe 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 concerning 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 
 subjects of their constant thought and of their most familiar conversation. 
 Gibbon has remarked that his history is much the better for his having been 
 at officer in the militia and a member of the House of Commons. The 
 remark is most just. We have not the smallest doubt that his campaign, 
 though he never saw an enemy, and his parliamentary attendance, though he 
 never made a speech, were of far more use to him than years of retirement 
 and study would have been. If the time that he spent on parade and at mess 
 in Hampshire, or on the Treasury Bench and at Brookes's during the storms 
 which overthrew Lord North and Lord Shelbume, had been passed in the 
 Bodleian Library, he might have avoided some inaccuracies ; — he might have 
 enriched his notes with a greater number of references ; but he would never 
 have produced so lively a picture of the court, the camp, and the senate- 
 
330 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 
 
 house. In this 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. Fox 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 their 
 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 parliamentary 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 speaJcing 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 
 into 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 within, the 
 other from without the Alps, against a scrupulosity so unreasonable. ** Ca- 
 rent," said Politian, ** quse scribunt isti viribus et vita, carent actu, carent 
 effectu, carent indole. . . . Nisi liber ille prsesto sit ex quo quid excer- 
 pant, coUigere 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, iiec 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, sedificiis, 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 little 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 331 
 
 on his guard against those more serions improprieties of manner into which 
 a great orator who undertakes to write history is in danger of falling. 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 been 
 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 from 
 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 ahd 
 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 jjassion; 
 But this is not the kind of excellence proper to history ; and it is hardly too 
 much to say that whatever is strikingly good in Mr. Fox's Fragment is 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 elaborate 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 debated. 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 devote his later years to philosophy and literature. His talents were 
 not those which enable a speaker to produce with rapidity a series of striking 
 
332 MJ CKINTOSH'S HISTOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTION. 
 
 but transitoiy impressions, — and to excite the minds of five hundred gentle- 
 men at midnight, without saying anything that any one of them will be abla 
 to remember in the morning. His arguments were of a very diiferent texture 
 from those which are produced in ParHament 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 Mackintosh, 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 moment. 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 
 \ianging 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 
 A 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 
 ctrong 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 iio hesitation in pronowcing this Fragment decidedly the best 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 333 
 
 history now extant of the reign of Jame^the Second. It contains much new 
 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 ;^2,500 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 ;^4,5oo. 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 own, 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 followed the issuing 
 of King James's declaration, — the meeting of the clergy, the violent scene at 
 the privy council, 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 modern 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 with 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 Nollekins 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 grandeur 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, a^ 
 far as we can judge from the unfinished work now before i^s, Sir Jamei 
 Mackint-jsh possessed in jin eminqnt degree, 
 
334 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION' 
 
 The style of this Fragment is weighty, manly, and unaffected. There are, 
 as we have said, some expressions which seem to us harsh, and some which 
 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 and 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 Tetluris Theoria Sacra, Wherever 
 tjie 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 Continuation, 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 worthy 
 of approbation. Instead of confining 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 knqjv, 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 
 Setiate waiting for him in full conclave." This irregularity, which no sensible 
 professor would have thought deserving of more than a slight reprimand, is 
 described by the biographer, after a lapse of nearly half a century, as an 
 mcredible instance " not so much of indolence as of gross negligence and bad 
 taste." But this is not all. Our biographer has contrived to procure a copy 
 of the Thesis, and has sate down with his As in prasenti and his Propria qua 
 maribus at his side, to pick out blunders in a composition written by a youth 
 of twenty-one, on the occasion alluded to. He finds 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 this precious dis* 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 335 
 
 covery with all the exultation of a pedagogue. " Deceived by the passive 
 termination of the deponent verb deftmgpr. Mackintosh misuses it in a passive 
 sense." He is not equally fortunate^n his other discovery. *^ Laude coti" 
 spurcare'^ whatever he may think, is not an improper phrase. Mackintosh 
 meant to say that there are men whose praise is a disgrace. No person, we 
 are sure, who has read this Meriioir, will doubt that there are men whose 
 abuse is an honour. 
 
 But we must proceed to more important matters. This writer evidently 
 wishes to impress his readers with a Iselief 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 defend 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, — 
 
 ** NOj' Tts ivrjelTjs HarpoKXijos SetXoto 
 
 Mvrjcrda-dii}' iraaiv yctp iirlaTaro /xeiXcxos etuai 
 Zwos iiLv' vvv d au Odparos Kal fioipa /ctxdret." 
 
 We .have no difficulty in admitting, that, during the ten or twelve years 
 which followed the appearance of the Vindicise Gallicse, the opinions of Sir 
 James Mackintosh underwent some change. But did this change pass on 
 him alone ? Was it not common ? Was it not almost universal ? Was 
 there one honest friend of liberty in Europe or in America whose ardour had 
 not been damped, whose faith in the high destinies of mankind had not been 
 shaken ? Was there one observer to whom the French Revolution, or revo- 
 lutions in general, appeared in exactly the same light on the day when the 
 Bastile fell, and on the day when the Girondists were dragged to the scaffold, — 
 the day when the Directory shipped off their principal opponents for Guiana, 
 or the day when the Legislative Body was driven from its hall at the point 
 of the bayonet ? We do not speak of enthusiastic and light-minded people, 
 — of wits hke Sheridan, of poets like Alfieri ; but of the most virtuous and 
 intelligent practical statesmen, and of the deepest, the calmest, the most 
 impartial political speculators of that time. What was the language and 
 conduct of Lord Spencer, of Lord Fitzwilliam, of Mr. Grattan ? What is 
 the tone of M. Dumont's Memoirs, written just at the close of the eighteenth 
 century ? What Tory could have spoken with greater disgust and contempt 
 of the French Revolution and its authors ? Nay, this writer, a republican, 
 and the most upright and zealous of republicans, has gone so far as to say 
 that Mr, Burke's work on the Revolution had saved Europe. The name of 
 M. Dumont naturally suggests that of Mr. Bentham. He, we presume, was 
 not ratting for a place ; and what language did he hold at that time ? Look 
 at his little treatise entitled Sophistries Anarchigues, In that treatise he says, 
 that the atrocities of the Revolution were the natural consequences of the 
 absurd principles on which it was commenced ;— that, while the chiefs of the 
 constituent assembly gloried in the thought that they were pulling down 
 aristocracy, they never saw that their doctrines tended to produce an evil a 
 kundred times more formidable, — anarchy ; — that the theory laid down in the 
 ** Declaration of the Rights of Man " had, in a great measure, produced the 
 crimes of the Reign of Terror ; — that none but an eyewitness could imagine 
 the horrors of a state of society in which comments on that Declaration were 
 
336 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 
 
 put forth by men with no food in their bellies, with rags on their backs, and 
 with arms in their hands. He praises the English Parliament for the dislike 
 which it has always shown to abstract reasonings, and to the affirming of 
 general principles. InM. Dumont's preface to the " Treatise on the Princi- 
 ples of Legislation," — a preface written under the eye of Mr. Bentham, and 
 published with his sanction, — are the following still more remarkable expres- 
 sions : — " M. Bentham est bien loin d'attacher une preference exclusive h. 
 aucune forme de gouvernement. II pense que la meilleure constitution pour 
 un peuple est celle k laquelle il est accoutume. . . . Le vice fondamental des 
 theories sur les constitution politiques, c'est de commencer par attaquer celles 
 qui existent, et d'exciter tout au moins des inquietudes et des jallousies de 
 pouvoir. Une telle disposition n'est point favorable au perfectionnement des 
 lois. "La seule epoque oii Ton puisse entreprendre avec succ^s de grandes 
 reforme de legislation, est celle ou les passions publiques sont calmes, et ou le 
 gouvernement jouit de la stabilite la plus grande. L'objet de M. Bentham, 
 en cherchant dans le vice des lois la cause de la plupart des maux, a ete 
 constamment d'eloigner le plus grand de tous, le bouleversement de I'autorite, 
 les revolution de propriete et de pouvoir. '* 
 
 To so conservative a frame of mind had the excesses of the French Revolu- 
 tion brought the most uncompromising reformers of that time. And why is 
 one person to be singled out from among millions, and arraigned before pos- 
 terity as a traitor to his opinions, only because events produced on him the 
 effect which they produced on a whole generation ? This biographer may, 
 for aught we know, have revelations from heaven like Mr. Percival, or pure 
 anticipated cognitions like the disciples of Kant. But such poor creatures as 
 Mackintosh, Dumont, and Bentham, had nothing but observation and reason 
 to guide them ; and they obeyed ,ithe guidance of observation and reason. 
 How is it in physics ? A traveller falls in with a fruit which he has never 
 before seen. He tastes it, and finds it sweet and refreshing. He praises it, 
 and resolves to introduce it into his own country. But in a few minutes he is 
 taken violently sick ; he is convulsed ; he is at the point of death ; no medi- 
 cine gives him relief. He of course pronounces this delicious food a poison, 
 blames his own folly in tasting it, and cautions his friends against it. After a 
 long and violent struggle he recovers, and finds himself much exhausted by his 
 sufferings, but free from some chronic complaints which had been the torment 
 of his life. He then changes his opinion again, and pronounces this fruit a 
 very powerful remedy, which ought to be employed only in extreme cases and 
 with great caution, but which ought not to be absolutely excluded from the 
 ** Pharmacopoeia." And would it not be the height of absurdity to call such 
 a man fickle and inconsistent, because he had repeatedly altered his judg- 
 ment ? If he had not altered his judgment, would he have been a rational 
 being ? It was exactly the same with the French Revolution. That event 
 was a new phenomenon in politics. Nothing that had gone before enabled 
 any person to judge with certainty of the course events might take. At first 
 the effect was the reform of great abuses ; and honest men rejoiced. Then 
 came commotion, proscription, confiscation, the bankruptcy, the assignats, 
 the maximum, civil war, foreign war, revolutionary tribunals, guillotinades, 
 noyades, fusillades. Yet a little while, and a military despotism rose out of 
 the confusion, and threatened the independence of every state in Europe. 
 And yet again a little while, and the old dynasty returned, followed by a tram 
 of emigrants eager to restore the old abuses. We have now, we think, the 
 whole before us. We should therefore be justly accused of levity or insin- 
 cerity if our language concerning these events were constantly changing.^ It 
 ts our deliberate opinion that the French Revolution, in spite of all its crimes 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 337 
 
 and follies, was a great blessing to mankind. But it was not only natural, 
 but inevitable, that those who had cnfy seen the first act should be ignorant 
 of the catastrophe, and should be alternately elated and depressed as the plot 
 went on disclosing itself to them. A man who had held exactly the same 
 opinion about the Revolution in 17S9, in 1794, in 1804, in 1814, and in 1834, 
 would have been either a divinely inspired prophet, or an obstinate fool. 
 Mackintosh was neither. He was simply a wise and good man ; and the 
 change which passed on his mind was a change which passed on the mind of 
 almost every wise and good man in Europe. In fact, few of his contem- 
 poraries changed so little. The rare moderation and calmness of his temper 
 preserved him alike from extravagant elation and extravagant despondency. 
 He was never a Jacobin. He was never an Antijacobin. His mind oscillated 
 undoubtedly ; but the extreme points of the oscillation were not very remote. 
 Herein he differed greatly from some persons of distinguished talents who en- 
 tered into life at nearly the same time with him. Such persons we have seen 
 rushing from one wild extreme to another, — out-Paining Paine, — out-Castle- 
 reaghing Castlereagh, — Pantisocratists, — Ultra-Tories, — ^heretics, — persecu- 
 tors, — breaking the old laws against sedition, — calling for new and sharper 
 laws against sedition, — writing democratic dramas, — writing Laureate odes, — 
 panegyrising Marten, — panegyrising Laud, — consistent in nothing but in an 
 intolerance which in any person would be offensive, but which is altogether 
 unpardonable in men who, by their own confession, have had such ample ex- 
 perience of their own fallibility. We readily concede to some of these persons 
 the praise of eloquence and poetical invention ; nor are we by any means dis- 
 posed, even where they have been gainers by their conversions, to question 
 their sincerity. It would be most uncandid to attiibute to sordid motives actions 
 which admit of a less discreditable explanation. We think that the conduct o I 
 these persons has been precisely what was to be expected from men who were 
 gifted with strong imagination and quick sensibility, but who were neither 
 accurate observers nor logical reasoners. It was natural that such men should 
 see in the victory of the third estate of France the dawn of a new Satumian age. 
 It was natural that the rage of their disappointment should be proportioned 
 to the extravagance of their hopes. Though the direction of their passions 
 was altered, the violence of those passions was the same. The force of the 
 rebound was proportioned to the force of the original impulse. The pendulum 
 swung furiously to the left, because it had been drawn too far to the right. 
 
 We own that nothing gives us so high an idea of the judgment and tem- 
 per of Sir Jam^s Mackintosh as the manner in which he shaped his course 
 through those times. Exposed successively to two opposite infections, he 
 took both in their very mildest form. The constitution of his mind was such 
 that neither of the diseases which committed such havoc all round him could 
 in any serious degree, or for any great length of time, derange his intellectual 
 health. He, like every honest and enlightened man in Europe, saw with 
 delight the great awakening of the French nation. Yet he never, in the 
 season of his warmest enthusiasm, proclaimed doctrines inconsistent with the 
 safety of property, and the just authority of governments. He, like almost 
 every other honest and enlightened man, was discouraged and perplexed by 
 the terrible events which followed. Yet he never in the most gloomy times 
 abandoned the cause of peace, of liberty, and of toleration. In that great con- 
 vulsion which overset almost every other understanding, he was indeed so 
 much shaken that he leaned sometimes in one direction and sometimes in the 
 other ; but he never lost his balance. The opinions in which he at last re- 
 posed, and to which, in spite of strong temptations, he adhered with a firm, 
 a disinterested, an ill-requited fidelity, were a just mean between those which 
 
338 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 he had defended with youthful ardour and with niore than manly prowess 
 against Mr. Burke, and those to which he had inclined during the daiarest 
 and saddest years in the history of modern Europe. We are much mistaken 
 if this be the picture either of a weak or of a dishonest mind. 
 
 What the political opinions of Sir James Mackintosh were in his later years 
 is written in the annals of his country. Those annals will sufficiently refute 
 what his biographer has ventured to assert in the very advertisement to this 
 work. " Sir James Mackintosh," says he, ** was avowedly and emphatically 
 a Whig of the Revolution : and since the agitation of religious liberty and 
 parliamentary reform became a national movement, the great transaction of 
 1688 has been more dispassionately, more correctly, and less highly estimated. " 
 While \v^e transcribe the words our anger cools down into scorn. If they 
 mean anything, they must mean that the opinions of Sir James Mackin- 
 tosh concerning religious liberty and parliamentary reform went no further 
 than those of the authors of the revolution ; — in other words, that Sir James 
 Mackintosh opposed Catholic emancipation, and quite approved of the old 
 constitution of the House of Commons. The allegation is confuted by twenty 
 volumes of parliamentary debates, nay, by innumerable passages in the very 
 fragment which this writer has done his little utmost to deface. We tell 
 him that Sir James Mackintosh has often done more for religious liberty and 
 for parliamentary reform in a quarter of an hour than the feeble abilities of 
 his biographer will ever effect in the whole course of a long life. 
 
 We shall not, we hope, be suspected of a bigoted attachment to the doc- 
 trines and practices of past generations. Our creed is that the science of 
 government is an experimental science, and that, like all other experimental 
 sciences, it is generally in a state of progression. No man is so obstinate an 
 admirer of the old times as to deny that medicine, surgery, botany, chemistry, 
 engineering, navigation, are better understood now than in any former age. 
 We conceive that it is the same with political science. Like those physical 
 sciences which we have mentioned, it has always been working itself clearer 
 and clearer, and depositing impurity after impurity. There was a time when 
 the most powerful of human intellects were deluded by the gibberish of the 
 astrologer and the alchemist ; and just so there was a time when the most 
 enlightened and virtuous statesmen thought it the first duty of a government 
 to persecute heretics, to found monasteries, to make war on Saracens. But 
 time advances : facts accumulate j doubts arise. Faint glimpses of truth 
 begin to appear, and shine more and more unto the perfect day. The highest 
 intellects, like the tops of mountains, are the first to catch ani to reflect the 
 dawn. They are bright, while the level below is still in darkness. But soon 
 the light, which at first illuminated only the loftiest eminences, descends on 
 the plain, and penetrates to the deepest valley. First come hints, then frag- 
 ments of systems, then defective systems, then complete and harmonious 
 systems. The sound opinion, held for a time by one bold speculator, be- 
 comes the opinion of a small minority, of a strong minority, of a majority, — 
 of mankind. Thus, the great progress goes on, till schoolboys laugh at the 
 jargon which imposed on Bacon, — till country rectors condemn the illiberality 
 and intolerance of Sir Thomas More. 
 
 Seeing these things, — seeing that, by the confession of the most obstinate 
 enemies of innovation, our race has hitherto been almost constantly advanc- 
 ing in knowledge, and not seeing any reason to beUeve that, precisely at the 
 point of time at which we came into the world, a change took place in the 
 faculties of the human mind, or in the mode of discovering truth, we are re- 
 formers : we are on the side of progress. Frcm the great advances which 
 European society has made, during the last four centuries, in every species of 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 339 
 
 knowledge, we infer, not that therms no more room for improvement, but 
 that, in every science which deserves the name, immense improvements may 
 be confidently expected. 
 
 But the very considerations which lead u? to look forward with sanguine 
 hope to the future prevent us from looking back with contempt on the past. 
 We do not flatter ourselves with the notion that we have attained perfection, 
 and that no more truth remains to be found. We believe that we are wiser 
 than our ancestors. We believe, also, that our posterity will be wiser than 
 we. It would be gross injustice in our grandchildren to talk of us with con- 
 tempt, merely because they may have surpassed us ; — to call Watt a fool, 
 because mechanical powers may be discovered which may supersede the use 
 of steam ; — to deride the efforts which have been made in our time to improve 
 the discipline of prisons, and to enlighten the minds of the poor, because 
 future philanthropists may devise better places of confinement than Mr. 
 Bentham's Panopticon, and better places of education than Mr. Lancaster's 
 Schools. As we would have our descendants judge us, so ought we to judge 
 our fathers. 'In order to form a correct estimate of their merits, we ought 
 to place ourselves in their situation, — to put out of our minds, for a time, all 
 that knowledge which they, however eager in the pursuit of truth, could not 
 have, and which we, however negligent we may have been, could not help 
 having. It was not merely difficult, but absolutely impossible, for the best 
 and greatest of men, two hundred years ago, to be what a very commonplace 
 person in our days may easily be, and indeed must necessarily be. But it is 
 too much that the benefactors of mankind, after having been reviled by the 
 dunces of their own generation for going too far, should be reviled by the 
 dunces of the next generation for not going far enough. \ 
 
 The truth lies between two absurd extremes. On one side is the bigot who 
 pleads the wisdom of our ancestors as a reason for not doing what they in our 
 place would be the first to do, — who opposes the Reform Bill because Lord 
 Somers did not see the necessity of Parliamentary Reform, — who would have 
 opposed the Revolution because Ridley and Cranmer professed boundless sub- 
 mission to the royal prerogative, — and who would have opposed the Reforma- 
 tion because the Fitzwalters and Mareschals, whose seals are set to the Great 
 Charter, were devoted adherents to the Church of Rome. On the other side 
 is the conceited sciolist who speaks with scorn of the Great Charter, because 
 it did not reform the Church ; of the Reformation, because it did not limit 
 the prerogative ; and of the Revolution, because it did not purify the House 
 of Commons. The former of these errors we have often combated, and shall 
 always be ready to combat : the latter, though rapidly spreading, has not, 
 we think, yet come under our notice. The former error bears directly on 
 practical questions, and obstructs useful reforms. It may, therefore, seem to 
 be, and probably is, the more mischievous of the two. But the latter is 
 equally absurd ; it is at least equally symptomatic of a shallow understanding 
 and an unamiable temper j and, if it should ever become general, it will, we 
 are satisfied, produce very prejudicial effects. Its tendency is to deprive the 
 benefactors of mankind of their honest fame, and to put the best and the worst 
 men of past times on the same level. The author of a great reformation 
 is almost always unpopular in his own age. He generally passes his life in 
 disquiet and danger. It is therefore for the interest of the human race that 
 the memory of such men should be had in reverence, and that they should 
 be supported against the scorn and hatred of their contemporaries by the 
 hope of leaving a great and imperishable name. To go on the forlorn hops 
 of truth is a service of peril. Who will undertake it, if it be not also a service 
 of ho?.our? It is easy eno-flgb, after the ramparts are carried, to find men to 
 
340 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 plant the 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 ovnx 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 damnable 
 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 Gates' story about the forty 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. Pie 
 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 
 Caesar 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 pres3 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 preservjitive shoi^ld be dispov^qd, It is thus th^t we 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 341 
 
 ought to judge of the events and the^en of other times. They were behind 
 us. 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 corn 
 in the ear. A person v/ho complains of the men of 1688 for not having been 
 men of 1S35 might 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 the eminent men of former 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 the 
 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 absurd 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 cowardTy 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. MilL 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 moralit7 
 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 party 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 would be gross injustice not to 
 admit that, in his history, he has employed a very different method of investi- 
 gation with eminent abUity and success. We know no -vvriter who takes so 
 much pleasure in the truly useful, noble, and philosophical employment of 
 tracing the progress of soimd opinions from their embryo state to their fuU 
 puiturity. He eageriy cuUs from old Despatches ^nd Minutes every expression 
 
342 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 
 
 in which he can discern the imperfect germ of any great truth which has since 
 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 
 above the common level of their contemporaries. It is thus that the annals 
 of post 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 change in 
 the institutions of a great society. We see that society, at the beginning of 
 th^ 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 m6st 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 
 have thought magical, — have p/oduced 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 we 
 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 Rom®, — 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 
 any 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 against 
 Churchman, — Manchester against Old Sarum, was, in its own order and 
 season, a struggle on the result of which were staked the dearest interests of 
 the human race; and every man who, in the contest which, in his time, 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 343 
 
 divided our country, distinguished himself on the right side, is entitled to our 
 gratitude 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 least disposed 
 to speak slightingly of what was done in 1688. Such men consider the 
 Revolution as a reform, imperfect, indeed, but still most beneficial 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 felt, 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 small 
 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 v/ave 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 tlie 
 enthusiasm with which the young exile was welcomed home. He was not, 
 like Louis the Eighteenth, imposed on his subjects by foreign concjuerors ; 
 nor did he, like 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 iirraiense tribute, with the devastation of 
 flourishing departments, with the occupation of the kingdom by hostile 
 fumies, with the emptiness of those niches in which the Gods of Athens and 
 
344 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OP THE RkVOLVTlON. 
 
 Rome had been the objects of a new idolatry, 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 
 i^hristians were persecuting each other, did not find themselves in a world 
 more completely new to them. Twenty years had done the work of twenty 
 generations. Events had come thick. Men had lived fast. The old institu- 
 tions 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 most ancient local distinctions had 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 the 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 whom a Bourbon was no more than a Carlo vingian 
 or a Merovingiaii. He might substitute the white fl^ 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 
 therefore 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 effect great conquests on the Continent. The kings of Europe 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 345 
 
 had, therefore, no reason to fear that -their subjects would follow the example 
 of the English Puritans. They looked with indifference, perhaps with com- 
 placency, on the death of the monarch and the aboHtion of the monarchy. 
 Clarendon complains bitterly of then: apathy. But we believe that this 
 apathy was of the greatest service to the royal cause. If a French or Spanish 
 army 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 now 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 of 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 
 v/ith 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 
 much 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 tithes. The Lords had, at a crisis of great excitement, been excluded by 
 military violence from their House ; but they retained their titles and an ample 
 share of the public veneration. When a nobleman made 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 Richard's Parliament how 
 strong a hold the old aristocracy had on the affections of the people. One 
 member of the House of Commons went so far as to say that, unless their 
 Lordships were 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. The most powerful nobles 
 of the century which preceded the civil war, the Duke of Somerset, the Duke 
 of Northumberland, 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 parlia- 
 mentary 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 MA CKINTOSH 'S HISTOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTION. 
 
 the discontents, a common interest with the people. If Charles had suc- 
 ceeded in his scheme of governing without parliaments, the consequence o^ 
 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 at 
 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 roy^ displeasure, and of being accommodated 
 with apartments in the Tower, than any city trader or country squire. 
 Accordingly Charles found that the Great Council of Peers which he con- 
 voked at York would do nothing for him. In the most useful reforms which 
 were made during the first session of the Long Parliament, the 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 
 *nd 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- 
 storation 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 gibbet 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 
 empire, — 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 empires. When some of those brave and 
 honest though misguided men who had sate in judgment on their King were 
 
MACKINTOSH'' S HISTORY OF THE REVOLVTION. 347 
 
 dragged on hurdles to a death of prolonged torture, their last prayers were 
 interrupted by the hisses and execrations of thousands. 
 
 Such was England in 1660. In 1679 the 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 epo^h 
 twenty years of raisgovemment had made the same majority desirous to 
 obtain security for their 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 than most 
 of his subjects. He had known 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 persecuting both Covenanters and Catholics. He was 
 not a tyrant from the ordinary motives. He valued power for its own sake 
 little, 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 sitting down 
 to dry business. Saimtering was, as Sheffield expresses it, the true Sultana 
 Queen of his Majesty's affections. A sitting in council would have been in- 
 supportable to him if the Duke of Buckingham had not been there to make 
 mouths at tlie 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 Exclusion Bill for ;,^6oo,ooo ; 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 natural talents above mediocrity. 
 But 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 Y OF THE RE VOL UTIOJ^. .\ 
 
 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 
 shame, 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 Aurungzebe, 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 j and the Catholic religion 
 was held in utter detestation by nine-teuths 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 triumphant 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 suppUed 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 j^ainst all the disasters of the civU 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. 
 
 When 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, aJFter twelve years of 
 misgovemment, the Long Parliament assembled. In every part of the 
 country, the name of courtier had become 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 of 
 the triumphant malignants, and in which, during twenty years, they had pre- 
 served in full vigour 
 
 ** The unconquerable wUl 
 And study of revenge, immortal hate, 
 * ' , , With courage never to submit or yield. 
 
 And what is else not to be overcomtt*'* ^ 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THM 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 th6 
 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 Gates 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 
 zealots 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 inexcusable. 
 
 Gur 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. Pie was the intimate aUy, 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 
 rehgion 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 I ** was thd 
 cry which drowned the voices of the minority, 
 
3S0 MACKINTOSWS mSTORY OP THE REVOLUTlOrf, 
 
 Just after the discovery of these papers, a magistrate who had been distin* 
 g;uished 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 
 «ect. Some of the violent Cameronians had recently, under similar exaspera- 
 tion, committed similar crimes. 
 
 It was natural that there should be a panic j 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 of 
 one tenth part of the contradictions and absurdities which Gates 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 
 man ; 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 
 person, all the world knew that, within a century, two kings of France and a 
 prince of Grange had been murdered by the Catholics, purely from religious 
 enthusiasm, — that Elizabeth had been in constant danger of a similar fate, — 
 and that such attempts, 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 j 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 
 justified in denying a charge which, if acknowledged, would bring great 
 scandal on the Church. The trials of the accused Catholics were exactly like 
 all the state trials of those days ; that is to say, as infamous as they 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 
 pairty 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 
 
 When the Houses met in the autrimn 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 whigh a vessel ribbed with 
 heart of oak would inevitably perish. The only thing about which his mind 
 was unalterably made up was that, to use his own phrase, he would not ge 
 on his travels again for anybody, or for anything. His easy, indolent be- 
 haviour produced all the effects of the most artful policy. He sufferecl 
 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 
 had 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 2Ja close array round the throne. 
 
 A similar reaction had begun .to take place in favour of Charles the First 
 during 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 person a wicked attempt on 
 
352 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF 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 mellow 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 life 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 i68i 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 t3nranny 
 restored to the cause of liberty the hearts which had been alienated from that 
 cause by the excesses of faction. In 1681, the King had almost all his 
 enemies at his feet. In 1688, 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 
 party 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 
 his power. It is scarcely necessary to say that, in this hot competition of 
 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 
 di 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 spite of his religion, rather the favourite of the High Church 
 party. He had 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 
 parliament. The loyal gentry of the counties and the packed voters of the 
 
MA CKINTOSB 'S HIS TOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTION, 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 At under a prince of the House of Stuart. One insurrectionary move- 
 ment, 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 of 
 the nfilitary 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 blown 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 cannot 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 rejd 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 ori 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. 
 
 would not be very viise to conclude that a beggar i§ full of Christian 
 
 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 lustily for qjiarter 
 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 j for it is my duty td persei''' 
 cute error, . , '"^ .'. -, 
 
 The Catholics lay under severe restraints in England. James- wished to 
 remove 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 
 this 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 
 modem 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 obtairi 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 riot 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 tp 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 ! This man, who. persecuted in the 
 cause of the Unclean panther, would not, we are told, have persecuted for 
 the sake of the iriilk- white and immortal hind. , . ' ^'J 
 
 And what was the conduct of James at the veiy time when he ;wras pi^r 
 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 front 
 office his ablest, his most experienced, his most faithful servants, on accounts 
 of their religious opinions ? For what offence was Lord Rochester driven 
 from the Treasury ? He was closely connected with the Royal House. H& 
 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 maj not be suspected of overstating the case, Dr. Lirigard, 
 a very competent, and assuredly not a very willing witness, shall speak, for us, 
 " The King," says that able ^ partial writer, ' *' was disappomted ; be cbna« 
 
MA CKINTOSB'S HISTOR Y OF THE RE VOL UTTON. 355 
 
 *n.'. I. . < — ' - • 
 
 plained to Barillon of the obstinacy^nd insincerity of the treasurer ; and the 
 latter received from the French envoy a very intelligible hint that the loss of 
 office would result from his adhesion to his religious creed. He was, how- 
 eve«^ inflexible ; atld James, after a long delay, communicated to him, but 
 with considerable embarrassment and many tears, his final determination. 
 He had hoped, he said, that Rochester, by conforming to the Church of 
 Rome, would have spared him the unpleasant task ; but kings must sacrifice 
 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 j and 
 such, as we learn from the despatches of the Papal Nuncio, was really the 
 effisct. "Pare," says D'Adda, writing a few days after the retirement gif' 
 Rochester, ** pare che gli animi sono inaspriti della voce che corre tr^' if 
 popolo, d* esser cacciato il detto ministro per non essere Cattolico, perci&'- 
 tirarsi al esterminio de Protestahti." 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 theit' 
 sovereign. They did not know, as we know, that, while he was lecturing" 
 them on the blessings 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 th^ 
 English did know that the two princes were bound together in the closest ' 
 union. They saw their sovereign with toleration on his lips separating hirii- 
 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 throned 
 
 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 ? Wi*^ 
 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 with 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^* 
 Which 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-. . 
 prtsoning and burning, the religious order which, in every controversy iri . 
 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. Franklin aiid Mr. Jefferson afterwards were, — or that a 
 Jesuit-ridden bigot should be induced to dissemble for the good of the Church? 
 
356 MA CkWTOSH'S tilStOR V OF We Rk VOL VTloM, 
 
 The game which the Jesuits were playing was no new game. A hundrfed 
 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 establishm^t. 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 Engknd, 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 had 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 a far 
 worse tyranny than that which he was trying to put down? In the samr; 
 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 Europe, 
 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 in 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 Bill as, not democratic enough, appealing to 
 the labouring classes, execrating the tjrranny of the ten-poimd householders, 
 and exchanging compliments ai>d caresses with the most noted incendiaries 
 of our time. The cry 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 
 ve are sure that, if he had been allowed to gain his first point, the paoplt 
 
i^ACKtNfOSH'S HlSfdRV OP THE REVOLUTION. %yj 
 
 It-buld have had no remedy left but sta appeal to physical force, — ^which wotdd 
 have been made under most unfavourable circumstances. He conceived that 
 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 
 ne hoped to obtain a law, nominally for the removal of all religious dis- 
 i 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 
 oflfice ; 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' 
 tary 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 the 
 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 of power 
 would have been steadily supported by the arms and by the gold of France, 
 and 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. 
 But 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 
 whole Protestant population would have 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 
 struggle would have shaken the whole fabric of society, and that the ven- 
 geance of the conquerors would have been terrible and unsparing. 
 
 But James was stopped at the outset He thought himself secure of th« 
 
358 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 Tories, because tliey professed to consider all resistance as sijnful,-;;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 Dissenters was very 
 neural. But the 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 supposition 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 wrong to steal. Such a character would be too absu^-d 
 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 9ppres? 
 sion was in no case lawful, he conceived that he might oppress them exactly 
 as much as he chose, without the smallest danger of resistance. He quit^ 
 forgot that, when they magnified the royal prerogative, the prerogative wasf 
 exerted on their side, — that, when they preached endurance, they had nothing 
 to endure, — that, when they declared it unlawful to resist eyil, none but \yhigs 
 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 insult^ 
 and to lie in dungeons without murmuring, and yet, when he saw the smallest 
 chance that his own 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 m^tyr. 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 wo^l4 
 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 iCing 
 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 
 ingland. Adultery was at least as clearly and as strongly condemned by his 
 Church as resistance by the Church of England. Yet his priests could not 
 ceep 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, is 
 unable to believe that any temptatioa can draw any other person aside fyovi^ 
 the path of virtue. . * 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 359 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 James was disappointed in all his calculations. His hope was that the 
 TTories 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 
 •yvere united for a moment ; and all that vast royal power which three years 
 before had seemed immovably fixed vanished at once like chaff in a hurricant?. 
 
 The very great length to which this article has already been extended 
 repders 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 
 Jihat, by looking at it, we may "judge at a glance whether the authors of the 
 Revolution acTiieved 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. worcis 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 do^vn 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 benisficial 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 the 
 irritating and perplexing question of what ought to be the law with the plain 
 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 da£vered 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 Contineh 
 was attacking our allies, and meditating a descent on our own territories 
 
36o MACKINTOSirS HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 
 
 Dundee was raising the Highlands. The authority of James was still owned 
 fey 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 
 questions the time which ought to have been employed in preparing for 
 vigorous national defence. This editor, apparently, would have had the 
 English Revolution of 1688 end as the Revolutions of Spain and Naples 
 ended in our days. Thank God, our deliverers were men of a very different 
 order from the Spanish and Neapolitan legislators. They might, on many 
 subjects, hold opinions which, in the nineteenth century, would not be con- 
 sidered as liberal. But they were not dreaming pedants. They were states- 
 men 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 hold 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 article 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 the 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 Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, assembled at 
 Westminster, do resolve that William 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 correctly of its nature, 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OP THE REVOLUTION. 361 
 
 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- 
 cerned, 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 Wliigs, however, did 
 much. They succeeded in obtaining a law in the provisions of which a 
 philosopher will doubtless find much to condemn, but v/hich 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 the Scotch, doubtless 
 from their own inveterate stupidity and malice, were not Episcopalians ; that 
 they could not be made Episcopalians ; that the 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 course of divinity lectures, of the most 
 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 misgovemment 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 Revolution was 
 the altention in the mode of granting the supplies. It had been the practice 
 
$62 MACKWTOSWS HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION, 
 
 to settle on every prince, at the commencement of his reign, the produce of 
 certain taxes which, it 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 own 
 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 ir 
 luxury, 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 its ministers. We see villanies as black as ever were 
 
liiACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 363 
 
 rahputed 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 mer6 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 coiTupt, hard-hearted, brow-beating 
 judges. The 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 sherifife. 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 storm which raged in 
 the city on the day when two infuriated parties, each bearing its badge, met 
 to select the men in whose hands were to be the issties of life and death 
 for tlie coming year. On that day, nobles of the highest descent did not 
 think it beneath them to canvass and itiarshal 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 bring 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 sheriffs were Tories. Shaftesbury fled to Holland. The other 
 chiefs of the party broke up their councils, and retired in haste 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 Wilham 
 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 enteri^rising spirits who put their heads and lands to hazard in the game 
 pf pontics naturally acquired, from the habit of playing for so deep a stoke; 
 
364 MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 
 
 a reckless and desperate turn of mind. It was, we seriously believe, 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 flag, they were lost men. Hume, 
 in describing this state of things, has employed 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 narrow limits of the law, levelled 
 with poisoned daggers 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 their 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 chtince 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. All 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 harm 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 circumstances, 
 the negessity of compromising differences of opinioni the power s^nd vipl^n^f 
 
MA CKINTOSWS HISTOR Y OF THE RB VOL UTION. 365 
 
 of the party which was altogether ^ostile to the new settlement, must 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 1688 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 Whigpaity 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 equahty 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 Latitudi- 
 narians. The consequence was that Whiggism and Latitudinarianism were 
 professed by the ablest and most aspiring churchmen. 
 
 Hume complained bitterly of this at tJte close of his history. ** The Whig 
 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 is unaccountable how any civilized 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 literature patronised by the English 
 Court and the English ministry, during the first half of the eighteerith ceri- 
 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 governmeiit. 
 
 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 had any claim to such obedi- 
 ence. They condemned 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 eyery 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 a,nd 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 democratic 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 tlieories 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 ho bad illustration of the way in which the two great sections 
 of the commmiity almost invariably acted. A play, the whole merit of which 
 consists in its stately rhetoric, — a rhetoric sometiihes 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, cotidemning 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 JA- 
 
MACKINTOSH'S HISTORV OF THE REVOLUTION. 367 
 
 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 irom 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 {'.> 
 them as the publication is sure to be acceptable to the lover? of Ktigl'i- j 
 liistory, 
 
36S LOIW MCON, 
 
 LORD BACON. (July, iSs;.) 
 
 Thi Woi'ks tf 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 author 
 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 with 
 the Courts in which Mr. Montagu practices with so much ability and success 
 well know how often he enlivens the discussion of a point of law by citing 
 some weighty aphorism, or some brilliant illustration, from the '* De 
 Augmentis" or the " Novum 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 tc/o/a trilms. 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 suffer by his personal vices 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 tliey 
 cannot but judge of him under the deluding influence of friendship and gratitude. 
 We all know how unwilling we are to admit the truth of any disgraceful story 
 
f -aNIVERSlTT j 
 LORD BACOl^. ^^s£CALlPt^2i5^3^ 
 
 ibcut a person whose society we like, and from whom we have received favours : 
 how long we struggle against evidence ; Kow 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 v.'ith 
 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 Bossuet. 
 
 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 \mhappily 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. 
 TJie 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 Middleton. 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 idolater. 
 Th.t gc^^i Awocato del Diavoloj while he disputed, with.no small ability, tht 
 
370 LORD JBACOn. 
 
 claims of Cyprian and Anthanasius to a place in the Calendar, was himself 
 composing a lying legend in honour of St. Tully ! He was holding up as, a 
 model of every virtue a man whose 1;alents and acquirements, indeed, cjin 
 never be too highly extolled, and who was. by no means destitute of amiabjp 
 qualities, but whose whole soul was under the dominion of a girlish vanity ar^a 
 a craven feir. ..Actions for which Cicero himself, the most eloquent ?ind skilful 
 of advocates, could contrive no excuse, actions which in his confidenti^^^ 
 correspondence he mentioned with remorse arid shame, are represented by h^i^ 
 biographer as wise, virtuous, heroic. The whole history of that great revoru-" 
 tion which overthrew the Roman aristocracy, the whole state of parties, th^' 
 character of every public man, is elaborately misrepresented, in order to make 
 out something which may l9pk,,ljike a defence of one most eloquent g^nji accom- 
 plished trimmer- .•-.ji/;., .., '" " , ' , . . ., "^..'iV , v-, *" '' 
 The volume before,., iis. 'reminds us now arid.tften'of the V*^i(e'of,|Ciqfr^^ 
 But there is this marked difference. Dr. .Middleion evidently had an uneasy 
 consciousness of the weakness of his cause, and, therefore, resorted to the moat 
 di'sengenuous shifts, to unpardonable distortions and suppressions' of facts." 
 Mr. Montagu's faith is sincere and implicit. He 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 workj)roce6ds 
 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 woulfl 
 have dreamed of defending-r-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 eyidence. But any hypothesis is, in Mr. Montagu's opinion, 
 more', probable than that, his hero , should., ^ver 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 " Novum 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 corregtly to estimate 
 his character. ,, 
 
 It is hardly necessary to s?vy' that Francis Bacon was the son pf Sir Nicholas 
 Bacon, who held the great seal of England during the, first twenty years of th(^ 
 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 public affairs had been, with few excep- 
 
LORD is Ac ON. 371 
 
 tions, warriors or priests ; warriors who>e rude courage was neither guided by 
 science nor softened by humanity — priests whose learning and abilities were 
 habitually devTited to the defence of tyranny and imposture. The Hotspurs, 
 the Nevilles, the Cliffords-Trough, 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 gloorriy repose of the 
 garrisoned and moated castle. On the other side was the calm and subtle 
 ]v:elate— versed In all that wtis then considered as leatning — trained in the 
 Schools to rrtanage 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 natur'a.l that a 
 man shotild 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 haS; Ifill theh, '^Imok-'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 ho 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' gi-eat 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 celebrated Protes- 
 tant Bishops whom Oxford had the honour of burning ; arid at Canibridge were 
 formed the, minds of all those statesmen to whom chiefly is to be attributed the 
 secure establisliment 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 bigotry of the Conservatives seemed likely to prevail. Then thfe-impet- 
 ^TtOus onset of the Reformers for a moment carried all before it. Then again 
 the resisting mass made a desperate staTid, arrested the movement, and forced 
 it slowly back. The vacillation which at that time apjpeared in English legis- 
 lation, arid 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 t*he 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 
 their warfare in every 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 tbb ferment that the minds of the petsons whom we 
 
372 LORD BACON, 
 
 are describing were developed. They were born Reformers. They belonged 
 by nature to that order of men who always form the front ranks in the great 
 intellectual progress. They were, therefore, one and all, Protestants. In 
 religious matters, however, though there is no reason to doubt that they were 
 sincere, they were by no means zealous. None of them chose to run the 
 smallest personal risk during the reign of Mary. None of them favoured the 
 unhappy attempt of Northumberland in favour of his daughter-in-law. None 
 of them shared in the desperate councils of Wyatt. They contrived to have 
 business on the continent ; or, if they stayed in England, they heard Mass and 
 kept Lent with great decorum. When those dark and perilous years had gone 
 by, and when the crown had descended to a new sovereign, they took the lead 
 in the reformation of the Church. But they proceeded, not with the impetu- 
 osity of theologians, but with the calm determination of statesmen. They 
 acted, not like men who considered the Romish worship as a system too offen- 
 sive to God and too destructive of souls to be tolerated for an hour, but like 
 men who regarded the points in dispute among Christians as in themselves un- 
 important, and who were not restrained by any scruple of conscience from 
 professing, as they had before professed, the Catholic faith of Mary, the Pro- 
 testant faith of Edward, or any of the numerous intermediate combinations 
 which the caprice of Henry and the temporising policy of Cranmer had 
 formed out of the doctrines of both the hostile parties. They took a deliberate 
 view of the state of their own country and of the continent. They satisfied 
 themselves as to the learning of the public mind ; and they chose their side. 
 They placed themselves at the head of the Protestants of Europe, and staked 
 all their fame and fortunes on the success of their party. 
 
 It is needless to relate how dexterously, how resolutely, how gloriously they 
 directed the politics of England during the eventful years which followed — how 
 they succeeded in uniting their friends and separating their enemies — how they 
 humbled the pride of Philip — how they backed the unconquerable spirit of 
 Coligni — how they rescued Holland from tryanny — how they founded the 
 maritime greatness of their country — how they outwitted the artful politicians 
 of Italy, and tamed the ferocious chieftains of Scotland. It is impossible to 
 deny that they committed many acts which would justly bring on a statesman 
 of our time censures of the most serious kind. But, when we consider the 
 state of morality in their age and the unscrupulous character of th^ adversaries 
 against whom they had to contend, we are forced to admit that it is not with- 
 out reason that their names are still held in veneration by their country- 
 men. 
 
 There were, doubtless, many diversities in their intellectual and moral 
 character. But there was a strong family likeness. The constitution of their 
 minds was remarkably sound. No particular faculty was pre-eminently devel- 
 oped ; but manly health and vigour were equally diffused through the whole. 
 They were men of letters. Their minds were by nature and by exercise well 
 fashioned for speculative pursuits. It was by circumstances, rather than by 
 any strong bias of inclination, that they were led to take a prominent part in 
 active life. In active life, however, no men could be more perfectly free from 
 the faults of mere theorists and pedants. No men observed more accurately 
 the signs of the times. No men had a greater practical acquaintance with 
 human nature. Their policy was generally characterised rather by vigilance, 
 by moderation, and by firmness, than by invention, or by the spirit of enter- 
 prise. 
 
 They spoke and wrote in a manner worthy of their excellent sense. Their 
 eloquence was less copious and less ingenious, but far purer and more manly 
 than that of the succeeding generation. It was the eloquence of men who had 
 
LORD BACON. i*Ji 
 
 lived with the first translators of the Bible, and with the authors of the Book 
 of Common Prayer. It was luminous, dignified, solid, and very slightly 
 tainted with that affectation which deformed the style of the ablest men of the 
 next age. If, as sometimes chanced, they were under the necessity of taking 
 a part in the theological controversies on which the dearest interests of king- 
 doms were then staked, they acquited themselves as if their whole lives had 
 been passed in the Schools and the Convocation. 
 
 There was something in the temper of these celebrated men which secured 
 them against the proverbial inconstancy both of the court and of the multitude. 
 No intrigue, no combination of rivals could deprive them of the confidence of 
 their Sovereign. No parliament attacked their influence. No mob coupled 
 their names with any odious grievance. Their power ended only with their 
 lives. In this respect, their fate presents a most remarkable contrast to that 
 of the enterprising and brilliant politicians of the preceding and of the succeed- 
 ing generation. Burleigh was minister during forty years. Sir Nicholas 
 Bacon held the great seal more than twenty years. Sir Thomas Smith was 
 Secretary of State eighteen years. Sir Francis Walsingham about as long. 
 They all died in office, and in the enjoyment of public respect and royal 
 favour. Far different had been the fate of Wolsey, Cromwell, Norfolk, 
 Somerset and Northumberland. Far different also was the fate of Essex, of 
 Raleigh, and of the still more illustrious man whose life we propose to con- 
 sider. 
 
 The explanation of this circumstance is perhaps contained in the motto 
 which Sir Nicholas Bacon inscribed over the entrance of his hall at Gorham- 
 bury, Mediocria firtna. This maxim was constantly borne in mind by himself 
 and his colleagues. They were more solicitous to lay the foundations of 
 their power deep, than to raise the structure to a conspicuous but insecure 
 height. None of them aspired to be sole Minister. None of them provoked 
 envy by an ostentatious display of wealth and influence. None of them affected 
 to outshine the ancient aristocracy of the kingdom. They were free from that 
 childish love of titles which characterised the successful courtiers of the genera- 
 tion which preceded them and of that which followed them. As to money, 
 none of them could, in that age, justly be considered as rapacious. Some of 
 them would, even in our time, deserve the praise of eminent disinterestedness. 
 Their fidelity to the State was incorruptible. Their private morals were with- 
 out stain. Their households were sober and well-governed. 
 
 Among these statesmen, Sir Nicholas Bacon was generally considered as 
 ranking next to Burleigh. He was called by Camden ** Sacris conciliis alterum 
 columen ; " and by George Buchanan, 
 
 " Diu Britannici 
 Regni secundum columen." 
 
 The second wife of Sir Nicholas and mother of Francis Bacon was Anne, 
 one of the daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, a man of distinguished learning, 
 who had been tutor to Edward the Sixth. Sir Anthony had paid considerable 
 attention to the education of his daughters, and lived to see them all splendidly 
 and happily married. Their classical acquirements made them conspicuous 
 even among the women of fashion of that age. Katherine, who became Lady 
 Killigrew, wrote Latin hexameters and pentameters which would appear with 
 credit in the Musct Etonenses. Mildred, the wife of Lord Burleigh, was de- 
 scribed by Roger Ascham as the best Greek scholar among the young women 
 
 of England, Lady Jane Grey always excepted. Anne, the mother of Francis 
 Bacon, was distinguished both as a linguist and as a theologian. She corres- 
 pondecl in Gr?ek with Bishop Jewel, aQd translated his '* Apologia " from th« 
 
'3i^4 -. ^ORD BACON. 
 
 ta^in'so' corr-ectfy IhM' fieitter he' nor Archbishop Parker could suggest a 
 single alteration.* She also translated a series of sermons on fate and free-will 
 frpm the Tuscan of Bernardo Ochino. . This fact is the more curious, as Ochino 
 "Was one of that small and audacious band of Italian reformers — ^anathematised 
 alike by Wittenberg, by Geneva, by Zurich and by Rome — from which the 
 Sbciniari sect deduces its origin. ' 
 
 Lady Bacon was doubtless a lady of highly cultivated mind, after the fashion 
 of her age. But we must not suffer ourselves to be deluded into the belief 
 that she and her sisters were more accomplished women than many who are 
 now living. . On this subject there is, we think, much misapprehension. We 
 have often heard men who wish, as almost all men of sense wish, that women 
 should be highly educated, speak with" rapture of the English ladies of the six- 
 teenth century, and lament that they can find no modern damsel resembling 
 those fair pupils of Ascham and Aylmer who compared, over their embroidery, 
 the styles of Isocrates and Lysias, and who, while the horns were sounding 
 and the dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel, with eyes rivetted to that 
 immortal page which tells hOw meekly and bravely the first great martyr of 
 intellectual liberty took the cup from his weeping goaler. But surely these 
 complaints have very little foundation. We would by no means disparage the 
 ladies of the sixteenth century or their pursuits. But we conceive that those 
 who ' extol them at the expense of the women Of our time forget one very 
 obvious and very important circumstance. In the time of Henry the Eighth 
 and Edward the Sixth, a person who did not read Gteek and Latin could read 
 nothing, or next to nothiiig. The Italian was the only modern language which 
 possessed anything that could be called a literature: All the valuable books 
 then extant in allthe vernacular dialects of Europe would hardly have filled a 
 single shelf. England' did not yet possess Shakspeare's " Plays " and the " Fairy 
 Queen ; "nor France Moritaigrie's " Essays ; " nor Spain " Don Quixote." In 
 looking round a well-furnished library, how few English or French books can 
 we! find which were extant when Lady Jane Grey and Queen Ehzabeth received 
 their education. Chaucer, Gower, Froissort, Comines, Rabelais, nearly com- 
 ^plete the list. It was therefore al3Solutely necessary that a woman should be 
 uneducated .or • classically educated. Indeed, without a knowledge of one of 
 Jthe ancient languages, no person could then have any clear notion of what was 
 passing in the political, the literary, or the religious world. The Latin was 
 .jn the sixteenth century all, and more than all, that the French was in the 
 eighteenth. It was the language of courts as well as of the .schools. It was 
 the language of diplomacy ; it was the language of theological and political 
 controversy. Being a fixed language, while the living languages were in a 
 state of fluctuation, being universally known to the learned and the polite, it 
 was employed by almost every writer who aspired to a wide and durable repu- 
 tatiqp. A person who was ignorant of it was shut out from all acquaintance — 
 not merely with Cicero and Virgil, not merely with heavy treatises on canon- 
 law and school divinity, but with the most interesting memoirs, state papers 
 ^and pamphlets of his own time ; nay, even with the most admired poetry and 
 the most popular squibs which appeared on the fleeting'topics of the day — with 
 Buchanan's complimentary verges, ^with Erasmus's, dialogues, with Hutten's 
 epistles. • .,.. ,, ■ , , • 
 
 This is no longer the case.* .'AIL political and religious controversy is now 
 .conducted in the modern languages. The ancient tongues are used only in 
 .comments on the ancient writers. The great productions of Athenian and 
 . Eo^ian genius are indeed still what they were. But though their positive value 
 >.y I' ■ .» .. . - • . 
 
 " „ * Strype's Life of Parker, 
 
LpRri $ACQ^, , 37^ 
 
 Is unchanged, their relative value, when compared with the^ whol*? mass of 
 mental wealth possessed by iliaiikind, ha^been constantly falling.', ,.7hey w^re- 
 the intellectual all of our ancestors. They are but a part of our treasures. Oyer: 
 what tragedy could Lady Jane Grey have wept, over what comedy could, she 
 have smiled, if the ancient dramatists had not' been in her libraj-y ? A" modern 
 reader can, make shift without " Qulipus " and " Medea " while he posses$es 
 " Othello " and " Ha'mlet! " If he knows notliing of ]Pyrgopolynices.and Thrasp,.- 
 he is familiar with Bobadil, ctnd Bessus, and Pistpl, and Parolles. If he cannot 
 enjoy the delicious irony of Plato, he may fincl 'some ^compensation in that of 
 Pascal. If he is shut out from *' Nephelococcygia," he may tfitcc refuge in '^ I/illi-, 
 put." We are guilty, we hope, of no irreverence'towards those great nations to, 
 which the human race owes art, science, taste, civil and inteljectual freedom, 
 when we say that the stqck b^queathecl by them to us has been so carefully jm,- 
 proved that the accumulated interest now exceeds the principal. We believe that 
 the books which have been written in the languages of Western Europe during 
 the last two hundred and fifty years are of greater value than all the books whijch 
 at the beginning of that period were extant in the world.. ■ With the modern? 
 languages of Europe, English women are at least a.s well acquainted as English, 
 men. When, therefore, we compare the acquirements of Lady Jane Grey with, 
 those of an accompHshed young woman of our own time, we have no he,^itatioi\ 
 in awarding the superiority to ,the latter. We hope that our readers will 
 pardon this digression. It' is long ; but it can hardly be calledi unseasonable,; 
 if it tends to convince them that they are mistaken in thinking that their great- 
 great-grandmothers were sup^erior women to their sisters and their w,ives. „ - :, 
 
 Francis Bacon, the youngest son of Sir Nicholas, was born at York Hoim^V 
 his father's residence in the Sti-and, on the 22nd of January, 1561. His health 
 was very delicate,* and to this circumstance may be partly attributed that 
 gravity of carriage and that love of sedentary pursuits which distingviished 
 him from other boys. Everybody knows how much his premature readiness 
 of wit and sobriety of deportment amused the Queen, and how she used to call 
 him her young Lord Keeper. ' We are told that, while still a mere child, he 
 stole away from his playfellows to a vault in St. James's Fields, for the' purpose 
 of investigating the cause of a singular echo which he had observed there. It 
 is ceriain that, at only twelve, he busied himself with very ingenious speculations 
 on the art of legerdemain — a subject which, as Professor Dugald Stewart has 
 most justly observed, merits much more attention from philosophers than it.has. 
 ever received. These are trifles. But the eminence which Bacon afterwards 
 attained makes them interesting. ,; .,/ ,,.. , .\'.-<i '\i 
 
 In the thirteenth year of his age he was entered" at TrinitjT' College /<Cam«-i 
 bridge. That celebrated school of learning enjoyed the peculiar favour of the- 
 Lord Treasurer and the Lord Keeper, and, acknowledged the advantages which- 
 it derived from their patronage in a public letter which bears date just a month. 
 £\fter the admission of Francis Bacon.* The master, was AVhitgift, afterwards 
 Archbishop of Canterbury, a narrow-minded, mean arid t^-rannical priest, who- 
 gained power by servility and adulation, and' employed it in persecuting with, 
 impartial cruelty those who agreed with Calvin about Church Government and 
 those who differed from Calvin touchiijg the doctrine of Reprobation. He w?is. 
 now in a chrysalis state — putting off the worm and putting on the dragon-fly-^ 
 a kind of intermediate grub between sycophant and oppressor. He was iat 
 demnifying himself for the court which he found' it expedient .to, pay to the 
 Ministers by exercising much petty tyranny within his own college. It would 
 be unjust, however, to deny hin;i the praise of having rendered about this time 
 
 * Strype's Life of Whitgift. 
 
376 » LORD nACON. 
 
 one important service to letters. He stood up manfully against those who 
 wished to make Trinity College a mere appendage to Westminster school, and 
 by this act — the only good act, as far as we remember, of his long public life — 
 he saved the noblest place of education in England from the degrading fate of 
 King's College and New College. 
 
 It has often been said that Bacon, while still at College, planned that great 
 intellectual revolution with which his name is inseparably connected. Thf 
 evidence on this subject, however, is hardly sufficient to prove what is in itself 
 so improbable as that any definite scheme of (hat kind should have been so 
 early formed, even by so powerful and active a mind. But it is certain that, 
 after a residence of three years at Cambridge, Bacon departed, carrying with 
 him a profound contempt for the course of study pursued there, a fixed convic- 
 tion that the system of academic education in England was radically vicious, a 
 just scorn for the trifles on which the followers of Aristotle had wasted their 
 powers, and no great reverence for Aristotle himself. 
 
 In his sixteenth year he visited Paris, and resided there for some time under 
 the care of Sir Amias Paulet, Elizabeth's minister at the French court, and one 
 of the ablest and most upright of the many valuable servants whom she 
 employed. France was at that time in a deplorable state of agitation. The 
 Huguenots and the Catholics were mustering all their force for the fiercest and 
 most protracted of their many struggles ; while the prince, whose duty it was 
 to protect and to restrain both, had by his vices and follies degraded himself 
 so deeply that he had no authority over either. Bacon, however, made a tour 
 through several provinces, and appears to have passed some time at Poitiers. 
 We have abundant proof that during his stay on the Continent he did not 
 neglect literary and scientific pursuits. But his attention seems to have been 
 chiefly directed to statistics and diplomacy. It was at this time that he wrote 
 those *' Notes on the State of Europe" which are printed in his works. He 
 studied the principles of the art of deciphering with great interest, and invented 
 one cipher so ingenious that, many years later, he thought it deserving of a 
 place in the "De Augmentis." In February, 1580, while engaged in these pur- 
 suits, he received intelligence of the almost sudden death of his father, and 
 instantly returned to England. 
 
 His prospects were greatly overcast by this event. He was most desirous to 
 obtain a provision which might enable him to devote himself to literature and 
 politics. He applied to the government, and it seems strange that he should 
 have applied in vain. His wishes were moderate. His hereditary claims on 
 the administration were great. He had himself been favourably noticed by 
 the Queen. His uncle was Prime Minister. His own talents were such as 
 any minister might have been eager to enlist in the public service. But his 
 solicitations were unsuccessful. The truth is that the Cecils disliked him, arid 
 did all that they could decently do to keep him down. It has never been 
 alleged that Bacon had done anything to merit this dislike; nor is it at all 
 probable that a man whose temper was naturally mild, whose manners were 
 courteous, who, through life, nursed his fortunes with the utmost care, and 
 who was fearful even to a fault of offending the powerful, would have given 
 any just cause of displeasure to a kinsman who had the means of rendering him 
 essential service and of doing him irreparable injury. The real explanation, 
 we have no doubt, is this : Robert Cecil, the Treasurer's second son, was 
 younger by a few months than Bacon. He had been educated with the utmost 
 care, had been initiated, while still a boy, in the mysteries of diplomacy and 
 court -intrigue, and was just at this time about to be produced on the stage of 
 public life. The wish nearest to Burleigh's heart was that his own greatness 
 might descend to this favourite child. But even Burleigh's fatherly partiahty 
 
LORD BACON. 377 
 
 could hardly prevent him from perceivingfthat Robert, with all his abilities and 
 accjuirements, was no match for his cousin Francis. This seems to us the only 
 rational explanation of the Treasurer's conduct. Mr. Montagu is more 
 charitable. He supposes that Burleigh was influenced merely by affection for 
 his nephew, and was '* little disposed to encourage him to rely on others rather 
 than on himself, and to venture on the quicksands of politics instead of the 
 certain profession of the law." If such were Burleigh's feelings, it seems 
 strange that he should have suffered his son to venture on those quicksands 
 from which he so carefully preserved his nephew. But the truth is, that if 
 Burleigh had been so disposed, he might easily have secured to Bacon a com- 
 fortable provision which should have been exposed to no risk. And it is 
 equally certain that he showed as little disposition to enable his nephew to live 
 by a profession as to enable him to live without a profession. That Bacon 
 himself attributed the conduct of his relatives to jealousy of his superior talents, 
 we have not the smallest doubt. In a letter written many years after to 
 Villiers, he expresses himself thus : " Countenance, encourage and advance 
 able men in all kinds, degrees and professions. For in the time of the Cecils^ 
 the father and the son, able men were by design and of purpose suppressed. "* 
 
 Whatever Burleigh's motives might be, his purpose was unalterable. The 
 supplications which Francis addressed to his uncle and aunt were earnest, 
 humble, and almost servile. Pie was the most promising and accomplished 
 young man of his time. His father had been the brother-in-law, the most use- 
 ful colleague, the nearest friend of the Minister. But all this availed poor 
 Francis nothing. He was forced, much against his will, to betake himself to 
 the study of the law. He was admitted at Gray's Inn ; and, during some 
 years, he laboured there in obscurity. 
 
 What the extent of his legal attainments may have been, it is difficult to say. 
 It was not hard for a man of his powers to acquire that very moderate portion 
 of technical knowledge which, when joined to quickness, tact, wit, ingenuity, 
 eloquence and knowledge of the world, is sufficient to raise an advocate to the 
 highest professional eminence. The general opinion appears to have been that 
 which was on one occasion expressed by Elizabeth. '* Bacon," said she, 
 " hath n great wit and much learning ; but in law showeth to the utmost of his 
 knowledge, and is not deep." The Cecils, we suspect, did their best to spread 
 this opinion by whispers and insinuations. Coke openly proclaimed it, with 
 that rancorous insolence which was habitual to him. No reports are more 
 readily believed than those which disparage genius and soothe the envy of 
 conscious mediocrity. It must have been inexpressibly consoling to a stupid- 
 sergeant, the forerunner of him who, a hundred and fifty years later, "shook 
 his head at Murray as a wit," to know that the most profound thinker and the 
 most accomplished orator of the age was very imperfectly acquainted with the 
 law touching bastard eigne and vitilier puisne ^ and confounded the right of free 
 fishery with that of common piscary. 
 
 It is certain that no man in that age, or indeed during the century and a half 
 which followed, was better acquainted with the philosophy of law. His 
 technical knowledge was quite sufficient, with the help of his admirable talents 
 and of his insinuating address, to procure clients. He rose very rapidly into 
 business, and soon entertained hopes of being called within the bar. He 
 applied to Lord Burleigh for that purpose, but received a testy refusal. Of the 
 grounds of that refusal we can, in some measure, judge by Bacon's answer, 
 which is still extant. It seems that the old Lord, whose temper, age and gout 
 had by no means altered for the better, and who omitted no opportunity of 
 I II I 
 
 • See page 61, Vol, XII. of the present edition. 
 
 I 
 

 
 LORD BACON. 
 
 marking his dislike of the fehowy, quick-witted young men of the rising genera- 
 tipA, took this opportunity to read Francis a very sharp lecture on his vanity 
 and want of respect for his betters. Francis returned a most submissive reply, 
 thanked the Treasurer for the admonition, and promised to profit by it. 
 Strangers meanwhile were less unjust to the young barrister than his nearest 
 kinsman had been. In his twenty-sixth year he became a bencher of his Inn ; 
 and two years later he was appointed Lent reader. At length, in 1 590, he 
 obtained for the first time some show of favour from the Court. He was 
 sworn in Queen's Counsel extraordinary. Eiut this mark of honour was not 
 accompanied by any pecuniary emolument, lit continued, therefbrej to solicit 
 his powerful relatives for some provision which might enable him to live without 
 drudging at his profession. He bore, with a patience and serenity which, w^' 
 fear, bordered on meanness, the morose humours of his uncle and the sneering 
 r,eflections .which his cousin cast on speculative men lost in philosophical 
 dreams and too wise to be capable of transacting public business. At leijgth 
 the Cecils were generous enough to procure for him the reversion of thp 
 Registrarship of the Star Chamber. This was a lucrative place ; but, as many 
 years elapsed befdreji^ fel)^iOy.,^e;)va^^ stU^ the necessity of ,la.bouring for 
 
 his daily bread. ,',,',, '!,j';V,r '^i '. '"' 
 
 In the Parliament which was called in 1593, he sat as member for the county 
 of Middlesex, and soon attained eminence as a debater. It is easy to perceive 
 from the scanty remains of his oratory that the same compactness of expression 
 and richness of. fancy which appear in his writings, characterised his speeches ; 
 and that his extensive acquaintance with literature and history enabled him to 
 entertain his audience with a vast variety of illustrations and allusions which 
 we,re generally happy and apposite, but which were probably not least pleasing 
 to the'taste of that'age when they we^e such as would now be thought childish 
 or pe'dantic. , It is evident also that he was, as indeed might have been expected, 
 perfeptly free from those faults which are generally found in ah advocate' who, 
 after ^having risen to eminence at the bar, enters the House of Commons ; that 
 it.washis habit to deal with every great question, riot in small detached portions, 
 but -as a whole ; that he refined little, and that his reasonings were those of a 
 capacious rather, than a. subtle' niind... l^en Jon'son, a most unexceptionable 
 judge, has described his eloquence in words, which, though often quoted, will 
 t)earj to be quoted again. " There happened in my time one noble speaker 
 who w^s, full of gravity in his speaking. His language, where he could spare 
 or pass by a jest, ,was nobly censorious. No, man ever spoke more neatly, 
 more pressly, more weightily, or suffered less emptiness, less idleness, in what 
 he uttered. No member of his speech but consisted of his own graces. His 
 hearers could not cough or look gside from him without loss. He commanded 
 where he spoke, and had his judges angry, and pleased at his devotion. No 
 man had their affections more in his power. The fear of every man that heard 
 him was lest, he should, make an end." From the mention which is made of 
 judges,, it would seem that Jonson had heard Bacon only at the bar. Indeed 
 we. iirragine that the House of Commons was then almost inaccessible to 
 strangers. It is i>ot probable that a man of Bacon's nice observation would 
 speak in Parliament exactly as he spoke in the Coiart of Queen's Bench. But 
 the -graces of manner and language must, to a great extent, have been common 
 between the Queen's Counsel and the Knight of the Shire. 
 ., Jlacoh tried to play a very difficult game in politics. He wished to be at 
 ■anCQ a favourite a-t Court arid popular with the multitude. If any man could 
 iiave succeeded in this attempt, a man of talents so' rare, of judgment so pre- 
 maturely ripe, of temper so calm and of manners so plausible, might have 
 tecen expC-^j^pd to succeed. Nor indeed did he wholly fail. Once, hovYeyer> 
 
LORD J5AC0M 
 
 he Indulged in a burst of patriotism which^cost him a long and bitter remorse,^ 
 anct which he never ventured to repeat. The Court a^ked-for large subsidies 
 and for speedy payment. The remains of Bacon's speech breathe all . the 
 spirit of the Long Parliament. " The gentlenjen, " said he, " must sell their 
 plate, and the farmers their brass pots, ere this will be^ paid ; and for us,, we 
 arc here to search the wounds of the realm, and not to skim them over.r 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 our 
 posterity ; 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 public spirit in the highest maimer. 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 bemodned 
 himself to the Lord Keeper in a letter which may keep in countenance the 
 most unmanly of the epistles which Cicero \yrote during his banishment. The 
 lesson was not thrown away. Bacon never offended 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 different quarter. Among the 
 courtiers of Elizabeth had lately appeared a new favourite — ^young, noble, 
 wealthy, accornplished, 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 j whQ was the common 
 patron of men of letters and of men of the sword j ,who Was the common 
 refuge of the persecuted Catholic and of the persecuted ; Puritan. The cajni' 
 prudence which had enabled' Burleigh to shape his course through so many, 
 dangers, and the vast experience which he had acquired in dealing with.twP' 
 generations of colleagues and rivals, seemed scarcely sufficient to sup}>ort-him' 
 in this new competition ; and Robert Cecil sickened with fear and envy as ha. 
 contemplated the rising fame and influence of Essex. , ., [, , . / > •'; 
 
 The history of the factions which, towards the close of the reign of Elizabeths- 
 divided her court and her council, though pregnant ^ith .instruction, is by no 
 means' interesting or pleasing. Both parties employed Uie means which are; 
 familiar to unscrupulous statesmen ; and neither had, or ,<jyen 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 rnoved forward in the 
 career of truth and liberty, during the fifty years which followed the sep^^ration 
 of Luther from the communion of the Church of Rome, was now over. . The 
 boundary between Protestantism and Popery had been fixed very nearly where 
 it, still remains. England, Scotland, the Northern kingdon^s 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-ot 
 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 jnaintain their ground. A few occasional incursions 
 have been made.. But the general frontier remains the same. During two 
 hundred.fijid.filty years no great society has risen up like one inaa,^4 
 
380 102^D BACO^. 
 
 emancipated itself by one mighty effort from the enthralling superstition o^ 
 ages. This spectacle was common in the middle of the sixteenth century. 
 WTiy 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 before it in a time of comparatively little knowledge and 
 little freedom, should make no perceptible 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 Elizabeth'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. 
 
 The great struggle of the sixteenth century was over. The great struggle of 
 the seventeenth century had not commenced. The confessors of Mary's reign 
 were 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 
 memorable 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 believe 
 that they entertained different "views concerning the succession to 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 between 
 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 vulgar 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 equal. His^ 
 mind, ardent, susceptible, 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 oflfice 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 
 
I'OJ^i) BACO'l^. 3Si 
 
 the Cecils for Bacon had been incteased ^y 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. ** You 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 
 blot 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." 
 Sir 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 
 SoHcitorship, that might be of easier digestion to the Queen. *' Digest me no 
 digestions," said the generous and afdent 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 
 weigh in a balance the parts every 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 disappointpient 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 
 
38i LORD BACOM. 
 
 at lhe,5uit pf p. goldsmith for a debt of ;^300, ajid w^s carried to a sponging- 
 hoUs'e in Coleniail Street. ::'.•. 'V "", '. . 
 
 The kindness of Essex wag^ in ' the meantime indefatigable.; jtn 1596 he, 
 sailed on his memorable expedition to the' coast of Spain. At tbe very moment 
 of his embarkation, he wrote to several of his friends, commending to them, 
 during his owii 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 
 generous disposition had made him ' the, idol of his countrymen, and had; 
 extorted praise from the enemies whom he had conquered. * He had always 
 been proud ■ and headstrong ; and his splendid success seems tp 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 d widow of the name of Hatton. The eccentric manners 
 and violerit 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 fortunci 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 rr^y daughter, I protest I would as confi- 
 dently resolve to further it as I now persuade you : " and again, "If my fait^ 
 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 ip, 
 more ways than one. She rejected hini ; and she accepted his en^niy . ' S\j^^_ 
 married that narrow-minded, bad -hearted pedant. Sir Edward Coke, and dif^ 
 her best to make him as miserable as he deserved to be. 'ly/ 
 
 The fortunes of Essex had now reached their height, and began to decline^i 
 He possessed indeed all the quahties which raise men to greatness _ rapidlyj^^ 
 But he had neither the virtues nor the vices which enable men to retain gres^t-j 
 ness long. His frankness, his keen sensibihty to insult and injustice, were liyj ' 
 no m6ans agreeable to a sovereign naturally impatient of opposition, ,an^. 
 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 unfor4:unate, and in many respects highly blamable. Though his 
 brilhant courage and his impetuous activity fitted him admirably for such 
 enterprises- as that of Cadiz, he did not possess the caution, patience and reso- 
 lution 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 jegai;4. 
 even his faults with fondness. But the Court had ceased to give him creciit,^^ 
 even for the merit ^hich he really possessed. The person on whom, during^ 
 the decline of his influence, he chiefly depended — to whom, he confi(lpa his per- 
 plexities, whose advice he solicited, whose intercession he employed — was h;^ 
 friend Bacon. The lamentable truth must be told., This friend, so loved, sq. 
 trusted, bore a principal part ' in ruining the Earl's fortunes, iri- shedding , l^jg- 
 blood, and in blackening his memory. . ; . . , .; .- (-4031 
 
 "But let us be just to Bacon. We believe. rthat,. to t^e 'last^ h? had no wiS>. 
 
 * See Cervantea's Novela de la Espanola Inglesa. 
 
LORD BACON, 
 
 383 
 
 to injure Essex. Nay, we believe that-^e sincerely exerted himself to-serve 
 Essex, as long as lie 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 ail 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 Whitehall 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 
 ag^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 trying to prop tlie 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 
 fripnd — 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 pgttron was at hand* He shaped his course accordingly. When Essex 
 vjras brought before the council to answer for his conduct in Ireland, Bacon, 
 after a faint attempt to excuse himself from taking part, against his friend, 
 spbmitted himself to the Queen's pleasure, and appeared at the bar in support 
 of the charges. But a darker scene was behind. . The unhappy young noble- 
 man, made reckless by despair, ventured on a rash and criminal enterprise 
 which rendered him liable to the highest penalties of the law. What course 
 was Bacon to take ?. This was cine of those conjunctures which show what men 
 are. To a high-nunded man, wealth, power, court -favour, even personal' 
 safety, would have appeared of no account rrwhen opposed to friendship,* 
 gratitude and honour. Such a man would have stood by theside of Essex at 
 the trial — would have "spent all his power, might, authority and amity" in- 
 soliciting a mitigation of the sentence — ^would have been a daily visitor at the 
 cell — would , have received the last injunctions and the last embrace on the 
 scaffold — would have employed all the powers of his intellect to guard from 
 insult the fame of his generous, though erring, friend. An ordinary man would 
 neither have incurred the danger of succouring Essex, nor the di^ace of 
 assailing him. ;Bacon did not even preserve neutrality- He appeared as 
 counsel for the prosecution. In that situation, he did not confine himself tO' 
 what would have been amply sufficient to procure a verdict. He employed all 
 his wit, his rhetoric and his learning — not to insure a conviction — for the 
 circumstances were such that a conviction was inevitable — ^but to deprive the 
 unhappy prisoner of all those excuses which, though legally of no value, yet' 
 tended to diminish the moral guilt of the ciime, and which, therefore, though 
 they could not justify the peers in pronouncing, an acquittal, jitighti^chne the 
 Queen to grant a pardon. ' The Earl urged as a . palliation of his frai^tiia acts: 
 that he was surrounded by powerful and inveterate enemies, that they had 
 
'384 LORD BACON. 
 
 ruined his fortunes, that they sought his life, and that their persecutions had 
 driven him to despair. This was true, and Bacon well knew it to be true. 
 But he affected .to treat it as an idle pretence. He compared Essex to Pisis- 
 tratus, who, by pretending to be in imminent danger of assassination, and by 
 exhibiting self-inflicted wounds, succeeded in establishing tyranny at Athens. 
 This was too much for the prisoner to bear. He interrupted his ungrateful 
 friend by calling on him to quit the part of an advocate, to come forward as a 
 witness, and to tell the Lords whether, in old times, he, Francis Bacon, had 
 not, under his own hand, repeatedly asserted the truth of what he now repre- 
 sented as idle pretexts. It is painful to go on with this lamentable story. 
 Bacon returned a shuffling answer to the Earl's question, and, as if the allusion 
 to Pisistratus were not sufficiently offensive, made another allusion still more 
 unjustifiable. He compared Essex to Henry, Duke of Guise, and the rash 
 attempt in the city to the day of the barricades at Paris. Why Bacon had 
 recourse to such a topic it is difficult to say. It was quite unnecessary for the 
 purpose of obtaining a verdict. It was certain to produce a strong impression 
 on the mind of the haughty and jealous princess on whose pleasure the Earl's 
 fate depended. The faintest allusion to the degrading tutelage in which the 
 last Valois had been held by the House of Lorraine was sufficient to harden 
 her heart against a man who in rank, in military reputation, in popularity 
 among the citizens of the capital, bore some resemblance to the Captain of the 
 League. Essex was convicted. Bacon made no effort to save him, though 
 the Queen's feelings were such that he might have pleaded his benefactor's 
 cause, possibly with success, certainly without any serious danger to himself. 
 The unhappy nobleman was executed. His fate excited strong, perhaps 
 unreasonable, feelhigs of compassion and indignation. The Queen was received 
 by the citizens of London with gloomy looks and faint acclamations. She 
 thought it expedient to publish a vindication of her late proceedings. The 
 faithless friend who had assisted in taking the Earl's life was now employed to 
 murder the Earl's fame. The Queen had seen some of Bacon's writings, and 
 had been pleased with them. He was accordingly selected to write **A 
 Declaration of the Practices and Treasons attempted and committed by Robert, 
 Earl of Essex," which was printed by authority. In the succeeding reign. 
 Bacon had not a word to say in defence of this performance, a performance 
 abounding in expressions which no generous enemy would have employed 
 respecting a man who had so dearly expiated his offences. His only excuse 
 was, that he wrote it by command — that he considered himself as a mere secre- 
 tary — that he had particular instructions as to the way in which he was to 
 treat every part of the subject — and that, in fact, he had furnished only the 
 arrangement and the style. 
 
 We regret to say that the whole conduct of Bacon through the course of 
 these transactions appears to Mr. Montagu not merely excusable, but deserving 
 of high admiration. The integrity and benevolence of this gentlemen are so 
 well known that our readers will probably be at a loss to conceive by what 
 steps he can have arrived at so extraordinary a conclusion : and we are half 
 afraid that they will suspect us of practising some artifice upon them when we 
 report the principal arguments which he employs. 
 
 In order to get rid of the charge of ingratitude, Mr. Montagu attempts to 
 show that Bacon lay under greater obUgations to the Queen than to Essex. 
 What these obligations were it is not easy to discover. The situation of 
 Queen's Counsel and a remote reversion were surely favours veiy far below 
 Bacon's personal and hereditary claims. They were favours which had not 
 c6st the Queen 1 groat, nor had they put a groat into Bacon's purse. It was 
 necessary to rest Elizabeth's claims to gratitude on some other ground ; and 
 
LOBD BACON. 385 
 
 this Mr. Montagu felt. " What perhaps was her greatest kindness," says he, 
 ' ' instead of having hastily advanced B^on, she had, with a continuance of her 
 friendship, made him bear the yoke in his youth. Such were his obligations to 
 Elizabeth." Such indeed they were. Being the son of one of her oldest and 
 most faithful ministers — being himself the ablest and most accomplished young 
 man of his time — he had been condemned by her to drudgery, to obscurity, to 
 poverty. She had depreciated his acquirements. She had checked him in the 
 most imperious manner, when in Parliament he ventured to act an independent 
 part. She had refused to him the professional advancement to which he had a 
 just claim. To her it was owing that, while younger men — not superior to 
 him in extraction, and far inferior to him in every kind of personal merit — 
 were filling the highest offices of the state, adding manor to manor, rearing 
 palace after palace, he was lying at a sponging-house for a debt of three hun- 
 dred pounds. Assuredly if Bacon owed gratitude to Elizabeth, he owed none 
 to Essex. If the Queen really was his best friend, the Earl was his worst 
 enemy. We wonder that Mr. Montagu did not press this argument a littlf 
 further. He might have maintained that Bacon was excusable in revenging 
 himself on a man who had attempted to rescue his youth from the salutary yoke 
 imposed on it by the Queen — who had wished to advance him hastily — who, 
 not content with attempting to inflict the Attorney-Generalship upon him, had 
 been so cruel as to present him with a landed estate. 
 
 Again, we can hardly think Mr, Montagu serious when he tells us that 
 Bacon was bound for the sake of the public not to destroy his own hopes of 
 advancement ; and that he took part against Essex from a wish to obtain 
 power which might enable him to be useful to his country. We really do 
 not know how to refute such arguments except by stating them. Nothing is 
 impossible which does not involve a contradiction. It is barely possible that 
 Bacon's motives for acting as he did on this occasion may have, been gratitude 
 to the Queen for keeping him poor and a desire to benefit his fellov,^- 
 creatures in some high situation. And there is a possibility that Bonner may 
 have been a good Protestant who, being convinced that the blood of martyrs 
 is the seed of the Church, heroically went through all the drudgery and 
 infamy of persecution that he might inspire the English people with an intense 
 and lasting hatred of popery. There is a possibility that Jeffreys may have 
 been an ardent lover of liberty, and that he may have beheaded Algernon 
 Sydney and burned Elizabeth Gaunt only In order to produce a reaction 
 which might lead to the limitation of the prerogative. T^ere is a possibility 
 that Thurtell may have killed Weare only in order to give the youth of 
 England an impressive warning against gaming and bad company. There is a 
 possibility that Fauntleroy may have forged powers of attorney only in order 
 that his fate might turn the attention of the public to the defects of the penal 
 law. These things, we say, are possible. But they are so extravagantly 
 improbable that a man who should act on such suppositions would be fit only 
 for Saint Luke's. And we do not see why suppositions on which no rational 
 man would act in ordinary life should be admitted into history. 
 
 Mr. Montagu's notion that Bacon desired power only in order to do good 
 to mankind appears somewhat strange to us, when we consider how Bacon 
 afterwards used power, and how he lost it. Surely the service which he ren- 
 dered to mankind by taking Lady Wharton's broad pieces and Sir Jolmr 
 Kennedy's cabinet was not of such vast importance as to sanctify all the 
 means which might conduce to that end. If the case were fairly stated, it 
 would, we much fear, stand thus : Bacon was a servile advocate that he 
 might be a corrupt judge. 
 
 Kir. Montagu conceives that none but the ignorant and unreflecting can 
 
 o 
 
386 LORD BACON. 
 
 think Bacon censurable for anything that he did as counsel for the Crown ; 
 and that no advocate can justifiably use any discretion as to the party for 
 whom he appears. We will not at present inquire whether the doctrine 
 which is held on this subject by English lawyers be or be not .agreeable to 
 reason and morality — -whether it be right that a man should, with a wig on 
 his head and a band round his neck, do for a guinea what, without those 
 appendages, he would think it wicked and infamous to do for an empire — 
 whether it be right that, not merely believing but knowing a statement to be 
 true, he should do all that can be done by sophistry, by rhetoric, by solemn 
 asseveration, by indignant exclamation, by gesture, by play of features, by 
 terrifying one honest witness, by perplexing another, to cause a jury to think 
 that statement false. It is not necessary on the present occasion to decide 
 these questions. The professional rules, be they good or bad, are rules to 
 which many wise and virtuous men have conformed, and are daily conforming. 
 If, therefore, Bacon did no more than these rules required of him, we shall 
 readily admit that he was blameless. But we conceive that his conduct was 
 not justifiable according to any professional rules that now exist, or that ever 
 existed in England. It has always been held that in criminal cases, in which 
 the prisoner was denied the help of counsel, and, above all, in capital cases, 
 advocates were both entitled and bound to exercise a discretion. It is true 
 that after the Revolution, when the Parliament began to make inquisition for 
 the innocent blood which had been shed by the last Stuarts, a feeble attempt 
 was made to defend the lawyers who had been accomplices in the murder of 
 Sir Thomas Armstrong, on the ground that they had only acted professionally. 
 The wretched sophism was silenced by the execrations of the House of 
 Commons. " Things will never be well done," said Mr. Foley, *' till some of 
 that profession be made examples." " We have a new sort of monsters in the 
 world," said the younger Hampden, " haranjguing a man to death. These I 
 call bloodhounds. Sawyer is very criminal and guilty of this murder." " I 
 speak to discharge my conscience," said Mr. Garroway. "I will not have 
 the blood of this man at my door. Sawyer demanded judgment against him 
 and execution. I believe him guilty of the death of this man. Do what you 
 will with him." "If the profession of the law," said the elder Hampden, 
 "gives a man authority to murder at this rate, it is the interest of all men to 
 rise and exterminate that profession." Nor was this language held only by 
 unlearned country gentlemen. Sir William Williams, one of the ablest and 
 most unscrupulous lawyers of the age, took the same view of the case. He 
 had not hesitated, he said, to take part in the prosecution of the Bisl^ops, 
 because they were allowed counsel. But he maintained that, where the 
 prisoner was not allowed counsel, the Counsel for the Crown was bound to 
 exercise a discretion; and that, every lawyer who neglected this distinction 
 was a betrayer of the law. But it is unnecessary to cite authority. It is 
 known to everybody who has ever looked into a court of quarter-sessions that 
 lawyers do exercise a discretion in criminal cases ; and it is plain to every man 
 of common sense that, if they did not exercise such a discretion,- they would 
 be a more hateful body of mejn than those bravoes who used to hire out thei.'; 
 stilettoes in Italy, ■ ' r'" " / "■' \ ■ i.''" '' 
 
 Bacon appeared against ''41^ man Whd was indeed guilty of a great 'bfT^nce, 
 but who had been his benefactor and friend;' He did more than this. Nay, 
 he did more than a person who had neVer seen Essex would have been justi- 
 fied in doing. He employed all the art of an advocate in order to make the 
 prisoner's conduct appear more inexcusable and more dangerous to the state 
 than it. really had been. All. that professional duty could, in any case, have 
 required of him would have been to 'conduct the cause so as to insure a Con- 
 
LORD 'BACQN'- 387 
 
 viqtion. But from the nature of the circumstances there could not be the 
 smallest doubt that the Earl would .15^ found guilty. The character of the 
 crime was unequivocal. It had been committed recently — ^in broad day light- 
 in the streets of the capital — in the presence of thousands. If ever there was 
 an occasion on which an advocate had no temptation to resort to extraneous 
 topics for the purpose of blinding the judgment and inflaming the passions of 
 a tribunal, this was that occasion. Why then resort to arguments which, 
 while they could add nothing to the strength of the case, considered in a legal 
 point of view, tended to aggravate the moral guilt of the fatal enterprise, and 
 to excite fear and resentment in that quarter from which alone the Earl could 
 no\v expect mercy? Why remind the audience of the arts of the ancient 
 tyrants? Why deny, what everybody knew to be the truth, that a powerful 
 faction at court had long sought to effect the i-uin of the prisoner ? Why, 
 above all, institute a parallel between the unhappy culprit and the most 
 wicked and most successful rebel of the age ? Was it absolutely impossible to 
 do all that professional duty required without reminding a jealous sovereign 
 of the League, of the barricades, and of all the humiliations which a. .top 
 powerful subject had heaped on Henry the Third ? , :'.'•;[:..' 
 
 But if we admit the plea which Mr. Montagu urges in defence of what 
 Baqon did as an advocate, what shall we say of the " l3eclaration of the Trea- 
 sons of Robert, Earl of Essex ? " Ilere at least there was no pretence of pro- 
 fessional obligation. Even those who may think it the duty of a lawyer to 
 hang, draw and quarter his benefactors for a proper consideration, will hardly 
 say that it is his duty to write abusive pamphlets against them after they are 
 in their graves. Bacon excused himself by saying tihat he was not answerable 
 for the matter of the book, and that he furnished, only the language. But why 
 did he endow stich purposes with words? Could no hack writer, without 
 virtue or shame, be. found to exaggerate, the errors, already so dearly expiated, 
 of a gentle and noble spirit ? Every age produces those links between the 
 man and the baboon. Every age is fertile of Concanens, of Gildons and of 
 /Vntony Pasquins. ' But was it for Bacon so to prostitute his intellect ? Coiild 
 he not feel that, while he rounded and pointed soMie period dictated by the 
 envy of Cecil, or gave a plausible form to some slander invented by the 
 dastardly malignity of Cobham, he was not sinning nierely against his friend's 
 honour and his own? Could he not /eel that letters^ eloquence, .philosophy, 
 were all degraded in his degradation? ,- ..,,:-' .... j:;/- 
 
 The real explanation of all this is perfectly obvio.us ; and:nQthing^b»t ■! 
 partiality amounting to a ruling passion could cause anybody to miss it. The 
 moral qualities of Bacon were not of ,a high order. We do not say that he 
 was a bad man. He was not inhuman or tyrannical. He bore with meek- 
 ness his high civil honours, and the far higher honours gained by his intellect. 
 He was ver)' seldom^ if ever, provoked into treating any person with malignity 
 and insolence. No man more readily held up the left cheek to those who had 
 smitten the right. No man was more expert at the soft answer which tumeth 
 away wrath. He was never accused of intemperance in his pleasures. His 
 even temper, his flowing courtesy, the general respectability of his demeanour 
 made a favourable impression on those who saw him in situations which do 
 not severely try the principles. His faults were — we write it with pain — cold- 
 ness of heart and meanness of spirit. He seems to have been incapable of 
 feeling strong affection, of facing great . dangers, of making great sacrifices. 
 His desires were set on things below. Wealth, precedence, titles, patronage — 
 the mace, the seals, the coronet — large houses, fair gardens, rich manors, 
 t-qassy services of plate, gay hangings, curious cabinets— had as great attrac- 
 lions for him as for any of the courtiers who dropped on their knees in the 
 
388 LORD BACON. 
 
 dirt when Elizabeth passed by and then hastened home to write to the King 
 of Scots that her Grace seemed to be breaking fast. For these objects he 
 had stooped to everything and endured everything. For these he had sued in 
 the humblest manner, and, when unjustly and ungraciously repulsed, had 
 thanked those who had repulsed him, and had began to sue aga,in. For these 
 objects, as soon as he found that the smallest show of independence in 
 parliament was offensive to the Queen, he had abased himself to the dust be- 
 fore her, and implored forgiveness in terms better suited to a convicted thief 
 than to a knight of the shire. For these he joined, and far these he forsook, 
 Lord Essex. He continued to plead his patron's cause with the queen as long 
 as he thought that by pleading that cause he might serve himself Nay, he 
 went further, for his feelings, though not warm, were kind ; he pleaded that 
 cause as long as he thought that he could plead it without injury to himself. 
 But when it became evident that Essex was going headlong to his ruin. Bacon 
 began to tremble for his own fortunes. What he had to fear would not in- 
 deed have been very alarming to a man of lofty character. It was not death. 
 It was not imprisonment. It was the loss of court favour. It was the being 
 left behind by others in the career of ambition. It was the having leisure to 
 finish the " Instauratio Magna." The Queen looked coldly on him. The 
 courtiers began to consider him as a marked man. He determined to change 
 his line of conduct, and to proceed in a new course with so much vigour as to 
 make up for lost time. When once he had determined to act against his friend, 
 knowing himself to be suspected, he acted with more zeal than would have 
 been necessary or justifiable if he had been employed against a stranger. He 
 exerted his professional talents to shed the Earl's blood, and his literary talents 
 to blacken the Earl's memory. It is certain that his conduct excited at the 
 time great and general disapprobation. While Elizabeth lived, indeed, this 
 disapprobation, though deeply felt, was not loudly expressed. But a great change 
 was at hand. 
 
 The health of the Queen had long been decaying ; and the operation of age 
 and disease was riow assisted by acute mental suffering. The pitiable melan- 
 choly of her last days has generally been ascribed to her fond regret for Essex. 
 But we are disposed to attribute her dejection partly to physical causes and 
 partly to the conduct of her courtiers and ministers. They did all in their 
 power to conceal from her the intrigues which they were carrying on at the 
 Court of Scotland. But her keen sagacity was not to be so deceived. She 
 did not know the whole. But she knew that she was surrounded by men who 
 were impatient for that new world which was to begin at her death, who had 
 never been attached to her by affection, and who were now but very slightly 
 attached to her by interest. Prostration and flattery could not conceal from 
 her the cruel truth, that those whom she had trusted and promoted had never 
 loved her and were fast ceasing to fear her. Unable to avenge herself, and 
 too proud to complain, she suffered sorrow and resentment to prey on her 
 heart, till, after a long career of power, prosperity and glory, she died, sick 
 and weary of the world. 
 
 James mjjunted the throne : and Bacon employed all his address to obtain for 
 himself a share of the favour of his new master. This was no difficult task. The 
 faults of James, both as a man and as a prince, were numerous ; but insensi- 
 bility to the claims of genius and learning was not among them. He was 
 indeed made up of two men, a witty, well-read scholar, who wrote, disputed 
 and har^^^ued, and a nervous, drivelling idiot, who acted. If he had been 
 a Car^^^^'s; Christ Church, or a Prebendary of Westminster, it is not improb- 
 a>^,^. ^t^^he would have left a highly respectable name to posterity, that he 
 , . reqiiirecjjiye distinguished himself among the translators of the Bible, anr^ 
 
LORD BACON. 389 
 
 among the Divines who attended the Synod of Dort ; and that he would have 
 been regarded by the literary worl(i»-as no contemptible rival of Vossius and 
 Casaubon. But fortune placed him in a situation in which his weakness 
 covered him with disgrace, and in which his accomplishments brought him 
 no honour. In a college, much eccentricity and childishness would have been 
 readily pardoned in so learned a man. But all that learning could do for him 
 on the throne was to make people think him a pedant as well as a fool. 
 
 Bacon was favourably received at Court ; and soon found that his chance of 
 promotion was not diminished by the death of the Queen. He was solicitous 
 to be knighted, for two reasons which are somewhat amusing. The King had 
 already dubbed half London, and Bacon found himself the only untitled person 
 in his mess at Gray's Inn. This was not very agreeable to him. He had also, 
 to quote his own words, " found an Alderman's daughter a handsome maiden, 
 to his liking." On both these grounds, he begged his cousin, Robert Cecil, 
 "if it might please his good Lordship," to use his interest in his behalf. The 
 application was successful. Bacon was one of three hundred gentlemen who, 
 on the coronation-day, received the honour, if it is to be so called, of knight- 
 hood. The handsome maiden, a daughter ojf Alderman Barnham, soon after 
 consented to become Sir Francis's lady. 
 
 The death of Elizabeth, though on the whole it improved Bacon's prospects, 
 was in one respect an unfortunate event for him. The new King had always 
 felt kindly towards Lord Essex, who had been zealous for the Scotch Succes- 
 sion ; and, as soon as he came to the throne, began to show favour to the 
 House of Devereux, and to those who had stood by that house in its adversity. 
 Everybody was now at liberty to speak out respecting those lamentable events 
 in which Bacon had borne so large a share. Elizabeth was scarcely cold when 
 the public feeling began to manifest itself by marks of respect towards Lord 
 Southampton. That accomplisJied nobleman, who will be remembered to the 
 latest ages as the generous and discerning patron of Shakspeare, was held in 
 honour by his contemporaries chiefly on account of the devoted affection which 
 he had borne to Essex. He had been tried and convicted together with his 
 friend ; but the Queen had spared his life, and, at the time of her death, he 
 was still a prisoner. A crowd of visitors hastened to the Tower to congratulate 
 him on his approacliing deliverance. With that crowd Bacon could not ven- 
 ture to mingle. The multitude loudly condemned him ; and his conscience 
 told him that the multitude had but too much reason. He excused himself to 
 Southampton by letter, in terms which, if he had, as Mr. Montagu conceives, 
 done only what as a subject and an advocate he was bound to do, must l;e con- 
 sidered as shamefully servile. He owns his fear that his attendance would 
 give offence, and that his professions of regard would obtain no credit. " Yet," 
 says he, " it is as true as a thing that God knoweth, that this great change hath 
 wrought in me no other change towards your Lordship than this, that I may 
 safely be that to you now which I was truly before." 
 
 How Southampton received these apologies we are not informed. But it is 
 certain that the general opinion was pronounced again Bacon in a manner not 
 to be misunderstood. Soon after his marriage he put forth a defence of his 
 conduct in the form of a " Letter to the Earl of Devon." This tract seems to us 
 to prove only the exceeding badness of a cause for which such talents could do 
 so little. 
 
 It is not probable that Bacon's defence had much effect on his contempo- 
 raries. But the unfavourable impression which his conduct had made appears 
 to have deen gradually effaced. Indeed it must be some very peculiar cause 
 that can make a man like him long unpopular. His talents secured him from 
 contempt, his temper anb his manners from hatred. There is scarcely any 
 
f^d: LORD BACON, 
 
 story so black that it may not be got over by a man of great abilities, whose 
 abilities are united with caution, good humour, patience and affability — who 
 pays daily sacrifice to Nemesis — who is a delightful companion, a serviceable 
 though not an ardent, friend, and a dangerous, yet a placable, enemy. Waller, 
 in the next generation, was an eminent instance of this. Indeed Waller had 
 much more than may at first sight appear in common with Bacon. To the 
 higher intellectual qualities of the great English philosopher — to the genius 
 which has made an immortal epoch in the history of science— Waller had in- 
 deed no pretensions. But the mind of Waller, as far as it extended, coincided 
 with that of Bacon, and might, so to speak, have been cut out of that of Bacon. 
 In the qualities which make a man an object of interest and veneration to 
 posterity, there was no comparison between them. But in the qualities by 
 which chiefly a man is known to his contemporaiaes there was a strking simi- 
 larity. Considered as men of the world, as courtiers, as politicians, as asso- 
 ciates, as allies, as enemies, they had nearly the same merits and the same 
 defects. They were not malignant. They were not tyrannical. But they 
 wanted warmth of affection and elevation of sentiment. There were many 
 things which they loved better than virtue and which they feared more than 
 guilt. Yet, even after they had stooped to acts of which it is impossible to 
 read the account in the most partial narratives without strong disapprobation 
 and contempt, the public still continued to regard them with a feeling not 
 easily to be distinguished from esteem. The hyperbole of Juliet seemed to be 
 verified with respect to them. "Upon their brows shame was ashamed to 
 sit." Everybody seemed as desirous to throw a veil over their misconduct as 
 if it had been his own. Clarendon, who felt, and who had reason to feel, 
 strong personal dislike towards Waller, speaks of him thus : " There needs no 
 more to be said to extol the excellence and power of his wit and pleasantness 
 of his conversation, than that it was of magnitude enough to cover a world 
 of very great faults — that is, so to cover them that they were not taken notice 
 of to his reproach — viz. , a narrowness in his nature to the lowest degree, an 
 abjectness and want of courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking — 
 an insinuation and servile flattery to the height the vainest and most imperious 
 
 nature could be contented with It had power to rsconcile 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 may, 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 settled upon him. In 1607 he l)ecame 
 Solicitor- General, in 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 Scot- 
 land. It was not difficult for such an intellect to discover many irresistible 
 arguments in favour of such a scheme. He conducted the great case of the 
 Post Nati in the Exchequer Chamber ; and the decision of the judges — a deci- 
 sion the legality of which may be questioned, but the beneficial -effect of which 
 
LORD BACO^. 391 
 
 must be acknowledged^ — was in a great measure attributed to his dexterous 
 management. WTiile 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 extraordinary 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 English 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 Bac6n's 
 attention from a work, the most arduous, the most glorious and the most useful 
 that even his rhighty 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 Chamber for maintaining that the King had no right to levy benevolences, 
 anci 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 prfeached. 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 brute 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 
 beliaved with gross ntdeness to his juniors nt 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 
 creditable a figure when he was opposed to a superior and happened to be in 
 
392 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 stubborn and surly. He declared that it was a new 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 m.an 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. 
 
 AH 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 rnan 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 new and pernicious 
 tendency, and not according to the customs of the realm." Is it possible to 
 imagine tliat 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, a.«,serted 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/^us : 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 should 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 to it. * 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 listen to the yells of Peacham, the judges 
 decided that Felton, a criminal who neither deserved nor was likely to obtain 
 any extraordinary indulgence, could not lawfully be put to the question. We, 
 therefore, say that Bacon stands in a very 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 I Bacon 
 clinging to exploded abuses ! Bacon withstanding the progress of improve- 
 ment ! 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 prejudice. 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 arbitrary governments and false 
 religions had not been extraordinary men — as if nine-terrths of the calamities 
 which have befallen the human race had any other origin than the union of 
 high intelligence with low desires. 
 
 Bacon knew this well. He has told us that there are persons "scientiii 
 
 * This paper is contained ip th? Harlpiai^ Miscell?iny. It is datecj 1583, 
 
394 LORD BACON. 
 
 tanquam angeli alati, cupiditatibus vero tanquam serpentes qui humi reptant " ;* 
 and it did not require his admirable 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 Whitehall. 
 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 was 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 pander, 
 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 
 \vith success. His sagacity eai'ly 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 
 much 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 of 
 
 De Augmentis, Lib. v. Cap. i. 
 
LORD BACOl^. 395 
 
 the information which are necessary^ statesmen. Yet both, trusting to the 
 accomphshments which had made them conspicuous in tilt-yards and ball- 
 rooms, aspired to rule the state. I'oth 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. His 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 representative^ 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 suihciently 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 witli 
 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. When 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 younger 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 tlie 
 young adventurer. But though Villiers was the obliged party, he was less 
 
396 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 of 
 his illustrious friend. In 1616' Sir Francis was sworn of the Privy Council, 
 and in March, 1617, on the retirement of Loi'd 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 love 
 of peace which James professed would, even when indulged to an impolitic 
 excess, have been respectable if it had proceeded from tenderpess for his 
 people. But the truth is that, while he had nothing to spare for the defence 
 of the natural allies of Fngland, he resorted without scruple to the most illegal 
 and oppressive devices for the purpose of enabling 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 had 
 pledged himself to discharge this important part of his functions with the 
 greatest caution and impartiality. He had declared that he " \yould walk in 
 the light," " that men should see that no particular turn or end led him, but a 
 general rule. " 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 history, the 
 most disgraceful was that which was granted to Sir Giles Mompesson— supposed 
 
LORD BACON. 397 
 
 to be the original of Massinger's Oj^rreach — 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 hkelihood 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 Villicrs v»cre 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 to 
 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 
 administration of justice — that he should think more about those who were 
 bound to him by private ties than about the public interest —all this wasi 
 
59S J.ORD BACON. 
 
 perfectly natural and not altogfether 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 \vild 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 
 then living 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 
 scrupulous as to the means by which he enriched himself. He and his 
 dependents accepted large presents from persons who were engaged in Chancer}' 
 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 prpfound 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 effect of so much good fortune. For some 
 \ime 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, wheii a young man 
 struggHng 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 
 
I 
 
 LORD BACON. 399 
 
 the Court of King's Bench, and had ever since languished in retirement. But 
 Coke's opposition to the Court, we feai^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, 
 Avas not proof against disgrace. He solicited a reconciliation with the favourite, 
 and his solicitations were successful. Sir John Villiers, the brother of Buck- 
 ingham, ^^'as 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, aad 
 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 toi .^e in the disputes 
 which agitated his enemy's household. He declared tor the wife, counten- 
 anced the Attorney-General in filing an information in the Star Chamber 
 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 humbled an old 
 man who had been his friend and his benefactor, who was the higtiest 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 
 Villiers. 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 luoduce collision, to tame the 
 untamable ferocity of his old enemy. 
 
400 LORD BACON. 
 
 In the main, however, his life, 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 coinpanions 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, 1 62 1, 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. fie 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 
 patent, 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 prisoners, had plundered suitors, had wasted on paltry intrigues all the 
 powers of the most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been 
 bestowed 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 Theobalds 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 al! aware 
 
LORD BACON. 401 
 
 of the state of public feeling, they would not have tried any expedient, or borne 
 with any inconvenience, rather than h«fve 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 pubHc mind. ,The 
 nature and extent of this change was not in the least understood by either of 
 the first two Ivings 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 EngUsh 
 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 every 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 could hardly be called a novice, and 
 those beasts, the undertakers, 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 marrying 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 
 jilace 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 
 < wn 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 Mcmpesson, 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 in all its parts. 
 
 The first victims whom the Court abandoned to the vengeance of the 
 Commons were Sir Giles Mompesson and ,Sir Francis Michell. It was some 
 time before Bacon began to entertain any apprehensionSi His taJQnts and his 
 
402 LORD BACON. 
 
 address gave him great influence in the house, of which he had lately become a 
 member, as indeed they must have done in any assembly. 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, state 
 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. " Tlie 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." 
 vSir Robert then proceeded 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 Chan'cellor, 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 March, 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. Plis 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 present. 
 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 unhappy 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 l^ed, refusing to 
 see any human being. lie 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 Plouse. A select committee w^as appointed to take 
 the despositions of others ; and the inquiry was rapidly proceeding, when, 
 on the twenty-sixth of March, the King adjourned the Parliament for three 
 weeks. ' : ' ' '"■ 
 
 This measure revived Bacon's Ijopes. 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 Parliam«nts ? 
 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. Indeed, 
 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 
 Parhament 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 \Villiams, 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 advic6 was-, uncJer&U'tiifc 
 circumstances, the best advice that could have been given. * t ■ /!.;.-: 
 
 On the seventeenth of April the Houses reassembled, and the Lords resumed 
 their inquiries 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 Chiancellor'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, perfortned 
 their duty with great delicacy. Indeed, the agonies of such a mind and the 
 degradation of such a name tnight 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 j interest to 
 sacrifice Bacon on the supposition of his guilt, but not on the supposition of his 
 innocence. James was very properlyi 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 victory. 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 effisct 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 pi=ove 
 his innocence. ■',>'■ 
 
 Again, it seems strange that Mr. Montagu 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 guilty 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 beheve 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^o 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 I The thing is incred- 
 ible. But if we admit it to be true, what 4nust we think ®f 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 tribunals, 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 ^aatXiias dcjpocpdyovs. 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 Mn 
 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 
 whi :h were worth more than the fee-simple of York House and Gorhambury 
 together, and that the no less honourable senators and knights who professed 
 to oelieve in the ali/n of Clodius, obtained marks still more extraordinary of 
 the esteem and gratitude of the defendant. In short, we are ready tp, 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 Dangerfleld. 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 neighlx)urs, 
 commits that action. But the circumstance that a great many people are in 
 the habit of committing immoral actions is no plea at all. We should 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- 
 
466 LORD BACON. 
 
 able people as an innocent and beneficial traffic, he went, largely provided with 
 hymn-books and liandcuiTs, on a Guinea voyage. But the circumstance that 
 there are fifty thousand thieves in London is no excuse for a fellow who is 
 caught breaking into a shop. No man is to be blamed for not making ilis- 
 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 <;ommon 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 condeinned 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 every crime will be common wheathe 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 inquiry 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 blamable 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. " Oinnes diligunt viuncra. 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 reiaards. Let them leave their colotiring and call them 
 by their Christian na7?ie — 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 
 history. 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. / pray God we may 07ice 
 see the skin in England." " I am sure," says he, in another sermon, " this is 
 scala ijife7-ni, the right way to hell, to be covetous, to take bribes and pervert 
 jurstice. If a judge should ask me the way to hell, I would show him this way. 
 
LORD BACON. 457; 
 
 First, let him be a covetous man ; let his heart be poisoned with covetousness/ 
 Then let him go a little further and take t^nbes ; 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 hangum tuum, a Tyburn tippet to 
 take with him ; an it were the judge of the King's Bench, my Lord Chief 
 Judge of England, yea, an it were viy Lord Chancellor himself, to Tyburn 
 with him." We will quote but one more passage. " He that took the silver 
 bJlsm and ewer for a bribe, thinketh that it will never come out. But he may 
 no■v^^ know that I know it, and I know it not alone ; there be more beside me 
 that know 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. 
 Foridhat needcth hHbery where men do their things uprightly?" . -'.'4 i/;..(io.r. 
 
 This was not the language of a great philosopher who had made new diSKJ 
 coveries in moral and political science. It was the plain talk of a plain mia.ti, 
 who sprang from the body of the people, who sympathised 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 Whitehall— struggled for a 
 touch of his gown, and bawled " Have at them. Father Latimer." It isplainj 
 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 connipt practices were even then seen through 
 by the common people — that the distinction on which Mr. Montagu insists be- 
 tween compliments and bribes was even then laughed at as a mere " colouring. " 
 There may be some oratorical exaggerafjon 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 pray to God for their detection and their condign punish- 
 ment. ■ • ■ "' ■''.:".'-"'"/'-' ■ ' 
 
 Mr. Montagu tells us, ttiost justly, that we ought not to transfer the opinions 
 of oil r 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. We 
 firmly believe thdt, if papers were to be discovered which should irresistibly 
 prove that IBacon was concerned in the poisoning of vSir Thomas Over bur}', 
 Mr. Montagu would tell us that, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 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- 
 ■ng against I>ord Bacon is itself the best evidence on the subject ? When Mr. 
 Montagu tells us that we ought not to transfer the opinions of our age to 
 Bacon's age, he apjxjars 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? I\fr. Montague complains bitterly 
 
408 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 us, 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 hearts — 
 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 faijly stated 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 respectable 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 justice and common sense. 
 
 Mr. Montagu's other argument, namely, that Bacon, though he took gifts ^ 
 did not 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 m»an 
 among our re^iders, 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 meml^ers of parliament — as if the whole history of that genera- 
 tion wns not fiill of the Igw fictions Qf high people \ as if it was not notorious 
 
LORB BACON. 409 
 
 that men, as exalted in rank as any of the decoys that Bacon employed, had 
 pimped for Somerset and poisoned OverlJTiry. .;. ., i; : r.,.( 
 
 '*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 receiving 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 circumstance that he had on this occasion taken present.*; 
 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. 
 He 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. Whether 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 corruption. 0, 
 
 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 publicly. The inference is, 
 that in all the other cases mentioned in the articles against him he received 
 presents secretly. W^hen 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 manner 
 was, that he knew that it was wrong to receive them ? 
 
 One argument still remains, plausible in appearance, but admitting of easy 
 and complete refutation. The two chief complainants, Aubrey and Egerton, 
 had both made presents to the Chancellor, But he had decided against them 
 both. Therefore, he had not received 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." ■:•,,•/! . : r:x; 
 
 The truth is, that it is precisely in tJiis Way that an extensive system. <rf 
 corruption is generally detected. A person who, by a bribe, has procured a 
 decree in his favour, is by no means likely to come forward of his own accord 
 as an accuser. He is content. He has his quid pro quo. He is not impelled 
 either by interested or by vindictive motives to bring the transaction before the 
 public. On the contrary, he has almost as strong motives for holding his. 
 tongue as the judge himself can have. But when a judge practises corruptiori. 
 as we fear that Bacon practised it, on a large. scale, and has many agents look* 
 ing out in different quarters for prey, it will sometimes happen that he will be 
 bribed on both sides. It will sometimes happen that he will receive money 
 from suitors who are so obviously in the wrong that he cannot with decency do 
 anything to serve them. Thus, he will now and then be forced to pronounce 
 against a person from whom he has received a present ; and he makes that 
 person a deadly enemy. The hundreds who have got what they paid for 
 remain quiet. It is the two or three who have paid, and have nothing to show 
 for their money, who are noisy. 
 
4ld LORD BACOl^. 
 
 The memorable case of the Goezmans is an example of this. Beaumarchais 
 had an important suit depending before the Parliament of Paris. M. Goezman 
 was the judge on whom chiefly the decision depended. It was hinted to Beau- 
 marchais that Madame Goezman might be propitiated by a present. He 
 accordingly offered certain rouleaus of Louis d'or to the lady, who received 
 them graciously. There can be no doubt that, if the decision of the court had 
 been favourable to him, these things would never have been known to the 
 world. But he lost his cause. Almost the whole sum which he had expended 
 in bribery was immediately refunded ; and those who had disappointed him 
 probably thought that he would not, for the mere gratification of his male- 
 volence, make public a transaction which was discreditable to himself as well 
 as to them. They knew little of him. He soon taught them to curse the day 
 in which they had dared to trifle with a man of so revengeful and turbulent a 
 spirit— of such dauntless effrontery, and of such eminent talents for contro- 
 versy and satire. He compelled the Parliament to put a degrading stigma on 
 M. Goezman. He drove Madame Goezman to a convent. Till it was too 
 late to pause, his excited passions did not suffer him to remember that he could 
 effect their ruin only by disclosures ruinous to himself. We could give other 
 instances. But it is needless. No person well acquainted with human nature 
 can fail to perceive that, if the doctrine for which Mr. Montagu contends were 
 admitted, society would be deprived of almost the only chance .which it has of 
 detecting the corrupt practices of judges. 
 
 We return to our narrative. The sentence of Bacon had scarcely been pro- 
 nounced when it was mitigated. He was indeed sent to the Tower. But this 
 was merely a form. In two days he was set at liberty, and soon after he 
 retired to Gorhambury. His fine was speedily released by the Crown. He 
 was next suffered to present himself at Court ; and at length, in 1624, the rest 
 of his punishment was remitted. He was now at liberty to resume his seat in 
 the House of Lords, and he was actually summoned to the next Parliament. 
 But age, infirmity and, perhaps, shame prevented him from attending. The 
 Government allowed a pension of one thousand two hundred pounds a year ; and 
 his whole annual income is estimated by Mr. Montagu at two thousand five 
 hundred pounds — a sum which was probably above the average income of a noble- 
 man of that generation, and which was certainly sufficient for comfort and even for 
 splendour. Unhappily, Bacon was fond of display, and unused to pay minute 
 attention to domestic affairs. He was not easily persuaded to give up any part 
 of the magnificence to which he had been accustomed in the time of. his p6wer 
 and prosperity. No pressure of distress could induce him to part with the 
 woods of Gorhambury. "I will not," he said, " be stripped of my feathers." 
 He travelled with so splendid an equipage and so large a retinue, that Prince 
 Charles, who once fell in with him on tlie road, exclaimed with surprise— 
 *' Well ; do what we can, this man scorns to go out in snuff." This careless- 
 ness and ostentation reduced him to frequent distress. He was under the 
 necessity of parting with York House, and of taking up his residence, during 
 his visits to London, at his old chambers in Gray's Inn. He had other vexa- 
 tions, the exact nature of which is unknown. It is evident from his will that 
 some part of his wife's conduct had greatly disturbed and irritated him. .:u~ 
 
 But, whatever might be his pecuniary difficulties, or his conjugal discomfor^ 
 the powers of his intellect still remained undiminished. Those noble studies,' 
 for which he had found leisure in the midst of professional drudgery and of 
 courtly intrigues, gave to this last sad stage of his life a dignity beyond what 
 pow6r or titles could bestow. Impeached, convicted, sentenced, driven with 
 ignominy from the presence of his Sovereign, shut out from the deliberations of 
 his fellow nobles, loaded with debt, branded with dishonour, sinking under the 
 
LORD BACON. 411 
 
 weight of years, sorrows and diseases — Bacon was Bacon still. "My cotiGcit; 
 
 of his person," says Ben Jonson, very finely^" was never increased towards him 
 by his place or honours; but I have, and do, reverence him for the greatness 
 that was only proper to himself, in that l^e seemed to me ever, by his work, 
 one of the greatest men and most worthy of admiration that had been in many 
 ages. In his adversity I ever prayed that God would give him strength ; for 
 greatness he could not want." ' • 
 
 The services which he rendered to letters during the last five years of his life, 
 amidst ten thousand distractions and vexations, increase the regret with which 
 we think on the many years which he had wasted — to use the words of Sir 
 Thomas Eodley---"on such study as was not worthy of such a student." He 
 commenced a "Digest of the Laws of England, "a "History of England under the 
 Princes of the House of Tudor," a "Body of Natural History," a " Philosophical 
 Romance." He made extensive and. valuable additions to his "Essays." He 
 published the inestimable treatise, " De Augmentis Scientiarum. " The very 
 tri.fles with which he amused himself in hours of pain and languor bore the 
 mark of his mind. The best jest book in the world is that which he dictated 
 from memory, without referring to any book, on a day on which illness . bad 
 rendered him incapable of serious study. 
 
 The great apostle of experimental philosophy was destined to be its martyr. 
 It had occurred to him that snow might be used with advantage for the pur- 
 pose of preventing animal substances from putrefying. On a very cold day, 
 early in the spring of the year 1626, he alighted from his coach near Highgate, 
 in order to try the experiment. He went into a cottage, bought a fowl, and 
 with his own hands stuffed it with snow. While thus engaged he felt a sudden 
 chill, and was soon so much indisposed that it was impossible for him to return 
 to Gray's Inn. The P2arl of Arundel, with whom he was well acquainted, had 
 u house at Highgate. To that house Bacon was carried. The Earl was 
 absent ; but the servants who were in charge of the place showed great respect 
 and attention to the illustrious guest. Here, after an illness of about a week, 
 he expired early on the morning of Easterday, 1626. His mind appears to 
 l^ave retained its strength and liveliness to the end. He did not forget the 
 fowl which had caused his death. In the last letter that he ever wrote, with 
 fingers which, as he said, could not steadily hold a pen, he did not omit,.to 
 mention that the experiment of the snow had succeeded "excellently well.'^w'" 
 
 Our opinion of the moral character of this great man has already been 
 sufficiently explained. Had his life been passed in hterary retirement, he 
 would, in all probability, have deserved to be considered, not only as a great 
 philosopher, but as a worthy and good-natured member of society. But 
 neither his principles nor his spirit were such as could be trusted when strong 
 temptations, were to be resisted and serious dangers to be braved. . ^ 
 
 In his will he e^cpressed, with singular brevity, energy, dignity and pathos, a 
 mournful consciousness that his actions had not been such as to entitle him to 
 the esteem of those under whose observation his Ufe had been passed ; and, at 
 the same time, a proud confidence that his writings had secured for him a high 
 and permanent place among the benefactors of mankind. So, at least, we 
 understand those striking words which have been often quoted, but which ^we 
 must quote once more— "For ray name and memory, I leave iivto.-.m^s 
 ;Qharitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the next age.'*' !•' ' .vr •>( 
 ■ His confidence was just. From the day of his death his fame l»as been 
 constantly and steadily progressive ; and we have no doubt that his name will 
 be narried with reverence to the latest ages and to the remotest ends of the 
 civilised world. 
 
 The chief pecuHarity of Bacon's philosophy seems to us to have been this, 
 
412 LORD BACON. 
 
 that it aimed at things altogether different from those which his predecessors 
 had proposed to themselves. This was his own opinion. " Finis scientiarum," 
 says he, *' a nemine adhuc bene positus est."* And again, " Omjiium gravis- 
 simus error in deviatione ab ultimo doctrinarum fine consistit."t " Nee ipsa 
 meta," says he, elsewhere, " adhuc ulli, quod sciam, mortalium posita est et 
 defixa.";]: The more carefully his works are examined, the more clearly, we 
 think, it will appear that this is the real clue to his whole system, and that he 
 used means different from those used by other philosophers, because he wished 
 to arrive at an end altogether different from theirs. 
 
 What then was the end which Bacon proposed to himself? It was, to use 
 his own emphatic expression, "fruit." It was the multiplying of human 
 enjoyments and the mitigating of human sufferings. It was "the relief of 
 man's estate. "§ It was " commodis humanis inservire."|j It was " efficaciter 
 operari ad sublevanda vitae humanas incommoda."^ It was " dotare vitam 
 humanam novis inventis et copiis."** It was "genus humanum novis operi- 
 bus et potestatibus continuo dotare. "ft This was the object of all his specula- 
 tions in every department of science, in natural philosophy, in legislation, in 
 politics, in morals. 
 
 Two words form the key of the Baconian doctrine — Utility and Progress. 
 The ancient philosophy disdained to be useful and was content to be sta- 
 tionary. It dealt largely in theories of moral perfection, which were so sub- 
 lime that they never could be more than theories ; in attempts to solve 
 insoluble enigmas ; in exhortations to the attainment of unattainable frames of 
 mind. It could not condescend to the humble office of ministering to the 
 comfort of human beings. All the schools regarded that offices as degrading ; 
 some censured it as immoral. Once indeed Posidonius, a distinguished v/riter 
 of the age of Cicero and Caesar, so far forgot himself as to enumerate, among 
 the humW.er blessings which mankind owed to philosophy, the discovery of the 
 principle of the arch and the introduction of the use of metals. This eulogy 
 was considered as an affront, and was taken up with proper spirit. Seneca 
 vehemently disclaims these insulting compliments. ++ Philosophy, according to 
 him, has nothing to do with teaching men to rear arched roofs over their 
 heads. The true philosopher does not care whether he has an arched roof or 
 any roof. Philosophy has nothing to do with teaching men the use's of metals. 
 She teaches us to be independent of all material substances, of all mechanical 
 contrivances. The wise man lives according to nature. Instead of attempt- 
 ing to add to the physical comforts of his species, he regrets that his lot was 
 not cast in that golden age when the human race had no protection against the 
 cold but the skins of wild beasts — no screen from the sun but a cavern. To 
 impute to such a man any share in the invention or improvement of a plough, 
 a ship, or a mill, is an insult. " In my own time," says Seneca, " there have 
 been inventions of this sort — transparent windows — tubes for diffusing warmth 
 equally through all parts of a building — shorthand, which has been carried to 
 such a perfection that a writer can keep pace with the most rapid speaker. 
 But the inventing of such things is drudgery for the lowest slaves : philosophy 
 lies deeper. It is not her office to teach men how to use their hands. The 
 object of her lessons is to form the soul. Non est inquam, instrutnaitorum 
 ad usus necessarios opifex^ If the non were left out, this last sentence would 
 be no bad description of the Baconian philosophy, and would, indeed, very 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. i, Aph. 8i. f De Augmentis, Lib. i. 
 
 X Cogitata et Visa. § Advancement of Learning, Book i. 
 
 II De Augmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. i. "ii lb., Lib. 2, Cap. 2. 
 
 ** Novum Organum, Lib. i, Aph. 81. ft Cogitata et Visa. 
 
 4t Seneca, Eplst. go. 
 
LORD BACON. 
 
 413 
 
 much resemble several expressions in the ** Novum Organum." " We shall next 
 be told." exclaims Seneca, "that the jferst shoemaker was a philosopher." 
 For our own part, if we are forced to make our choice between the first shoe- 
 maker and the author of the three books " On Anger," we pronounce for the 
 shoemaker. It may be worse to be angry than to be wet. But shoes have 
 kept millions from being wet ; and we doubt whether Seneca ever kept any 
 body from being angry. 
 
 It is very reluctantly that vSeneca can be brought to confess that any philo- 
 sopher had ever paid the smallest attention to anything that could pos'sibly 
 promote what vulgar people would consider as the well-being of mankind. 
 He labours to clear Democritus from the disgraceful imputation of having 
 made the first arch, and Anacharsis from the charge of having contrived 
 the potter's wheel. He is forced to own that such a thing might happen ; 
 and it may also happen, he tells us, that a philosopher may be swift of foot. 
 But it is not in his character of philosopher that he either wins a race or 
 invents a machine. No, to be sure. The business of a philosopher was to 
 declaim in praise of poverty with two millions sterling out at usury — to medi- 
 tate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of luxury in gardens which moved 
 the envy of sovereigns — to rant about liberty while fawning on the insolent 
 and pampered freedmen of a tyrant — to celebrate the divine beauty of virtues 
 with the same pen which had just before written a defence of the murder of a 
 mother by a son. 
 
 From the cant of this philosophy — a philosophy meanly proud of its own 
 unprofitableness — it is delightful to turn to the lessons of the great English 
 teacher. We can almost forgive all the faults of Bacon's life when we read 
 that singularly graceful and dignified passage: — *'Ego certe, ut de me ipso, 
 quod res est, loquar, et in iis quoe nunc edo, et in iis quse in posterum meditor, 
 digtiitatem ingenii et nominis mei, si qua sit, soepius sciens et volens projicio, 
 dum com/nodis htimanis inserviam ; quique architectus fortasse in philoso- 
 phia et scientiis esse debeam, etiam operarius, et bajulus, et quidvis demum 
 fio, cum baud pauca quae omnino fieri necesse sit, alii autem ob innatam su- 
 perbiam subterfugiant, ipse sustineam et exsequar."* This philanthropia^ 
 which, as he said in one of the most remarkable of his early letters, *'was 
 so fixed in his mind as it could not be removed " — this majestic humility — this 
 persuasion that nothing can be too insignificant for the attention of the 
 wisest which is not too insignificant to give pleasure or pain to the meanest — 
 is the great characteristic distinction, the essential spirit of the Baconian phi- 
 losophy. We trace it in all that Bacon has written on Physics, on Laws, on 
 Morals. And we conceive that from this peculiarity all the other peculiarities 
 of his system directly and almost necessarily sprang. • 
 
 The spirit which appears in the passage of Seneca, to which we have re- 
 ferred, tainted the whole body of the ancient philosophy from the time of 
 Socrates downwards, and took possession of intellects with which that of 
 Seneca cannot for a moment be compared. It pervades the dialogues of 
 Plato. It may be distinctly traced in many parts of the works of Aristotle. 
 Bacon has dropped hints from which it may be inferred that, in his opinion, 
 the prevalence of this feeling was in a great measure to be attributed to the 
 influence of Socrates. Our great countryman evidently did not consider the 
 revolution which Socrates effected in philosophy as a happy event, and he con- 
 stantly maintained that the earlier Greek speculators, Democritus in particular, 
 were, on the whole, superior to their more celebrated successors.! 
 
 ' De Augmentts, Lib. 7, Cap. i. 
 
 ♦ Novum Organum, Lib. i, Apb. 71, 79. De Auginentis, Lib. 3, Cap. 4. De Principiis 
 atque Originibus. Cogitata ct Visa. Redargutio Philosophiarum. 
 
414 LQIi^ BACg/i, 
 
 Assuredly, if the tree which Socrates planted and Plato watered is to be 
 judged of by its flowers and leaves, it is the noblest of trees. But if we take 
 the homely test of Bacon — if we judge of the tree by lis fruiis—pm opinioii of 
 it may perhaps be less favourable. When we sum up all the useful truths 
 which we owe to that philosophy, to what do they amount ? We find, indeed, 
 abundant proofs that some of those who cultivated it were men of the first 
 order of intellect. W^e find among their writings incomparable specimens both 
 of dialectical and rhetbrical art. We have no doubt that the ancient contro- 
 vercies were of use, in so far as they served to exercise the faculties of the 
 disputants ; for there is no controversy so idle that it may not be of use in 
 this way. But when we look for something more — for something which adds 
 to the comforts or alleviates the calamities of the human race — we are forced 
 to own ourselves disappointed. We are forced to say with Bacon, that this 
 celebrated philosophy ended in nothing but disputation, that it was neither a 
 vineyard nor an olive-ground, but an intricate wood of briars and thistles 
 from which those who lost themselves in it brought back many scratches and 
 no food.* 
 
 We readily acknowledge that some of the teachers of this unfruitful wisdom 
 were among the greatest, men that the world has ever seen. If we admit the 
 justice of Bacon's censure, we admit it with regret similar to that which Dante 
 felt when he learned the fate of those illustrious heathens who were doomed 
 to the first circle of Hell. 
 
 ^'' '^^ '■'; ' ''Gran duol mi prese al cuor quando lo 'ntesi, 
 
 Perocche pente di molto valore 
 Conobbi che 'n quel limbo eran sospesi." 
 
 But in truth the very admiration which we feel for the eminent philosophers 
 of antiquity forces us to adopt the opinion that their powers were systemati- 
 cally misdirected. For how else could it be that such powers should effect so 
 little for mankind ? A pedestrian may show as much muscular vigour on a 
 treadmill as on the highway road. But on the road his vigour will assuredly 
 carry him forward ; and on the treadmill he will not advance an inch. The 
 ancient philosophy was a treadmill, not a path. It was made up of revolving 
 questions — of controversies which were always beginning again. It was a 
 contrivance for having much exertion and no progress. We must acknow- 
 ledge that more than once, while contemplating the doctrines of the Academy 
 "and the Portico, even as they appear in the transparent splendour of Cicero's 
 incomparable diction, we have been tempted to mutter wi^h the surly cen- 
 turion in Persius — "Curquis non prandeat hoc est?" What is the highest 
 good — whether pain be an evil---whether all things be fated — whether we can 
 be c^lain of anything — whether we can be certain that we are certain of 
 nothing — whether a wise man can be unhappy — whether all departures from 
 right be equally reprehensible— these, and other questions of the same sort, 
 occupied the brains, the tongues and the pens of the ablest men in the civilised 
 world during several centuries. This sort of philosophy, it is evident, could 
 not be progressive. It might indeed sharpen and invigorate the minds of those 
 who devoted themselves to it ; and so might the disputes of the orthodox 
 Lilliputians and the heretical Blefuscudians about the big ends and the little 
 ends of eggs. But sucli disputes could add nothing to the stock of knowledge. 
 The human mind, accordingly, insteading of marching, merely marked time. 
 'It took as much trouble as would have sufficed to carry it forward ; and yet 
 remained on the same spot. There was no accumulation of truth — no heritage 
 of truth acquired by the labour of one generation and bequeathed to another, 
 
 *■ Novum Organum, Lib I, Aph. 73. 
 
LORD BACON. 41S 
 
 to be again transmitted with large additions to a third. Where this philosophy 
 was in the time of Cicero, there it contijirtied to be in the time of Seneca, and 
 there it continued to be in the time of Favorinus. The same sects were still 
 battling, with the same .unsatisfactory arguments, about the same interminable 
 questions. There had been no want ©f ingenuity, of zeal, of industry. Every 
 trace of intellectual cultivation was there, except a harvest. There had been 
 plenty of, ploughing, harrowing, reaping, threshing. But the garners contained 
 only smut and stubble. 
 
 The ancient philosophers did not neglect natural science ; but they did not 
 cultivate it for the purpose of increasing the power and ameliorating the con- 
 dition of man. The taint of barrenness had spread from ethical to physical 
 speculations. Seneca wrote largely on natural philosophy, and magnified the 
 importance of that study. But why? Not because it tended to assuage 
 suffering, to multiply the conveniences of life, to extend the empire of man 
 over the material word ; but solely because it tended to raise the mind above 
 low cares, to separate it from the body, to exercise its subtilty in the solution 
 of very obscure questions.* Thus natural philosophy was considered in the 
 light merely of a mental exercise. It was made subsidiary to the art of dis- 
 putation ; and it consequently proved altogether barren of useful discoveries. 
 
 There was one sect, which, however absurd ahd pernicious some of its 
 doctrines may have been, ought, it should seem, to have merited an exception 
 from the general censure which Bacon has pronounced on the ancient schools 
 of wisdom. The Epicurean, who referred all happiness to bodily . pleasure 
 and all evil to bodily pain, might have been expected to exert himself for the 
 purpose of bettering his own physical condition and that of his neighbours. 
 But the thought seems never to have occurred to any member of that school. 
 Indeed, their notion, as reported by their great poet, was, that no more im- 
 provements were to be expected in the arts which conduce to the comfort 
 of life, 
 
 " Ad victum quae flagitat usus 
 Omnia jam ferme mortaliJ)us esse parata." 
 
 This contented despondency — this disposition to admire what has been 
 done, and to expect that nothing more will be done — is strongly characteristic 
 of all the schools which preceded the school of Fruit and Progress. Widely 
 as the Epicurean and the Stoic differed on most points, they seem to have 
 quite agreed in their contempt for pursuits so vulgar as to be useful. The 
 philosophy of both was a garrulous, declaiming, canting, .wrangling philoso- 
 phy. Century after century they continued tb repeat their hostile war-cries — • 
 Virtue and Pleasure ; and in the end it appeared that the Epicurean Had 
 added as little to the quantity of pleasure as the Stoic to the quantity of virtue. 
 It is on the pedestal of Bacon, not on that of Epicurus, that those noble lines 
 0|^t to be inscribed: . ,, -.^.^^nl^. : . .-,A sxii iu 
 
 v'H «« O tenebris tantis tarn da^ufli ^^xtdltertduffie*! , t .boo^t • 
 
 Qui primus potuisti, ILLUSXRANS COMMODA VIT^." . '>^ i'S.U f 
 
 In the fifth century, Christianity had conquered Paganisrri, and Paganism 
 had infected Christianity. The Church was now victorious and corrupt. The 
 rites of the Pantheon had passed into her worship — the subtilties of the 
 Academy into her creed. In an evil day, says Bacon, thougli with great 
 pomp and solemnity, was the ill-starred alliance stricken between the old 
 philosophy and the new faith, t Questions widely different from those which 
 
 * Seneca, Nat, Qusest. prof. Lib. '3. t Cogitata et Visa. 
 
4i6 LORD BACON. 
 
 had employed the ingenuity of Pyrrho and Carneades, but just as subtle, ju3t 
 as interminable and just as unprofitable, exercised the minds of the lively and 
 voluble Greeks. When learning began to arrive in the West, similar trifles 
 occupied the sharp and vigorous intellects of the Schoolmen. There was 
 another sowing of the wind and another reaping of the whirlwind. The 
 great work of improving the condition of the human race was still considered 
 as unworthy of a man of learning. Those who undertook that task, if what 
 they effected could be readily comprehended, were despised as mechanics ; if 
 not, they were in danger of being burned as conjurers. 
 
 There cannot be a stronger proof of the degree in which the human mind 
 had been misdirected than the history of the two greatest events which took 
 place during the middle ages. We speak of the invention of Gunpowder 
 and of the invention of Printing. The dates of both are unknown. The 
 authors of both are unknown. Nor was this because men were too rude and 
 ignorant to value intellectual superiority. The invfentor of gunpowder appears 
 to have been contemporary with Petrarch and Boccaccio. The inventor of 
 printing was contemporary with Nicholas the Fifth, with Cosmo de' Medici, 
 and with a crowd of distinguished scholars. But the human mind still retained 
 that fatal bent which it had received two thousand years earlier, George, of 
 Trebisond and Marsilio Ficino would not easily have been brought to believe 
 that, the inventor of the printing press had done more for mankind than them- 
 selves, or than those ancient writers of whom they were the enthusiastic 
 votarie's. 
 
 At length the time arrived when the barren philosophy, which had, during so 
 many ages, employed the faculties of the ablest of men, was destined to fall. It 
 had worn many shapes. It had mingled itself with many creeds. It had sur- 
 vived revolutions in which empires, religions, languages, races had perished. 
 Driven from its ancient haunts, it had taken sanctuary in that Church which 
 it had persecuted ; and had, Hke the daring fiends of the poet, placed its seat 
 
 " next the seat of God, 
 And with its darkness dared affront his light." 
 
 Words and more words and nothing but words had been all the fruit of all 
 the toil of all the most renowned sages of sixty generations. But the days of this 
 sterile exuberance were numbered. 
 
 Many causes predisposed the public mind to a change. The study of a great 
 variety of ancient writers, though it did not give a right direction to philosoph- 
 ical research, did much towards destroying that blind reverence for authority 
 which had prevailed when Aristotle ruled alone. The rise of the Florentine 
 sect of Platonists, a sect to which belonged some 'of the finest minds 
 of the fifteenth century, was not an unimportant event. The mere substitution 
 of the Academic for the Peripatetic philosophy would indeed have done little 
 
 food. But anything was better than the old habit of unreasoning servility, 
 t was something to have a choice of tyrants. " A spark of freedom," as 
 Gibbon has justly remarked, " was produced by this collision of adverse servi- 
 tude." 
 
 Other causes might be mentioned. But it is chiefly to the great reformation of 
 religion that we owe the great reformation of philosophy. The alliance between 
 the Schools and the Vatican had for ages been so close that those who threw 
 off the dominion of the Vatican could not continue to recognise the authority of 
 the Schools. Most of the great reformers treated the Peripatetic philosophy 
 with contempt, and spoke of Aristotle as if Aristotle had been answeral>le for 
 all the dogmas of Thomas Aquinas. " Nullo apud Lutheranos philosophiam 
 
LORD BACON. 417 
 
 esse in pretio"* was a reproach which the defenders of the Church of Rome 
 loudly repeated, and which many of jiie Protestant leaders considered as a 
 compliment. Scarcely any text was more frequently cited by them than that 
 in which St. Paul cautions the Colossians not to let any man spoil them by 
 philosophy. Luther, almost at the outset of his career, went so far as to 
 declare that no man could be at once a proficient in the school of Aristotle and 
 in that of Christ ; Zwingle, Bucer, Peter Martyr, Calvin held similar language. 
 In some of the Scotch universities, the Aristotelian system was discarded for 
 that of Ramus. Thus, before the birth of Bacon, the empire of the scholastic 
 philosophy had been shaken to its foundations. There was in the, intellectual 
 world an anarchy resembling that which in the political world often follows the 
 overthrow of an old and deeply rooted government. Antiquity, prescription, 
 the sound of great names had ceased to awe mankind. The dynasty which 
 had reigned for ages was at an end ; and the vacant throne was left to b^ 
 struggled for by pretenders. 
 
 The first effect of this great revolution was, as Bacon most justly observed, f 
 to give for a time an undue importance to the mere graces of style. The new 
 breed of scholars, the Aschams and Buchanans, nourished with the finest com- 
 positions of the Augustan age, regarded with loathing the dry, crabbed and 
 barbarous diction of respondents and opponents. They were far less studious 
 about the matter of their works than about the manner. They succeeded in 
 reforming Latinity ; but they never even aspired to effect a reform in philo- 
 sophy. , 
 
 At this time Bacon appeared. It is altogether incorrect to say, as Jias ofteii 
 been said, that he was the first man who rose up against the Aristoteliaj;i 
 philosophy when in the height of its power. The authority of that philosophy 
 had, as we have shown, received a fatal blow long before he was born. 
 Several speculators, among whom Ramus was the best known, had recently 
 attempted to form new sects. Bacon's OM-n expressions about the state of 
 public opinion in the time of Luther are clear and strong : " Accedebat,'' says 
 he, "odium et contemptus, illis ipsis temporibus ortus erga Scholasticos."' 
 And again, *' Scholasticorum doctrina despectui prorsus haberi cffipii 
 tanquam aspera et barbara. "J The part which Bacon played in this great 
 change was the part, not of Robespierre, but of Bonaparte. When he. 
 came forward the ancient order of things had been subverted. Soiiie 
 bigots still cherished with devoted loyalty the remembrance of the fallen 
 monarchy and exerted themselves to effect a restoration. But the majority 
 had no such feeling. Freed, yet not knowing how to use their freedom, thvy 
 pursued no determinate course, and had found no leader capable of conducting 
 them. 
 
 That leader at length arose. The philosophy which he taught was essentially 
 new. It differed from that of the celebrated ancient teachers, not merely in 
 method, but in object. Its object was the good of mankind, in the sense in 
 which the mass of mankind always have understood, and always will understand, 
 the word s:ood. " Meditor, " said Bacon, ' ' instaurationem philosophice ejusmoili 
 quae nihil inanis aut abstracti habeat, quteque vitoe humanoe conditiones in melius 
 provehat."§ 
 
 The difference between the philosophy of Bacon and that of his predecessors 
 cannot, we think, be better illustrated than by comparing his views on some 
 
 * We quote, on the authority of Bayle, from Melchior Cano. a scholastic divine of great 
 reputation. 
 T De Aa^mentis, Lib. r. 
 
 \ Both these passages are in the first book of the D« Augtiiddtis. 
 t Redargutio Phirosophiarum. 
 
4i8 LORt) BACOif. 
 
 important subjects with those of Plato. We select Plato, because we conceive 
 that he did more than any other person towards giving to the ininds of specu- 
 lative men that bent which they retained till they received from Ba»on a new 
 impulse in a diametrically opposite direction. 
 
 It is curious to observe how differently these great men estimated the value 
 of every kind of knowledge. Take Arithmetic for example. Plato, after 
 speaking slightly of the convenience of being able to reckon and compute in the 
 ordinary transactions of life, passes to what he considers as a far more impor- 
 tant advantage. The study of the properties of numbers, he tells us, habituates 
 the mind to the contemplation of pure truth and raises it above the material 
 universe. He would have his disciples apply themselves to this study, not that 
 they may be able to buy or sell, not that they may qualify themselves to be 
 shop-keepers or travelling merchants, but that they may learn to withdraw their 
 minds from the ever-shifting spectacle of this visible and tangible world and 
 to fix them on the immutable essences of things.* 
 
 Bacon, on the other hand, valued this branch of knowledge only on account 
 of its uses with reference to that visible and tangible world which Plato so much 
 despised. He speaks with scorn of the mystical arithmetic of the later 
 Platonists, and laments the propensity of mankind to employ, on mere matters 
 of curiosity, powers, the whole exertion of which is required for purposes of 
 solid advantage. He advises arithmeticians to leave these trifles and to 
 employ themselves in framing convenient expressions whith may be of use in 
 physical researches, f 
 
 The same reasons which led Plato to recommend the study of arithmetic, 
 led him to recommend also the study of mathematics. The vulgar crowd of 
 geometricians, he says, will not understand him. They have practice always 
 in view. They do not know that the real use of the science is to lead man to 
 the knowledge of abstract, essential, eternal truth. J Indeed, if we are to 
 believe Plutarch, Plato carried this feeling so far that he considered geometry 
 as degraded by being applied to any purpose of vulgar utility. Archytas, it 
 seems, had framed machines of extraordinary power on mathematical prin- 
 ciples. § Plato remonstrated with his friend, and declared that this was to 
 degrade a noble, intellectual exercise into a low craft, fit only for car- 
 penters and wheelwrights. The office of geometry, he said, was to dis- 
 cipline the mind, not to minister to the base wants of the body. His 
 interference was successful ; and from that time, according to Plutarch, 
 the science of mechanics was considered as unworthy of the attention of a 
 philosopher. 
 
 Archimedes, in a later age, imitated and surpassed Archytas. But even 
 Archimedes was not free from the prevailing notion that geometry was degraded 
 by being employed to produce anything useful. It was with difficulty that he 
 was induced to stoop from speculation to practice. He was half ashamed of 
 those inventions which were the wonder of hostile nations ; and always spoke 
 of them slightingly as mere amusements — as trifles in which a mathematician 
 might be suffered to relax his mind after intense application to the higher parts 
 of his science. 
 
 The opinion of Bacon on this subject was diametrically opposed to that of 
 the ancient philosophers. He valued geometery chiefly, if not solely, on 
 account of those uses which to Plato appeared so base. And it is remarkable 
 that the longer he lived the stronger this feeling became. When, in 1605, he 
 
 " Plato's Republic, Book 7. \ De Augmentis, Lib. 3. Cap 6. 
 
 * Plato's Republic, Book 7. 
 
 § Plutarch, Sympos. viii. and Life of Marcellus, The mj^chines of Archytas are also 
 mentioned by Aulus Gellius and Diogenes Laertius. 
 
IX) RD BACON., 
 
 4,19^ 
 
 wrote the two books on the " Advancement of Learning," he dwelt on the 
 advantages which mankind derived frofii mixed mathematics ; but he at the 
 same time admitted, that the beneficial effect produced by mathematical study 
 '»)! the intellect, though a collateral advantage, was " no less worthy than that 
 which was principal and intended." But it is evident that his views underwent 
 a change, ^yhen, nearly twenty years later, he published the " De Augmentis," 
 which is the Treatise on the " Advancement of Learning" greatly expanded 
 and carefully corrected, he made important alterations in the part which 
 related to mathematics. He condemned with severity the high pretensions 
 of, the mathematicians — " delicias et fastum mathematicorum. " Assuming 
 the well-being of the human race to the end of knowledge,* he pronounced 
 that mathematical science could claim no higher rank than that of an appen- 
 dage, or an auxiliary, to other sciences. Mathematical science, he says, is the 
 handmaid of natural philosophy — she ought to demean herself as such ; and 
 he declares that he cannot conceive by what ill chance it has happened that 
 she presumes to claim precedence over her mistress. He predicts — a predic- 
 tion which would have made Plato shudder — that as more and more discoveries 
 are made in physics, there will be more and more branches of mixed mathe- 
 matics. Of that collateral advantage, the value of which, twenty years before, 
 he rated so highly, he says not one word. This omission cannot have been 
 the effect of mere inadvertance. His own treatise was before him. From 
 that treatise he deliberately expunged whatever was favourable to the study 
 of pure mathematics, and inserted several keen reflections on the ardent 
 votaries of that study. This fact, in our opinion, admits of only one explana- 
 tion. Bacon's love of those pursuits which directly tend to improve the con- 
 dition of mankind, and his jealousy of all pursuits merely curious, had grown 
 upon him, and had, it may be, become immoderate. He was afraid of using 
 any expression which might have the effect of inducing any man of talents to 
 employ in speculations, useful only to the mind of the speculator, a single 
 hour which might be employed in extending the empire of man over matter, f 
 If Bacon erred here, we must acknowledge that we greatly prefer his error to 
 the opposite error of Plato. We have no patience with a philosophy which, 
 like those Roman matrons who swallowed abortives in order to preserve their 
 shapes, takes pains to be barren for fear of being homely. 
 
 Let us pass to astromony. This was one of the sciences which Plato 
 exhorted his disciples to learn, but for reasons far removed from common 
 habits of thinking. " Shall we set down astronomy," says Socrates, *' among 
 the subjects of study ?" t "I think so," answers his young friend Glaucon : 
 " to know something about the seasons, about the months and the years is of 
 use for military purposes as well as for agriculture and navigation." "It 
 amuses me," says Socrates, ""to see how afraid you are lest the common 
 herd of people should accuse you of recommending useless studies. " He then 
 proceeds in that pure and magnificent diction, which, as Cicero said, Jupiter 
 would use if Jupiter spoke Greek, to explain that the use of astronomy is not to 
 add to the vulgar comforts of life, but to assist in raising the mind to the con- 
 templation of things which are to be perceived by the pure intellect alone. The 
 knowledge of the actual motions of the heavenly bodies he considers as of 
 little value. The appearances which make the sky beautiful at night are, he 
 tells us, like the figures which a geometrician draws on the sand, mer6 
 examples, mere helps to feeble minds. We muSt get beyond them ; we must 
 
 • Usui et coramodis honiinum consulimus. 
 
 + Compare the passape relating to mathematics in the Second Book of the Advance- 
 mcnt of Learning with tlie De Augmentis, Lib. 3, Cap. 6. 
 \ Plato's Repufcflic, Book 7! 
 
420 LORD BACON. 
 
 neglect them ; we must attain to an astronomy which is as independent of 
 the actual stars as geometrical truth is independent of the lines of an ill-drawn 
 diagram. This is, we imagine, very nearly, if not exactly, the astronomy 
 which Bacon compared to the ox of Prometheus* — a sleek, well-shaped 
 hide, stuffed with rubbish, goodly to look at, but containing nothing to eat. 
 He complained that astronomy had, to its great injury, been separated 
 from natural philosophy, of which it was one of the noblest provinces, 
 and annexed to the domain of mathematics. The world stood in need, he 
 said, of a very different astronomy^ — of a living astronomy, \ of an astronony 
 which should set+ forth the nature, the motion and the influences of the 
 heavenly bodies as they really are. 
 
 On the greatest and most useful of all inventions — the invention of alpha- 
 betical writing — Plato did not look with much complacency. He seems to 
 have thought that the use of letters had operated on the human mind as the 
 use of the go-cart in learning to walk, or of corks in learning to swim is 
 said to operate on the human body. It was a support which soon became 
 indispensable to those who used it — which made vigorous exertion first un- 
 necessary and then impossible. The powers of the intellect would, he con- 
 ceived, have been more fully developed without this delusive aid. Men would 
 have been compelled to exercise the understanding and the memory, and, by 
 deep and assiduous meditation, to make truth thoroughly their own. Now, 
 on the contrary, much knowledge is traced on paper, but little is engraved in 
 the soul. A man is certain that he can find information at a moment's 
 notice when he wants it. He therefore suffers it to fade from his mind. Such 
 a man cannot in strictness be said to know anything. He has the show 
 without the reality of wisdom. These opinions Plato has put into the mouth 
 of an ancient king of Egypt. § But it is evident from the context that they 
 were his own ; and so they were understood to be by Quinctilian. || Indeed 
 they are in perfect accordance with the whole Platonic system. 
 
 Bacon's views, as may easily be supposed, were widely different. IT The 
 powers of the memory, he observes, without the help of writing, can do little 
 towards the advancement of any useful science. He acknowledges that the 
 memory may be disciplined to such a point as to be able to perform very 
 extraordinary feats. But on such feats he sets little value. The habits of his 
 mind, he tells us, are such that he is not disposed to rate highly any 
 accomplishment, however rare, which is of no practical use to mankind. 
 As to these prodigious achievements of the memory, he ranks them with the 
 exhibitions of rope-dancers and tumblers. "The two performances," he says, 
 ' ' are much of the same sort. The one is an abuse of the powers of the body, 
 the other is an abuse of the powers of the mind. Both may perhaps excite our 
 wonder, but neither is entitled to our respect." 
 
 To Plato, the science of medicine appeared one of very disputable advantage. ** 
 lie did not indeed object to quick cures for acute disorders, or for injuries 
 j)roduced by accidents. But the art which resists the slow sap of a chronic 
 disease — which repairs frames enervated by lust, swollen by gluttony, Or 
 inflamed by wine — which encourages sensuality by mitigating the natural 
 punishment of the sensualist, and prolongs existence when the intellect has 
 ceased to retain its entire energy — had no share of his esteem. A life 
 protracted by medical skill he pronounced to be a long death. The exercise 
 
 * De Au^mentis, Lib. 3, Cap. 4. + Astronomia viva. 
 
 X "Qua; substantiam et motum et influxum coelestium, prout re vera sunt proponat." 
 Compare this language with Plato's "ra h' k\> tw oupaim kucrovev." 
 
 § Plato's Phsedrus. II Quinctilian, XI. 
 
 H De Augraeutis, Lib. 5, Cap. 5. ♦* Plato's Republic, Book 3. 
 
LORD BACON. 421 
 
 of the art of medicine ought, he sajji, to be tolerated so far as that art may 
 serve to cure the occasional distempers of men whose constitutions are good. 
 As to those who have bad constitutions, let them die — and the sooner the 
 better. Such men are unfit for war, for magistracy, for the management of 
 their domestic affairs. That, however, is comparatively of little consequence. 
 But they are incapable of study and speculation. If they engage in any 
 vigorous mental exercise, they are troubled with giddiness and fulness of the 
 head, all which they lay to the account of philosopy. The best thing that can 
 happen to such wretches is to have done with life at once. He quotes 
 mythical authority in support of this doctrine ; and reminds his disciples that 
 the practice of the sons of ^sculapius, as described by Homer, extended only 
 to the cure of external injuries. 
 
 Far different was the philosophy of Bacon. Of all the sciences, that which 
 he seems to have regarded with the greatest interest was the science which, in 
 Plato's opinion, would not be tolerated in a well regulated community. To 
 make men perfect was no part of Bacon's plan. His humble aim was to make 
 imperfect men comfortable. The beneficence of his philosophy resembled the 
 beneficence of the Common Father, whose sun rises on the evil and the good — 
 whose rain descends for the just and the unjust. In Plato's opinion man was 
 made for philosophy ; in Bacon's opinion philosophy was made for man ; it 
 was a means to an end — and that end was to increase the pleasures and to 
 mitigate the pains of millions who are not, and cannot be, philosophers. That 
 a valetudinarian, who took great pleasure in being wheeled along his terrace, 
 who relished his boiled chicken and his weak wine and water, and who 
 enjoyed a hearty laugh over the Queen of Navarre's tales, should be treated as 
 a caput lupinum because he could not read the Timoeus without a headache 
 Was a notion which the humane spirit of the English school of wisdom 
 altogether rejected. Bacon would not have thought it beneath the dignity of 
 a philosopher to contrive an improved garden chair for such a valetudinarian — 
 to devise some way of rendering his medicines more palatable — to invent 
 repasts which he might enjoy, and pillows on which he might sleep soundly ; 
 and this though there might not be the smallest hope that the mind of the 
 poor invalid would ever rise to the contemplation of the ideal beautiful and the 
 ideal good. As Plato had cited the religious legends of Greece to justify his 
 contempt for the more recondite parts of the art of healing, Bacon vindicated 
 the dignity of that art by appealing to the example of Christ ; and reminded 
 his readers that the great Physician of the soul did not disdain to be also the 
 physician of the body. * 
 
 When we pass from the science of medicine to that of legislation, we find the 
 same difference between the systems of these two great men. Plato, at the 
 commencement of the fine Dialogue on Laws, lays it down as a fundamental 
 principle, that the end of legislation is to make men virtuous. It is unnecessiiry 
 to point out the extravagant conclusions to which such a proposition leads. 
 Bacon well knew to how great an extent the happiness of every society must 
 depend on the virtue of its members ; and he also knew what legislators can, 
 and what they cannot, do for the purpose of promoting virtue. The v-iew 
 which he has given of the end of legislation, and of the principal means for the 
 attainment of that end, has always seemed to us eminently happy, even among 
 the many happy passages of the same kind with which his works abound. 
 *' Finis et scopus quem leges intueri atque ad quem jussiones et sanctiones suas 
 dirigere debent, non alius est quam ut cives feliciter degant. Id fiet si pietate 
 ct religione recte instituti, raoribus honesti, armis adversus hostes externos tuti, 
 
 De Augraentis, Lib. 4, Ci»p. 2. 
 
422 LORD BACON, 
 
 legum auxiiio adversus seditiones et privatas' injurias muniti, imperio et 
 magistratibus obsequentes, copiis et opibus locupletes et florentes fuerint."* 
 The end is the well-being of the people. The means are the imparting of 
 moral and religious education ; the providing of everything necessary for 
 defence against foreign enemies ; the maintaining of internal order ; the 
 establishing of a judicial, financial and commercial system under which 
 wealth may be rapidly accumulated and securely enjoyed. 
 
 Even with respect to the form in which laws ought to be drawn, there is 
 a remarkable difference of opinion between the Greek and the Englishman. 
 Plato thought a preamble essential ; Bacon thought it mischievous. Each wt^s 
 consistent with himself. Plato, considering the moral improvement of the 
 people as the end of legislation, justly inferred that a law which commanded 
 and threatened, but which neither convinced the reason nor touched the heart, 
 must be a most imperfect law. He was not content with deterring from theft 
 a man who still continued to be a thief at heart — with restraining a son 'who 
 hated his mother from beating his mother. The only ot)edierice on which he 
 set much value, was the obedience which an enlightened Understanding yields 
 to reason, and which a virtuous disposition . yields to precepts of virtue. Pie 
 really seems to have believed that, by prefixing to every law an eloquent and 
 pathetic exhortation, he should, to a great extent, render penal enactments 
 superfluous. Bacon entertc^ined no such romantic hopes ; and he well knew 
 ihe practical inconveniences of the course which Plato recommended. " Neque 
 nobis," says he, " prologi legum qui inepti olim habiti sunt, et leges introdu- 
 cunt disputantes non jubentes, utique placerent, si priscos mores ferre possemus 
 , . ■. . Quantum fieri potest prologi evitentur, et lex incipiat a jussione."t 
 
 Had Plato lived to finish the ' ' Critias," a comparison between that noble fiction 
 and the *'New Atlantis" would probably have furnished us with still more 
 striking instances. It is amusing to think with what horror he would have 
 seen such an institution as Solomon's House rising in his republic ; with what 
 vehemence he would have ordered the brewhouses, the perfume-houses and 
 the dispensatories to be pulled down ; and with what inexorable rigour he 
 would have driven beyond the frontier all the Fellows of the College, 
 Merchants of Light and Depredators, Lamps and Pioneers. 
 
 -To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim' of the Platonic philosophy 
 was to exalt man into a god. The aim of the Baconian philosophy was to 
 provide man v/ith what he requires while he continues to be man. The aim of 
 the Platonic Philosophy was to raise us far above vulgar v/ants. The aim of 
 the Baconian philosophy was to supply our vulgar wants. The former aim was 
 noble; but the latter was attainable. Plato drew a good bow; but, like 
 Acestes in Virgil, he aimed at the stars,. and, therefore, though there was uo 
 want of strength or skill, the shot was thrown away. His arrow was indeed 
 followed by a track of dazzling radiance, but it struck nothing. 
 
 " Volans liquidis in riubibus arsit arundo 
 
 Signavitque viam flammis, tenuisque recessit 
 Consumta in ventos." 
 
 Bacon fixed his eye on a mark which was placed on the earth and within' bow- 
 shot, and hit it in the white. The philosophy of Plato began in words and 
 ended in words — noble words indeed — words such as were to be expected from 
 the finest of human intellects exercising boundless dominion over the finest of 
 human languages. The philosophy of Bacon began in observations and ended 
 in arts. 
 
 The boast of the ancient philosophers was, that their doctrine formed the 
 
 lb., Lib. 8, Cap. 3, Aph. 5. t De Augmentis, Lib. 8, Cap. 3, Aph. 69, 
 
LORD BACON. 423 
 
 minds of men to a high degree of wisdom and virtue. This was indeed the 
 only practical good which the most c<ftebrated of those teachers even pretended 
 to efifect ; and undoubtedly if they had effected this, they would have deserved 
 the greatest praise. But the truth is, that in those very matters in which alone 
 they professed to do any good to mankind, in those very matters for the sake 
 of which they neglected all the vulgar interests of mankind, they did nothing, 
 or worse than no^thin^. They promised what was impracticable ; they despised 
 what was practicable ; they filled the world with long words and long beards ; 
 and they left it as wicked and as ignorant as they found it. ^ 
 
 An acre in Middlesex is better than a principality in Utopia. The smallest 
 actual good is better than the most magnificent promises of impossibilities. 
 Th6 wise man of the Stoics would, no doubt, be a grander object than a steam- 
 engine. But there are steam-engines. And the wise man of the Stoics is yet 
 to be born. A philosophy which should enable a man to feel perfectly happy 
 while in agonies of pain would be better than a philosophy which assuages 
 pain. But we know that there are remedies which will assuage pain ; and we 
 know that the ancient sages liked the toothache just as little as their neighbours. 
 A philosophy which should extinguish cupidity would be better than a philoso- 
 phy which should devise laws for the security of property. But it is possible 
 to inake laws which shall, to a very great extent, secure property. And we. do 
 not understand how- any motives which the ancient philosophy furnished could 
 extinguish cupidity. We know, indeed, that the philosophers were no better 
 than other men. Frorh the testirr^ny of friends as well as of foes, from the 
 confessions of Epicitetus and Seneca, as well as from the sneers of Lucian and 
 the fierce invectives of Juvenal, it is plain that these teachers of virtue had all 
 the vices of their neiighbours, with the additional vice of hypocrisy. Some 
 people may think the object of the Baconian philosophy a low object, but they 
 cannot deny that, high or low, it has been attained. They cannot deny that 
 «very year makes^aa addition to what Bacon called "fruit." They cannot 
 tteri'y'that mankind have made, and are making, great and constant progress in 
 the road which he pointed out to them. Was there any such progressive 
 movement amotig the ancient philosophers ? After they had been declaiming 
 eight hundred years, had they made the world better than when they began ? 
 ■ Our belief is that, among the philosophers themselves, instead of a progres- 
 sive improvement there ^vas a progressive deg-'neracy. An abject superstition, 
 which Democritus oV Anaxagoras would ha", e rejected with scorn, added the 
 last disgrace to the long dotage of the Stoic and Platonic schools. Those un- 
 successful attempts to articulate, which are so delightful and interesting in a 
 child, shock and disglist in ah aged paralytic ; and, in the same way, those wild 
 and mythological fictions which charm us when we hear them lisped by Greek 
 poetry in its infancy, excite a mixed sensation of pity and loathing when 
 mumbled by Greek philosophy in its old age. We know that guns, cutler>-, 
 spy-glasses, clocks are better in our time than they were in the time of our 
 fathers, and were better in the time of our fathers than they were in the time 
 of our grandfathers. We might, therefore, be inclined to think that, when a 
 philosophy which boasted that its object was the elevation and purification of 
 the mind, and which for this object neglected the sordid office of ministering 
 to' the comforts of the body, had flourished in the highest honour for many 
 hundreds of years, a vast moral amelioration must have taken place. Was it 
 so ? Look at the schools of this wisdom four centuries before the Christian 
 era and four centuries after that era. Compare the men whom those schools 
 formed at those two periods. Compare Plato and Libanius. Compare 
 Pericles and Julian. This philosophy confessed, nay boasted, that for every 
 endbut one it was useless. Had it attained that one end ? 
 
424 LORD BAC0r4. 
 
 Suppose that Justinian, when he closed the schools of Athens, had called on 
 the last few sages who still haunted the Portico and lingered round the ancient 
 plane-trees to show their title to public veneration — suppose that he had said : 
 "A thousand years have elapsed since, in this famous city, vSocrates posed 
 Protagoras and Hippias ; during those thousand years a large proportion of 
 the ablest men of every generation has been employed in constant efforts to 
 bring to perfection the philosophy which you teach ; that philosophy has been 
 munificently patronised by the powerful ; its professors have been held in the 
 highest esteem by the pubHc ; it has drawn to itself almost all the sap and 
 vigour of the human intellect : and what has it effected ? What profitable 
 truth has it taught us which we should not equally have known without it ? 
 What has it enabled us to do which we should not have been equally able to 
 do without it ? " Such questions, we suspect, would have puzzled Simplicius 
 and Isidore. * Ask a follower of Bacon what the new philosophy, as it was 
 called in the time of Charles the Second, has effected for mankind, and his 
 answer is ready : "It has lengthened life ; it has mitigated pain ; it has 
 extinguished diseases ; it has increased the fertility of the soil ; it has given 
 new securities to the mariner ; it has furnished new arms to the warrior ; it 
 has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our 
 fathers ; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth ; it 
 nas lighted up the night with the splendour of the day ; it has extended the 
 range of the human vision ; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles ; 
 it has accelerated motion ; it has annihilated distance ; it has facilitated inter- 
 course, correspondence, all friendly offices, all despatch of business ; it has 
 enabled man to descend to the depths of the sea, to soar into the air, to 
 penetrate securely into the noxious recesses of the earth, to traverse the land 
 in cars which whirl along without horses, and the ocean in ships which sail 
 against the wind.. These are but a part of its fruits, and of its first fi-uits. For 
 it is a philosophy which never rests, which has never attained, which is never 
 perfect. Its law is progress. A point which yesterday was invisible is its goal 
 to-day and will be its starting-post to-morrow." 
 
 Great and various as the powers of Bacon were, he owes his wide and dur- 
 able fame chiefly to this, that all those powers received their direction from 
 common sense. Plis love of the vulgar useful, his strong sympathy with the 
 popular notions of good and evil, and the openness with which he avowed that 
 sympathy, are the secret of his influence. There was in his system no cant, 
 no illusion. He had no annointing for broken bones, no fine theories de finibus^ 
 no arguments to persuade men out of their senses. He knew that men, and 
 philosophers as well as other men, do actually love life, health, comfort, 
 honour, security, the society of friends ; and do actually dislike death, sick 
 ness, pain, poverty, disgrace, danger, separation from those to whom they are 
 attached. He knew that religion, though it often regulates and moderates 
 these feelings, seldom eradicates them ; nor did he think it desirable for man- 
 kind that they should be eradicated. The plan of eradicating them by con- 
 ceits like those of Seneca, or syllogisms like those of Chrysippus, was too 
 preposterous to be for a moment entertained by a mind like his. He did not 
 understand what wisdom there could be in changing names where it was im- 
 possible to change things — in denying that blindness, hunger, the gout, the 
 rack were evils, and calling them d-rroTrpo-^fieua — in refusing to acknowledge 
 that health, safety, plenty were good things, and dubbing them by the name 
 of ddtdd)opa. In his opinions on all these subjects, he was not a Stoic, nor an 
 Epicurean, nor an Academic, but what would have been called by Stoics, 
 Epicureans and Academics a mere idiibTTj? — a mere common man. And it 
 was precisely because he was so that his 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 
 dTTotrporffixevov. 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 irpos rovs Trju diropiav deooiKoras. 
 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 w^ords 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 
 m®ral philosophy ; and it cannot be denied that persons who read the " No\-um 
 Organum " and the *' De Augmentis," without adverting to the circumstances 
 under which those works were written, wall 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 theor}', 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, "earn esse opinionem sive sestimationem humidam et 
 damnosam, minui nempe majestatem mentis humanse, si in experimentis el 
 rebus particularibus, sensui subjectis, et in materia terminatis, diu ac multum 
 versetur : praesertim cum hujusmodi res ad inquirendum lalx>rios3e, ad meditan- 
 dum ignobiles, ad discendum asperae, ad practicam illiberales, nuniero infinite, 
 et subtilitate pusillte videri soleant, et ob hujusmodi conditiones, gloria artium 
 minus sint accommodatne."* This opinion seemed to him "omnia in familia 
 
 * Cogitata et Visa, The expression opinio humida may surprise a reader not accus- 
 tomed to Bacon's style. Tha allusion ic to the maxim of Heraclitus the obscure : " Dry 
 
426 LORD BACON. 
 
 humana turbasse. " It had undoubtedly caused many arts which were of the 
 greatest utiHty, and which were susceptible of the greatest improvements, to be 
 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 poin*t 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 
 enquiries 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 Geo>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 nnd the true — not the deluding dreams which go forth through the 
 shining portal of ivory, but the humbler realities of the gate of horn, f 
 
 True to this principal, he indulged in no rants about the fitness of things, 
 the all-sufiiciency 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."+ 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 the mists of passion, interest or prejudice. 
 
 * Novum Organum, Lib. i, Aph, J27. f De Augmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 3. 
 
 X De Augmentis, Lib. 7, Cap. 3. . . . 
 
Lord bacon, 427 
 
 discovering what are the actual effects produced on the human character by 
 particular modes of education, by tfTe 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 
 authority 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 evil passions, the consolation of the 
 wretched, the support of the timid, the hope of the dying. Piut 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 and Homoiousians, Monothelites and 
 Nfcstorians. He lived in an age in which disputes on the most subtle points 
 of di\nnity excited an intense interest throughout Europe ; and nowhere more 
 than in England. He 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. Yet 
 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 theology, the Baconian 
 school, like Alworthy seated between Square and Thwackum, preserved 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 dv/elt 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 conjuror. 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 imagine, is led by 
 induction 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 hd 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 ever conduct men to the disco- 
 very of any new principle ; had shown that such discoveries must be made by 
 
 ♦ lb., Lib. 7, Cap, 
 
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 
 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 
 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 Xhe C07nparentia ad infellectuni instantiartun 
 convenientiuvi . " I did not eat any on Tuesday and Friday, and I was quite 
 well." This is the comparentia insianiiartim in proximo qucz rtatitra data 
 privantzir. "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 comparentia in^ 
 staniiaruvi seainduni 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 naiurarurn. 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 prizrogativa: instantiarum. 
 For example : "It must be something peculiar to minced pies, for I can eat 
 any other pastry without the leas tbad 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 " Novum Organum," but 
 we think that Bacon greatly overrated its utility, ^^'e conceive that the in- 
 ductive process, 111*2 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 knpwn 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 will 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 
 littering 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 hanc vim 
 intelligo," said Cicero, "esse in praeceptis omnibus, non ut ea secuti oratores 
 eloquentiae laudem sint adepti, sed quse 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 k^st chapter of the Posterior Analytics and the first of the Metaphysics, 
 t De Oratore, Lib. i. 
 
LORD BACON. 429 
 
 same opinion concerning the study of Logic which Cicero entertained concern- 
 ing the study of Rhetoric. A man ofys'ense syllogises in ceia;\vi^ and cesare all 
 day long without suspecting it ; and, though he may not know what an ignoratio 
 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 V)e admired too highly. 
 But the more we compare individual with individual, school with school, nation 
 with nation, generation with generation, the more do we lean to the opinion 
 that the knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make 
 men good reasoners. 
 
 WTiat Aristotle did for the syllogistic process, Bacon has, in the second book 
 of the " Novum 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 " Novum Organum," some men perform it well and some per- 
 form it ill. Some are led by it to truth and some to error. It led Franklin to 
 discover the nature of lightning. It led thousands, who had less brains than 
 Franklin, to believe in animal magnetism. But this was not because Franklin 
 went through the process described by Bacon and the dupes of Mesmer through 
 a different process. The coniparennce and rejectiones of which we have given 
 examples will be found in the mdst unsound inductions. We have heard that 
 an eminent judge of the last generation was in the habit of jocosely propound- 
 ing after dinner a theory, that the cause of the prevalence of Jacobinism was the 
 practice of bearing three names. He quoted on the one side Charles James 
 P'ox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, John Home Toke, John Philpot Curran, 
 Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Theobald Wolfe Tone. These were instantice 
 convenientes. He then proceeded to cite instances absentia: in proximo^ 
 William Pitt, John Scott, William Windham, Samuel Horsley, Henry Dundas, 
 Edmund Burke. He might have gone on to instances secundum magis et 
 minus. The practice of giving children three names has been for some time a 
 growing practice, and Jacobinism has also been growing. The practice of giving 
 children three names is more common in America than in England. In Eng- 
 land we still have a king and a House of Lords ; but the Americans are 
 republicans. The rejectiones are obvious. Burke and Theobald Wolfe Tone 
 were both Irishmen ; therefore the being an Irishman is not the cause of 
 Jacobinism. Horsley and Horn Tooke are both clergymen ; therefore 
 the being a clergyman is not the cause of Jacobinism. Fox ?ind Windham 
 were both educated at Oxford ; therefore the being educated at Oxford is not 
 the cause of Jacobinism. Pitt and Home Tooke were both educated at 
 Cambridge ; therefore the being educated at Cambridge is not the cause of 
 Jacobinism. In this way, our Inductive philosopher arrives at what Bacon 
 calls the Vintage^ and pronounces that the having three names is the cause of 
 Jacobinism. 
 
 Here is an induction corresponding with Bacon's analysis and ending in a 
 monstrous absurdity. In what, then, does this induction differ from the 
 induction which leads us to the conclusion that the presence of the sun is the 
 cause of our having more light by day than by night ? The difference evi- 
 dently is not in the kind of instances, but in the number of instances ; that is 
 to say, the difference is not in that part of the process for which Bacon has 
 given precise rules, but in a circumstance for which no precise rule can possibly 
 be given. If the learned author of the theory about Jacobinism had enlarged 
 either of his tobies a little, his system would have been destroyed. The 
 
430 J^ORD BACON. 
 
 names of Tom Payne and William Wyndham Grenville would have been 
 sufficient to do the work. 
 
 ^ It appears to us, then, that the difference between a sound and an unsound in- 
 duction, or, to use the Baconian phraseology, between the interpretation of na- 
 ture and the anticipation of nature, does not lie in this — that the interpreter of 
 nature goes through the process analysed in the second book of the "Novum 
 Organum " and the anticipator through a different process. Now, precepts can 
 do little towards making men patient and attentive and still less towards making 
 them sagacious and judicious. It is very well to tell men to be on their guard 
 against prejudices, not to believe facts on slight evidence, not to be content with a 
 scanty collection of facts, to put out of their minds the idola which Bacon has 
 so finely decribed. But these rules are too general to be of much practical use. 
 The question is What is a prejudice ? How long does the incredulity with 
 which I hear a new theory propounded continue to be a wise and salutary 
 incredulity ? When does it become an idohnn specus, the unreasonable pertin- 
 acity of a too sceptical mind ? What is slight evidence ? What collection of 
 facts is scanty ? Will ten instances do, or fifty, or a hundred ? In how many 
 months would the first human beings who settled on the shores of the ocean 
 have been justified in believing that the moon had an influence on the tides? 
 After how many experiments would Jenner have been justified in believing that 
 he had discovered a safeguard against the small pox ? These are questions to 
 which it would be most desirable to have a precise answer ; - but, unhappily., 
 they are questions to which no precise answe/ can be returned. 
 
 We think, then, that it is possible to lay down accurate rules, as Bacon has 
 done, for the performance of that part of the inductive process which all men 
 perform alike ; but that these rules, though accurate, are not wanted because 
 in truth they only tell us to do what we are all doing. We think that it is im- 
 possible to lay down any precise rule for the performing of that pant of the 
 inductive process which a great experimental philosopher performs in one 
 way and a superstitious old woman in another. 
 
 On this subject, we think, Bacon was in an error. He certainly attributed 
 to his rules a value which did not belong to them. He went so far as to say 
 that, if his method of making discoveries were adopted, little -would depend 
 on the degree of force or acuteness of any intellect ; that all minds would 
 be reduced to one level ; that his philosophy resembled a compass or a rule 
 which equalises all hands, and enables the most unpractised person to draw a' 
 more correct circle or line than the best draftsmen can produce without such 
 aid.* This really seems to us as extravagant as it would have been in 
 Lindley Murray to announce that everybody who should learn his Grammar 
 would write as good English as Dryden ; or in that very able writer, Dr. 
 Whately, to promise that all the readers of his " Logic " would reason like 
 Chilling worth, and that all the readers of his "Rhetoric" would speak like Burke. 
 That Bacon was altogether mistaken as to this point will now hardly be dis- 
 puted. His philosophy has flourished during two hundred years, and has 
 produced none of this levelling. The interval between a man of talents and a 
 dunce is as wide as ever ; and is never more clearly discernible than when they 
 engage in reseai-ches which require the constant use of induction. «. - 
 
 It will be seen that w^e do not consider Bacon's ingenious analysis of the 
 itiductive method as a very useful performance. Bacon was not, as we have 
 already said, the inventor of the inductive method. He was not even the 
 person who first analysed the inductive method correctly, though he undoubt- 
 edly analysed it more minutely than any who preceded him. He was not the 
 
 * Novum Organum, Praef. and Lib. i, Aph. i2«. 
 
m/iDSAmN, 
 
 person: who first showed .that by th§ inductive method alone new truth could 
 be discovered. But he was the person who first turned the minds of specu- 
 lative men, long occupied in verbal disputes, to the discovery of new truth ; 
 and, by doing,so,he at once gave to the inductive method an importance and 
 dignity which had never before belonged to it. He was not the maker of that 
 road ; he was not the discoverer of. that road ; he was not the person who first 
 surveyed and mapped that road. But he was the person who first called the 
 public attention to an inexhaustible mine of wealth, which had been utterly 
 neglected, and wliich wis accessible by that road alone. By doing so he 
 caused that road, which had previously been trodden only by; peasants and 
 higglers, to be frequented by a higher class of travellers. ; , _, 
 
 That which w^as eminently his own in his system was the end which he pro- 
 posed to himself. The end being given, the means, as it appears to us, could 
 not w-ell be mistaken. If others had aimed at the same object with Bajcon, we 
 hold it to be certain that they would have employed the same method with 
 Bacon. It would have been hard to convince Seneca that the inventing of a 
 safety-lamp was an employment worthy of a philosopher. It would have been 
 hard to persuade Thomas Aquinas to descend from the making of syllogisms to 
 the making of gunpowder. But Seneca would never have doubted for a 
 moment that it was only by means of a series of experiments that a safety-lamp 
 could be invented. Thomas Aquinas would never have thought that his 
 barbara. and baraliptoft would enable him to ascertain the proportion which 
 charcoal ought to bear to saltpetre in a pound of gunpowder. Neither common 
 sense nor Aristotle would have suffered him to fall into such an absurdity. 
 
 By stimulating men to the discovery of new truth, Bacon stimulated them to 
 employ the inductive method, the only method — even the ancient philpsophers 
 and the schoolmen themselves being judges — by which new truth can be dis- 
 covered. By stimulating men to the discovery of useful truth, he furnished 
 them with a motive to perform the inductive process well and carefully. His 
 predecessors had been anticipators of nature. They had been content with 
 first principles, at which they- had arriyed by the most scanty and slovenly 
 induction. .Vnd why was this ? It was, we conceive, because their philosophy 
 proposed to itself no practical end, because it was merely an exercise of the 
 mind. A man who wants to contrive a new machine or a new medicine has a 
 strong motive to observe accurately and patiently, and to try experiment after 
 experiment. But a man who merely wants a theme for disputation or declama- 
 tion has no such motive. He is therefore content with premises grounded on 
 assumption, or on the most scanty and hasty induction. Thus, we conceive, 
 the schoolmen acted. On their foolish premises they often argued with great 
 ability; and as their object was ^'- ascenstim suhjugare, non res"* to be 
 victorious in controversy, not to be victorious over nature, they were consistent. 
 For just as much logical skill could be shown in reasoning on false as on true 
 premises. But the followers of the new philosophy, proposing to themselves 
 the discovery of useful truth as their object, must have altogether failed of 
 attaining that object if they had been content to build theories on superficial 
 induction. .. ■ - ! 
 
 Bacpn has remarkedf that in all ages, when philosophy was stationary, the 
 mechanical arts went on improving. Why was this ? Evidently because the 
 mechanic was not conterit with so careless a mode of induction as served the 
 purpose of the philosopher; And why was the philosopher more easily satisfied 
 than the mechanic? J-Cyidently because the object of the mechanic was to 
 mould things, whilst the object of the philosopher was only to mould words. 
 
 ' Novum Organum, Li]}, i.Aph. 29, I De Augmentis, Lib. i, 
 
432 LORD BACON. 
 
 Careful induction is not at all necessary to the making of a good syllogism. 
 But it is indispensable to the making of a good shoe. Mechanics, therefore, 
 have always been, as far as the range of their humble but useful callings 
 extended, not anticipators, but interpreters of nature. And when a philosophy 
 arose, the object of which was to do on a large scale what the mechanic does 
 on a small scale — to extend the power and to supply che wants of man — the 
 truth of the premises, which logically is a matter altogether unimportant, 
 became a matter of the highest importance ; and the careless induction with 
 which men of learning had previously been satisfied gave place, of necessity, 
 to an induction far more accurate and satisfactory. 
 
 What Bacon did for inductive philosophy may, we think, be fairly stated 
 thus. The objects of preceding speculators were objects which could be 
 attained without careful induction. Those speculators, therefore, did not per- 
 form the inductive process carefully. Bacon stirred up men to pursue an 
 object which could be attained only by induction, and by induction carefully 
 performed ; and consequently induction was more carefully performed. We do 
 not think that the importance of what Bacon did for inductive philosophy has 
 ever been overrated. But we think that the nature of his services is often mis- 
 taken, and was not fully understood even by himself. It was not by furnishing 
 philosophers with rules, nor performing the inductive process well, but by 
 furnishing them with a motive for performing it well, that he conferred so vast 
 a benefit on society. " . 
 
 To give to the human mind a direction which it shall retain for ages is the 
 rare prerogative of a few imperial spirits. It cannot, therefore, be uninteresting 
 to inquire what was the moral and intellectual constitution which enabled 
 Bacon to exercise so vast an influence on the world. 
 
 In the temper of Bacon — we speak of Bacon the philosopher, not of Bacon 
 the lawyer and politician — there was a singular union of audacity and sobriety. 
 The promises which he made to mankind might, to a superficial reader, seem 
 to resemble the rants which a great dramatist has put into the mouth of an 
 Oriental conqueror half-crazed by good fortune and by violent passions. 
 
 " He shall have chariots easier than air, 
 Which I will have invented ; and thyself, 
 That art the messenger, shall ride before him 
 On a horse cut out of an entire diamond. 
 That shall be made to go with golden wheels, 
 I know not how yet." 
 
 But Bacon performed what he promised. In truth, Fletcher would not have 
 dared to make Arbaces promise, in his wildest fits of excitement, the tithe of 
 what the Baconian philosophy has performed. 
 
 The true philosophical temperament may, we think, be described in four 
 words — much hope, little faith ; a disposition to believe that anything, however 
 extraordinary, may be done ; an indisposition to believe that anything extraordi- 
 nary has been done. In these points the constitution of Bacon's mind seems to 
 to us to have been absolutely perfect. He was at once the Mammon and the Surly 
 of his friend Ben. Sir Epicure did not indulge in visions more magnificent and 
 gigantic. Surly did not sift evidence with keener and more sagacious in- 
 credulity. 
 
 Closely connected with this peculiarity of Bacon's temper was a striking 
 peculiarity of his understanding. With great minuteness of observation, he 
 had an amplitude of comprehension such as has never yet been vouchsafed 
 tc any other human being. The small, fine mind of Labruy^re had not a 
 more delicate tact than the large intellect of Bacon. The "Essays'' 
 contain abundant proofs that no nice feature of character, no peGuli^rity in 
 
LORD BACON, 
 
 433 
 
 the ordering of a house, a garden, or^a court-mascjue could escape the 
 noiice of one whose mind was capable of taking in the whole world of 
 knowledge. His understanding resembled the tent which the fairy Paribanou 
 gave to Prince Ahmed. P'old it ; and it seemed a toy for the hand of a 
 lady. Spread it ; and the armies of powerful Sultans might repose beneath its 
 shade. 
 
 In keenness of observation he has been equalled, thoughj^perhaps, never 
 surpassed. But the largeness of his mind was all his own. The glance with 
 which he surveyed the intellectual universe resembled that which the 
 Archangel, from the golden threshold of heaven, darted down into the new 
 creation. 
 
 " Round he surveyed— and well might, where he stood 
 
 So high above the circling canopy 
 
 Of night's extended shade— from eastern point 
 
 Of Libra, to the fleecy star which bears 
 
 Andromeda far o£F Atlantic seas 
 
 Beyond the horizon." 
 
 His knowledge differed from that of other men as a terrestrial globe differs 
 from an Atlas which contains a different country on every leaf. The towns and 
 roads of England, France and Germany are better laid down in the Atlas than 
 on the globe. But while we are looking at England we see nothing of P'rance ; 
 and while v/e are looking at France we see nothing of Germany. We may 
 go to the Atlas to learn the bearings and distances of York and Bristol, or of 
 Dresden and Prague. But it is useless if we want to know the bearings and 
 distances of France and Martinique, or of England and Canada. On the globe 
 we shall not find all the market towns in our own neighbourhood ; but we shall 
 learn from it the comparative extent and the relative position of all the king- 
 doms of the earth. " I have taken," said Bacon, in a letter written when he 
 was only thirty-one to his uncle Lord Burleigh, ' ' I have taken all knowledge 
 to be my province." In any other young man, indeed in any other man, this 
 would have been a ridiculous flight of presumption. There have been thou- 
 sands of better mathematicians, astronomers, chemists, physicians, botanists, 
 mineralogists than Bacon. No man would go to Bacon's works to learn any 
 particular science or art, any more than he would go to a twelve-inch globe in 
 order to find his way from Kennington turnpike to Clapham Common. The art 
 which Bacon taught was the art of inventing arts. The knowledge in which 
 Bacon excelled all men was a knowledge of the mutual relations of all depart- 
 ments of knowledge. 
 
 The mode in which he communicated his thoughts was exceedingly peculiar. 
 He had no touch of that disputatious temper which he often censured in his 
 predecessors. He effected a vast intellectual revolution in opposition to a vast 
 mass of prejudices ; yet he never engaged in any controversy ; nay, we cannot 
 at present recollect, in all his philosophical works, a single passage of a con- 
 troversial character. All those works might with propriety have been put into 
 the form which he adopted in the work entitled '* Cogitata et Visa," •' PVanciscus 
 Baconus sic cogitavit. " These are thoughts which have occured to me ; weigh 
 them well, and take them or leave them. 
 
 Borgia said of the famous expedition of Charles the Eighth, that the French 
 had conquered Italy, not with steel, but with chalk ; for that the only exploit 
 which they had found necessary for the purpose of taking mihtai^/ occupation 
 of any place had been to mark the doors of the houses where they meant to 
 quarter. Bacon often quoted this saying, and loved to apply it to the victories 
 of his own intellect. * His philosophy, he said, came as a guest, not as an 
 
 Novum Orgwum, Mb, i, ApU. 35i w4 elsewhere, 
 
a 
 
 LO^RD BACON, 
 
 er^einy. She. found no difficulty in gaining admittance, without a contest, into 
 pVery- uiidetstanding fitted, by its structure and by its capacity, to receive her. 
 In all'this we think that he acted most judiciously ; first, because, as he himself 
 re]:parked, the difference between his school and other schools was a differtnce 
 so fundamental that there was hardly any common ground on which a contro- 
 versial battle colrld be fought; and, secondly, because' his mind, ernin^ntly 
 observant, pre-eminently discursive and capacious, was, we conceive^ neither 
 Formed by nature nor disciplined by habit for dialectical combat. 
 ['■.Though Bacon did not arm his philosophy with the wea^CnS of' logic, he 
 aclorned her profusely with all the richest decorations of ' rhetoric. His 
 eloquence, thotigh not untainted with the vicious taste of his age, would alone 
 have entitled him to a high rank in literature. He had a wonderful talent for 
 packing thought close and rendering it portable. In wit, if by wit be meant 
 the power of perceiving analogies between things which appear to have nothing 
 in common, he never had an equal, not even Cowley, not even the author ot 
 *' Hudibras." Indeed, he possessed this faculty, or rather this faculty possessed 
 him, to a morbid degree. When he abandoned himself to it without reserve, 
 as-he did in the "Sapienta Veterum" and at the end of the second book of the 
 *'De Augmentis," the feats which he performed were not merely admirable, 
 but pertentious, and almost shocking. On those occasions we marvel at him 
 as clowns on a fair-day marvel at a juggler, and can hardly help thinking that 
 the dfevil must be in him. ,' 
 
 ■' These, h»Wever, -were freaks in which his ingenuity now and then wantoned 
 with scarcely any other object than to astonish and amuse.' But it occasionally 
 happened that, when he was engaged in grave and profound investigations, 
 his wit obtained the mastery over all his other faculties and led him into 
 absurdities into which no dull man could possibly have fallen. We will give 
 the "ntost striking instance which at present occurs to us; In the third book of 
 tile " 'De' Augmentis " hetells us that there are some principles which are not 
 peculiar to one science, but are common to several. That part of philosophy 
 which concerns itself with these- principles is, in his nomenclature, designated 
 as philcsophia prima. ■ He then proceeds to mention some of the principles 
 with which this, philosophia prima is conversant. One of them is this. 
 An infectious disease is more likely to be communicated while it is in 
 process than when it has reached its height. This, says he, is true in 
 medicine. It is also true in morals ; for we see that the example of very 
 abandoned men injures public morality less than the example of men in whom 
 vic» has not yet extinguished all good qualities. Again, he tells us that in 
 nlusic a discord ending in a concord is agreeable, and that the same thing may 
 be' noted in the affections. Once more, he tells us, that in physics the energy 
 with which a principle acts is often increased by the antiperistasis of its opposite, 
 and that it is the same in the contests of factions. If this be indeed the 
 philcsophia prima, we are quite sure that the greatest philosophical work of the 
 nineteenth century is Mr. Moore's " Lalla Rookh. " The similitudes which 
 we have cited are very happy similitudes.' But that a man like Bacon should 
 have taken them for more, that he should have thought the discovery of such 
 resemblances as these an important part of philosophy, has always appeared to' 
 us brie of the most singular facts in the history of letters. ■ ■ 
 
 The truth is, that his mind was wonderfully quick in perceiving analogies ot 
 aw siOrts. But, like several eminent men whom we could name, both living 
 dnd'-dea'd, he sometimes appeared strangely deficient in the power of dis- 
 tingtiishing rational from fanciful analogies ; analogies which are arguments from 
 Ahafogies which are mere illustrations ; analogies like that which Bishop Butler 
 so ably pointed out between natvifjalan^ religion from analogies like 
 
LORD BACOA\ ^ 
 
 that which Addison discovered between the series of Grecian Gods tarved by 
 Phidias and the series of Enghsh kings panted by Kneller. Thif 'waiVt idf dis- 
 crimination has led to many strange pohtical speculations. 'Sir ' Wilham 
 Tqiiplc deduced a theory of government from the properties of the pyramid. 
 Mr. Southey's whole system of finance is grounded, on the phenbmena of 
 evaporation and rain. In theology, this perverted ingenuity 'has' made still 
 wilder work. From the tinie of Irenceus and Origen down 'to the present da}', 
 there has not been a single generation in which great divines 'have not been^led 
 into the most absurd expositions of Scripture by mere incapacity to distinguis^-i 
 analogies proper, to use the scliolastic phrase, from analogies metaphorical;* 
 It is curious that Bacon has himself mentioned this very kind of delusion afnong 
 the iJola speais, and has mentioned it in language which, we 'are- inclined- -to 
 think, indicates that he knew himself to be subject to it. It is the tnce, he 
 tells us, of subtle minds to attach too much importance to slight distinctioii^ ; 
 it is the vice, on the other hand, of high and discuirsive intellects to attach^f6o 
 much importance to slight resei^blanceS ^ and, he adds, that when i thi^/la*?t 
 propensity is indulged to excess, it leads men to catch at shadows in^HeacF'bf 
 substances. t ' ' •■■■.. «•;( 
 
 Yet we cannot wish that Bacon's wit had been less luxuriant. For-^tc? ^iy 
 nothing of the, pleasure which it aftbrds— it was in the vast majority of cases 
 employed for the purpose of making obscure truth plainT-of making repulsive 
 truth attractive — of fixing in the mind for evef;ti^th\\vhidh- might othef^fee 
 have left but a transient impression. ' ', i^'-"''r^ '■■'■ f'-' ^' ' '■ Ji C'' I'.^'yy^r. 
 
 The poetical faculty was powerful in Bacon's mind, bi'itnot, likd his wit,- *;o 
 powerful as occasionally to usurp the place of his reason and to tyrannise 
 oyer the whole ina'n. No imagination was ever at oiice so strong and-'so 
 thoroughly subjugated. It never stirred but at a signal from good sens'e,"' It 
 stopped at the first check froni good. sense. Yet, though disciplined to'stVch 
 obedience, it gave noble proofs of its vigour. In truth, much of BaconVfife 
 was passed in a visionary world — amidst things as strange 'as any that- are 
 described in the "Arabian Tales," or in those romances on \vhich the curate 
 and barber of Don Quixote's village performed so criiel an attto-dc-fc^kvLixd^i 
 buildings more sumptuous than the palace of Aladdin— fountains more WiHd^r- 
 ful than the golden water ofParizade — conveyances more ", rapid t^iW^;! *^he 
 liippogryph of Ruggiero — anns more formidable than the lance of A^rlpHH^ 
 remedies more efficacious than the balsam of P'ierabras. Yet.in his raajfnjf'- 
 cent day-dreams there was nothing wild— nothing but what; sobef feasou 
 sanctioned. He knew that all the secrets, feigned by poet.^ to'/^ia^-e'licen 
 written in the books of enchanters, are worthiest when compared with'tfie 
 mighty secrets which are really written in the book of nature, and -v^hic'h, with 
 time and patience, will be read there. He knew that all the wonders wrought 
 by all the talismans in fable wei^e trifles when'comparcd to i:he' wonders ■v>*hich 
 Height reasonably be expected from the philosophy oi Jruit ; and' thdt, if 'his 
 words sank deep into the minds of men, they w'ould produce effects such' as 
 superstition had never ascribed to the incantations of Kferhn and Michael Stott. 
 It was here that he loved to let his imagination loose. He loved to .pictirij(9>to 
 himself the world as it would be when his philosophy should, in his own "noble 
 phrase, " have enlarged the bounds of human empire.' X We might referto 
 many instances. But we will content ourselves with the strongest, llie descrip- 
 tion of the House of Solomon in the " New Atlantis." By most of' Bacon 'i 
 contemporaries, a,nd by some people of our time, this remarkable passage 
 
 ^ See some intpresting ' remarks ,bh this, stibject in Bishop ty^ikeley's Minat6 Philo- 
 sopher, Dialogue IV. r w..-: ;;,,<•. J w ■ iv-^^s:.-:]-. 
 \ Novum Organum, Lib. i. Aph. 55. % New Atlantis. 
 
43« LORD BACON. 
 
 would, we doubt not, be' considered as an ingenious rodomontade, a counterpart 
 to the adventures of wSindbad or Baron Munchausen. The truth is, that there is 
 not to be found in anyjhuman composition a passage more eminently distinguished 
 by profound and serene wisdom. The boldness and originality of the fiction is 
 far less wonderful than the nice discernment which carefully excluded from 
 that long list of prodigies everything that can be pronounced impossible, every- 
 thing that can be proved to lie beyond the mighty magic of induction and time. 
 Already some parts, and not the least startling parts, of this glorious prophecy 
 have been accomplished, even according to the letter ; and the whole, construed 
 according to the spirit, is daily accomplishing all around us. 
 
 One of the most remarkable circumstances in the history of Bacon's mind is 
 the order in which its powers expanded themselves. With him the fruit came 
 first and remained till the last ; the blossoms did not appear till late. In 
 general, the development of the fancy is to the development of the judgment 
 what the growth of a girl is to the growth of a boy. The fancy attains at an 
 earlier period to the perfection of its beauty, its power and its fruitfulness ; and, 
 as it is first to ripen, it is also first to fade. It has generally lost something of 
 its bloom and freshness before the sterner faculties have reached maturity, and 
 is commonly withered and barren while those faculties still retain all their 
 energy. It rarely happens that the fancy and judgment grow together. It 
 happens still more rarely that the judgment grows faster than the fancy. This 
 seems, however, to have been the case with Bacon. His boyhood and youth 
 appear to have been singularly sedate. His gigantic scheme of philosophical 
 reform is said by some writers to have been planned before he was fifteen, and 
 was undoubtedly planned while he was still young. He observed as vigilantly, 
 meditated as deeply and judged as temperately when he gave his first work to 
 the world as at the close of his long career. But in eloquence, in sweetness 
 and variety of expression, and in richness of illustration, his later writings are 
 far superior to those of his youth. In this respect the history of his mind bears 
 some resemblance to the hfetory of the mind of Burke. The treatise on the 
 "Sublime and Beautiful," though written on a subject which the coldest 
 metaphysician could hardly treat without being occasionally betrayed into 
 florid writing, is the most unadorned of all Burke's works. It appeared when 
 he was twenty-five or twenty-six. When, at forty, he wrote the " Thoughts on 
 the Causes of the existing Discontents," his reason and his judgment had 
 reached their full maturity, but his eloquence was still in its splendid dawn. 
 At fifty, his rhetoric was quite as rich as good taste would permit ; and when 
 he died, at almost seventy, it had become ungracefully gorgeous. In his youth 
 he wrote on the emotions produced by mountains and cascades, by the master- 
 pieces of painting and sculpture, by the faces and necks of beautiful women, in 
 the style of a Parliamentary report. In his old age he discussed treaties and 
 tariffs in the most fervid and brilliant language of romance. It is strange that 
 the essay on the *' Sublime and Beautiful " and the " Letter to a Noble Lord " 
 should be the production of one man. But it is far more strange that the 
 essay should have been a production of his youth and the letter of his old 
 age. 
 
 We will give very short specimens of Bacon's two styles. In 1597, he wrote 
 thus : — '* Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise 
 men use them ; for they teach not their own use ; that is a wisdom without 
 them, and won by observation. Read not to contradict, nor to believe, but to 
 weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and 
 some few to be chewed and digested. Reading maketh a full man, conference 
 a ready man, and writing an exact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, 
 he had need have a great memory ; if he confer little, have a present wit ; and 
 
LORD BACOM. 437 
 
 if he read little, have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. 
 Histories make men wise, poets witty/' the mathematics subtle, natural 
 philosophy deep, morals grave, logic and rhetoric able to contend." It will 
 hardly be disputed that this is a passage to be " chewed and digested." We 
 do not believe that Thucydides himself has anywhere compressed so much 
 thought into so small a space. 
 
 In the additions which Bacon afterwards made to the "Essays," there is 
 nothing superior in truth or weight to what we have quoted. But his style was 
 constantly becoming richer and softer. The following passage, first published 
 in 1625, will show the extent of the change : — "Prosperity is the blessing of the 
 Old Testament ; adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater 
 benediction and the clearer evidence of God's favour. Yet, even in the Old 
 Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like 
 airs as carols ; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in des- 
 cribing the afflictions of job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not 
 without many fears and distastes ; and adversity is not without comforts and 
 hopes. We see in needleworks and embroideries it is more pleasing to have a 
 lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy 
 work upon a lightsome ground. Judge therefore of the pleasure of the heart 
 by the pleasure of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most 
 fragrant when they are incensed or crushed ; for prosperity doth best discover 
 vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. 
 
 It is by the " Essays" that Bacon is best known to the multitude. The 
 " Novum Organum " and the " De Augmentis " are much talked of, but little 
 read. They have produced indeed a vast effect on the opinions of mankind ; 
 but they have produced it through the operation of intermediate agents. 
 They have moved the intellects which have moved the world. It is in the 
 " Essays " alone that the mind of Bacon is brought into immediate contact with 
 the minds of ordinary readers. There he opens an exoteric school, and talks 
 to plain men, in language which everybody understands, about things in 
 which everybody is interested. He has thus enabled those who must other- 
 wise have taken his merits on trust to judge for themselves ; and the great 
 body of readers have, during several generations, acknowledged that the man 
 who has treated with such consummate ability questions with which they are 
 familiar, may well be supposed to deserve all the praise bestowed on him by 
 those who have sat in his inner school. 
 
 Without any disparagement to the admirable treatise, " De Augmentis," we 
 must say that, in our judgment, Bacon's greatest performance is the first book 
 of the "Novum Organum." All the peculiarities of his extraordinary mind 
 are found there in the highest perfection. Many of the aphorisms, but parti- 
 cularly those in which he gives examples of the influence of the idolay show a 
 nicety of observation that has never been surpassed. Every part of the book 
 blazes with wit, but with wit which is employed only to illustrate and decorate 
 truth. No book ever made so great a revolution in the mode of thinking — 
 overthrew so many prejudices — introduced so many new opinions. Yet no 
 book was ever written in a less contentious spirit. It truly conquers with 
 chalk and not with steel. Proposition after proposition enters into the mind — 
 is received not as an invader, but as a welcome friend — and, though previously 
 unknown, becomes at once domesticated. But what we most admire is the 
 vast capacity of that intellect which, without effort, takes in at once all the 
 domains of science — all the past, the present and the future — all the errors of 
 two thousand years — all the encouraging signs of the passing times — all the 
 bright hopes of the coming age. Cowley, who was among the most ardent, 
 and not among the least discerning followers of the new philosophy, has. 
 
438 LORD BACON. 
 
 in one of his finest poems, compared Bacon to Moses standing on Mount 
 Pisgah. It is to Bacon, we think, as he appears in the first book of the 
 '* Novum Organum," that the comparison applies with peculiar felicity. 
 There we see the great Lawgiver looking round from his lonely elevation on 
 an infinite expanse ; behind him a wilderness of dreary sands and bitter 
 waters in which successive generations have sojourned, always moving, yet 
 never advancing, reaping no harvest and building no abiding city ; before 
 hiiTi a goodly land, a land of promise, a land flowing with milk and honey. 
 While the multitude below saw only the flat, sterile desert in which they had 
 so long wandered, bounded on every side by a near horizon, or diversifiisd 
 only by some deceitful mirage, he was gazing from a far higher stand on a 
 far lovelier country — following with his eye the long course of fertilising rivers 
 through ample' pastures and under the bridges of great capitals — measuring 
 the distances of marts and havens — and portioning out all those wealthy regions 
 from Dan to Beersheba. 
 
 It is painful to' turn back from contemplating Bacon's philosophy to contem- 
 plate his life. Yet, without so turning back, it is impossible fairly to estimate 
 his powers. He left the University at an earlier age than that at which most 
 people repair thither. While yet a boy he was plunged into the midst of 
 diplomatic business. Thence he passed to the study of a vast technical system 
 of law, and worked his way up through a succession of laborious offices to the 
 highest post in his profession. In the meantime he took an active part in 
 every Parliament ; he was an adviser of the crown ; he paid court with the 
 greatest assiduity and address to all whose favour was likely to be of use to 
 him ; he lived much in society ; he noticed the slightest peculiarities of cha- 
 racter and the slightest changes of fashion. Scarcely any man has led a more 
 stirring life than that which Bacon led from sixteen to sixty. Scarcely any 
 man has been better entitled to be called a thorough man of the world. The 
 fovmding of a new philosophy, the iijiparting of a new diredtion to the minds 
 of speculators — this was the amusement of his leisure, the work of hours occa- 
 sionally stolen from the Woolsack and the Council Board. This consideration, 
 while it increases the admiration with which we regard his intellect, increases 
 also our regret that such an intellect should so often have been unworthily 
 employed. He well knew the better course, and had, at one time, resolved 
 to pursue it. "I confess,"' said he, in a letter written when he was still young, ' 
 " that I have as vast contemplative ends as I have moderate civil ends." Had 
 his civil ends continued to be moderate, he would have been, not only the 
 Moses, but the Joshua of philosophy. He would have lulfilled a large part of 
 his own magnificent predictions. He would have led his- followers, not only 
 to the verge, but into the heart of the promised land. He would not merely 
 have pbinted out, but would have divided the spoil. Above all, he would have • 
 left, not only a great, but a spotless name. Mankind would then have b^en 
 able to esteem their illustrious benefactor. We should not then be compelled 
 to regard his character with mingled contempt and admiration — with mingled " 
 aversion and gratitude. We should not then regret that there should be -so 
 many proofs of the narrowness and selfishness of 'a heart, the benevolence of 
 which was yet large enough to take in all races and all ages. We should not 
 then have to blush for the disingenuousness of the most devoted worshipper of 
 speculative truth — for the servility of the boldest champion of intellectual free- 
 dom. We should not then have seen the same man at one time far in the vati 
 and at another time far in the rear of his generation. We should not then be 
 forced to own that he who first treated legislation as a science was among the 
 last Englishmen who used the rack — that he who first summoned philosophers 
 
.S7A' WILLIAM TEMPLE. f|9 
 
 tG^fthe. great work of interpreting nature^as among the last Englishmen who 
 ^(?ld justice. • And we should copclude our survey of a life, placidly, honour- 
 ably, beneliciently passed "in industrious observations, grounded conclusions, 
 and profitable inventions and discoveries," * with feelings very different from 
 those with which we now turn away from the chequered spectacle of so much 
 glory and so much shame. ; ; ■' 
 
 SIR WILLIAM TBMPLR (October, 1838.) 
 
 r tUc Life, Works and Correspondence 0/ Sir ■ Vf(illiam Temple. 
 Hon, Thomas Peijegrine CouRTENAV. 2 vols.", 8voi London, 1836. 
 
 Mr.' Gourtenay has long been well known to politicians as an industrious 
 .ind useful official man, and as an upright and consistent member of Par- 
 liament. He has been one of the most moderate, and, at the same time, 
 one of the least pliant, members of the Conservative party. His conduct 
 has, on some questions, been so Whiggish, that both those who applauded 
 and those who condemned it have questioned his claim to be considered as 
 a Tory. But his Toryism, such as it is, he has held fist through all changes 
 of fortune and fashion ; and he has at last retired from public life, leaving 
 behind him, to the best of our belief, no personal enemy, and carrying 
 with him. the respect and ^gbodwU of many who strongly dissent from his 
 opinions. ' '^■''■• 
 
 iiThis book, the fruit of Mr, Courtenay's leisure, is introduced by a preface 
 in:. which he informs us that the assistance furnished to him from various 
 quarters "has taught him the superiority of literature to politics for de- 
 veloping the kindlier feelings and conducing to an agreeable life." We are 
 truly glad that Air. Courtenay is so well satisfied with his new employment, 
 and we heartily congratulate him on having been driven by events to make 
 an exchange which, advantageous as it is, few people make while they can 
 avoid it. He has little reason, in our opinion, to envy any of those who are 
 still engaged in a pursuit from which, at most, they can only expect that, by 
 relinquishing liberal studies and social pleasures — by passing nights without 
 sleep and summers without one glimpse of the beauty of nature — they may 
 attain that laborious, that invidious, that closely watched slavery which is 
 mocked by the name of power. ■ •'■'* >'•-' fi"---;< ■"■ 
 
 The volumes before us are fairly entitled' 't«)<fthe'fHffii^'©f diligence, care, 
 good sense and impartiality ; and these qualities are sufficient to make a book 
 valuable, but not quite sufficient to make it readable. Mr. Courtenay has not 
 sufficiently studied the arts of selection and compression. The information 
 with which he furnishes us must still, we apprehend, be considered as so much 
 raw material. To manufacturers it will be highly usefi.d ; but it is not yet in 
 such a, form that it can be enj&yed by the idle consumer. To drop metaphor, 
 vie ZTQ afraid that this work will be less acceptable to those who read for the 
 sake of reading than those who read in order to write. 
 
 We cannot help adding, though we are extremely unwilling to quarrel ^Jth- 
 MrL Courtenay about politics, that the book would not be at all the worse • 
 if it contained fewer snarls against the Whigs of the present day.' Not only 
 aire these passages out of place, but some of them are intrinsically such that 
 they would become the editor of a third-rate party newspaper better than a 
 gentleman of Mr. Courtenay's talents and knowledge. For example, we arc 
 
 ■' * From a Letter of Bacon tg Lord Burleigh, 
 
44a S//^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 told that "it is a remarkable circumstance, familiar to those who are ac- 
 quainted \vith history, but suppressed by the new Whigs, that the liberal 
 politicians of the seventeenth century and the greater part of the eighteenth 
 never extended their liberality to the native Irish, or the professors of the 
 ancient religion." What schoolboy 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 history, but carefully sup- 
 pressed by the Cler^ of the Established Church, that in the fifteenth century 
 England was Catholic. We are tempted to make some remarks on another 
 passage, which seems to be the peroration of a speech intended to have been 
 spoken against the Reform Bill, but we forbear. 
 
 We doubt whether 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 agreed to praise highly without knowing much about them, 
 and 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.5 of misgovei:n- 
 ment, of corruption, of civil and religious faction, and that, nevertheless, 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 country : 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 views 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. When 
 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 
 incvuring envy. If the circumstances of the country became such that 
 
s//i WILLIAM Temple. 441 
 
 it was impossible to take any part in politics without some clanger, he 
 retired to his Library and his Orchar^T;. and, while the nation groaned 
 under oppression, or resounded with tumult and with the din of civil arms, 
 amused himself Ijy writing Memoirs and tying up Apricots. His political 
 career bore some resemblance to the military career of Louis XlV. 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 officers 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 Versailles to hear his flatterers repeat that Turenne had been 
 l^eaten 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 ! Yet 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 quite 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 luxury, 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 bound to be a politician any more than he is bound 
 to be a soldier ; and there are perfectly honourable ways of quitting both 
 poUtics and the mihtary 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 belongs to the army only in time of peace — who appears at reviews 
 in Hyde Park, escorts the Sovereign with the utmost valour and fidehty 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 himseli. 
 Some portion of the censure due to such a holiday soldier may justly fall on the 
 
442 SIR WTLLIAM TEMPLE, 
 
 mere holicby-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 peform 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 respectable appearance. The reaction which followed thfe 
 victory of the popular party over Charles the First had produced a hurtful 
 effect on the national 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 of 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-fearing merchants. The spirit of Derby 
 and Capel stilb glowed in many sequestered manor-houses ; but among those 
 political leaders who, at the time of the Restoration were still young, or in the 
 vigour of manhood, there was neither a Southampton nor a Vanej neither a 
 Falklaiid 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 Httle, 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, 
 Cromwell 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 circumstances 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 Hildebrand, 
 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 different. Heat, 
 the natural philosophers tell us, produces rarefaction of the air, and rarefac- 
 tion ®f 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 alv/ays 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 notion 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 j yet they had not 
 
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 443 
 
 acquired a strong passion for innovatiojt Accustoxned to se^ o}d esta,- 
 blishmenis shaking, falling, lying in ruins all around "thprn,?; ito %e 
 under . a succession of constitutions, of which the average duration wis 
 about a twelvemonth, they had no religious reverence for prescription,.. no- 
 thing of that frame of mind which naturally springs frcim the habitual contem- 
 plation of immemorial antiquity 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 faco follow the extravagant 
 hopes and predictions of rash and fanatical innovators — they had learned to 
 look on j>rofessions 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. vSuch 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 
 ver}' 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 Timbuctop- 
 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' 
 ParHament, 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 affects it, and (o 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 inconsisteii,cy 
 with respect to the most important public questions has ceased to be a reproacli, 
 inconsistency with respect to questions^ of minor importance is not likely to Ix; 
 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 l-c 
 ashamed of abandoning lii^. pQfty.fqr a place, or of voting for a bill which' he 
 tidd opposed. ■. -■■■ : : : ']-. ,-.<.:' : ,; ., ■: ;,.■ ■..:•; jrs.- -• r> >.. 
 ;' The- public iinen of- rthe ,time»;whjch foUowed : the Restoratipn were by no 
 means' deficiQUt in courrige or abihty ; and some kimls of talent appear to have 
 bcendeyeloped amongst thenv to a remarkable — wc might almost say, to a morbid 
 tind vmnatural — degiee. Neither Thcramencs 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 sign^ which to others 
 
444 ^^^ 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 
 planning his overthrow — shrived themselves to Jesuits with letters in cypher 
 from the Prince of Orange in their pockets — corresponded with the Haguy 
 whilst in ofifice under James — and began to correspond with St. Germain's a* 
 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 
 
 fo. He was not exempt, we think, from the prevailing political immorality, 
 lis mind took the contagion, but took it ad modum recipientis — in a form so 
 jnild 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 unad venturous 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 ar'.s, 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 regained 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 Pr-^sbyterian party ; and was one of those moderate men^b$T5 
 
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 445 
 
 who, at the close of the year 1648, voted/or 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 veiy 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 w^orst 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 whicYi 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 stopped in the Isle of Wight, the brother amused himself with inscribing 
 on the windows his opinion of the ruling 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. Tempfe 
 sooa became, in the phrase of that time, her servant, ind she returned nh 
 
446 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 ■ regard. ; But difficulties as great as ever expanded a novel to the fifth volume 
 opposed their wishes. WheA the courtship commenced, the father of the hero 
 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. Sit John Temple had a more advantageous alliance in view for 
 his son. Dorothy 'Osborne was in the meantime besieged by 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 brother, 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 Dubhn 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 ambftion, 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 Parha- 
 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 
 holdof the offer of H.C." 
 
 Ivor was it only the influejice of rivals that Temple had to dread. The 
 relations of his mistress regarded him with personal dislike, and spoke of him 
 as arr unprincipled adventurer, without honour or religion, ready to render 
 service to any party for the sake of preferment. This is, indeed, a very dis- 
 torted view of Temple's character. Yet a character, even in the most distorted 
 viev/ taken of it by the most angry and prejudiced minds, generally retains 
 something of its outline. No caricaturist ever represented Mr. Pitt as a 
 Faistaff, or Mr. Fox as a skeleton ; nor did any libeller ever impute parsi- 
 i^iony to Sheridan, or profusion to Marlborough. It must be allowed that the 
 turn of irCid which the eulogists of Temple have dignified with the appellation 
 of philosophical indifference, and which, however becoming it may be in an 
 old. arid experienced statesman, has a somewhat ungraceful appearance in 
 youth, might easily appear shocking to a family v/ho 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-* 
 lended him warmly behind his back, and addressed to himself some very tender 
 and anxious, admonitions, mingled v/ith assurances of her confidence in his 
 honour and virtue. On one occasion she was most highly provoked by the 
 way in .which one of her brothers spoke of Temple. " We talked ourselves 
 wearr,''': she says ; " he renounced me,, and I defied him." 
 
 Nearly seven years did this arduous wooing continue. We are 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, • 
 sometinaes.-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 hi.s style. The specimen 
 wh^ch Mr. Courtenay has pres.esycd of these early compositions is by no means 
 contemptible. Indeed, tber^ is -ope passage on Like and DisUke which could 
 
S/J? WILLI A AI TEMPLE. 447 
 
 have beon produced only by a mind habituated carefully to reflect onits dwn 
 operations, and which reminds us of the^est things in Montaigne. ■ • ;"';/• ^'-'^ 
 
 He appears to have Kept up a very active correspondence with hiri ftii^trer>s. 
 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. Very 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 df history." 
 One writer is in possession of some anecdotes which would illustrate most 
 strikingly the operation of the Mississippi scheme on the manners and rnoral's 
 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 himdred j-ears 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 ^Vftitc- 
 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 thousand men are killed and six 
 thousand men, with fifty stand of colours and eighty guns taken, stoop to tlfe 
 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 majestip 
 Alexandrines in which the Seigneur Oreste and Madame Androniaque utter 
 their complaints, with the chatterihg of the fool in *' Lear" and-'6f th^ hytsci 
 in " Romeo and Juliet." 
 
 That a historian should not record trifles, that he should confine himself tc), 
 y/h'Sit is important is perfectly true. But many writers seem rievei: to have can-' 
 sidered on what the historical importance of an event depeiids. They seem nd{ 
 to 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 coHstruction 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 tvhich 
 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 
 matter 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 
 momentous affair than an action for fifty pounds. But it by ho 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 liiay 
 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 thfe tattle ""of 
 Delium was far more important than the fate of the comedy of the *',K-riights. ' 
 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"th)5 
 
448 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 Athenian phalanx gave way at Delium. 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 thresheVs carefully sever from the chaff for the purpose of 
 gathering the chafii into the garner and flinging the corn into the fire. 
 
 Thinking thus, we are glad to learn so much, and would willingly learu 
 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 inform 
 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 em.ployed 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, amiable 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 glimpse 
 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 
 
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 449 
 
 too good to partake of such diversions as^London afforded under the melancholr/ 
 rule of the Puritans, or to giggle a little at a ridiculous sermon from a divirfle 
 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 seldon^ 
 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 Crora- 
 v.ell'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 there any reason to be- 
 xleve that the Protector was so far beyond his age as to be free from the prevail- 
 ing sentiment. He had vanquished them ; he knew 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 
 favourable 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 destruction and renovation. He was 
 no man of half measurev '^^ mean affronts and ungracious concessions. His 
 
450 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 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 Irish catholics and withholding from them the elective fran- 
 chise — of giving them the 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 Noifolk. 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 mej^ciful 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, 
 " 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 
 up>on marriages, and all other conveyances and settlements executed, as in a 
 kingdom at peace within itself, and where no doubt could be made of the 
 validity 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 
 the Cromwellian system was in full operation, he always described as "years 
 of great satisfaction." Farmingj gardening, county business, and studies, 
 
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 451 
 
 rather entertaining than profound, ocg^pied 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 chirity, 
 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 w'ith his wife. His income amounted to about five hundred pounds 
 a-year, a sum which w^as 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- Lieutenant of 
 Ireland, to Clarendon, and to Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, who was Secre- 
 tary of State. Clarendon was at the head of affairs. But his power was 
 visibly declining, 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 
 Chamber. 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 j^lea- 
 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 
 ]iarties. Arlington, whose influence was gradually rising as that of Claren- 
 <lon diminished, was the most useful patron to whom a young adventurer 
 could 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 Sj^ain, 
 provoked the ridicule of those who considered the usages of the French court 
 as the only standard of good breeding, but served to impress the crowd with a 
 
452 S/M iVILtlAM 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 difficulty, and conversed with great humour and vivacity. While 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 Stuart, this stately Don was ridicuUng 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 different 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 public, whom he wished to awe into respect, 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 poli<ihed 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. Plis connections were almost entirely confined to the small 
 circle, every day becoming smaller, of old cavaliers who h{id 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 of 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 Provinces, then governed 
 with almost regal power by the Grand Pensionary, John de Witt ; and though, 
 no war had ever cost the kingdom so much, none had ever been more feebly 
 and meanly conducted. France had espoused the interests of the vSlates- 
 General. 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. Tlie 
 great plague of London had suspendecl 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 that age. 
 
 I 
 
^/^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. 453 
 
 throughout the nation. One Continerffal 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, *Mike a carter." This person brought a letter from the Bishop, 
 offering to make an attack by land on the Dutch territory. The English min- 
 isters eagerly caught at the proposal, and promised a subsidy of 500,000 rix- 
 dollars 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 to 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-bibbirtg 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 public 
 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- 
 ])osed 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 Ma/.arine, to the States-General and tq the Vatican. 
 Humbled by the events of the war, and dreading the just anger of Parliament, 
 the English 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 bad 
 crushed the libcrtico of Italy and Germany, Mhich had occupied Paris with its 
 
^ S/J^ WilLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 armies and covered the British seas witli 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 pride — 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 hitlierto 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 valuable 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. P'ortress 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 sec the things which 
 a,re 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 authorit}' 
 to say anything on behalf of the English Government, expressed himself very 
 guardedly. l)c 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 
 forriied for the preservation of P'landers. His simplicity and openness amazed 
 Teinple, 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 Bnissels. *' \\Tioever," 
 he \\'i'ote to Arlington, *' deals with M. de Witt must go the same plain way 
 
SIR \IILIJAM rEMrLE. 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. While 
 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 guns they had heard with terror even in the galleries of WTiile- 
 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 witk the Duke 
 of Buckingham the prhicipal direction of affairs. Arlington showed no dis- 
 position to meet the 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 Planders, 
 but the whole Continent to France. Temple, who distinctly saw that a 
 moment had arrived at which it was possible to reconcile his country 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 
 laboured, 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 incHned 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 oftensive 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 
 
456 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 with the Dutch on their own terms. Temple and his indefatigable sister im- 
 mediately sailed again for the Hague, and, after weathering a violent storm in 
 which they were very nearly lost, arrived in safety at the place of their 
 destination. 
 
 On this occasion, as on every other, the dealings between Temple and De 
 Witt were singularly fair and open. When they met. Temple began by re- 
 capitulating what had passed 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 while the recapitulation proceeded, and, when it was concluded, answered 
 that Temple's memory was perfectly correct, and thanked him for proceeding 
 in so exact and sincere a manner. Temple then informed the Grand Pension- 
 ary that the King of England had determined to close with the proposal of a 
 defensive alliance. De Witt had not expected so speedy a resolution ; and his 
 countenance indicated surprise as well as pleasure. But he did not retract ; 
 and it was speedily arranged that England and Holland should unite for the 
 purpose of compelling Louis to abide by the compromise which he had formerly 
 offered. 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 jDolitical talents of Oxenstiern, had obtained 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 if she could be induced to accede to the league, " it would be too strong 
 a bar for France to venture on." Temple went that sam.e eveiiing 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- 
 portance. 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 about breaking 
 through the established forms. But the urgency and dexterity of Temple 
 prevailed. 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 irregularity 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 lousiness 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 willingly 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 i ^'^neral pacification wns the result. 
 
S//^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. 4.57 
 
 The Triple Alliance may be viewed in two lights ; as a measure of foreign 
 policy and as a measure of domestic j^licy ; and under both aspects it seems 
 to us deserving of all the praise which has been bestowed upon it. 
 
 Dr. Lingard, who is undoubtedly a very able and well informed writer, but 
 whose great fundamental rule of judging seems to be that the popular opinion 
 on a historical question 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 
 Louis would have held himself bound by his former offers if the alliance had 
 not been formed ; and, if Dr. Lingard thinks this a reasonable supposition, we 
 should be disposed to say to him, in the words of that great poUtician, Mrs. 
 Western : " Indeed, brother, you would make a fine plenipo to negotiate with 
 the French. They would soon persuade you that they take towns out of mere 
 defensive principles. " Our own impression 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. He 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, Tranche 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 contrary, the annexation of Franche 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 solemn obligations of public f^ith, 
 who violated the Treaty of the Pyrenees, who violated the Treaty of Aix, who 
 violated the Treaty of Nimeguen, 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 P>anche 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 nnpression in P'rance as well 
 as in other countries. Temple, therefore, at the very least, succeeded in 
 raising the credit of his country and in lowering the credit of a rival power. 
 Here there is no room for controversy. No grubbing among old state-papers 
 will ever bring to light any document which will shake these facts — that 
 Europe believed the ambition of France to have been curbed by the three 
 powers — that England, a few months before the least among the nations, 
 forced to abandon her own seas, unaljle to defend the mouths of her own rivers, 
 regained almost as high a place in the estimation of her neighbours as she had 
 held in the times of Elizabeth and Oliver ; and that all this change of opinion 
 was produced in five days by wise and resolute councils, without the firing of a 
 
458 S/A' 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-piece of 
 diplomacy. 
 
 Considered as a measure of domestic policy, this treaty seems to 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 closest 
 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 iri 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 
 countr}' 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.^iiT 
 riched. _ , j; ; ,,, 
 
 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 inte 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. I'rofuse 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 
 ix)int extremely delicate. The Prince of Orange, the hereditary chief of the 
 faction opposed to the administration of De Witt, was the nephew of Charles. 
 
 * f The only good public thing that hath been done since the king came into Eng- 
 land." — Pepys's Diary, February 14, 1867-68. 
 
SIIS WILLIAM TEMPLE. 459 
 
 To preserve the confidence of the ruling party, without showing any want .cif 
 respect to so near a relation of his ow^master, was no easy task. But Templ'e 
 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 for 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 tKdt 
 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 ia 
 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 Rbme ; who were 
 equally ready to be tools of power without ajijj/ sense of loyalty, and stirrers; of 
 sedition without any zeal for freedom.. ' •,';," 
 
 It was hardly possible even for a man so penetrating as De Witt 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 PVench— 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 to be adopted, I will never have any part in it. I have told tne 
 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 Witt smiled, and answered 
 that he would hope the best, and would do all in his power to prevent othei^ft 
 from forming unfavourable surmises. 
 
 In October, 1670, Temple reached London; and all his worst, suspicions 
 were immediately more than confirmed. He repaired to the vSecretary'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, Arhngton 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, hopefullest, most lieautiful child, and most vir- 
 tuous too." Any particular conversation was impossible ;. and Temple, who 
 with aji his constitutional or philosophical indifference, was Sufficiently sensi- 
 
46o S/J? 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 Cliftbrd made him the most unfit of all men to be the 
 keeper of a momentous secret. lie 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 Avere called 
 upon to give his opinion of the States and their Ministers, he Avould ?^.y exactly 
 what he thought. 
 
 He now saw clearly that the tempest was gathering fast — th.^, 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 quietly 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, been from his youth in 
 the habit of diverting himself with composition. The clear and agreeable 
 language of his despatches had early attracted the notice of his employers ; 
 and, before the peace of Breda, he had, at the request of Arlington, published 
 a pamplet 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 showed all the feelings of a Cromwellian. He had gradually 
 formed a style singularly lucid and melodious — superficially deformed, indeed, 
 by Gallicisms and ECispanicisms, picked up in travel or in negotiation — but 
 at the bottom pure English — generally flowing with careless simplicity, but 
 occasionally rising even into Ciceronian magnificence. The length of his 
 sentences has often been remarked. But in truth this length is only apparent. 
 A critic who considers as one sentence everything that lies lietween two full 
 stops will undoubtedly call Temple's sentences long. But a critic who ex- 
 amines them carefully will find that they arc not swollen by parenthetical 
 matter ; that their structure is scarcely ever intricate j that they are formed 
 
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 461 
 
 merely by accumulation ; and that, by the simple process of leaving out con- 
 junctions, and substituting full stops f}» colons and semicolons, they might, 
 without any alteration in the order of the words, be broken up into very short 
 periods with no sacrifice except that of euphony. The long sentences of 
 Hooker 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 ofiicial business are an " Essay on Government," which seems to us 
 exceedingly childish, and an "Account of the United Provinces," which we thin); 
 a master-piece of its kintl. 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, Overys- 
 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 most illustrious of their fellow- 
 /citizens. De Ruyter was saved with difficulty from assassins. De Witt was 
 torn to 2:)ieces 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 
 dav/n of hope, were gravely concerted by the statesmen of Holland, To open 
 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 ])ear to a distant 
 climate their Calvinistlc faith and their old Batavian liberties — to fix, perhaps 
 with happier auspices, the new Stadthouse of their Commonwealth 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 
 se*. 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 tore-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 
 theni 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 iDctter 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 Plill. 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. Yet, though it did not 
 immediately proceed to those strong measures which a r^ew House would in all 
 probability have adopted, it was sullen and unmanageable, and undid, slowly 
 indeed, and by degrees, but most effectually, all that the Ministers had done. 
 In one session it annihilated their system of internal government. In a second 
 session it gave a death-blow to* their foreign policy. 
 
 The dispensing power was the first object of attack. The Commons would 
 not expressly approve the war ; but neither did they as yet expressly condemn 
 if ; 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. 
 
 Shaftesbury, 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 Treasurer, Clifford, was marked out by his boldness, by his openness, by 
 
S{^4^ILLIAM TEMPLE. > 463 
 
 his zeal for the Cathohc religion, by something which, compared with the 
 villany of his colleagues, might almost 15e 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 
 ])olicy 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, determined 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 dowii 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. 
 Shaftesbury 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. vStrong 
 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 Ix)ndon 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, 
 antl had, many years earlier, travelled and played tennis with 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 WTLLIAM 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 txa irresistible storm of national and religious 
 hatred. Danby 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 obstinately pursued, might 
 well 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 hel|5 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 by 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 suspended. He therefore thought it his duty to go, as he 
 expresses it, " to 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 Gourville, "who is willing to 
 be the man of his people, is the greatest 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 
 kincfly on Temple's shoulder and said, " Vou are right and so is Gourville, 
 and I will be the man of my people." 
 
 With this assurance, Temple repaired to the Hague in July, 1674. Holland 
 was now secure, and France was surrounded on every side by enemies. 
 
SII^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. 465 
 
 Spain and the Empire were in arms for the purpose of compelling Louis to 
 abandon all that he had acquired since flie 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 sangtiine, 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 Iving 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-failing 
 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 difiiculty of etiquette prevented him from signing, 
 and he returned to the Hague. Scarcely had he arrived there when he 
 received 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 
 oftV Temple received positive orders to repair instantly to England. Hc' 
 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 convulsions and 
 
466 SIJ^ WiLLIAM TEMPL^, 
 
 seems to be on the verge of dissolution ; and the rulers who, till the mischie^ 
 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 tlie 
 seals. The pecuniary part of the arrangement no longer presented any diiil- 
 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 Commons ; 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, impeached, 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 longer 
 and more confidential : and Temple began to flatter himself with the hope that 
 he might be able to reconcile parties at home as he had reconciled hostile 
 States al^road ; 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 th^e 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 adyi,ce of this body, to suffer all his 
 affairs of every kind to be freely debated thete, and not to reserve' any' pfart 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 ^300,000. The annual income of all th( 
 members of the House of Commons was not supposed to exceed ^^400,000. 
 The appointment of wealthy counsellors Temple describes as " a chief regard, 
 necessary to this Constitution." . ' •' 
 
 This plan was the subject of frequent conversation between' thelCihg 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 fonn 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 history, ^^'e 
 are strongly incUned to suspect that the appointment of the new Privy Council 
 was really a much more remarkable event than has generally been supposeil, 
 and that what Temple had in view was to effect, under colour of a' change of 
 administration, a permanent change in the Constitution. y / 
 
 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 lieen 
 Tepiple'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 what chance 
 could there be of finding unity, secrecy, expedition, any of the qualities 
 which such a body ought to possess? If, indeed, the members 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, thotigh more slowly, more awkwardly, and 
 with more risk of improper disclosures. But the council which Temple' pro- 
 posed was fep framed that if, instead of thirty members, it had contained only 
 
 * In the negotiations of 181; 
 
468 S//^ 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 ])rave ? 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, woidd 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 .1 
 Mr. Courtenay calls them pithy words ; but he does not, if we are right, 
 apprehend their whole force. " Ce sont," said Barillon, " des etats, non deiS 
 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 Elizabeth and the 
 time of William III. 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 doubt 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, a^he 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 century, 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 much 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 supplies, the sovereign levied 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 reco\^rcd their ancient 
 splendour. The fundamental laws, which had been recited in the Petition of 
 Kight, 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 l)een poured forth — the castles shattered by the cannon of the Parlia- 
 mentary armies — the ha|l wh^re sat the stern tribunal to whosp bar had 
 
470 SIJ? 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 seamenswarmed 
 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 >Svas 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 
 vStuarts, 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 acquirements. It has covered ignorance, weakness, rash- 
 ness, the most fatal maladministration. A great negotiator is nothing when 
 compared with a great debater ; and a Minister who can make a successful 
 speech 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. Pitt, 
 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 — by birth a simj^le 
 country gentleman — owed his white staff, his garter and his dukedom. The 
 encroachment of the power of the ParHament 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, or of the individuals in the two Houats, seemed 
 
5//? WILLIAM TEMPLE. AH 
 
 to go for nothing. The King might be^ager to encroach ; yet something con- 
 stantly drove him back. The Parliament might be loyal, even servile ; yet 
 something constantly urged them forward. : . 
 
 These things were done in the green tree. What 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 politics 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 difficulties. 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 authority 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 
 anew 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 be effected in the same manner — that the Crown and the 
 Parliament might lie placed in nearly the same relative position in which they 
 had stood in the 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 the power of checking those who govern from the power 
 
4?i Sik 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 which might appear to the people to 
 be a tolerable security against maladministration, Parliaments would probably 
 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 the 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 absu/d 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 Ccftincil 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 ths 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 Ilouse 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. But this great body was represented by a 
 smaller Council of about thirty, which liore the name and exercised the powers 
 of the States-General. At last the real states altogether ceased to meet ; and 
 their power, though still a part of the theory of the Constitution, became 
 obsolete in practice. We do not, of course, imagine that Temple either 
 expected or wished that Parliaments should be thus disused ; but he did 
 expect, we think, that something like what had happened in Holland would 
 happen in England, and that a large portion of the functions lately assumed by 
 
 I 
 
S/J? WILLIAM TEMPLE, 473 
 
 Parliament would be quietly transferre(3<i:o 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 bettar 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, whoin 
 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 unpen sioned, 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. From 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 preVaiUng 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 change of Ministry almost necessarily follows. Growing and struggling 
 power always gives more annoyance and is more unmanageable than estab- 
 lished power. The House of Commons gave infinitely more trouble to thi- 
 Ministers of Charles H. than to any Ministers of later times ; for in the time ot" 
 Charles H., 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 
 tha Revolution was a far more efficient check on misgovernment than his 
 fifteen independent counsellors would have been. Yet, 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 v.hich 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 ohi 
 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 
 lo be disused ; and that the King would adopt no measure till it had been dis- 
 
474 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 
 
 cussed and approved by a body, of which one half consisted of independent 
 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 Prinse of Orange, and finally, with the institu- 
 tion of this new Council. 
 
 The only people who grumbled were thos^ popular leaders of the House of 
 Commons who were 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 
 ifistant, 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. i , 
 
 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 sentenci^i 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 the 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 tb 
 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. Hfe 
 united all that was worst in both. From the friends of toleration he borrowed 
 their contempt for the Constitution and from the friends of liberty their con- 
 
 I 
 
 e 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
S/R W/LUAM 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 how 
 desperate an incendiary 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 mest 
 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 with 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 coa^ 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 glor>-, 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 reacfer 
 will at once perceive a considerable difference between Butler's 
 
 " politician, 
 With more beads than a beast in vision," 
 
 and the Ahithophel 6f Dryden. Butler dwells on Shaftesbury's unprincipled 
 versatility ; on his wonderful and almost instinctive skill iii discefriing 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 Sik iVILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 , , - — •■ - -^ 
 
 Can by their pangs and aches find 
 All 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 when 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 think, 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. Pie, 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 Knolles'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." 
 
 d 
 
 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 whole expression, are stolen. 
 
 As we are on this subject, we cannot refrain from observing that Mr. Courtenay has 
 done Dryden injustice, by inadvertently attributing to him same feeble lines which are __ 
 in Tate's part ot Absalom and Ahithophel. ^^I 
 
S/I^ WILLIAM TEMPLE, 4^7 
 
 every side with snares and death, seemed to be smitten with a bhndness 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 s&e 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 devilish 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 
 nnster whose favour he had purchased by one series of crimes and forfeited 
 by another. 
 
 Halifax 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 prevailing infection was modified by a very 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. \Vhile 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 
 with 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 Papist and those of the Anabaptist. 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 Whigs ; 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 partitjular observations and much more 
 
47S ^/A' WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 to general speculations than that of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury knew the 
 King, the Council, the Parliament, the city better than Halifax ; but Halifax 
 would have written a far better treatise on jjolitical 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. He 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. His colloquial powers were great ; his 
 perception of the ridiculous exquisitely fine ; and he seems to have had the 
 rare art of preserving the reputation of good breeding and good nature while 
 habitually indulging a strong propensity to mockery. 
 
 Temple wished to put Halifax into the new council and to leave out 
 
SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, 479 
 
 Shaftesbury. The King objected strongly to Halifaxj 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 ; and the King yielded, but not till Temple had 
 ulmost gone on his knees. This point was no sooner settled than his !^Iajesty 
 declared that he would have Shaftesbury too. Temple again had recourse to 
 entreaties and expostulations. Charles told him that the enmity of Shaftesbury 
 would be at least as formidable as that of Halifax ; and this was true ; but 
 Temple might have replied that by giving power to Halifax they gained a 
 friend and that by giving power to Shaftesbury they only strengthened an 
 enemy. It was vain to argue and protest. The King only laughed and jested 
 at Temple's anger ; and Shaftesbury was not only sworn of the Council, but 
 appointed Lord President. 
 
 Temple was so bitterly mortified by this step that he had at one time 
 resolved to have nothing to do with the new Administration, and seriously 
 thought of disqualifying himself from sitting in council by omitting tq take the 
 Sacrament. But the urgency of Lady Templie and Lady Giffkfd raioced- him 
 to abandon that intention. ■ . ' ■ 'r --■ ■ - )>/!-'; ^^•■".•'-i--' : ■' 
 
 The Council was organised on the twenty-first of April, 1679 ; and, on th6 
 very next day, one of the fundamental principles onwhich it had been con- 
 structed was violated. A secret committee, or, in the modern phrase, a 
 cabinet, of nine members was formed. But as this committee included Shaftes- 
 bur y and Monmouth, it contained within itself the elements of as much faction 
 as would have sufficed to impede all business. Accordingly there soon arose 
 a small interior cabinet, consisting of Essex, Sunderland, Halifax and Temple. 
 
 For a time perfect harmony and confidence subsisted between the four. But 
 the meetings of the thirty were stormy. Sharp retorts passed between SKafte?- 
 bury and Halifax, who led the opposite parties. In' the Council,. Halifax 
 generally had the advantage. But it soon became apparent that Shaftesbuiy 
 still had at his back the majority of the House of Commons. The discontents, 
 which the change of Ministry had for a moment- quieted, broke forth again 
 with redoubled violence ; and the only effect which the late measures appeared 
 to have produced was that the Lord President, with all the dignity and 
 authority belonging to his high jjlace, stood at the head of the Opposition. 
 The impeachment of Lord Danby was eagerly prosecuted. The Commons 
 were determined to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. All offers of 
 compromise were rejected. It must not be forgotten, however, that, in the 
 midst of the confusion, one inestimable law, the only benefit which England 
 has derived from the troubles of that period, but a benefit which may well be 
 set off against a great mass of evil, the Habeas; Corpus Act j was pushed through 
 the Houses and received the royal assent. '; .' 
 
 The King, finding the parliament as troublesome as' ever, determined to 
 prorogue it ; and he did so without even mentioning his intention to the 
 Council by whose advice he had pledged himself, only a month before, to 
 conduct the Government. The counsellors were generally dissatisfied ; and 
 Shaftesbury swore, with great vehemence, that if he could find out who the 
 secret advisers were, he would have their heads. 
 
 The Parliament rose ; London was deserted ; and Temple retired to his villa, 
 whence, on council days, he went to Hampton Court. The post of Secretary 
 was again and again pressed on him by his master and by his three colleagues 
 of the inner Cabinet. Plalifax in particular, threatened laughingly to burn 
 down the house at Sheen. But Temple wtis immovable. His short experience 
 
48o SIM WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 of English politics had disgusted him ; and he felt himself so much oppressed 
 by the responsibility under which he at present lay that he had no inclina- 
 tion to add to the load. 
 
 When the term fixed for the prorogation had nearly expired, it became 
 necessary to consider what course should be taken. The King and his four 
 confidential advisers thought that a new Parliament might possibly be more 
 manageable, and could not possibly be more refractory-, than that which they now 
 had, and they therefore determined on a dissolution. But, when the question 
 was proposed at council, the majority, jealous, it should seem, of the small 
 directing knot, and unwilling to bear the unpopularity of the measures of 
 Government while excluded from all power, joined Shaftesbury ; and the 
 members of the Cabinet were left alone in the minority. The King, however, 
 had made up his mind, and ordered the Parliament to be instantly dissolved. 
 Temple's council was now nothing more than an ordinary privy council, if 
 indeed it were not something less ; and though Temple threw the blame of this 
 on the King, on Lord Shaftesbury, on everybody but himself, it is evident that 
 the failure of his plan is to be traced to its own inherent defects. His 
 council was too large to transact business which required expedition, secrecy 
 and cordial co-operation. A Cabinet was therefore formed within the Council. 
 The Cabinet and the majority of the Council differed : and, as was to be ex- 
 pected, the Cabinet carried their point. Four votes outweighed six-and -twenty. 
 This being the case, the meetings of the thirty were not only useless, but posi- 
 tively noxious. 
 
 At the ensuing election, Temple was chosen for the university of Cambridge. 
 The only objection that was made to him by the members of that learned body 
 was that, in his little work on Holland, he had expressed great approbation of 
 the tolerant policy of the States ; and this blemish, however serious, was over- 
 looked in consideration of his high reputation and of the strong recommend- 
 ations with which he was furnished by the Court. 
 
 During the summer he remained at Sheen, and amused himself with rearing 
 melons ; leaving to the three other members of the inner Cabinet the whole 
 direction of public affairs. Som unexplained cause began, about this time, to 
 alienate them from him. They do not appear to have been made angry by any 
 part of his conduct, or to have disliked him personally. But they had, we 
 suspect, taken the measure of his mind, and satisfied themselves that he was 
 not a man for that troubled time, and that he would be a mere incumbrance to 
 them. Living themselves for ambition, they despised his love of ease. Accus- 
 tomed to deep stakes in the game of political hazard, they despised his piddling 
 play. They looked on his cautious measures with the sort of scorn with which 
 the gamblers at the ordinary, in Sir Walter Scott's novel, regarded Nigel's 
 practice of never touching a card but when he was certain to win. He soon 
 found that he was left out of their secrets. The King had about this time 
 a dangerous illness. The Duke of York, on receiving the news, re- 
 turned from Holland ; the sudden appearance of the detested Popish successor 
 excited anxiety throughout the countr}'. Temple was greatly amazed and dis- 
 turl)e(1. He hastened up to London and visited Essex, who professed to be 
 astonished and mortified, but could not disguise a sneering smile. Temple then 
 saw Halifax, who talked to him much about the pleasures of the country, the 
 anxieties of office, and the vanity of all human things, but carefully avoided 
 politics, and when the Duke's return was mentioned, only sighed, shook his 
 head, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted up his eyes and hands. In a short 
 time Temple found that his two friends had been quizzing him, and that they 
 themselves had sent for the Duke in order that his Royal Highness might, M 
 the King should die, be on the spot to frustrate the designs of Mcnmouth. 
 
SI A' WILLIAM TEMPLE, ^j^j 
 
 He was soon convinced, by a still stronger proof, that, though he had not 
 exactly offended his master or his colljiagues in the Cabinet, he had ceased 
 to enjoy their confidence. The result of the general election had been de- 
 cidedly unfavourable to the Government ; and Shaftesbury impatiently ex- 
 pected the day when the Houses were to meet. The King, guided by the 
 advice of the inner Cabinet, determined on a step of the highest importance. 
 He told the Council that he had resolved to prorogue the new Parliameni 
 for a year, and requested them not to object ; for he had, he said, considered 
 the subject fully, and had made up his mind. All who were not in the secrei 
 were thunderstruck — Temple as much as any. Several members rose, and en- 
 treated to be heard against the prorogation. But the King silenced them, 
 and declared that his resolution was unalterable. Temple, greatly hurt at 
 the manner in which both himself and the Council had been treated, spoke 
 with great spirit. He would not, he said, disobey the King by objecting to 
 a measure on which his Majesty was determined to hear no argument, but 
 he would most earnestly entreat his Majesty, if the present Council was incom- 
 petent to give advice, to dissolve it and select another, for it was absurd 
 to have counsellors who did not counsel, and who were summoned only to be 
 silent witnesses of the acts of others. The King listened courteously. But 
 the members of the Cabinet resented this reproof highly ; and from that day 
 Temple was almost as much estranged from them as from vShaftesbur)'.. 
 
 He wished to retire altogether from business. But just at this time Lord 
 Russell, Lord Cavendish, and some other counsellors of the popular party, 
 waited on the King in a body, declared their strong disapprobation of his mea- 
 sures, and requested to be excused from attending any more at council. 
 Temple feared that if, at this moment, he also were to withdraw, he might 
 be supposed to act in concert with those decided opponents of the Court, and 
 to have determined on taking a course hostile to the Government. He, 
 therefore, continued to go occasionally to the board ; but he had no longer 
 any real share in the direction of public affairs. 
 
 At length the long term of the prorogation expired. In October, 1 680, 
 the Houses met ; and the great question of the Exclusion was revived. Few 
 parliamentary contests in our history appear to have called forth a greater dis- 
 play of talent— none certainly ever called forth more violent passions. The 
 whole nation was convulsed by party spirit. The gentlemen of every county, 
 the traders of every town, the boys of every public school were divided into 
 exclusionists and abhorrers. The book-stolls were covered with tracts on the 
 sacredness of hereditary right, on the omnipotence of Parliament, on the 
 dangers of a disputed succession, on the dangers of a Popish reign. It was in 
 the midst of this ferment that Temple took his seat, for the first time, in the 
 House of Commons. 
 
 The occasion was a very great one. His talents, his long experience of 
 affairs, his unspotted public character, the high posts which he had filled 
 seemed to mark him out as a man on whom much would depend. He acted 
 like himself. He saw that if he supported the Exclusion, he made the Kin^ 
 and the heir presumptive his enemies, and that, if he opposed it, he made; 
 himself an object of hatred to the unscrupulous and turbulent Shaftesbury. 
 He neither supported nor opposed it. He quietly absented himself from the 
 House. Nay, he took care, he tells us, never to discuss the question in any 
 society whatever. Lawrence Hyde, afterwards Earl of Rochester, asked 
 him why he did not attend in his place. Temple replied that he acted accord- 
 ing to Solomon's advice, neither to oppose the mighty, nor to go about to 
 stop the current of a river. The advice, whatever its value may be, is not to 
 be found either in the canonical or apocryphal writings ascribed to Solomon. 
 
 K 
 
482 SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 __ ^ . __ ^ -— - - ■ _______ ^— -J— ; • £■■•; ',1'' * 
 
 But Temple was much in the habit of talking about lDo6ks which fie had never 
 read ; and one of those books, we are afraid, was his Bible. Hyde answered : 
 " You are a wise and quiet man." And this might be true. But surely such 
 wise and -iiuiet men have no call to be members of Parliament in critical times. 
 
 A single session was quite enough for Temple. When the Parliament was 
 dissolved, and another summoned at Oxford, he obtained an audience of the 
 King, and begged to know whether his Majesty wished him to continue in 
 Parliament. Charles, who had a singularly quick eye for the weaknesses 
 of all who came near him, had no doubt seen through and through Temple, 
 and rated the Parliamentary support of so cool and guarded a friend at its 
 proper value. He answered good-naturedly, but we suspect a little contemptu- 
 ously, *' I doubt, as things stand, your coming into the House will not do much 
 good. I think you may as well let it alone." Sir William accordingly in- 
 formed his constituents that he should not again apply for their suffrages ; and 
 set off for Sheen, resolving never again to meddle with public affairs. He 
 soon found that the Kmg was displeased with him. Charles, indeed, in his 
 usual easy way, protested that he was not angry — not at all. But in a few days 
 he struck Temple's name out of the list of Privy Counsellors. Why this was 
 done, Temple declares himself unable to com.prehend. But surely it hardly 
 required his long and extensive converse with the world to teach him that 
 there are conjunctures when men think that all who are not with them are 
 against them — that there are conjunctures when a lukewarm friend, who will 
 not put himself the least out of his way, who will make no exertion, who will 
 run no risk, is more distasteful than an enemy. Charles had hoped that the 
 fair character of Temple would add credit to an unpopular and suspected Gov- 
 ernment. But his Majesty soon found that this fair character resembled pieces 
 of furniture which we have seen in the drawing-rooms of very precise old ladies, 
 and which are a great deal too white to be used. This exceeding niceness was 
 altogether out of season. Neither party wanted a man who was afraid of taking 
 a part, of incurring abuse, of making enemies. There were probably many 
 good and moderate men who would have hailed the appearance of a respectable 
 mediator. But Temple was not a mediator. He was merely a neutral. 
 
 At last, however, he had escaped from public life, and found himself at liberty 
 to follow his favourite pursuits. His fortune was easy. He had about fifteen 
 hundred a year, besides the Mastership of the Rolls in Ireland, an office in 
 which he had succeeded his father, and which was then a mere sinecure for life, 
 requiring no residence. His reputation, both as a negotiator and a writer, stood 
 high. He resolved to be safe, to enjoy himself, and to let the world take its 
 course ; and he kept his resolution. 
 
 Darker times followed. The Oxford Parliament was dissolved. The Tories 
 were triumphant. A terrible vengeance was inflicted on the chiefs of the Op- 
 position. Temple learned in his retreat the disastrous fate of several of his 
 old colleagues in council. Shaftesbury fled to Holland. Russell died on 
 the scaffold. Essex added a yet sadder and more fearful story to the bloody 
 chronicles of the Tower. Monmouth clung in agonies of supplication round 
 the knees of the stern uncle whom he had wronged, and tasted a bitterness 
 worse than that of death — the bitterness of knowing that he had humbled 
 himself in vain. A tyrant trampled on the liberties and religion of the realm. 
 The national spirit swelled high under the oppression. I)isaffection spread 
 even to the strongholds of loyalty — to the cloisters of ^\'estminster, to the 
 schools of Oxford, to the guard-room of the household troops, to the very 
 hearth and bed-chamber of the Sovereign. But the troubles which agitated 
 the v.'hole society did not reach the quiet orangery in which Temple loi- 
 tered away several years without once seeing the smoke of London. He now 
 
S//^ , WILLIAM TEMPLE. 483 
 
 and then appeared in the circle at Richmond or Windsor. But the only 
 expressions which he is recorded to hd^^e used during these perilous times 
 were, that he would be a good subject, but that he had done with politics. 
 
 The Revolution came. Temple remained strictly neutral during the short 
 struggle ; and then transferred to the new settlement the same languid sort 
 of loyalty which he had felt for his former rhasters. He jxiid court to William 
 at Windsor, and William dined with him at Sheen. But, in spite of the most 
 pressing solicitations, he refused to become Secretary of State. The refusal 
 evidently proceeded only from his dislike of trouble and danger ; and not, as 
 some of his admirers would have us believe, from any scruple of conscience 
 or honour. For he consented that his son should take the office of Secretary 
 at \Var under the new Sovereign. This unfortunate young man destroyed 
 himself within a week after his appointment, from vexation at finding that his 
 advice had led the King into some improper steps with regard to Ireland. He 
 seems to have inherited his father's extreme sensibility to failure without that 
 singular prudence which kept his father out of all situations in which any 
 serious failure was to be apprehended. The blow fell heavily on the famil)-. 
 They retired in deep dejection to Moor Park, which they now preferred to 
 Sheen, on account of the greater distance from London. In that spot,* then 
 very secluded. Temple passed the remainder of his life. The air agreed with 
 him. The soil was fruitful and well suited to an experimental farmer and 
 gardener. The grounds were laid out with the angular regularity which Sir 
 William had admired in the fiower-beds of Haarlem and the Hague. A 
 beautiful rivulet, flowing from the hills of Surrey, bounded the domain. But 
 a straight canal which, bordered by a terrace, intersected the garden, was 
 probably more admired by the lovers of the picturesque in that age. The 
 house was small, but neat and well-furnished ; the neighbourhood very thinly 
 peopled. Temple had no visitors, except a few friends who were willing to 
 travel twenty or thirty miles in order to see him, and now and then a 
 foreigner whom curiosity brought to have a look at the author of the Triple 
 Alliance. 
 
 Here, in May, 1694, died Lady Temple. From the* time of her marriage 
 we know little of her, except that her letters were always greatly admired, and 
 that she had the honour to correspond constantly with Queen Marj'. Lady 
 Giffard, who, as far as appears, had always been on the best terms with her 
 sister-in-law, still continued to live with Sir William. 
 
 But there were other inmates of Moor Park to whom a far higher interest 
 belongs. An eccentric, uncouth, disagreeable young Irishman, who had 
 narrowly escaped plucking at Dublin, attended Sir William as an amanuensis, 
 for twenty pounds a-year and his board — dined at the second table, wrote bad 
 verses in praise of his employer, and made l9ve to a very pretty, dark-eyed 
 young girl who waited on Lady Giffard. Little did Temple imagine that the 
 coarse exterior of his dependent concealed a genius equally suited to politics 
 and to letters ; a genius destined to shake great kingdoms, to stir the laughter 
 and the rage of millions, and to leave to posterity memorials which can perish 
 only with the English language. Little did he think that the flirtation m his 
 servants' hall, which he perhaps scarcely deigned to make the subject of a jest, 
 was the beginning of a long unprosperous love which was to be as widely 
 famed as the passion of Petrarch or of Abelard. Sir William's secretary was 
 Jonathan Swift. Lady Gilford's waiting-maid was poor Stella. 
 
 * Mr. Courtenay (vol. ii., p..i6o>, confounds Moor Park in Surrey, where Temple re- 
 sided, with the Moor Park in Hertfordshire, which he praises in the Essay on Gar- 
 dening. 
 
3iR^ William TkMPLi:. 
 
 Swift retained no pleasing recollection of Moor Park. And we may easily 
 suppose a situation like his to have been intolerably painful to a mind haughty, 
 irascible, and conscious of pre-eminent ability. Long after, when he stood in 
 the Court of Requests with a circle of gartered peers round him, or punned and 
 rhymed with Cabinet Ministers over Secretary St. John's " Monte-Pulciano," 
 he remembered, with deep and sore feeling, how miserable he used to be for 
 days together when he suspected that Sir William had taken something ill. He 
 could hardly believe that he, the same Swift who chid the Lord Treasurer, 
 rallied the Captain General and confronted the pride of the Duke of 
 Buckingham with pride still more inflexible, could be the same being who 
 had passed nights of sleepless anxiety in musing over a' cross look or a testy 
 word of a patron. "Faith," he wrote to Stella, with bitter levity, "Sir 
 William spoiled a fine gentlemen." Yet, in justice to Temple, we must say 
 that there is no reason to think that Swift was more unhappy at Moor Park 
 than he would have been in a similar situation under any roof in England. We 
 think also that the obligations which the mind of Swift owed to that of Temple 
 were not inconsiderable. Every judicious reader must be struck by the 
 peculiarities which distinguish Swift's political tracts from all similar works 
 produced by mere men of letters. Let any person compare, for example, the 
 " Conduct of the AUies," or the " Letter to the October Club," with Johnson's 
 "False Alarm," or "Taxation no Tyranny," and he will be at once struck by the 
 difference of which we speak. He may possibly think Johnson a greater man 
 than Swift. He may possibly prefer Johnson's style to Swift's. But he will 
 at once acknowledge that Johnson writes like a man who has never been out 
 of his study. Swift writes like a man who has passed his whole life in the 
 midst of public business, and to whom the most important affairs of state are 
 , s familiar as his weekly bills. 
 
 " Turn him to any cause of policy, 
 The Gordian knot of it he will unloose, 
 Familiar as his garter." 
 
 The difference, in short, between a political pamphlet by Johnson and a 
 political pamphlet by Swift, is as great as the difference between an account of 
 a battle by Doctor Southey and the account of the same battle by Colonel 
 Napier. It is impossible to doubt that the superiority of Swift is to be, in a 
 great measure, attributed to his long and close connection with Temple. 
 
 Indeed, remote as the alleys and flower-pots of Moor Park were from the 
 haunts of the busy and the ambitious, Swift had ample opportunities of be- 
 coming acquainted with the hidden causes of many great events. William 
 was in the habit of consulting Temple, and occasionally visited him. Of what 
 passed between them very little is known. It is certain, however, that when 
 the Triennial Bill had been carried through the two Houses, his ]\Iajesty, Mho 
 ^\'as exceedingly unwilling to pass it, sent the Earl of Portland to learn 
 Temple's opinion. Whether Temple thought the bill in itself a good one 
 does not appear ; but he clearly saw how imprudent it must be in a prince, 
 situated as William was, to engage in an altercation with his Parliament ; and 
 directed Swift to draw up a paper on the subject, which, however, did not 
 convince the King. 
 
 The chief amusement of Temple's declining years was literature. After his 
 final retreat from business, he wrote his very agreeable " Memoirs," corrected 
 and transcribed many of his letters, and published several miscellaneous 
 treatises, the best of which, we think, is that on " Gardening." The style of ^is 
 essays is, on the whole, excellent — almost always pleasing, and now and then, 
 Vately and splendid. The matter is generally of much less value; as our 
 
. SIR William Temple. 48$; 
 
 readers will readily believe when we iWbrm them that Mr. Courtenay — a. 
 bi(5grapher — that is to say, a literary vassal bound by th6 immemorial law of' 
 his tenure to render, homage, aids, reliefs, and all other customary services to 
 his lord — avows that he cannot give an opinion about the essay on *' Heroic 
 Virtue," because he cannot read it without skipping — a circumstance which 
 strikes us as peculiarly strange, when we consider how long Mr. Courtenay 
 was at the India Board, and how many thousand paragraphs of the copious 
 official eloquence of the East he must have perused. 
 
 One of Sir William's pieces, however, deserve notice : not, indeed, on account 
 of its intrinsic merit, but on account of the light which it throv/s on some curious 
 weaknesses of his character, and on account of the extraordinary effects which 
 it produced in the republic of letters. A most idle and contemptible contro- 
 versy had arisen in France touching the comparative merit of the ancient and 
 modern writers. It was certainly not to be expected that, in that age, the 
 question would-be tried according to those large and philosophical principles of 
 criticism which --guided the judgments of Lessing and Herder. But it might 
 have been expected that those who undertook to decide the point would at 
 least take the trouble to read and understand the authors on whose merits they 
 were to pronounce. Now, it is no exaggeration to say that, among the dis- 
 putants who clamoured, some for the ancients and some for the moderns, very 
 few were decently acquainted with either ancient or modern literature, and not 
 a single one was well acquainted with both. In Racine's amusing preface to 
 the " Iphigenie," the reader may find noticed a most ridiculous mistake, into 
 which one of the champions of the moderns fell about a passage in the " Alcestis" 
 of Euripides. Another writer blames Homer for mixing the four Greek dialects 
 — Doric, Ionic, i^olic and Attic — ^just, says he, as if a French poet were to 
 put Gascon phrases andPicard phrases into the midst of his pure Parisian 
 writing. On the other hand, it is no exaggeration to say that the defenders of 
 the ancients were entirely unaqquainted with the greatest productions of later 
 times ; nor, indeed, were the defenders of the moderns better informed. The 
 parallels which were instituted in the course of this dispute are inexpressibly 
 ridiculous. Balzac was selected by the rival of Cicero. Corneille was declared 
 to unite the merits of ^Eschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. We should like to 
 see a "Prometheus" after Corneille's fashion. The "Provincial Letters" — 
 masterpieces undoubtedly of reasoning, wit and eloquence — were pronounced 
 to be superior to all the writings of Plato, Cicero and Lucian together — 
 particularly in the art of dialogue — an art in which, as it happens, Plato far 
 excelled all men, and in which Pascal, great and admiral)le in other respects, is 
 notoriously very deficient. 
 
 This childish controversy spread to England ; and some mischievous dcemoR 
 suggested to Temple the thought of undertaking the defence of the ancients. 
 As to his qualifications for the task, it is sufficient to say that he knew not a 
 word of Greek. But his vanity, which, when he was engaged in the conflicts of 
 active life and surrounded by rivals, had been kept in tolerable order by his 
 discretion, now, when he had long lived in seclusion and had become accus- 
 tomed to regard himself as by far the first man of his circle, rendered him blind 
 by his own deficiencies. In an evil hour he published an " Essay on Ancient 
 and Modern Learning." The style of this treatise is very good — the matter 
 ludicrous and contemptible to the last degree. There we read how Lycurgus 
 travelled into India and brought the Spartan laws from that country — how 
 Orpheus and Musccus made voyages in search of knowledge, and how Orpheus 
 attained to a depth of learning which has made him renowned in all succeeding 
 ages — how Pythagoras passed twenty-two years in Egypt, and, after graduating 
 there, spent twelve years more at Babylon, where the Magi adrnitted him <^ 
 
4$ Slli WILLIAM TEMPLE, 
 
 eundejti — how the ancient Brahmins lived two hundred years — how the earliest 
 Greek philosophers foretold earthquakes and plagues and put down riots by magic 
 —and how much Ninus surpassed in abilities any of his successors on the throne 
 of Assyria. The moderns, he owns, have found out the circulation of the! 
 blood J but, on the other hand, they have quite lost the art of magic ; nor caiy > 
 any niodern fiddler enchant fishes, fowls and serpents by his perforinance. H^, 
 tells lis that ^'Thales, Pythagoras, Democritus, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle' 
 and Epicurus made grieater progresses in the several empires of science than 
 any of their successors have since been able to reach " ; which is as much as if 
 he had said that the greatest names i^ji British science are Merlin, Michael 
 Scott, Dr. Sydenham and Lord Bacon. Indeed, the manner in which he 
 mixes the historical and the fabulous reminds us of those classical dictionaries, 
 intended for the use of schools, in which Narcissus, the lover of himself, and 
 Narcissus, the freedman of Claudius — Pollux, the son of Jupiter and Leda, and 
 Pollux, the author of the " Onomasticon " — are ranged under the same headings, 
 and treated as personages equally real. The effect of this arrangement resem- 
 bles that vvhich would be produced by a dictionary of modern names, consisting 
 of such articles as the following : — "Jones, William, an eminent Orientalist, 
 and one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal — Davy, a 
 fiend, v/ho destroys ships — Thomas, a foundling, brought up by Mr. All worthy."' 
 It is from such sources as these that Temple seems to have learned all that he 
 knew about the ancients. Pie puts the story of Orpheus between the Olympic 
 games and the battle of Arbela ; as if we had exactly as much reason for 
 believing that Orpheus led beasts with his lyre as we have for believing that 
 there were races at Pisa, or that Alexander conquered Darius, 
 
 He, manages little better when he comes to the moderns. Jle gives us a 
 catalogue of those whom he regards as the greatest wits of later times. It is, 
 sufficient to say that in his list of ItaHans he has omitted Dante, Petrarch'^ 
 Ariosto and Tasso ; in his list of Spaniards, Lope and Calderon ; in his list (^ 
 Prench, Pascal, Bossuet, Moliere, Corneille, Rdcine and Boileau ; and in his. 
 list of English, Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton. 
 
 In the midst of all this vast mass of absurdity one paragraph stands out pre- 
 eminent. The doctrine of Temple — not a very comfortable doctrine — is that 
 the human race is constantly degenerating and that the oldest books in every 
 kind are the best. In confirmation of this doctrine, he remarks that the "Fables'' 
 of yEsop are the best P'ables, and the "Letters" of Phalaris the best Letters in the 
 world. On the merit of the "Letters" of Phalaris he dvvelis with great warmth 
 and with extraordinary felicity of language. Indeed, we could hardly select a 
 more favourable specimen of the graceful and easy majesty to which his style 
 sometimes, rises than this unlucky passage. He knows, he says, that some 
 learned men, or men who pacs for learned— such as Politian — have doubted the 
 genuineness of these letters. But of these doubts he speaks -with the greatest 
 contempt. "Now it is perfectly certain, first, that the letters are very, bad; 
 secondly* that they are spurious; and thirdly, that, whether they be bad or 
 good, .'spuxious or genuine. Temple could know nothing of the matter, inasmuch 
 as he was no more able to construe. j^U^^pT i'^em i;t|ajx decipher an^Egyptian 
 obelisk, ' ','.'■ \\ ■■ "'"' -'-.-v' ';:•-. /j^.^r:''''' 
 
 . Thi$ essay, silly, ab ^*v is., was exceedingly well received both in England 
 and. oa the Continent. "Aad the reason is evident. The classical scholars, 
 who saw its absurdity, were, generally on the side of the ancients, -and wer^ 
 inclined rather to veil than toexposc the blunders of an ally ; the champions 
 the moderns were generally as ignorant as Tfen^ple himself; and the multitu< 
 was charmed by his iflowing and melodious diction. He was doomed, howevejt 
 to smart, as he well desejfved, for his vanity and\folly. , , 
 
SrW^'MlL/AM TEMPLE, 487 
 
 . — \ — ' •; ' X '" ' . — : — ^ — ^=^— • — — 
 
 Christchurch at Oxford' was theii widely and justly celebrated as. a place 
 where the lighter parts of classical learning were cultivated with success. 'With 
 the deeper mysteries of philology neither the instructors nor thu pupils had the 
 smallest acquaintance. They fancied themselves Scaligers, as Bentley scorn- 
 fully said, as soon as they could write a copy of Latin verses with only two or 
 three small faults. From this College proceeded a new edition of the *' Letters'* 
 of Phalaris, which were rare, and had been m request since the appearance of 
 Temple's essay. The nominal editor was Charles Boyle, a young man of noble 
 family and promising parts ; but some older members of the society lent their 
 assistance. While this work was in preparatidn, an idle quarrel, occasioned, it 
 should seem, by the negligence and misrepresentations of a bookseller, arose 
 between Boyle and the King's Librarian, Richard Bentley. Boyle, ih the 
 preface to his edition, inserted a bitter reflection on Bentley; Bentley revenged 
 himself by proving that the " Epistles " of Phalaris were forgeries ; and, in his 
 remarks on this subject, treated Temple, not indecently, but with no grtfat 
 reverence. , ' - 
 
 Temple, who was quite unaccustomed to any but the niost respectful usage ; 
 who, even while engaged in politics, had always shrunk from all rude collision, 
 and had generally succeeded in avoiding it ; and whose sensitiveness had been 
 increased by many years of seclusion and flattery, was moved to most violent 
 resentment, complained, very unjustly, of Bentley's foul-mouthed raillery, 
 and declared that he had commenced an answer, but had laid it aside, 
 ** having no mind to enter the lists with such a mean, dull, unmannerly 
 pedant." Whatever may be thought of the temper which Sir William showed 
 on this occasion, we cannot too highly applaud his discretion in ildt finishing 
 and pubhshing his answer, which would certainly have been a' most extra- 
 ^prdinary performance. 
 
 ^^^'^■^^He was not, however, without defenders. Like Hector, when struck ^d^NVT) 
 ^os|'rp_e b)r i^i^^ he was in an instant covered with, a thifck -C^owd, of §i3elds: 
 
 Oi/Trto-a<, ov^fc /SoAetv* irpJi/ 7(ip 7rep/€»]cra»' apicTTOj, • •< ^ ■ - 
 
 noi/\u3aM09 re, Kal Alve/a?, Kai3ior 'A7j;«'a)c, \ "^ 
 
 1a(>-Kr\huiV t' apxoi AvKitay, Kai TXavKov u/jluhmv. 'ij Oj 
 
 Christchurch was up in arms ; and though that College seems then to Have 
 been almost destitute of severe and accurate learning, no academical society 
 could show a greater array of orators, wits, poHticians— bustling adventurers 
 who united the superficial accomplishments of the scholar with the manners 
 And arts of the man of the world ; and this formidable body resolved to try 
 how far smart repartees, well-turned sentences, confidence, puffing and ia- 
 
 ^i^rigue could — on the question whether a Greek book were or were not genuine 
 
 .-^supply the place of a little knowledge of Greek. 
 
 Wi-P'"' carne the " Reply to Bentley," bearing the name of Boyle, but in truth 
 written by Atterbury, with the assistance of Smalridge and others. A . most 
 
 rremarkable book it is, and often reminds us of Goldsmith's observation, that "the 
 
 'French would be the best cooks in the world if they had , any butcher's mea,t ; 
 for that they can make ten dishes out of a nettle-top." It really deserves the 
 praise, whatever that praise may be worth, of being the best book ever written 
 by any man oil the wrong side of a question of which he was profoundly 
 ignorant. The learning of the confederacy is that of a schoolboy, and not of 
 ^n extraordinary schoolboy ; but it is used with the skjU and address of most 
 
 'able, artful and experienced men : it is beaten out to the very thinnest leaf, 
 and is disposed in such a way as to., seem ten times larger than it is. The 
 
 'dexterity with which they avoid grappling with those parts of the subject with 
 
 *which they know themselves to be incompetent to deal with is ijiiite wonderful. 
 
4^S SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE. 
 
 Now and then, indeed, they commit disgraceful blunders, for which old Busby, 
 under whom they had studied, would have whipped them all round. But this 
 circumstance only raises our opinion of the talents which made such a fight 
 with such scanty means. Let our readers, who are not acquainted with the 
 controversy, imagine a Frenchman, who has acquired just English enough to 
 read the Spectator with a dictionary, coming forward to defend the genuine- 
 ness of Rowley's "Poems" against Percy and Farmer, and they will have 
 some notion of the feat which Atterbury had the audacity to undertake, and 
 which, for a time, it was really thought that he had performed. 
 
 The illusion was soon dispelled. Bentley's answer for ever settled the 
 question, and established his claim to the first place among classical scholars. 
 Nor do those do him justice who represent the controversy as a battle between 
 wit and learning. For though there is a lamentable deficiency of learning on 
 the side of Boyle, there is no want of wit on the side of Bentley. Other 
 qualities, too, as valuable as either^ wit or learning, appear conspicuously in 
 Bentley's book — a rare sagacity, an unrivalled power of combination, a per- 
 fect mastery of all the weapons of logic. He was greatly indebted to the 
 furious outcry which the misrepresentations, sarcasms and intrigues of his 
 opponents had raised against him ; an outcry in which fashionable and political 
 circles joined, and which was echoed by thousands who did not know whether 
 Phalaris ruled in Sicily or in vSiam. His spirit — daring even to rashness — self- 
 confident even to negligence — and proud even to insolent ferocity — was 
 awed for the first and for the last time — awed, not into meanness or cowardice, 
 but into wariness and sobriety. P'or once he ran no risks ; he left no crevice 
 unguarded ; he wantoned in no paradoxes ; above all, he returned no railing 
 for the railing of his enemies. In almost everything that he has written, we 
 can discover proofs of genius and learning. But is is only here that his genius 
 and learning appear to have been constantly under the guidance of good sense 
 and good temper. Here, we find none of that besotted reliance on his own 
 powers and on his own luck, which he showed when he undertook to edit 
 Milton ; none of that perverted ingenuity which deforms so many of his notes 
 on Horace ; none of that djsdainful carelessness by which he laid himself open 
 to the keen and dexterous thrust of Middleton ; none of that extravagant 
 vaunting and savage scurrility by which he afterwards dishonoured his studies 
 and his profession, and degraded himself almost to the Jevel of De Pauw. 
 
 Temple did not live to witness the utter and irreparable defeat of his 
 champions. He died, indeed, at a fortunate moment, just after the appear- 
 ance of Boyle's book, and while all England was laughing at the way in which 
 the Christchurch men had handled the pedant. In Boyle's book, Temple was 
 praised in the highest terms and compared to Memmius — not a very happy 
 comparison, for the only particular information which we have about Memmius 
 is, that in agitated times he thought it his duty to attend exclusively to politics ; 
 and that his friends could not venture, except when the RepubHc was quiet 
 and prosperous, to intrude on him with their philosophical and poetical pro- 
 ductions. It is on this account that Lucretius puts up the exquisitely beautiful,, 
 prayer for peace with which his poem opens : 
 
 " Nam neque nos agere hoc patriaii tempore iniquo 
 Possumus aequo animo, nee Memmi clara propago 
 Talibus in rebus communi deesse saluti." 
 
 d 
 
 This description is surely by no means applicable to a statesman who had, 
 through the whole course of his life, carefully avoided exposing himself in 
 seasons of trouble ; who had repeatedly refused, in most critical conjunctures, 
 to be Secretary of State j and who now, in the midst of revolutions^^ 
 
S/J^ WILLIAM TEMPLE. 48^ 
 
 foreign and domestic wars, was quietly writing nonsense about the visits of 
 Lycurgus to the Brahmins, and the tunes/^hich Arion played to the Dolphin. 
 
 We must not omit to mention that, while the controversy about Phalaris was 
 raging, Swift, in order to show his zeal and attachment, wrote the " Battle of the 
 Books " — the earliest piece in which his peculiar talents are discernible. We 
 may observe that the bitter dislike of Bentley, bequeathed by Temple to Swift, 
 seems to have been communicated by Swift to Pope, to Arbuthnot, and to 
 others, who continued to tease the great critic long- after he had shaken hands 
 very cordially both with Boyle and with Atterbury. 
 
 Sir William Temple died at Moor Park in January, 1699. He appears to 
 have suffered no intellectual decay. His heart was buried under a sun-dial, 
 which still stands in his favourite garden. His body was laid in Westmin- 
 ster Abbey by the side of his wife ; and a place hard by was set apart for Lady 
 GifFard, who long survived him. Swift was his literary executor, and super- 
 intended the publication of his "Letters" and "Memoirs," not without some 
 acrimonious contests with the family. 
 
 Of Temple's character little more remains to be said. Burnet accuses him 
 of holding irreligious opinions and corrupting everybody who came near 
 him. But the vague assertion of so rash and partial a writer as Burnet, 
 about a man with whom, as far as we know, he never exchanged a word, is 
 of very little weight. Tt is, indeed, by no means improbable that Temple 
 may have been a freethinker. The Osbornes thought him so when he was a 
 very young man. And it is certain that a large proportion of the gentleman of 
 rank and fashion who made their entrance into society while the Puritan party 
 was at the height of power, and while the memory of the reign of that party 
 was still recent, conceived a strong disgust for all religion. The imputation 
 was common between Temple and all the most distinguished courtiers of the 
 age. Rochester and Buckingham were open scoffers, and Mulgrave very little 
 better. Shaftesbury, though more guarded, was supposed to agree with them 
 in opinion. All the three noblemen who were Temple's colleagxies during the 
 shore time of his continuance in the Cabinet were of very indifferent repute as to 
 orthodoxy. Halifax, indeed, was generally considered as an atheist, but he 
 solemnly denied the charge, and, indeed, the truth seems to be that he was 
 more religiously disposed than most of the statemen of that age ; though two 
 impulses which were unusually strong in him, a passion for ludicrous images 
 and a passion for subtle speculations, sometimes prompted him to talk on 
 serious subjects in a manner which gave great and just offence. It is not 
 unlikely that Temple, who seldom went below the surface of any question, 
 may have been infected with the prevailing scepticism. All that we can say 
 on the subject is, that there is no trace of impiety in his works, and that the 
 ease with which he carried his election for an university, where the majority of 
 the voters were clergymen, though it proves nothing as to his opinions, must, 
 we think, be considered as proving that he was not, as Burnet seems to insin- 
 uate, in the habit of talking atheism to all who came near him, ' '' 
 
 Temple, however, will scarcely carry with him any great accession of 
 authority to the side either of religion or of infidelity. He was no profound 
 thinker. He was merely a man of lively parts and quick observation, a man 
 of the /World among men of letters, a man of letters among men of the world. 
 Mere scholars were dazzled by the Ambassador and Cabinet counsellor, mere 
 politicians by the Essayist and Historian. But neither as a writer nor as a states- 
 man can we allot to him any very high place. As a man, he seeme to us to have 
 been excessively selfish, but very sober, wary and farsij^hted in his selfishness ; to 
 have known lietter than most people know what he res ^y wanted in life; and to 
 have pursued what he wanted with much more than ordinary steadiness and 
 
499 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 sagacity, never suffering himself to be drawn, aside either by bad or by good 
 feelings. It was his constitution to dread failure more than he desired success, 
 to prefer security, comfort, repose, leisure, to the turmoil and anxiety which 
 are inseparable from greatness ; and this natural langour of mind, when con- 
 trasted with the malignant energy of the keen and restless spirits among whom 
 his lot was cast, sometimes appears to resemble the moderation of virtue. But 
 we must own that he seems to us to sink into littleness and meanness when we 
 compare him, we do not say with any high ideal standard of morality, but with 
 many of those frail men who, aiming at noble ends, but often drawn from the 
 right path by strong passions and strong temptatjpns^ijh^ve.lejt ^^.:p9^jierjity a 
 doubtful and checkered fame. '.',;'/ . ':;' /:';.';Vf;T'ofr | 'v';'^;^ W 
 
 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. (April, 1839.) 
 
 The State in its Relations with the Church. Second Edition. By W. E. C^lAdstone, 
 Esq., Student of Christ Church and M.P. for Newark. 8vo. London, 1839. 
 
 The author of this volume is a young man of unblemished character and of 
 distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and unbend- 
 ing Tories who follow reluctantly and mutinously a leader whose experience 
 and eloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper and 
 moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all strange if Mr. Gladstone 
 were one of the most unpopular men in England. But we believe that we do 
 him no more than justice when we say that his abihties and his demeanour have 
 obtained for him the respect and goodwill of all parties. His first appearance 
 in the character of an author is therefore an interesting event ; and it is 
 natural that the gentle wishes x)f the public should go with him to his 
 
 trial ' 
 
 We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or unsound- 
 ness of Mr. Gladstone's theories, to see a grave .and elaborate treatise on an 
 important part of the philosophy of Government proceed from the pen of a young 
 man who is rising to eminence in the House of Commons. There is little 
 danger that people engaged in the conflicts of active life will be too much 
 addicted to general speculation. The opposite vice is that which most easily 
 besets them. The times and tides of business and debate tarry for no man. A 
 politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be 
 very ill-informed respecting a question ; all his notions about it may be vague 
 and inaccurate ; but speak he must, and if he is a man of talents, of tact and of 
 intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to 
 %peak successfully. He finds that there is a great difference between the 
 effect of written words, which are perused and reperused in the stillness of the 
 closet, and the effect of spoken words which, set off by the graces of utterance 
 and gesture, vibrate for a single moment on the ear. He finds that he may 
 blunder without much chance of being detected, that he may reason sophisti- 
 cally and escape unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of 
 trade and legislation, he can without reading ten pages or thinking ten 
 minutes, draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having 
 made an excellent speech. Lysias, says Plutarch, -wrote a defenpe for a 
 man who was to be tried before one of the Athenian tribunals. Long 
 before the defendant had learned the speech by heart, he became so much 
 dissatisfied with it that he went in great distress to the author. • ' I was 
 delighted with your speech the first time I read it ; but I liked it less the 
 aecoud ti?^g, stnd ^^till less the third time, aud now it seems to me to be no defence 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. j^\ 
 
 at all." "My good friend," says Lysias, "you quite forget that the judges 
 are to hear it only once. The case is 'me same in the English Parliament. 
 It would be as idle in an orator to waste deep meditation and long research 
 on his speeches, as it would be in the manager of a theatre to adorn all the 
 crowd of courtiers and ladies who cross over the stage in a procession with real 
 peprls and diamonds. It is not by accuracy or profundity that men become 
 the masters of great assemblies. And why be at the charge of providing logic 
 'bf the best quality when a very inferior article will be equally acceptable? 
 'Why go as deep into a question as Burke, only in order to be, like Burke, 
 coughed dowii, or left speaking to green benches and red boxes ? This has long 
 appeared to us to be the most serious of the evils which are to be set off against 
 the many blessings of popular government. It is a fine and true saying of 
 Bicon, that ** reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and writing 
 an exact man." ' The tendency of institutions like those of England is to 
 'diicourage readiness in public men at the expense both of fulness and of 
 exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of every generation, 
 minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, are habitually 
 employed in producing arguments, such as no man of sense would ever put in 
 a treatise intended for publication, arguments which are just good enough to be 
 used once, when aided by fluent delivery and pointed language. The habit 
 of dis(jnssing questions in this way necessarily reacts on the intellects of our 
 ablest men, particularly of those who are introduced into parliament at a very 
 early age, before their minds have expanded to full maturity. The taleiit 
 for debate is devoloped in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems 
 as marvellous as the performance of an Italian improvisatore. But they 
 are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties which are 
 required for close r-easoning or for enlarged speculation. Indeed, we 
 should sooner expect a great original work on political science^ such a 
 work for example as the "Wealth of Nations," from an apothecary in a 
 country town, or from a Minister in the Hebrides than from a statesman who 
 isver since he was one-and^tyventy hjid beej;! a .d^stingiiished debate jtt. .the 
 House of Commons, -^ . , ^ ■ ,.' ' ,,. .-^r. -r, 
 
 ' We, therefore, hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed 
 bleasure, the appearance of this wor^c. That a young politician should, in the 
 intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have constructed and pro- 
 [)bunded, with much study and mental toil, an original theory on a great 
 problem in politics, is a circumstance which, abstracted from all consideration 
 of the soundness or unsoundness of his opinions, must be considered as highly 
 dfeditable to him. We certainly cannot wish that Mr. Gladstone">i doctrines 
 inay become fashionable among public men. But we heartily wish that his 
 laudable desire to penetrate beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by 
 long and intent meditation, at the knowledge of great general laws, were 
 jilUch more fashionable than we at all expect it to become. 
 ;''|^Ir. Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well quali- 
 fied for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp ; nor is he 
 (tfificient in dialectical skill. But he does not give his intellect fair play. There 
 is' no want of light, but a great want of what Bacon would have called dry 
 light". Whatever Mr. Gladstone sees is refracted and distorted by a false 
 iliiediu-m of passions and prejudices. His style bears a remarkable annlc^^ 
 to! his mode of thinking, and indeed exercises great influence on his mode 
 Sf thinking. His rhetoric, though often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes 
 iHe logic which it should illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with 
 ^'^ba.iTen imagiiiation and a scanty vocabular}', would have saved him from 
 almost aM his -mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator— a 
 
492 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 vast command of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and ' 
 uncertain import — of a kind of language which affects us much in the same 
 way in which the lofty diction of the Chorus cf Clouds affected the simple- 
 hearted Athenian. 
 
 tti y>} rov <j>9ifiJiaT09, we lepop, Kal o-e/iiov, Kat TcparcoSe?. 
 
 When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to 
 amplify and decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if 
 it is admitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute non- 
 sense — ^just as that transparent haze, through which the sailor sees capes and 
 mountains of false sizes and in false bearings, is more dangerous than utter 
 darkness. Now, Mr. Gladstone is fond of employing the phraseology of which 
 we speak in those parts of his works which require the utmost perspicuity 
 and precision of which human language is capable ; and in this way he 
 deludes first himself and then his readers. The foundations of his theory, 
 which ought to be buttresses of adamant, are made out of the flimsy mate- 
 rials which are fit only for perorations. This fault is one which no subsequent 
 care or industry can correct. The more strictly Mr. Gladstone reasons 'on his 
 premises, the more absurd are the conclusions which he brings out ; and, 
 when at last his good sense and good nature recoil from the horrible prac- 
 tical inferences to which this theory leads, he is reduced sometimes to take 
 refuge in arguments inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines, and sometimes 
 to escape from the legitimate consequences of his false principles under cover 
 of equally false history. 
 
 It would be unjust not to say that this book, though not a good book, shows 
 more talent than many good books. It abounds with eloquent and ingenious 
 passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought. It is written through- 
 out with excellent taste and excellent temper ; nor does it, so far as we have ob- 
 served, contain one expression unworthy of a gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. 
 But the doctrines which are put forth in it appear to us, after full and calm con- 
 sideration, to be false ; to be in the highest degree pernicious ; and to be such as, 
 if followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would inevitably 
 produce the dissolution of society : and for this opinion we shall proceed to 
 give our reasons with that freedcm which the importance of the subject 
 requires, and which Mr. Ciladstone, both by precept and by example, invites us 
 to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are sure, without malevolence. 
 
 Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to giiard our- 
 selves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons who have 
 read Mr. Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have merely heard in 
 conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member for Newark has written 
 in defence of the Church of England against the supporters of the voluntary 
 system, may imagine that we are writing in defence of the voluntary system, 
 and that we desire the abolition of the Established Church. This is not the 
 case. It would be as unjust to accuse us of attacking the Church because we 
 attack Mr. Gladstone's doctrines as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing 
 for anarchy because he refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government ; or to 
 accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical property 
 because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was derived from the Le- 
 vitical law. It is to be observed that Mr, Gladstone rests his case on entirely 
 r>ew grounds, and does not differ more widely from us than from some of those 
 who have hitherto been considered as the most illustrious champions of the 
 Church. He is not content with the " Ecclesiastical Polity," and rejoices that the 
 latter part of that celebrated work ' ' does not carry with it the weight of 
 Hooker's plenary authority." ?Ie is not content with Bishop Wajburton's 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 493 
 
 •' Alliance of Church and State." " Th^propositions of that work generally," 
 he says, **are to be received with qualification ;" and he agrees with Boling- 
 luoke in thinking that Warburton's whole theory rests on a fiction. He is still 
 less satisfied with Paley's defence of the Church, which he pronounces to be 
 " tainted by the original vice of false ethical principles" and " full of the seeds 
 of evil." He conceives that Dr. Chalmers has taken a partial view of the sub- 
 ject and " put forth much questionable matter." In truth, on almost ever}' 
 point on which we are opposed to Mr. Gladstone, we have on our side the 
 authority of some divine, eminent as a defender of existing establishments. 
 
 Mr, Gladstone's whole theory rests on this great fundamental proposition—^ 
 that the propagation of Religious Truth is one of the principal ends of Govern- 
 ment, as government. If Mr. Gladstone has not proved this proposition, his 
 system vanishes at once. 
 
 We are desirous, before we enter on the discussion of this important ques- 
 tion, to point out clearly a distinction which, though very obvious, seems to 
 be overlooked by many excellent people. In their opinion, to say that the ends 
 of government are temporal and not spiritual, is tantamount to saying that 
 the temporal welfare of man is of more importance than his spiritual welfare. 
 But this is an entire mistake. The question is not whether spiritual in- 
 terests be or be not superior in importance to temporal interests, but 
 whether the machinery which happens at any moment to be employed for the 
 purpose of protecting certain temporal interests of a society be necessarily 
 such a machinery as is fitted to promote the spiritual interests of that society. 
 It is certain that without a division of duties the world could not go on. It is 
 of very much more importance that nien should have food than that they should 
 have pianofortes. Yet it by no means follows that every pianoforte-maker 
 ought to add the business of a baker to his own ; for, if he did so, we should 
 have both much worse music and much worse bread. It is of much more im- 
 portance that the knowledge of religious truth should be widely diffused 
 than that the art of sculpture should flourish among us. Yet it by no means 
 follows -that the Royal Academy ought to unite with its present functions those 
 of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to distribute theological 
 tracts, to send forth missionaries, to turn out Nollekens for being a Catholic, 
 Bacon for being a methodist and Flaxman for being a Swedenborgian. For 
 the effect of such folly would be that we should have the worst possible Aca- 
 demy of Arts and the worst possible Society for the Promotion of Christian 
 Knowledge. The community, it is plain, would be thrown into universal con- 
 fusion if it were supposed to be the duty of every association which is formed, 
 for one good object, to promote every other good object. 
 
 As to some of the ends of civil government, all people are agreed. That it 
 is designed to protect our persons and our property — that it is designed to 
 compel us to satisfy our wants/ not by rapine, but by industry — that it is 
 designed to compel us to decide our differences, not by the strong hand, but 
 by arbitration — that it is designed to direct our whole force as that of one man 
 against any other society which may offer us injury — ^these are propositions 
 which will hardly be disputed. 
 
 •Now these are matters in which man, without any reference to any higher 
 :being, or to any future state, is very deeply interested. Every man, be he 
 idolater, Mahometan, Jew, Papist, vSocinian, Deist or Atheist, naturally loves 
 life, shrinks from pain, desires comforts which can be enjoyed only in commu- 
 nities where property is secure. To \y^ murdered, to be tortured, to be robbed, 
 to be sold into slavery, to be exposed to the outrages of gangs of foreign 
 banditti calling themselves patriots, these are evidently evils from which men 
 of every religion, and men of no religion, wish to be protected ; and, therefore, 
 
494 
 
 S^DSTMkMcMkMAM^&T^ 
 
 it will hardly be disputed that men of every religion, ^ of no religion, have 
 thus far a common interest in being well governed. 
 
 But the hopes and fears of man are not limited to this short life and to this 
 visible world. He finds himself surrounded by the signs of a power and 
 wisdom higher than his own ; and, in all ages and nations, men of all orders 
 of intellects, from Bacon and Newton down to the rudest tribes of cannibals, 
 have believed in the existence of some superior mind. Thus far the voice of 
 mankind is almost unanimous. But whether there be one God, or many — 
 what may be God's natural and what His moral attributes — in what relation 
 His creatures stand to Him — whether He have ever disclosed Himself to us 
 by any other revelation than that which is written in all the parts of the 
 glorious and well-ordered world which He has made — whether His revelation 
 be contained in any permanent record — how that record should be interpreted, 
 and whether it have pleased Him to appoint any unerring interpreter on 
 earth — these are questions respecting which there exists the widest diversity 
 of opinion, and respecting some of which a large part of our race has, ever 
 since the dawn of regular history, been deplorably in error. 
 
 Nowhere are two great objects: one is. the protection of the persons and 
 estates of citizens from injury ; the other is the propagation of religious truth. 
 N© two objects more entirely distinct can well be imagined. The former 
 belongs wholly to the visible and tangible world in which we live ; the latter 
 belongs to that higher world which is beyond the reach of our senses. The 
 former belongs to this life ; the latter to that which is to come. Men who are 
 perfectly agreed as to the importance of the former object, and as to the way 
 of obtaining it, differ as widely as possible respecting the latter object. We 
 must, therefore, pause before we admit that the persons, be they who they 
 may, who are intrusted with power for the promotion of the former object 
 ought always to use that power for the promotion of the latter object. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone conceives that the duties of governments are paternal — a 
 doctrine which we shall not believe till he can show us some government which 
 loves its subjects as a father loves a child, and which is as superior in intelli- 
 gence to its subjects as a father is to a child. He tells us in lofty, though 
 somewhat indistinct language, that "Government occupies in moral the place 
 of Ti> TTOiv in physical science." If government be indeed to tolv in moral 
 science, we do not understand why rulers should not assume all the functions 
 which Plato assigned to them. Why should they not take away the child 
 from the mother, select the nurse, regulate the school, overlook the pla) - 
 ground, fix the hours of labour and of recreation, prescribe what ballads shall 
 be sung, what tunes shall be played, what books shall be read, what physic 
 shall be swallowed? Why should not they choose our wives, limit our ex- 
 penses, and stint us to a certain number of dishes, of glasses of wine, and of 
 cups of tea? Plato, whose hardihood in speculation was perhaps more 
 wonderful than any other peculiarity of, his extraordinary mind, and who 
 shrank from nothing to which his principles led, went this whole length. Mr. 
 Gladstone is not so intrepid. He contents himself with laying down this 
 proposition — that whatever be the body which in any community is employed 
 to protect the persons and property of men, that body ought also, in its cor- 
 porate capacity, to profess a religion, to employ its power for the propagation 
 of that religion, and to require conformity to that religion as an indispensable 
 qualification for all civil office. He distinctly declares that he does not in this 
 proposition confine his view to orthodox governments, or even, to Christian 
 governments. The circumstance that a religion is false does not, he tells us, 
 diminish the obligation of governors, as such, to uphold it. If they neglect tq 
 do so, " We cannot," he says, " but regard the fact as aggravating the case 
 
GL4t>STQm O}^ CHUkCH AJ^fit.sjJATE. 49i$ 
 
 the holders of such creed." " I do not<scruple to affirm," he adds, '* that, if 
 a Mahometan conscientiously believes his religion to come from God and to 
 teach divine truth, he must believe that truth to be beneficial, and beneficial 
 beyond all other things, to the soul of man ; and he must, therefore, and ought 
 to desire its extension, and to use for its extension all proper and legitimate 
 means ; and that, if such Mahometan be a prince, he ought to count among 
 those means the application of whatever influence or funds he may lawfuUy 
 have at his disposal for such purposes." i. ■ 
 
 Surely this is a hard saying. Before we admit that the Emperor Julian, in 
 employing the influence and the funds at his disposal for the extinction of 
 Christianity, was doing no more than his duty — before we a^mit that the 
 Arian Theodoric would have committed a crime if he had suffered a single 
 believer in the divinity of Christ to hold any civil employment in Italy— 
 before we admit that the Dutch Government is bound to exclude from office 
 all members of the Church of England ; the King of Bavaria to exclude from 
 office all Protestants ; the Great Turk to exclude from office all Christians ; 
 the King of Ava to exclude from office all who hold the unity of God — we 
 think ourselves entitled to demand very full and accurate demonstration. 
 When the consequences of a doctrine are so startling, we may well require that 
 its foundations shall be very solid. 
 
 The following paragraph is a specimen of the arguments by which Mr. 
 Gladstone has, as he conceives, established his great fundamental proposi- 
 tion : — 
 
 •' We may state the same proposition in a more general form, in which it surely must 
 command universal assent. Wherever there is power in the universe, that power is the 
 property of God, the King of that universe— his property of right, however for a time 
 witnholden or abused. Now this property is, as it were, reah'sed, is used according to 
 the will of the owner, when it is used for the purposes he has ordained, and in the 
 temper of mercy, justice, truth and faith which be has taught us. But those principles 
 never can be truly, never can be permanently entertained in the human breast, except 
 by a continual reference to their source, and the supply of the Divine grace. The powers, 
 therefore, that dwell in individuals acting as a government, as well as those that dwell 
 in individuals acting for themselves, can only be secured for right uses by applying to 
 them a religion." 
 
 Here are propositions of vast and indefinite extent, conveyed in language 
 which has a certain obscure dignity and sanctity, attractive, we doubt not, to 
 many minds. But the moment that we examine these propositions closely, 
 the moment that we bring them to the test by running over but a very few of 
 the particulars which are included in them, we find them to be false and 
 extravagant. The doctrine which "must surely command universal assent" 
 is, that every association of human beings which exercises any power whatever 
 -TT-that is to say, every association of human beings — is bound, as such associa- 
 tion, to profess a religion. Imagine the effect which would follow if this 
 principle were really in force during four-and-twenty hours. Take one instance 
 out of a million. A stage-coach company has power over its horses. This 
 power is the property of God. It is used according to the will of God when 
 it is used with mercy. But the principle of mercy can never be truly or 
 permantly entertained in the human breast without continual reference to God. 
 The -powers, therefore, that dwell in individuals acting as a stage-coach 
 company, can only be secured for right uses by applying to them a religion. 
 Every stage-coach company ought, therefore, in its collective ■cai)acity to 
 profess some one faith — to have its articles, and its public worship, and its tests. 
 That this conclusion, and an infinite number of other conclusions equally 
 strange, follows of necessity from Mr. Gladstone's principle, is as certam as it 
 is that two and two make four. And, if the legitimate conclusions be so 
 absurd, there must be something unsound m the principle. 
 
496 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 We will quote another passage of the same sort : — 
 
 •' Why, then, we now come to ask, should the governing body in a stata profess a reli« 
 gion ? First, because it is composed of individual men ; and they, being appointed to 
 act in a definite moral capacity, must sanctify their acts done in that capacity by the 
 offices of religion ; inasmuch as the acts cannot otherwise be acceptable to God, or any- 
 thing but sinfal and punishable in themselves. And whenever we turn our face away 
 
 from God in our conduct, we are living atheistically la fulfilment, then, oi his 
 
 obligations as an individual, the statesman must be a worshipping man. But his acts 
 are public— the powers and instruments with which he works are public— acting under 
 and by the authority of the law, be moves at his word ten thousand subject arms ; and 
 because such energies are thus essentially public, and wholly out of the range of mere 
 individual agency, they must be sanctified not only by the private personal prayers and 
 piety of those who fill public situations, but also by public acts of the men composing the 
 public body. They must offer prayer and praise in their public and collective character — 
 in that character wherein they constitute the organ of the nation and wield its collective 
 force. Wherever there is a reasoning agency there is a moral duty and responsibility 
 involved in it. The governors are reasoning agents for the nation, in their conjoint acts 
 as such. And therefore there must be attached to this agency, as that without which 
 none of our responsibilities can be met, a religion. And this religion must be that of the 
 conscience of the governor, or none." 
 
 Here again we find propositions of vast sweep, and of sound so orthodox and 
 solemn that many good people, we doubt not, have been greatly edified by it. 
 But let us examine the words closely and it will immediately become plain 
 that, if these principles be once admitted, there is an end of all society. No 
 combination can be formed for any purpose of mutual help — for trade, for 
 public works, for the relief of the siok or the poor, for the promotion of art 
 or science — unless the members of the combination agree in their theological 
 opinions. Take any such combination at random — the London and Birming- 
 ham Railway Company for example — and observe to what consequences Mr. 
 Gladstone's arguments inevitably lead. "Why should the Directors of the 
 Railway Company, in their collective capacity, profess a religion? First, be- 
 cause the direction is composed of individual men appointed to act in a definite 
 moral capacity, bound to look carefully to the property, the limbs and the lives 
 of their fellow-creatures — bound to act diligently for their constituents — bound 
 to govern their servants with humanity and justice — bound to fulfil with fidelity 
 many important contracts. They must, therefore, sanctify their acts by the 
 offices of religion, or these acts will be sinful and punishable in themselves. In 
 fulfilment, then, of his obligations as an individual, the Director of the 
 London and Birmingham Railway Company must be a worshipping man. 
 But his acts are public. He acts for a body. He moves at his word ten 
 thousand subject arms. And because these energies are out of the range of his 
 mere individual agency, they must be sanctified by public acts of devotion. 
 The Railway Directors must offer prayer and praise in their public and collec- 
 tive character, in that character wherewith they constitute the organ of the 
 Company and wield its collected power. Wherever there is reasoning agency, 
 there is moral responsibility. The Directors are reasoning agents for the 
 Company. And therefore there must be attached to this agency, as that 
 without which none of our responsibilities can be met — a religion. And this 
 religion must be that of the conscience of the Director himself, or none. 
 There must be public worship and a test. No Jew, no Socinian, no Presby- 
 terian, no Catholic, no Quaker must be permitted to be the organ of the 
 Company and to wield its collected force ? " Would Mr. Gladstone really 
 defend this proposition? We are sure that he would not: but we are sure 
 that to thi-:; proposition, and to innumerable similar propositions, his reasoning 
 inevitably leads. 
 
 Again : — ■ 
 
CLADSTOl^E ON CHURCH A]^D STATE. 49^ 
 
 " National will and agency are indisputably one, binding either a dissentient minority, 
 or the subject body, in a manner that nothing but the recognition of the doctrine of 
 national personality can justify. National honour and good faith are words in every 
 one's mouth. How do they less imply a personality in nations than the duty towards 
 God, for which we now contend? They are strictly and essentially distinct from the 
 honour and good faith of the individuals composing the nation. France is a person to 
 us, and we to her. A wilful injury done to her is a moral act, and a moral act quite dis- 
 tinct from the acts of all the individuals composing the nation. Upon broad tacts like 
 these we may rest, without resorting to the more technical proof which the laws afiford 
 in their manner of dealing with corporations. If, then, a nation have unity of will, have 
 pervading sympathies, have capability of reward and suffering contingent upon its acts, 
 shall we deny its responsibility ; its need of a religion to meet that responsibility ? . . . . 
 A nation then, having a personality, lies under the obligation, like the individuals com- 
 posing its governing body, of sanctifying the acts of that personality by the of&ces of 
 religion, and thus we have a new and imperative ground for the existence of a state 
 religion." 
 
 A new ground we have here, certainly, but whether very imperative may I'c 
 doubted. Is it not perfectly clear that this argumtnt applies with exactly as 
 much force to every combination of human beings for a common purpose as to 
 governments ? Is there any such combination in the world, whether technic- 
 ally a corporation or not, which has not this collective personality from which 
 Mr. Gladstone deduces such extraordinary consequences ? Look at banks, 
 insurance offices, dock companies, canal companies, gas companies, hospitals, 
 dispensaries, associations for the relief of the poor, associations for apprehend- 
 ing malefactors, associations of medical pupils for procuring subjects, associa- 
 tions of country gentlemen for keeping fox-hounds, book societies, benefit 
 societies, clubs of all ranks, from those which have lined Pall-Mall and St. 
 James's Street with their palaces down to the Free-and-easy which meets in 
 the shabby parlour of a village inn. Is there a single one of these combina- 
 tions to which Mr. Gladstone's arguments will not apply as well as to the 
 State? In all these combinations — in the Bank of England, for example, or 
 in the Athenceum club — the will and agency of the society are one, and bind 
 the dissentient minority. The Bank and the Athenseum have a good faith 
 and a justice different from the good faith and justice of the individual 
 members. The Bank is a person to those who deposit bullion with it. The 
 Athengeum is a person to the butcher and the wine-merchant. If the Athe- 
 nseum keeps money at the Bank, the two societies are as much persons to each 
 other as England and France. Either society may increase in prosperity ; 
 either may fall into difficulties. If, then, they have this unity of will ; if they 
 are capable of doing and suffering good and evil ; can we, to use I\Ir. Gladstone's 
 words, "deny their responsibility, or their need of a religion to meet that 
 responsibility?" Joint-stock banks, therefore, and clubs, " having a person- 
 ality, lie under the necessity of sanctifying that personality by the offices of 
 religion;" and thus we have "anew and imperative ground" for requiring 
 all the directors and clerks of joint-stock banks, and all the members of 
 clubs, to qualify by taking the sacrament. 
 
 The truth is, that Mr. Gladstone has fallen into an error very common 
 among men of less talents than his own. It is not unusual for a person who 
 is eager to prove a particular proposition to assume a major of huge extent, 
 which includes that particular proposition, without ever reflecting that it 
 includes a great deal more. The fatal facility with which Mr. Gladstone 
 multiplies expressions stately and sonorous, but of indeterminate meaning, 
 eminently qualifies him to practise this sleight on himself and on his readers. 
 He lays down broad general doctrines about power, when the only power of 
 which he is thinking is the power of governments, about conjoint action, when 
 the only conjoint action of which he is thinking is the conjoint action of 
 citizens in a state. He fiist resolves on his conclusion. He then makes a 
 
498 GLADSTONE ON CHVRCH AND STATE, 
 
 major of most comprehensive dimensions and, having satisfied himself that 
 it contains his conckision, never troubles himself about . what else it may con- 
 tain. And as soon as we examine it, we find that it contains an infinite rmmber 
 of conclusions, every one of which is a monstrous absurdity. , , . 
 
 It is perfectly true that it would be a very good thing if all the member«j of 
 all the associations in the world were men of sound religious views. We 
 have no doubt that a good Christian will be under the guidance of Christian 
 principles in his conduct. as, director of a canal company or steward of a 
 charity dinner. If he were— to recur to a case which we have before put— a 
 member of a stage-coach company, he would, in that capacity, remember that 
 '*' a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast." But it does not follow that 
 ever association of men must, therefore, as such association, profess a religion. 
 It is evident that many great and useful objects can be attained in this world 
 only by co-operation. It is equally evident that there cannot be efficient co- 
 operation if men proceed on the principle that they must not co-operate for 
 one object unless they agree about other objects. Nothing seems to us more 
 beautiful or admirable in our social system than the facility with which 
 thousands of people, who perhaps agree only on a single point, combine their 
 energies for the purpose of carrying that single point. We see daily instances 
 of this. Two men, one of them obstinately prejudiced agamst missions, the 
 other president of a missionary society, sit together at the board of a hospital 
 and heartily concur in measures for the health and comfort of the patients. 
 Two men, one of whom is a zealous supporter and the other a zealous 
 opponent of the system pursued in Lancaster's schools, meet at the Mendicity 
 Society and act together with the utmost cordiality. The general rule we take 
 to be undoubtedly this, that it is lawful and expedient for men to unite in an 
 association for the promotion of a good object, though they may differ with 
 respect to other objects of still higher importance. 
 
 It will hardly be denied that the security of the persons and property of men 
 is a good object, and that the best way, indeed the only way, of promoting 
 that object, is to combine men together in certain great corporations which are 
 called States. These corporations are very variously and, for the most part, 
 very imperfectly organised. Many of them abound with frightful abuses. Biit 
 it seems reasonable to believe that the worst that ever existed was, on the 
 whole, preferable to complete anarchy. , . ... 
 
 Now, reasoning from analogy, we should say that these great corporatipijs 
 would, like all other associations, be likely to attain their end most perfectly 
 if that end were kept singly in view ; and that to refuse the services of those 
 who are admirably qualified to promote that end, because they are not also 
 qualified to promote some other end, however excellent, seems at first sight as 
 unreasonable as it would be to provide that nobody who was not a fellow of 
 the Antiquarian Society should be a governor of the Eye Infirmary ; or that 
 nobody who was not a member of the Society for promoting Christianity among 
 the Jews should be a trustee of the Theatrical Fund. 
 
 It is impossible to name any collection of human beings to which Mr. 
 Gladstone's reasonings would apply more strongly than to an army ? ^^^lere 
 .shall we find more complete unity of action than in an army ? Where else dp 
 so many human beings implicitly obey one ruling mind ? What other mass is 
 there which moves so much like one man ? Where is such tremendous power 
 intrusted to those who command ? Where is so awful a responsibility loid 
 upon them ? If Mr. Gladstone has made out, as he conceives, an imperative 
 necessity for a State Religion, much more has he made it out to be impera- 
 tively necessary that every army should, in its collective capacity, profess a 
 religippuj ,Is he prepared to adopt this consequence ? . • .■„ 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. '499 
 
 On the mofning'o'f the" thirteenth of August, in the year 1704^ two great 
 captains, equal in authority, united by close private and public ties', but of 
 different creeds, prepared for a battle, on the event of which were staked the 
 liberties of Europe. Marlborough had passed a part of the night in prayer, 
 and before daybreak received the sacrament according to the rites of the 
 Church (}f England. He then hastened to join Eugene, who had probably 
 just confessed himself to a Popish priest. The generals consulted together, 
 formed their plan in concert, and repaired each to his own post. Marlborough 
 gave orders for public prayers. The Enghsh chaplains read the service at the 
 head of the English regiments. The Calvinistic chaplains of the Dutch army, 
 with heads on which hand of Bishop had never been laid, poured forth their 
 supplications in front of their countrymen. In the meantime the Danes 
 might listen to their Lutherian ministers, and Capauchins might encourage the 
 Austrian squadrons, and pray to the Virgin for a blessing on the arms of llic 
 Holy Roman Empire. The battle commences, and these men of various 
 religions all act like members of one body. The Catholic and the Protestant 
 general exert themselves to assist and to surpass each other. Before sunset 
 the empire is saved : France has lost in a day the fruits of eighty years of 
 intrigue and of victory, and the allies, after conquering together, return thanks 
 to God separately, each after his own form of worship. Now, is this practical 
 atheism ? Would any man in his senses say, that because the allied army had 
 unity of action and a common interest, and because a heavy responsibility lay 
 on its Chiefs, it was therefore imperatively necessary that the army should, as 
 an army, have one established religion— that Eugene should be deprived of 
 his command for being a Catholic — that all the Dutch and Austrian colonels 
 should be broken for not subscribing the Thirty-nine Articles ? Certainly 
 not. The most ignorant grenadier on the field of battle would have seen 
 the absurdity of such a proposition. " I know," he would have said, " that 
 the Prince of Savoy goes to mass and that our Corporal John cannot abide 
 it, but what has the mass to do with the taking of the village of Blenheim ? 
 The Prince wants to beat the French, and so does Corporal John'. If we 
 stand by each other we shall most likely beat them. If we send all the Papists 
 and Dutch away, Tallard will have every man of us." Mr. Gladstone himself, 
 we imagine, would admit that our honest grenadier would have the J)est of 
 the argument, and if so, what follows? Even this, that all Mr. Gladstone's 
 general principles, about power, and responsibility, ,a;id personality, and con- 
 joint action, must be given up, and that, i,f h^ th^o^)ff is t€^, ptand at all> it must 
 stand on some other foundation. , 
 
 We have now, we conceive, shown that it may be proper to form men into 
 combinations for important purposes, which combinations shall have unity 
 and common interests, and shall be under the direction of rulers entrusted with 
 great power and lying under solemn responsibility, and yet that it may be 
 highly improper that these combinations should, as such, profess any one 
 system of religious belief, or perform any joint act of religious worship. How, 
 then, is it proved that this may not be the case with some of those great com- 
 binations which we call States? We firmly believe that it is the casp with 
 some states. We firmly beheve that there are communities in which it would 
 be as absurd to mix up theology with government as it would have l)een in 
 the right wing of the allied army at Blenheim to commence a controversy with 
 the left wing, in the middle of the battle, about purgatory and the worship of 
 images. 
 
 It is the duty, Mr. Gladstone tells us, of the persons, be tliey who they may, 
 who hold supreme power in the state, to employ that power in order to pro- 
 jnote whatever they may deem to be theological truth. Now, surely, before 
 
500 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 he can call on us to admit this proposition, he is bound to prove that these 
 persons are likely to do more good than harm by so employing their power. 
 The first question is, whether a government, proposing to itself the propoga- 
 tion of religious truth as one of its principal ends, is more likely to lead the 
 people right than to lead them wrong ? Mr. Gladstone evades this question ; 
 and perhaps it was his wisest course to do so. 
 
 " If," says he, " the government be good, let it have its natural duties and powers at 
 
 its command ; but, if not good, let it be made so We follow, therefore, the true 
 
 course in looking first for the true ihia, or abstract conception of a government, of course 
 with allowance lor the evil and frailty that are in man, and then in examining whether 
 there be comprised in that i3e'o a capacity and consequent duty on the part of a govern- 
 ment to lay down any laws or devote any means for the purposes of religion— in short, tc 
 exercise a choice upon religion." 
 
 Of course, Mr. Gladstone has a perfect right to argue any abstract question, 
 provided that he will constantly bear in mind that it is only an abstract ques- 
 tion that he is arguing. Whether a perfect government would or would not be 
 a good machinery for the propogation of religious truth, is certainly a harmless, 
 and may, for aught we know, be an edifying subject of inquiry. But it is very 
 important that we should remember that there is not, and never has been, any 
 such government in the world. There is no harm at all in inquiring what 
 course a stone thrown into the air would take if the law of gravitation did not 
 operate. But the consequences would be unpleasant if the inquirer, as soon as 
 he had finished his calculation, were to begin to throw stones about in all direc- 
 tions, without considering that his conclusion rests on a false hypothesis, and 
 that his projectiles, instead of flying away through infinite space, will speedily 
 return in parabolas and break the windows and heads of his neighbours. 
 
 It is very easy to say that governments are good, or if not good, ought to be 
 made so. But what is meant by good government ? And how are all the bad 
 governments in the world to be made good ? And of what value is a theory 
 which is true only on a supposition in the highest degree extravagant ? 
 
 We do not admit that, if a government were, for all its temporal ends, as 
 perfect as human frailty allows, such a government would, therefore, be 
 necessarily qualified to propogate true religion. For we see that the fitness of 
 governments to propogate true religion is by no means proportioned to their fit- 
 ness for the temporal end of their institution. Looking at individuals, we see 
 that the princes under whose rule nations have been most ably protected from 
 foreign and domestic disturbance, and have made the most rapid advances in 
 civilisation, have been by no means good teachers of divinity. Take, for 
 example, the best French sovereign, Henry the Fourth, a king who restored 
 order, terminated a terrible civil war, brought the finances into an excellent 
 condition, made his country respected throughout Europe, and endeared him 
 self to the great body of the people whom he niled. Yet this man was twice 
 a Huguenot and twice a Papist. He was, as Davila hints, strongly suspected 
 of having no religion at all in theory, and was certainly not much under 
 religious restraints in his practice. Take the Czar Peter, the Empress Catha- 
 rine, Frederic the Great. It will surely not be disputed that these sovereigns, 
 with all their faults, were, if we consider them with reference merely to the 
 temporal ends of government, far above the average of merit. Considered as 
 theological guides, Mr. Gladstone would probably put them below the most 
 abject drivellers of the vSpanish branch of the house of Bourbon. Again, 
 when we pass from individuals to systems, we by no means find that the apti- 
 tude of governments for propogating religious truth is proportioned to their 
 aptitude for secular functions. Without being blind admirers either of the 
 French or of the American institutions, we think it clear that the persons and 
 
(GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 501 
 
 property of citizens are better protected in France and in New England than 
 m almost any society that now exists jeff that has ever existed ; very much better, 
 certainly, than in the Roman empire under the orthodox rule of Constantine 
 and Theodosius. But neither the government of France, nor that of New 
 England is so organised as to be fit for the propogation of theological doctrines. 
 Nor do we think it improbable that the most serious religious errors might pre- 
 vail in a state which, considered merely with reference to temporal objects, might 
 approach far nearer than any that has ever been known to the Ibict. of what a 
 state should be. 
 
 But we shall leave this abstract question and look at the world as we find it. 
 Does, then, the way in which governments generally obtain their power make it 
 at all probable that they will be more favourable to orthodoxy than to hetoro- 
 doxy? A nation of barbarians pours down on a rich and un Warlike empire, 
 enslaves the people, portions out the land and blends the institutions which 
 it finds in the cities with those which it has brought from the woods. A 
 handful of daring adventurers from a civilised nation wander to some 
 savage country and reduce the aboriginal race to bondage. A successful 
 general turns his arms against the state which he serves. A society, made 
 brutal by oppression, rises madly on its masters, sweeps away all old laws and 
 usages, and, when its first paroxysm of rage is over, sinks down passively under 
 any form of polity which may spring out of the chaos. A chief of a party, as 
 at Florence, becomes imperceptibly a sovereign and the founder of a dynasty. 
 A captain of mercenaries, as at Milan, seizes on a city, and by. the sword 
 makes himself its ruler. An elective senate, as at Venice, usurps permanent 
 and hereditary power. It is in events such as these that governments have 
 generally originated ; and we can see nothing in such events to warrant us in 
 believing that the governments thus called into existence will be peculiarly well 
 fitted to distinguish between religious truth and heresy. 
 
 When, again, we look at the constitutions of governments which have become 
 settled, we find no great security for the orthodoxy of rulers. One magistrate 
 holds power because his name was drawn out of a purse ; another, because his 
 father held it before him. There are representative systems of all sorts, large 
 constituent bodies, small constituent bodies, universal suffrage, high pecuniary 
 qualifications. We see that, for the temporal ends of government, some of these 
 constitutions are very skilfully constructed, and that the very worst of them is 
 preferable to anarchy. But it passes our understanding to comprehend what 
 connection any one of them has with theological truth. 
 
 And how stands the fact ? Have not almost all the governments in the 
 world always been in the wrong on religious subjects? Mr, Ciladstone, we 
 imagine, would say that, except in the time of Constantine, of Jovian and of 
 a very few of their successors, and occasionally in England since the Reforma- 
 tion, no government has ever been sincerely friendly to the pure and apostolical 
 Church of Christ. If, therefore, it be true that every ruler is bound in 
 conscience to use his power for the propogation of his own religion, it will 
 follow that, for one ruler.who has been bound in conscience to use his power 
 for the propogation of truth, a thousand have l)een bound in conscience to use 
 their power for the propagation of falsehoods. Surely this is a conclusion 
 from which common sense recoils. Surely, if experience shows that a 
 certain machine when used to produce a certain effect does not produce that 
 effect once in a thousand times, but produces, in the vast majority of cases, 
 an effect directly contrary, we cannot be wrong in saying that it is not a machine 
 of which the principal end is to be so used. 
 
 If, indeed, the magistrate would content himself with laying his opinions and 
 reasons before the people, and would leave the people, uncorrupted by hope 
 
502 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STA TE. 
 
 or fear, to judge for themselves, we should see little reason to apprehend that 
 his interference in favour of error would be seriously preJAidicial to the interests 
 of truth. Nor do we, as will hereafter be seen, object to his taking this course 
 when it is compatible with the efficient discharge of his more especial duties. 
 But this wll not satisfy Mr. Gladstone. lie would have the magistrate resort 
 to means which have a great tendency to make malcontents, to make hypoc- 
 rites, to make careless nominal conformists, but no tendency whatever to 
 produce honest and rational conviction. It seems to us quite clear that an 
 inquirer who has no wish except to know the truth is more likely to arrive at 
 the truth than an inquirer who knows that, if he decides one way, he shall be 
 rewarded, and that, if he decides the other way, he shall be punished. Now, 
 Mr. Gladstone would have governments propagate their opinions by excluding 
 all dissenters from all civil offices. That is to say, he would have governments 
 propagate their opinions by a process which has no reference whatever , to the 
 truth or falsehood of those opinions, by arbitrarily uniting certain worldly 
 advantages with one set of doctrines and certain worldly inconveniences with 
 another set. It is of the very nature of argument to serve the interests of 
 truth; but if rewards and punishments serve the interests of truth, it is by 
 mere accident. It is very much easier to find arguments for the divine autho- 
 rity of the Gospel than for the divine authority of the Koran. But it is just as 
 easy to bribe or rack a Jew into Mahometanism as into Christianity. 
 
 From racks, indeed, and from all penalties directed against the persons, the 
 property and the hberty of heretics, the humane spirit of Mr. Gladstone 
 shrinks with horror. He only maintains that conformity to the religion of the 
 state ought to be an indispensable qualification for office ; and he would think 
 it his duty, if he had the power, to revise the Test Act, to enforce it rigorously, 
 and to extend it to important classes who were formerly exempt from its 
 operation. 
 
 This is indeed a legitimate consequence of his principles. But why stop 
 here ? Why not roast dissenters at slow fires ? All the general reasonings on 
 which this theory rests evidently lead to sanguinary persecution. If the pro- 
 pagation of religious truth be a principal end of government, as government ; 
 if it be the duty of a government to employ for that end its constitutional 
 power J if the constitutional power of governments extends, as it most un- 
 questionably does, to the making of laws for the burning of heretics ; if burning 
 be, as it most assuredly is in many cases, a most effectual mode of suppressing 
 opinions — why should we not burn ? If the relation in which government 
 ought to stand to the people be, as Mr. Gladstone tells us, a paternal relation ^ 
 we are irresistibly led to the conclusion that persecution is justifiable. For the 
 right of propagating opinions by punishment is one which belongs to parents 
 as clearly as the right to give instruction. A boy is compelled to attend family 
 worship : he is forbidden to read irreligious books : if he will not learn his 
 catechism, he is sent to bed without his supper : if he plays truant at church- 
 time, a task is set him. If he should display the precocity of his talents by 
 expressing impious opinions before his brothers and sisters, we should not 
 much blame his father for cutting short the controversy with a horse-whip. 
 All the reasons which lead us to think that parents are peculiarly fitted to 
 conduct the education of their children, arid that education is the principal 
 end of a parental relation, lead us also to think that parents ought to be 
 allowed to use punishment, if necessary, for the purpose of forcing children, 
 who are incapable of judging for themselves, to receive religious instruction 
 and to attend religious worship. Why, then, is this prerogative of punishment, 
 so eminently paternal, to be withheld from a paternal government ? It seems 
 tons, also, to be the height of absurdity to employ civil' disabilities for the 
 
GLADSTONE. ON CHURCH AND^^TATE. 503 
 
 propagation of an opinion and then to shrink from employing other punish- 
 ments for the same purpose^ For n^hing can be clearer than that, if you 
 punish at all, you ought to punish enough. The pain caused by punishment 
 is pure unmixed evil, and never ought to ho. inflicted except for the sake of 
 some good. It is mere foolish cruelty to provide penalties which torment the 
 criminal without preventing the crime. Now it is possible, by sanguinary 
 persecution, unrelentingly inflicted, to suppress opinions. In. this way the 
 Albigenses were put down. In this way the Lollards were put down. In this 
 way the fair promise of the Reformation was blighted in Italy and Spain. 
 But we may safely defy Mr. Gladstone to point out a single , ins.tance in 
 which the system which he recommends has succeeded . , ; ,^ 
 
 And why should he be so tender-hearted ? What r eason can , lie give! for 
 hanging a murderer and suffering an heresiarch to escape without even a 
 pecuniary mulct ? Is the heresiarch a less pernicious member of society than 
 tlie murderer? Is not the loss of one soul a greater evil than the extinction of 
 many, lives? And the number of murders committed by the most profligate 
 bravo that ever let out his poniard to hire in Italy, or by the most savage 
 buccaneer that ever prowled on the Windward Station, is small indeed when 
 compared with the number of souls which have been caught ,in the snares of 
 one dexterous heresiarch. If, then, the heresiarch causes infinitely greater 
 evils than the murdeter, why is he not as proper an object of penal legislation 
 as the murderer? We can give a reason — a reason, short, simple, decisive 
 and consistent. We do not extenuate the evil which the heresiarch produces, 
 but we say that it is not evil of that sort against which it is the end of govern- 
 ment to guard. But how Mr. Gladstone, who considers the evil which the 
 heresiarch produces as evil of the sort against which it is the end of govern- 
 ment to guard, can escape from the obvious consequence of his doctrine, we do 
 not understand. The world is full of parallel cases. An orange-woman stops 
 up the pavement with her wheelbarrow and a policeman takes her into 
 custody. A miser who has amassed a million suffers an old friend and bene- 
 factor to die in the workhouse, and cannot be questioned before any tribunal 
 for his baseness and ingratitude. Is this because legislators think the orange- 
 woman's conduct worse than the miser's ? Not at all. It is because the 
 siopping-up of the pathway is one of the evils against which it is the business 
 of the public authorities to protect society and heartlessness is not one of those 
 evils. It would be the height of folly to say that the miser ought, indeed, to 
 be punished, but that he ought to be punished less severely than the orange- 
 woman. 
 
 The heretical Constantius persecutes Athanasius ; and why not ? Shall 
 Qiesar punish the robber who has taken one purse and spare' the wretch who 
 has taught millions to rob the Creator of His honour and to bestow it on the 
 creature ? The orthodox Theodosius persecutes the Arians ; and with equal 
 reason. Shall an insult offered to the Cesarean majesty be expiated by death; 
 and shall there be no penalty for him who degrades to the rank of a creature 
 the Almighty, the infinite Creator ? AVe have a short answer for both: "To 
 Caesar the things which are Caesar's." Caesar is appointed for the punishment 
 of robbers and rebels. He is not appointed for the purpose of either propa- 
 gating or exterminating the doctrine of the consubstantiahty of the Father and 
 the Son. " Not so," says Mr. Gladstone. " Cccsar is bound in conscience to 
 propagate whatever he thinks to be the truth as to this question. Constantius 
 is bourid to establish the Arian worship throughout the empire, and tc displace 
 the bravest captains of his legions and the ablest ministers of his treasury if 
 they hold the Nicene faith. Theodosius is equally bound to turn out every 
 public servant whom his Arian, predecessors have put in. But if Constantius 
 
564 GLaDSTOI^'E on CfrURCn- and STATi:. 
 
 lays on Atlianasius a fine of a single aureus^ if Theodosius imprisons an Ariari 
 presbyter for a week, this is most unjustifiable oppression." Our readers will 
 be curious to know how this distinction is made out. 
 
 The reasons which Mr. Gladstone gives against persecution affecting life, 
 limb and property may be divided into two classes ; first, reasons which can 
 be called reasons only by extreme courtesy, and which nothing but the most 
 deplorable necessity would ever have induced a man of his abilities to use ; and 
 secondly, reasons which are really reasons, and which have so much force that 
 they not only completely prove his exception, but completely upset his general 
 rule. His artillery on this occasion is composed of two sorts of pieces, pieces 
 which will not go off at all and pieces which go off with a vengeance 
 and recoil with most crushing effect upon himself. 
 
 " We, as fallible creatures," says Mr. Gladstone, " have no right, from any bare specu- 
 lations of our own, to administer pains and penalties to our fellow-creatures, whether ou 
 social or religious grounds. We have the right to enforce the laws of the land by such 
 pains and penalties, because it is expressly given by Him who has declared that the 
 civil rulers are to bear the sword for the punishment of evil-doers and for the en- 
 couragement of them that do well. And so, in things spiritual, had it pleased God to 
 give to the Church or the State this power, to be permanently exercised over their 
 members, or mankind at large, we should have the right to use it ; but it does not appear 
 to have been so received and, consequently, it should not be exercised." 
 
 We should be sorry to think that the security of our lives and property from 
 persecution rested on no better ground than this. Is not a teacher of heresy 
 an evil-doer ? Has not heresy been condemned in many countries, and in our 
 own among them, by the laws of the land, which, as ]\Ir. Gladstone soys, it is 
 justifiable to enforce by penal sanctions ? If a heretic is not specially mentioned 
 in the text to which Mr. Gladstone refers, neither is an assassin, a kidnapper 
 or a highwayman. And, if the silence of the New Testament as to all interfer- 
 ence of governments to stop the progress of heresy be a reason for not fining or 
 imprisoning heretics, it is surely just as good a reason for not excluding them 
 from office. • 
 
 " God," says Mr. Gladstone, " has seen fit to authorise the employment of force in the 
 one case and not in the other; for it was with regard to chastisement inflicted by the 
 sword for an insult offered to himself that the Redeemer declared his kingdom not to be 
 of this world; meaning, apparently in an especial manner,' that it should be otherwise 
 than after this world's fashion in respect to the sanctions by which its laws should be 
 maintained." 
 
 Now here Mr. Gladstone, quoting from memory, has fallen into an error. 
 The very remarkable words which he cites do not appear to have had any 
 reference to the wound inflicted by Peter on Malchus. They were addressed 
 to Pilate, in answer to the question, " Art thou the King of the Jews? " We 
 cannot help saying that we are surprised that Mr. Gladstone should not have 
 more accurately verified a quotation on which, according to him, principally 
 depends the right of a hundred millions of his fellow-subjects — idolaters, 
 Mussulmans, Catholics and dissenters — to their property, their liberty and 
 their lives. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's interpretations of Scripture are lamentably destitute of one 
 recommendation which he considers as of the highest value : they are by no 
 means in accordance with the general precepts or practice of the Church from 
 the time when the Christians became strong enough to persecute down to a 
 very recent period. A dogma favourable to toleration is certainly not a dogma 
 qtiod semper, quod tthique, qitod omnibus. Bossuet was able to say, we fear 
 with too much truth, that on one point all Christians had long been unanimous, 
 the right of the civil magistrate to propagate truth by the sword ; that even heretics 
 had been orthodox as to this right, and that the Anabaptists and Socinians 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 505 
 
 were the first who called it in question. We will not pretend to say what is 
 the best explanation of the text under consideration, but we are sure that Mr. 
 Gladstone's is the worst. According to him, government ought to exclude 
 dissenters from office, but not to fine them, because Christ's kingdom is not of 
 this world. We do not see why the line may not be dravvTi at a hundred other 
 places as well as that which he has chosen. We do not see why Lord 
 Clarendon, in recommending the act of 1664 against conventicles, might not 
 have said, " It hath been thought by some that this classis of men might with 
 advantage be not only imprisoned but pilloried. But, methinks, my Lords, we 
 are inhibited ' from the punishment of the pillory by that Scripture, 'My 
 kingdom is not of this world.' " Archbishop Laud, when he sate on Burton 
 in the Star-Chamber, might have said, "I pronounce for the pillory ; and 
 indeed, I could wish that all such wretches were deHvered to the fire, but that 
 our Lord hath said that his kingdom is not of this world. " And Gardiner might 
 have written to the Sheriff of Oxfordshire : " See that execution be done without 
 fail on Master Ridley and Master Latimer, as you will answer the same to 
 the Queen's grace at your peril. But if they shall desire to have some gun- 
 powder for the shortening of their torment, I see not but you may grant it, as 
 it is written, Regnum tneum non est de hoc niundo ; that is to say, My kingdom 
 is not of this world." 
 
 But Mr. Gladstone has other arguments against persecution, arguments which 
 are of so much weight that they are decisive not only against persecution but 
 against his whole theory. *'The government," he says, "is incompetent to 
 exercise minute and constant supervision over religious opinion." And hence 
 he infers, that "a government exceeds its province when it comes to adapt a 
 scale of punishments to variations in religious opinion according to their 
 respective degrees of variation from the established creed. To decline affording 
 countenance to sects is a single and simple rule. To punish their professors 
 according to their several errors, even were there no other objection, is one for 
 which the state must assume functions wholly ecclesiastical and for which it is 
 not intrinsically fitted," 
 
 This is, in our opinion, quite true. But how does it agree with Mr. Glad- 
 stone's theory ? Wliat ! the government incompetent to exercise even such a 
 degree of supervision over religious opinion as is implied by the punishment of 
 the most deadly heresy ! The government incompetent to measure even the 
 grossest deviations from the standard of truth ! The government not intrinsi- 
 cally qualified to judge of the comparative enormity of any theological errors ! 
 The government so ignorant on these subjects that it is compelled to leave, not 
 merely subtle heresies — discernible only by the eye of a Cyril or a Bucer — but 
 Socinianism, Deism, Mahometanism, Idolatry, Atheism, unpunished ! To 
 whom does Mr. Gladstone assign the office of selecting a religion for the state 
 from among hundreds of religions, every one of which lays claim to truth ? 
 Even to this same government, which is now pronounced to l^e so unfit for 
 theological investigations that it cannot venture to punish a man for worship- 
 ping a lump of stone with a score of heads and hands. We do not remember 
 ever to have fallen in with a more extraordinary instance of inconsistency. 
 When Mr. Gladstone wishes to prove that the government ought to establish 
 and endow a religion, and to fence it with a Test Act, government is t6 itav in 
 the moral world. Those who would confine it to secular ends take a low view 
 of its nature, A religion must be attached to its agency, and this religion must 
 be that of the conscience of the governor, or none. It is for the governor to 
 decide between Papists and Protestants, Jansenists and Molinists, Arminian? 
 and Calvinists, Episcopalians and Presbyterians, Saliellians and Tritheistsj 
 Hcmoousians and liomoiousians, Nestorians and Eutychians, Monothelitesand 
 
5o6 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 Monophysites, Psedobjlptists aiid' Anabaptist's': "''It is fQrrirf't6"r6ju4ge th^ 'RiM 
 of Nice and Rimini, of Ephesus and Chalcedon, of Constantinople and ;St. John 
 Lateran, of Trent and Dort. It is for him to arbitrate between the Greek and 
 the Latin procession, and to determine whether that mysterious filioqzie shall or 
 sh^ll not have a place in the national creed. When hs has made up his mind, he 
 is to tax the whole community in order to pay people to teach his opinion, what- 
 ever it maybe. He is to rely on his own judgment, though it may be opposed 
 to that of nine-tenths of the society. He is to act on his own judgment, at the 
 risk of exciting the most formidable discontents. He is to inflict, perhaps 
 on a great majority of the population, what, whether Mr. Gladstbne may choose 
 to call it persecution or not, will always be felt as persecution by those who 
 suffer it. He i5>, on account of differences often too slight for vulgar com- 
 prehension, to deprive the state of the services of the ablest men. He is to 
 debase and enfeeble the community which he governs from a Empire into 
 a sect. In our own country, for example, millions of Catholics, millions of 
 Protestant Dissenters, are to be excluded from all power and honours. A 
 gi'eat hostile fleet is on the sea, but Nelson is. not to command in the Channel 
 if in the mystery of the Trinity he confounds the persons. An invading army 
 has landed in Kent, but the Duke of Wellington is not to be at the head of 
 our forces if he divides the substance. And after all this, Mr. Gladstone tells 
 us that it would be wrong to imprison a Jew., a^ Mussulman or a Buddhist for 
 a day, because really a government cannot understand these matters and 
 ought not to meddle with questions which belong to the Church. A sin- 
 gular theologian, indeed, this government ! So learned that it is competent 
 to exclude Grotius from office for being a Semi-Pelagian, so unlearned that it 
 IS incompetent to fine a Hindoo peasant a rupee for going on a pilgrimage to 
 Juggernaut. 
 
 "To solicit and persuade one another," says Mr. Gladstone, "are privileges which 
 belong to us all ; and the wiser and better man is bound to advise the less wise and good ; 
 but he is not only not bound, he is not allowed, speaking generally, to coerce him. It is 
 untrue, then, that the same considerations which bind a government to submit a religion 
 to the free choice of the people would thereiore justify their enforcing its adoption."; ■ 
 
 Granted. But it is true that all the same considerations which woiflt! 
 justify a government in propagating a religion by means of civil disabilities 
 Would justify the propagating of that religion by penal laws. To solicit! 
 Is it solicitation to tell a Catholic duke that he must abjure his religion 
 or walk out of the House of Lords ? To persuade ! Is it persuasion to 
 tell a barrister of distinguished eloquence and learning that he shall grow 
 old in his stuff gown, while his pupils are seated above him in ermine, 
 because he cannot -digest the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian creed ? 
 Would Mr. Gladstone think that a religious system which he considers as 
 false — Socinianism for example — was submitted to his free choice if it were 
 submitted in these terms? "If you obstinately adhere to the faith of the 
 Nicene fathers, you shall not be burnt in Smithfield ; you shall not be sent 
 to Dorchester gaol ; you shall not even pay double land-tax. But you shall 
 be shut out from all situations in which you might exercise your talents with 
 honour to yourself and advantage to the country. The House of Commons, 
 the bench of magistracy, are not for such as you. You shall see younger men, 
 your inferiors in station and talents, rise to the highest dignities and attract 
 ihe gaze of nations while you are doomed to neglect and obscurity. If you 
 have a son of the highest promise — a son such as other fathers would con- 
 template with delight — the development of his fine talents and of his generous 
 ambition shall be a torture to you. You shall look on him as a being doomed 
 lo lead, as you have led, the abject life of a Roman or a Neapolitan in the 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STA TE, 507 
 
 midst of the great English people. Alt those high honours, so much more 
 precious than the most costly gifts of despots, with which ti free country 
 decorates its illustrious citizens, shall be to him, as they have been to youy- 
 objects not of hope and virtuous emulation, but of hopeless, envious pining.^ 
 Educate him, if you wish him to feel his degradation. Educate him, if yotif 
 wish to stimulate his craving for what he never must enjoy. Educate him,' IP 
 you would imitate the barbarity of that Celtic tyrant who fed his prisoners on' 
 salted food till they called eagerly for drink, and then let down an empty cup 
 into the dungeon and left them to die of thirst. " Is this to solicit, to persuade, 
 to submit religion to the free choice of man? Would a finfe of a thousand 
 pounds — would imprisonment in Newgate for six months, under circumstances 
 not disgraceful — ^give Mr. Gladstone the pain which he would feel if he wei-e 
 to be told that he was to be dealt with in the way in which he would himself 
 deal with more than one half of his countrymen? .■ , . ', 
 
 We are not at all surprised to find such inconsisteilcy'^Veh in' a,\jnan of 
 Mr. Gladstone's talents. The truth is, that every man is, to ti grefat' extetit, ' 
 the creature of the age. It is to no purpose that he resists the influence which 
 thc*vast mass, in which he is but an atom, must exercise on him. He may tr>' 
 to bq a man of the tenth century : but he cannot. Whether he will or not, he 
 must be a man of the nineteenth century. He shares in the motion of the 
 moral as well as in that of the physical world. He can lio more be as 
 intolerant as he would have been in the days of the Tudors than he can stand 
 in the evening exactly where he stood in the morning. The globe goes 
 round from west to east ; and he must go round with it. When he says 
 that he is where he was, he means only that he has moved at the same rate 
 with all around him. When he says that he has gone a good way to the west- 
 ward, he means only that he has not gone to the eastward quite so rapidly as 
 his neighbours. Mr. Gladstone's book is, in this respect, a very gratifying 
 l)erformance. It is the measure of what a man can do to be left behind by the 
 world. It is the strenuous effort of a very vigorous mind to keep as far in the 
 rear of the general progress as possible. And yet, with the most intense? 
 exertion, Mr. Gladstone cannot help being, on some important points, greatly 
 in advance of Locke himself; and, with whatever admiration he may regard 
 Laud, it is well for him, we can tell him, that he did not write in the days of 
 that zealous primate, who would certainly have refuted the expositions of 
 Scripture which we have quoted by one of the keenest arguments that can be 
 addressed to human ears. 
 
 This is not the only instance in which Mr. Gladstone has shnmk in a very 
 remarkable manner from the consequences of his own theory. If there be in 
 the whole world a state to which this theory is applicable, that, state is the 
 British Empire in India. Even we, who tletest paternal governments in 
 general, shall admit that the duties of the government of India are, to a^con- 
 siderable extent, paternal. There, the superiority of the governors to the 
 govenied in moral science is unciuestionable. The conversion of the whple 
 people to the worst form that Christianity ever wore in the darkest age^ 
 would be a most happy event. It is not necessary that a man should be a. 
 Christian to wish for tb*e propagation of Christianity in India. It is suffi- 
 cient that he should be an European not much below the ordinary Euroj^ean 
 level of good sense and humanity. Compare with the importance of the 
 interests at stake,, all those Scotch and Irish questions which occupy s<i 
 large a portion pf Mr, Gladstone's book, sink into insignificance. In no 
 part oifthe world since- the days of Theodosius has so large a heathen 
 population been subject to a Christian government. In no part of the world 
 is heathenism more cruel, more licentious, more fruitful oF absurd rites and 
 
5o8 GLADSTONE OJSt CHURCH AND STA TE. 
 
 perniciou.j laws. Surely, if it be the duty of government to use its power 
 and its revenue in order to bring seven millions of Irish Catholics over to the 
 Protestant Church, it is « fortiori the duty of the government to use its 
 power and its . revenue in order to make seventy millions of idolaters Chris- 
 tians. If ft be a sin to suffer John Howard or William Penn to hold any 
 office in Ei gland because they are not in communion with the Established 
 Church, sui ely it must be a crying sin indeed to admit to high situations 
 men who oow down, in temples covered with emblems of vice, to the 
 hideous images of sensual or malevolent gods. 
 
 But no. Orthodoxy, it seems, is more shocked by the priests of Rome than 
 by the priests of Kalee. The plain red brick building, Adullam's Cave or 
 Ebenezer Chapel — where uneducated men hear a half-educated man talk of the 
 Christian law of love and the Christian hope of glory — is unworthy of the indul- 
 gence which is reserved for the shrine where the Thug suspends a portion of 
 the spoils of murdered travellers and for the car which grinds its way through 
 the bones of self-immolated pilgrims. "It would be," says Mr. Gladstone, 
 ' ' an absurd exaggeration to maintain it as the part of such a government as 
 that of the British in India to bring home to the door of every subject at dhce 
 the ministrations of a new and totally unknown religion. " The government 
 ought indeed to desire to propagate Christianity. But the extent to which they 
 must do so must be "limited by the degree in which the people are found 
 willing to receive it." He proposes no such limitation in the case of Ireland. 
 He would give the Irish a Protestant Church whether they like it or not. 
 "We believe," says he, "that that which we place before them is, whether 
 they know it or not, calculated to be beneficial to them ; and that, if they know 
 it not now, they will know it when it is presented to them fairly. Shall we, 
 then, purchase their applause at the expense of their substantial, nay, their 
 spiritual, interests?" 
 
 And why does Mr. Gladstone allow to the Hindoo a privilege which he 
 denies to the Irishman ? Why does he reserve his greatest liberality for the 
 most monstrous errors ? Why doe^ he pay most respect to the opinion of the 
 least enlightened people ? Why does he withhold the right to exercise paternal 
 authority from that one government which is fitter to exercise paternal authority 
 than any government that ever existed in the world? We will give the reason 
 in his own words. 
 
 " In British India," he says, " a small numbsr of persons advanced to a higher grade 
 of civilisation exercise the powers of government over an immensely greater number of 
 less cultivated persons, not by coercion, but under free stipulation with the governed. 
 Now, the rights of a government, in circumstances thus peculiar, obviously depend 
 neither upon the unrestricted theory of paternal principles, nor upon any primordial or 
 fictitious contract of indefinite powers, but upon an express and known treaty ; matter of 
 positive agreement, not of natural ordinance." 
 
 Where Mr. Gladstone has seen this treaty we cannot guess ; for, though he 
 calls it a "known treaty," we will stake our credit that it is quite unknown 
 both at Calcutta and Madras, both in Leadenhall Street and Cannon Row — 
 that it is not be found in any of the enormous folios of papers relating to India 
 which fill the bookcases of members of Parliament — that it has utterly escaped 
 the researches of all the historians of our Eastern empire — that in the long and 
 interesting debates of 1813 on the admission of missionaries to India, debates 
 of which the most valuable part has been excellently prese'rved by the care of 
 the speakers, no allusion to this important instrument is to be found. The 
 truth is that this treaty is a nonentity. It is by coercion, it is by the sword, 
 and not by free stipulation with the governed, that England rules India ; nor is 
 England bound by any contract whatever not to deal with Bengal as she deaJs 
 
CLADSTONE Ol^ GHUkCJf AND STATE. 560 
 
 with Ireland. She may set up a Bishop of Patna and a Dean of IToogley ; 
 she may grant away the public revenue for the maintenance of prebendaries of 
 Benares and canons of Moorshedabad ; she may divide the country into 
 parishes and place a rector with a stipend in every one of them ; and all this 
 Avithout infringing any positive agreement. If there be such a treaty, Mr. 
 Gladstone can have no difficulty in making known its date, its terms and, 
 above all, the precise extent of the territory within which we have sinfully 
 bound ourselves to be guilty of practical atheism. The last point is of great 
 importance. For, as the provinces of our Indian empire were acquired at 
 different times and in very different ways, no single treaty, indeed no ten 
 treaties, will justify the system pursued by our government there. 
 
 The plain state of the case is this : No man in his senses would dream of apply 
 ing Mr. Gladstone's theory to India; because, if so applied, it would inevitably 
 destroy our empire, and, with our empire, the best chance of spreading 
 Christianity among the natives. This Mr-f Gladstone felt. In some way or 
 other his theory was to be saved and the monstrous consequences avoided. Of 
 intentional misrepresentation we are quite sure that he is incapable. But we 
 cannot acquit him of that unconscious disingenuousness from which the most 
 upright man, when strongly attached to an opinion, is seldom wholly free. We 
 believe that he recoiled from the ruinous consequences which his system would 
 produce if tried in India, but that he did not like to say so lest he should lay 
 himself open to the charge of sacrificing principle to expediency, a word which 
 is held in the utmost abhorence by all his school. Accordingly, he caught at 
 the notion of a treaty — a notion which must, we think, have originated in some 
 ihetorical expression which he has imperfectly understood. There is one ex- 
 cellent way of avoiding the drawing of a false conclusion from a false major^ 
 and that is by having a false minor. Inaccurate history is an admirable cor- 
 rective of unreasonable theory. And thus it is in the present case. A bad 
 general rule is laid down and obstinately maintained wherever the consequences 
 are not too monstrous for human bigotry. But when they become so horrible 
 that even Christ Church shrinks — that even Oriel stands aghast — the rule is 
 evaded by means of a fictitious contract. One imaginary obligation is set up 
 against anothei:. Mr. Gladstone first preaches to governments the duty of 
 undertaking an enterprise just as rational as the Crusades and then dispenses 
 them from it on the ground of a treaty which is just as authentic as the 
 donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester. His system resembles nothing so 
 much as a forged bond with a forged release indorsed on the back of it. 
 
 With more show of reason he rests the claims of the Scotch Church on a 
 contract. He considers that contract, however, as most unjustifiable, and 
 speaks of the setting up of the Kirk as a disgraceful blot on the reign of 
 William the Third. Surely it would be amusing, if it were not melancholy, to 
 see a man of virtue and abilities unsatisfied with the calamities which one 
 Church, constituted on false principles, has brought upon the empire, and 
 repining that Scotland is not in the same state with Ireland — that no Scottish 
 agitator is raising rent and putting county members in and out — that no 
 Presbyterian association is dividing supreme power with the government — that 
 no meetings of precursors and repealers are covering the side of the Calton Hill 
 — that twenty-five thousand troops are not required to maintain order on the 
 north of the Tweed — that the anniversary of the Battle of Bothwell Bridge is 
 not regidarly celebrated by insult, riot and murder. We could hardly find a 
 stronger argument against Mr. Gladstone's system than that which Scotland 
 furnishes. The policy which has been followed in that country has been 
 directly opposed to the policy which he recommends. And the consequence is 
 that Scotland, having been one of the rudest, one of the poorest, one of the 
 
510 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 most turbulent countries in Europe, has become one of the most highly civilised, 
 one of the most flourishing, one of the most tranquil. The atrocities which 
 were of common occurrence while an unpopular church was dominant are un- 
 known. In spite of a mutual aversion, as bitter as ever separated one people 
 from another, the two kingdoms which compose our island have been indis- 
 solubly joined together. Of the ancient national feeling there remains just 
 enough to be ornamental and useful ; just enough to inspire the poet and to 
 kindle a generous and friendly emulation in the bosom of the soldier. But for 
 all the ends of government the nations are one. And why are they so ? The 
 answer is simple. The nations are one for all the ends of government because 
 in their union the true ends of government alone were kept in sight. The 
 nations are one because the Churches are two. 
 
 Such is the union of England with Scotland : a union which resembles the 
 union of the limbs of one healthful and vigorous body, all moved by one will, 
 all co-operating for common ends. The system of Mr. Gladstone would have 
 ]->roduced a union which can be compared only to that which is the subject of g. 
 wild Persian fable. King Zohak — we tell the story as Mr. Sou they tells it to 
 us — gave the devil leave to kiss his shoulders. Instantly two serpents sprang 
 out who, in the fury of hunger, attacked his head and attempted to get at his 
 l)rain. Zohak pulled them away and tore them with his nails. But he found 
 that they w^ere inseparable parts of himself and that what he was lacerating 
 was his own flesh. Perhaps we might be able to find, if' we looked round the 
 M orld, some political union' like this— some hideous monster of a state, cursed 
 with one principle of sensation and two principles of volition — self-loathing 
 and self-torturing — made up of parts which are driven by a frantic impulse to 
 inflict mutual pain, yet are doomed to feel whatever they inflict; which are 
 divided by an irreconcileable hatred, yet are blended in an indissoluble identity. 
 Mr. Gladstone, from his tender concern for Zohak, is unsatisfied because the 
 devil has as yet kissed only one shoulder^ — because there is not a snake 
 mangling and mangled pn, the left to Jkeep in countenapce his brother on 
 the right. ^ ^ , r ,.', , / ,' ., ' \' . , '. 
 
 But we must proceed in oiir examination of his theory. Having, as he con- 
 ceives, proved that it is the duty of every government to profess some religion 
 or other, right or wrong, and to establish that religion, he then comes to the 
 (juestion, what religion a government ought to prefer ; and he decides this 
 tjuestion in favour of the form of Christianity established in England. The 
 Church of England is, according to him, the pure Catholic Church of Christ, 
 which possesses the apostolical succession of ministers, and within whose pale 
 is to be found that unity which is essential to truth. For her decisions he 
 claims a degree of reverence far beyond what she has ever, in any of her formu- 
 laries, claimed for herself; far beyond what the moderate school of Bossuet 
 demands for the Pope : and scarcely short of what the most bigoted Catholic 
 would ascribe to Pope and General Council together. To separate from her 
 communion is schism. To reject her traditions or interpretations of Scripture 
 is sinful presumption; 
 
 Mr. Gladstone pronounces the right of private judgment, as it is generally 
 understood throughout Protestant Europe, to be a monstrous abuse. lie 
 declares himself favourable, indeed, to the exercise of private judgment after 
 a fashion of his own. We have, according to him, a right to judge all the 
 doctrines of the Church of England to be sound, but not to judge any of them 
 to be unsound. He has no objection, he assures us, to active inquiry into 
 reUgious questions ; on the contrary, he thinks such inquiry highly desirable 
 as long as it does not lead to diversity of opinion — which is much the same 
 thing as if he were to recommend tlie u,se of fire that will not burn down 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE, . 511 
 
 houses, or of brandy that will not make men drunk. He conceives it to be 
 perfectly possible for mankind to exercise their intellects vigorously and freely 
 on theological subjects, and yet to come to exactly the same conclusions with 
 each other and with the Church of England. And for this opinion he gives, 
 as far as we have been able to discover, no reason whatever, except that every- 
 body who vigorously and freely exercises his understanding on Euclid's 
 Theorems assents to them. " The activity of private judgment," he truly 
 observes, "and the unity and strength of conviction in mathematics vary 
 directly as each other." On this unquestionable fact he constructs a somewhat 
 questionable argument. Everybody who freely inquires agrees, he says, with 
 Euclid. But the Church is as much in the right as Euclid. Why, then, 
 should not every free inquirer agree with the Church ? We could put many 
 similar questions. Either the affirmative or the negative of the proposition 
 that King Charles wrote the " Icon Basilike" is as true as that two sides of a 
 triangle are greater than the third side. Why, then, do Dr. Wordsworth and 
 Mr. Hallam agree in thinking two sides of a triangle greater than the third 
 side and yet differ about the genuijieness of the " Icon Basihke " ? The state of 
 the exact sciences proves, says Mr. Gladstone, that, as respects religion, " the 
 association of these two ideas, activity of inquiry and variety of conclusion, is 
 a fallacious one." W^e might just as well turn the argument the other way, 
 and infer from the variety of religious opinions that there must necessarily be 
 hostile mathematical sects ; some affirming and some denying that the square 
 of the hypothenuse is equal to the squares of the sides. But we no not think 
 either the one analogy or the other of the smallest value. Our way of ascer- 
 taining the tendency of free inquiry is simply to open our eyes and look at the 
 world in which we live ; and there we see that free inquiry on mathematical 
 subjects produces unity, and that free inquiry on moral subjects produces dis- 
 crepancy. There would undoubtedly be less discrepancy jf inquirers were 
 more diligent and candid. But discrepancy there will be among the most 
 diligent and candid as long as the constitution of the human' mind apd the 
 nature of moral evidence continue unchanged. That we have not freedom and 
 unity together is a very sad thing ; and so it is that we have not wings. But 
 we are just as likely to see the one defect removed as the other. It is not only 
 in religion that this discrepancy is found. It is the same with all matters which 
 depend on moral evidence — with judicial questions, for example, and with politi- 
 cal questions. All the judges may work a sum in the rule of three on the same 
 principle and bring out the same conclusion. But it does not follow that, however 
 honest and laborious they may be, they will all be of one mind on the Douglas 
 case. So it is vain to hope that there may be a free constitution under which 
 every representative will be unanimously elected and every law unanimously 
 passed ; and it would be ridiculous for a statesman to stand wondering and 
 bemoaning himself because people, who agree in thinking that two and two 
 make four, cannot agree about the new poor law, or the administration of 
 Canada. ^ , 
 
 There are two intelligible and consistent courses which may be followed with 
 respect to the exercise of private judgment ; that of the Romanist, who inter- 
 dicts ■ it because of its inevitable inconveniences ; and the course of the Pro- 
 testant, who permits it in Spite of its inevitable inconveniences. Both are 
 more reasonable than Mr. Gladstone, who would have free private judgment 
 without its inevitable inconveniences. The Romanist produces repose by 
 means of stupefaction. The Protestant encourages activity, though he knows 
 that where there is much activity there will be some aberration. Mr. Glad- 
 stone wishes for the unity of the fifteenth century with the active and searching 
 spirit of the sixteenth. He might as well wish to be in two places at once. 
 
512 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 When Mr. Gladstone says that we " actually require discrepancy of opinion — 
 require and demand error, falsehood, blindness — and plume ourselves on such 
 discrepancy as attesting a freedom which is only valuable when used for unity 
 in the truth," he expresses himself with more energy than precision. Nobody 
 loves discrepancy for the sake of discrepancy. But a person who conscienti- 
 ously believes that free inquiry is, on the whole, beneficial to the interests of 
 truth — and that, from the imperfections of the human faculties, wherever there 
 is much free inquiry there will be some discrepancy — may, without impropriety, 
 consider such discrepancy, though in itself an evil, as a sign of good. That 
 there are fifty thousand thieves in London is a very melancholy fact. But, 
 looked at in one point of view, it is a reason for exultation. For what other 
 city could maintain fifty thousand thieves? What must be the mass of wealth, 
 v.'here the fragments gleaned by lawless pilfering rise to so large an amount ? 
 St. Kilda would not support a single pickpocket. The quantity of theft is, to 
 a certain extent, an index of the quantity of useful industry and judicious specu- 
 lation. And just as we may, from the great number of rogues in a town, infer 
 that mttch honest gain is made there, so may we ofteu, from the quantity of 
 error in a community, draw a cheering inference as to the degree in which the 
 public mind is turned to those inquiries which alone can lead to rational con- 
 victions of truth. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone seems to imagine that most Protestants think it possible for 
 the same doctrine to be at once true and false ; or that they think it imma- 
 terial whether, on a religious question, a man comes to a true or a false con- 
 clusion. If there be a:ny Protestants who hold notions so absurd, we abandon 
 them to his cei"isure. 
 
 The Protestant doctrine touching the right of private judgment — that doc- 
 trine which is the common foundation of the Anglican, the Lutheran and the 
 Calvinistic Churches— that doctrine by which every sect of dissenters vindicates 
 its separation — we conceive not to be this, that opposite opinions may both be 
 true ; nor this, that truth and falsehood are both equally good ; nor yet this, 
 that all speculative error is necessarily innocent — but this, that there is on the 
 face of the earth no visible body to whose decrees men are bound to submit 
 their private judgment on points of faith. 
 
 Is there always such a visible body ? Was there such a visible body in the 
 year 1 500 ? If not, why are we to believe that there is such a body in the 
 year 1839? If there was such a body in 1500, what was it? Was it the 
 Church of Rome ? And how can the Church of England be orthodox now if 
 the Church of Rome was orthodox then ? 
 
 " In England," says Mr. Gladstone, "the case was widely different from 
 that of the Continent. Her reformation did not destroy, but successfully 
 maintained, the unity and succession of the Church in her apostolical ministry. 
 We have, therefore, still among us the ordained hereditary witnesses of the 
 truth, conveying it to us through an unbroken series from our Lord Jesus 
 Christ and his Apostles. This is to us the ordinary voice of authority ; of 
 authority equally reasonable and equally true, whether we will hear, or whether 
 we will forbear." 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's reasoning is not so clear as might be desired. We have 
 among us, he says, ordained hereditary witnesses of the truth, and their voice 
 is to us the voice of authority. Undoubtedly, if they are witnesses of the 
 truth, their voice is the voice of authority. But this is little more than saying 
 that the truth is the truth. Nor is truth more trtie because it comes in an 
 unbroken series from the Apostles. The Nicenc f-iith is not more true in the 
 mouth of the Archbishop of Canterbury than in that of a Moderator of the 
 General Assembly. If our respect for the authority of the Church is to bs 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 513 
 
 only consequent upon our conviction of ^e truth of her doctrines, we come at 
 once to that monstrous abuse — the Protestant exercise of private judgment. 
 But, if Mr. Gladstone means that we ought to believe that the Church of Eng- 
 land speaks the truth because she has the apostolical succession, we greatly 
 doubt whether such a doctrine can be maintained. In the first place, what 
 proof have we of the fact?. We have, indeed, heard it said that Providence 
 would certainly have interfered to preserve the apostolical succession in the 
 true Church. But this is an argument fitted for understandings of a different 
 kind from Mr. Gladstone's. He will hardly tell us that the Church of Er^land 
 is the true Church because she has the succession, and that she has the succes- 
 sion because she is the true Church. 
 
 What evidence, then, have we for the fact of the apostolical succession ? 
 And here we may easily defend the truth against Oxford with the same argu- 
 ments with which, in old times, the truth was defended by Oxford against 
 Rome. In this stage of our combat with Mr. Gladstone, we need few weapons 
 except those which we find in the well-furnished and well-ordered armoury of 
 Chillingworth. 
 
 The transmission of orders from the Apostles to an English clergyman of 
 the present day must have been through a very great number of intermediate 
 persons. Now, it is probable that no Clergyman in the Church of England 
 can trace up his spiritual genealogy from bishop to bishop even so far back as 
 the time of the Reformation. There remains fifteen or sixteen hundred years 
 during which the history of the transmission of his orders is ouried in utter 
 darkness. And whether he be a priest by succession from the x\postles de- 
 pends on the question whether, during that long period, some thousands of 
 events took place, any one of which may, without any gross improbability, be 
 supposed not to have taken place; We have not a tittle of evidence for any 
 one of these events. We do not even know the names or countries of the men 
 to whom- it is taken for granted that these events happened. We do not know 
 whether the spiritual ancestors of any one of our contemporaries were Spanish 
 or Armenian, Arian or Orthodox. In the utter absence of all particular 
 evidence, we are surely entitled to require that there should be very strong 
 evidence indeed that the strictest regularity was observed in every generation 
 and that episcopal functions were exercised by none who were not bishops by 
 succession from the Apostles. But we have no such evidence. In the first 
 place, we have not full and accurate information touching the polity of the 
 Church during the century which followed the persecution of Nero. That 
 during this period the overseers of all the little Christian societies scattered 
 through the Roman empire hdd their spiritual authority by virtue of holy orders 
 derived from the Apostles, cannot be proved by contemporary testimony, or by 
 any testimony which can Ise regarded as decisive. The question, whether the 
 primitive ecclesiastical constitution bore a greater resemblance to the Anglican 
 or to the Calvanistic model, has been fiercely disputed. It is a question on 
 which men of eminent parts, learning and piety have differed, and do to this 
 day differ very widely. It is a question on which at least a full half of the 
 ability and erudition of Protestant Europe has, ever since the Reformation, 
 been opposed to the Anglican pretensions. Mr. Gladstone himself, we are 
 persuaded, would have the candour to allow that, if no evidence were admitted 
 but that which is furnished by the genuine Christian literature of the first two 
 centuries, judgment would iiot go in favour of prelacy. And, if he looked at 
 the subject as calmly as he would look at a controversy respecting tlie Roman 
 Comitia or the Anglo-Saxon Wittenagemote, he would probably think that the 
 absence of contemporary evidence during so long a period was a defect which 
 Jater attestation?, however numerous, could but very imperfectly supply. It is 
 
 5 
 
5i4 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH^JND STA TE. 
 
 surely impolitic to rest the doctrines of the English Church on a historical 
 theory which, to ninety-nine Protestants out of a hundred, would seem much 
 more questionable than any of those doctrines. Nor is this all. Extreme 
 obscurity overhangs the history of the middle ages ; and the facts which, are 
 discernible through that obscurity prove that the Church was exceedingly ill 
 regulated. We read of sees of the highest dignity openly sold— transferred 
 backwards and forwards by popular tumult — ^bestowed sometimes by a proflir 
 gate woman on her paramour — sometimes by a warlike baron on a kinsman, 
 still a stripling. We read of bishops of ten years old — of bishops of five years 
 old — of many popes who were mere boys, and who rivalled the frantic disso- 
 luteness of Caligula — nay, of a female pope. And though this last story, onCe 
 beheved throughout all Europe, has been disproved by the strict researches of 
 modern criticism, the most discerning of those who reject it have admitted 
 that it is not intrinsically improbable. In our own island, it was the com- 
 plaint of Alfred that not a single priest south of the Thames, and very few on 
 the north, could read either Latin or English. And this illiterate clergy exer- 
 cised their ministry amidst a rude and half-heathen population, in which 
 Danish pirates, unchristened, or christened by the hundred on a field of battle, 
 •Were mingled with a Saxon peasantry scarcely better instructed in religion. 
 The state of Ireland was still worse. " Tota ilia per universam Hiberniam 
 dissolutio ecclesiasticse disciplinae, ilia ubique pro consuetudine Christiana sasva 
 subintroducta barbaries" — are the expressions of St. Bernard. We are, there- 
 fore, at a loss to conceive how any clergyman can feel confident that his orders 
 have come down correctly. Whether he be really a successor of the Appstles 
 depends on an immense number of such contingencies as these — whether, 
 under King Ethelwolf, a stupid priest might not, Avhile baptising several scores 
 of Danish prisoners who had just made their option between the font and the 
 gallows, inadvertently omit to perform the rite on one of these graceless pro- 
 selytes ? whether, in the seventh century, an impostor, who had never received 
 consecration, might not have passed himself off as a bishop on a rude tribe of 
 Scots ? whether a lad of twelve did really, by a ceremony huddled over when 
 he was too drunk to know what he was about, convey the episcopal character 
 to a lad of ten ? 
 
 Since the first century, not less, in all probability, than a hundred thousand 
 persons have exercised the functions of bishops. That many of these have not 
 been bishops by apostolical succession is quite certain. Hooker admits that 
 deviations from the general rule have been frequent ; and, with a boldness 
 worthy of his high and statesman-like intellect, pronounces them to have been 
 often justifiable. "There may be," says he, " sometimes very just and suffi- 
 cient reason to allow ordination made without a bishop. WTiere the Church 
 must needs have some ordained, and neither hath nor can have possibly a 
 bishop to ordain, in case of such necessity the ordinary institution of God 
 hath given oftentimes, and may give place. And therefore we are not simply 
 without exception to urge a lineal descent of power from the Apostles by 
 continued succession of bishops in every effectual ordination." There can be 
 little doubt, we think, that the succession, if it ever existed, has often been 
 interrupted in ways much less respectable. For example, let us suppose— and 
 we are sure that no well-informed person will think the supposition by any 
 means improbable — that, in the third century, a man of no principle and 
 some parts, who has, in the course of a roving and discreditable life, been a 
 catechumen at Antioch and has there become familiar with Christian usages and 
 doctrines, afterwards rambles to Marseilles, where he finds a Christian society, 
 rich, liberal and simple-hearted. He pretends to be a Christian, attracts 
 notice by his abilities and affected zeal, and is raised to the episcopal dignity 
 
OlADSTONE 0// cnukCtt AND STA TE. 515 
 
 without having ever been baptised. Tfiat such an event might happen, nay, 
 was very likely to happen, cannot well be disputed by anyone who has read 
 the " Life of Peregrinus." The very virtues, indeed, which distinguished the 
 early Christians, seem to have laid them open to those arts which deceived 
 
 " Uriel, though Regent of the San, and held 
 The sharpest-sigated spirit of all in Heaven." 
 
 Now, tHis unbaptised impostor is evidently no successor of the Apostle$. 
 He is not even a Christian; and all orders derived through such a pre- 
 tended bishop are altogether invalid. Do we know enough of the state of 
 the world and of the Church in the third century to be able to say with 
 confidence that .there were not at that time twenty such pretended bishops ? 
 Every such case makes a break in the apostolical succession. 
 
 Now, suppose that a break, such as Hooker admits to have been both com- 
 mon and justifiable, or such as we have supposed to be produced by hypocrisy 
 and cupidity, were found in the chain which connected the Apostles with any 
 of the missionaries who first spread Christianity in the wilder parts of Europe 
 —who can say how extensive the effect of this single break may be ? Sup- 
 pose that St. Patrick, for example, if ever there was such a man, or 
 Theodore of Tarsus, who is said to have consecrated in the seventh century 
 the first bishops of many English sees, had not the true apostolical orders, is it 
 no* conceivable that such a circumstance may affect the orders of many 
 clergymen now living ? Even if it were possible, which it assuredly is not, 
 to prove that the Church had the apostolical orders in the third century, it 
 would be impossible to prove that those orders were not in the twelfth century 
 so far lost that no ecclesiastic could be certain of the legitimate descent of his 
 own spiritual character. And if this v/ere so, no subsequent precautions could 
 repair the evil. -, , , 
 
 Chillingworth states the conclusion at which he had arrived on this subject 
 in these very remarkable words: " That of ten thousand probables no one 
 should be false ;■ that of ten thousand requisites, whereof anyone may fail, 
 not one should be wanting, this to me is extremely improbable and even 
 cousin-german to impossible. So that the assurance herepf is like a machine 
 composed of an innumerable multitude of pieces, of which it is strangely 
 unlikely but soxne will be out of order, and yet, if anyone be so, the whole 
 fabric falls of. necessity to the ground : and he that shall put them together, 
 and maturely consider all the possible ways of lapsing and nullifying a priest- 
 hood in the Church of Rome, will be very incHnabie to think that it is a 
 hundred to one that, among a hundred seeming priests, there is not one true, 
 one ; nay, that- is not a thing very improbable that, amongst those many^, 
 millions which make up the Romish hierarchy, there are not twenty true. " We 
 do not pretend to know to what precise extent . the canonists of Oxford agree 
 with those of Rome as to the circumstances which nullify orders. We will 
 not, therefore, go so far as Chillingworth. We only say that we see no 
 satisfactory proof of the fact that the Church of England possesses the 
 apostolical succession. And^ after all, if Mr. Gladstone could prove the apos- 
 tolical succession, what would the apostolical succession prove ? He says 
 that " we have among us the ordained heriditary witnesses of the truth, con- 
 veying it to us through an unbroken series from our Lord Jesus Christ and 
 his Apostles- " Is this the fact? Is there any doubt that the orders of the 
 Church of England are generally derived from the Church of Rome ? Does 
 not the Church of England declare, does not Mr. Gladstone himself admit, 
 that the Church of Rome teaches much error and condemns much truth? 
 And is it not quite clear that, as far as the doctrines of the Church of England 
 
5i6 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND ^TaTE^ 
 
 differ from thosp of the Church of Rome, so far the Church of England 
 conveys the truth through a broken series ? 
 
 That the Reformers, lay and clerical, of the Church of England, corrected all 
 that required correction in the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and nothing 
 more, may be quite true. But we never can admit the circumstance that the 
 Church of England possesses the apostolical succession as a proof that she is 
 thus perfect. No stream can rise higher than its fountain. The succession of 
 mmisters in the Church of England, derived as it is through the Church fA 
 Rome, can never prove more for the Church of England than it proves for 
 the Church of Rome. But this is not all. The Arian Churches, which once^ 
 predominated in the kingdoms of the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Burgun- 
 dians, the Vqndals and the Lombards, were all episcopal churches, and all 
 had a fairer claim than that of England to the apostolical succession, as being 
 much nearer to the apostolical times. In the East, the Greek Church, which 
 IS at variance on points of faith with all the Western Churches, has an equal 
 claim to this succession. The Nestorian, the Eutychian, the Jacobite Churches ; 
 all heretical, all condemned by councils of which even Protestant divines have 
 generally spoken with respect ; had an equal claim to the apostolical suc- 
 cession. Now if, of teachers having apostolical orders, a vast majority have 
 taught much error — if a large proportion have taught deadly heresy — if, on 
 the other hand, as Mr. Gladstone himself admits, churches not having apos- 
 tolical orders — that of Scotland for example — have been nearer to the standard 
 of orthodoxy than the majority of teachers who have had apostolical orders — 
 how can he possibly call upon us to submit our private judgment to the 
 authority of a Church on the ground that she has these orders ? 
 
 Mr. Gladstone dwells much on the importance of unity in doctrine. Unity, 
 he tells us, is essential to truth. And this is most unquestionable. But when 
 he goes on to tell us that this unity is the characteristic of the Church of 
 England, that she is one in body and in spirit, we are compelled to differ 
 from him widely. The apostolical succession she may or may not have. But 
 unity she most certainly has not, and never has had. It is matter of perfect 
 notoriety that her formularies are framed in such a manner as to admit to her 
 highest offices men who differ from each other more widely than a very high 
 Churchman differs from a Catholic, or a very low Churchman from a Presby- 
 terian ; and that the general leaning of the Church, with respect to some 
 important questions, has been sometimes one way and sometimes another. 
 Take, for example, the questions agitated between the Calvinists and the 
 Arminians. Do we find in the Church of England, with respect to those 
 questions, that unity which is essential to truth ? Was it ever found in the 
 Church ? Is it not certain that at the end of the sixteenth century the rulers 
 of the Church held doctrines as Calvinistic as ever were held by any Came- 
 ronian, and not only held them, but persecuted everybody who did not hold 
 them ? And is it not equally certain that the rulers of the Church have, in 
 very recent times, considered Calvinism as a disqualification for high pre- 
 ferment, if not for holy orders ? Look at Archbishop Whitgift's Lambeth 
 Articles — Articles in which the doctrine of reprobation is affirmed in terms 
 strong enough for William Huntington, S. S. And then look at the eighty- 
 seven questions which Bishop Marsh, within our own memory, propounded to 
 candidates for ordination. We should be loth to say that either of these cele- 
 brated prelates had intruded into a Church whose doctrines he abhorred, and 
 deserved to be stripped of his gown. Yet it is quite certain that one or o\^x 
 of them must have been very greatly in error. John Wesley again, and 
 Cowper's friend, John Newton, were both Presbyters of this Church. Both 
 were men of talent. Both we believe to have been men of rigid integrity — 
 
GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. ^17 
 
 rtien who would not have subscribed a Confession of Faith which they disbe- 
 lieved for the richest bishopric in the empire. Yet, on the subject of pre- 
 destination, Newton was strongly attached to doctrines which Wesley desig- 
 nated as " blasphemy which might make the ears of a Christian to tingle." 
 Indeed, it will not be disputed that the clergy of the Established Church are 
 divided as to these questions, and that her formularies are not found practically 
 to exclude even scrupulously honest men of both sides from her altars. It is 
 notorious that some of her most distinguished rulers think this latitude a 
 good thing and would be sorry to see it restricted in favour of either opinion. 
 And herein we most cordially agree with them. But what becomes of the 
 unity of the Church and of that truth to which unity is essential ? Mr. Glad- 
 stone tells us that the Kegium Donum was given originally to orthodox 
 Presbyterian ministers, but that part of it is now received by their heterodox 
 successors. "This,"' he says, "serves to illustrate the difficulty in which 
 governments entangle themselves when they covenant with arbitrary systems 
 of opinion and not with the Church alone. The opinion passes away, but 
 the gift remains." But is it not clear that if a strong Supralapsan had, under 
 Whitgift's primacy, left a large estate at the disposal of the bishops for eccle- 
 siastical purposes, in the hope that tlie rulers of the Church would abide by 
 the Lambeth Articles, he would really have been giving his substance for the 
 support of doctrines which he detested ? The opinion would have passed away 
 and the gift would have remained. 
 
 This is only a single instance. What wide differences of opinion respecting 
 the operation of the sacraments are held by bishops and presbyters of the 
 Church of England — all men who have conscientiously declared their assent to 
 her articles — all men who are, according to Mr. Gladstone, ordained hereditary 
 witnesses of the truth — all men whose voices make up what, he tells us, is the 
 voice of true and reasonable authority ! Here, again, the Church has not unity % 
 and as unity is the essential condition of truth, the Church has not the truth. . 
 
 Nay, take the very question which we are discussing with Mr. Gladstone. To 
 what extent does the Church of England allow of the right of private judg- 
 ment ? What degree of authority does she claim for herself in virtue of the 
 apostolical succession of her ministers? Mr. Gladstone, a very able and a very 
 honest man, takes a view of this matter widely differing from the view taken by 
 others whom he will admit to be as able and as honest as himself. People 
 who altogether dissent from him on this subject eat the bread of the Church, 
 preach in her pulpits, dispense her sacraments, confer her orders and carry 
 on that apostolical succession, the nature and importance of which, according 
 to him, they do not comprehend. Is this unity ? Is this truth ? 
 
 It will be observed that we are not putting cases of dishonest men, who, 
 for the sake of lucre, falsely pretend to believe in the doctrines of an esta- 
 blishment. We are putting cases of men as upright as ever lived, who, 
 differing on theological questions of the highest importance and avowing 
 that difference, are yet priests and prelates of the same Church. We there- 
 fore say that, on some points which Mr. Gladstone himself thinks of vital 
 importance, the Church has either not spoken at all, or, what is for all prac- 
 tical purposes the same thing, has not spoken in language to be understood 
 even by honest and sagacious divines. The religion of the Church of England 
 is so far from exhibiting that unity of doctrine which Mr. Gladstone repre- 
 sents as her distinguishing glory, that it is, in fact, a bundle of religious 
 systems without number. It comprises the religious system of Bishop Tom- 
 line and the religious system of John Newton, and all the religious systems 
 which lie between them. It comprises the religious system of Mr. Newman 
 and the religious sj'stem of the Archbishop of Dublin, and all the religious 
 
 ^ \ B r; A ^ ^' 
 
 ^ 
 
Sl8 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STAtM, i 
 
 systems which lie between them. .All these different opinions are heldi 
 avowed, preached, printed within the pale of the Church by men of unques- 
 tioned integrity and understanding. 
 
 Do we make this diversity a topid of reproach to the Church of England ? 
 Far from it. We would oppose with all our power every attempt to narrow 
 her basis. Would to God that a hundred and fifty years ago a good king 
 and a good primate had possessed the power as well as the will to widen it ! 
 It was a noble enterprise, worthy of William and of Tillotson. But what 
 becomes of all Mr. Gladstone's eloquent exhortations to unity? Is it not 
 mere mockery to attach so much importance to unity in form and name, 
 where there is so little in substance — to shudder at the thought of two churches 
 in alliance with one state and to endure with patience the spectacle of a hun- 
 dred sects battUng within one church ? And is it not clear that Mr. Gladstone 
 is bound, on all his own' principles, to abandon the defence of a church in 
 which unity is not found ? Is it not clear that he is bound to divide the 
 House of Commons against every grant of money which may be proposed for 
 the clergy of the Established Church in the Colonies ? lie objects to the 
 vote for Maynooth because it is monstrous to pay one man to teach truth 
 and another to denounce that truth as falsehood. But it is a mere chance 
 whether any sum which he votes for the English Church in any dependency will 
 go to the maintenance of an Arminian or a Calvinist, of a man like Mr. Froude 
 or of a man like Dr. Arnold. It is a mere chance, therefore, whether it will go 
 to support a teacher of truth or one who will denounce that truth as falsehood. 
 
 This argument seems to us at once to dispose of all that part of .Mr. Glad- 
 stone's book which respects grants of public money to dissenting bodies. All 
 such grants he condemns. But, surely, if it be wrong to give the money of the 
 public for the support of those who teach any false doctrine, it is wrong to give 
 that money for the support of the ministers of the Established Church. 
 For it is quite certain that, whether Calvin or Arminius be in the right, 
 whether Laud or Burnet be in the right, a great deal of false doctrine is 
 taught by the ministers of the Established Church. If it be said that the points 
 on which the clergy of the Church of England differ ought to be passed ,over 
 for the sake of the many important points on which they agree, why may 
 not the same argument be maintained with respect to other sects which hold, in 
 common with the Church of England, the fundamental doctrines of Christi- 
 anity? The principle that a ruler is bound in conscience to propagate religi- 
 ous truth, and to propagate no religious doctrine which is untrue, is abandoned 
 as soon as it is admitted that a gentleman of Mr. Gladstone's opinions may law- 
 fully vote the public money to a chaplain whose opinions are those of Paley or of 
 Simeon. The whole question then becomes one of degree. Of course no in- 
 dividual and no government can justifiably propagate error for the sake of 
 propagating error. But both individuals and governments must work with 
 such machinery as they have ; and no human machinery is to be found which 
 will impart truth without some alloy of error. We have shown irrefragably, 
 as we think, that the Church of England does not afford such a machinery. 
 The question then is, with what degree of imperfection in our machinery must 
 we put up ? And to this question we do not see how any general answer can 
 be given. We must be guided by circumstances. It would, for example, be 
 very criminal in a Protestant to contribute to the sending of Jesuit missionaries 
 among a Protestant population. But we do not conceive that a Protestant 
 would be to blame for giving assistance to Jesuit missionaries who might be 
 engaged in converting the Siamese to Christianity. That tares are mixed with 
 the wheat is matter of regret ; but it is better that wheat and tares should grow 
 to^; :'ther than that the oromise- of the year should be blighted. 
 
GLADSTONE ON QHURCH AND STATE. 519 
 
 Mr. Gladstone, we see with deep regi^, censures the British government 
 in India for distributing a small sum among the Catholic priests who minister 
 to the spiritual wants of our Irish soldiers. Now let us put a case to him. A 
 Protestant gentleman is attended by a Catholic servant in a part of the country 
 where there is no Catholic congregation within many miles. The servant is 
 taken ill and is given over. He desires, in great trouble of mind, to receive 
 the last sacraments of his church. His master sends off a messenger in a chaise 
 and four with orders to bring a confessor from a town at a considerable 
 distance. Here a Protestant lays out money for the purpose of causing religious 
 instruction and consolation to be given by a Catholic priest. Has he com- 
 mitted a sin ? Has he not acted like a good master and a geod Christian ? 
 Would Mr. Gladstone accuse him of " laxity of religious principle," of "con- 
 founding truth with falsehood," of "considering the support of religion as a 
 boon to an individual, not as a homage to truth ? " But how if this servant 
 had, for the sake of his master, undertaken a journey which removed him from 
 the place where he might easily have obtained religious attendance? How if 
 his death were occasioned by a wound received in defending his master? 
 Should we not then say that the master had only fulfilled a sacred obligation 
 of duty? Now, Mr. Gladstone himself owns that " nobody can think that the 
 personality of the state is more stringent, or entails stronger obligations, than 
 that of the individual." How then stands the case of the Indian government ? 
 Here is a poor fellow, enlisted in Clare or Kerry, sent over fifteen thousand 
 miles of sea, quartered in a depressing and pestilential climate. He fights for 
 the government ; he conquers for it ; he is wounded ;"he is laid on his pallet, 
 withering away with fever, under that terrible sun, without a friend near him. 
 He pines for the consolations of that religion which, neglected perhaps in the 
 season of health and vigour, now comes back to his mind associated with all 
 the overpowering recollections of his earlier days and of the home which he is 
 never to see again. And because the state for which he dies sends a priest of 
 his own faith to stand at his bedside and to tell him, in language which at once 
 commands his love and confidence, of the common Father, of the common 
 Redeemer, of the common hope of immortality ; because the state for which 
 he dies does not abandon him in his last moments to the care of heathen attend- 
 ants, or employ a chaplain of a different creed to vex his departing spirit 
 with a controversy about the Council of Trent ; Mr. Gladstone finds that India 
 presents "a melancholy picture," and that there is " a large allowance of false 
 principle " in the system pursued there. Most earnestly do we hope that our 
 remarks may induce Mr. Gladstone to reconsider this part of his work, and 
 may prevent him from expressing in that high assembly, in which he must 
 always be heard with attention, opinions so unworthy of his character. 
 
 We have now said almost all that we think it necessary to say respecting Mr. 
 Gladstone's theory. And perhaps it would be safest for us to stop here. It is 
 much easier to pull down than to build up. Yet, that we may give Mr. Glad- 
 stone his revenge, we will state concisely our own views respecting the aUiance 
 of Church and State. ;: .■ 
 
 We set out in company with Warburton, and remain with him pretty sociably 
 till we come to his contract ; a contract which Mr. Gladstone very properly 
 designates as a fiction. We consider the primary end of government 
 as a purely temporal end, the protection of the persons and property of 
 men. 
 
 We think that government, like every other contrivance of human wisdom from 
 the highest to the lowest, is likely to answer its main end best when it is con- 
 structed with a single view to that end. Mr. Gladstone, who loves Plato, will 
 not quarrel with us for illustrating our proposition, after Plato's fashion, from 
 
520 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. 
 
 the most familiar objects. Take cutlery, for example. A blade which is 
 designed both to shave and to carve will certainly not shave so well as a razor, 
 or carve so well as a carving knife. An academy of painting, which should 
 also be a bank, would, in all probability exhibit very bad pictures and discount 
 very bad bills. A gas company, which should also be an infant school society, 
 would, we apprehend, light the streets ill and teach the children ill. On this 
 principle, we think that government should be organised solely with a view to 
 its main end ; and that no part of its efficiency for that end should be sacrificed 
 in order to promote any other end however excellent. 
 
 But does it follow from hence that governments ought never to promote any 
 end other than their main end? In no wise. Though it is desirable 
 that every institution should have a main end, and should be so formed as to 
 be in the highest degree efficient for that main end, yet if, without any sacri- 
 fice of its efficiency for that end, it can promote any other good end, it ought 
 to do so. Thus, the end for which a hospital is built is the relief of the sick, 
 not the beautifying of the street. To sacrifice the health of the sick to splend- 
 our of architectural effect, to place the building in a bad air only that it may pre- 
 sent a more commanding front to a great public place, to make the wards 
 hotter or cooler than they ought to be in order that the columns and windows 
 of the exterior may please the passers-by, would be monstrous. But if, with- 
 out any sacrifice of the chief object, the hospital can be made an ornament to 
 the metropolis, it would be absurd not to make it so. 
 
 In the same manner, if a government can, without any sacrifice of its main 
 end, promote any other gOod end, it ought to do so. The encouragement of 
 the fine arts, for example, is by no means the main end of government ; 
 and it would be absurd, in constituting a government, to bestow a thought on 
 the question whether it would be a government likely to train Raphaels and 
 Domenichinos. But it by no means follows that it is improper for a govern- 
 ment to form a national gallery of pictures. The same may be said of patron- 
 age bestowed on learned men — of the publication of archives — of the collecting 
 of libraries, menageries, plants, fossils, antiques — of journeys and voyages for 
 purposes of geographical discovery or astronomical observation. It is not for 
 these ends that government is constituted. But it may well happen that a 
 government may have at its command resources which will enable it, without 
 any injury to its main end, to serve these colateral ends far more effectually 
 than any individual or any voluntary association could do. If so, government 
 ought to serve these collateral ends. 
 
 It is still more evidently the duty of government to promote — always in sub- 
 ordmation to its main end — everything which is useful as a means for the 
 attaming of that main end. The improvement of steam navigation, for ex- 
 ample, is by no means a primary object of government. But as steam vessels 
 are useful for the purpose of national defence and for the purpose of facilitating 
 miercourse between distant provinces, and thereby consolidating the force of 
 the empire, it may be the bounden duty of government to encourage ingenious 
 men to perfect an invention which so directly tends to make the state more 
 efficient for its great primary end. 
 
 Now, on both these grounds, the instruction of the people may with pro- 
 priety engage the care of the government. That the people should be well 
 educated is in itself a good thing ; and the state ought therefore to promote 
 this object, if it can do so without any sacrifice of its primary object. The 
 education of the people, conducted on those principles of morality which are 
 common to all the forms of Christianity, is highly valuable as a means of pro- 
 motmg the main object for which government exists, and is on this ground 
 well aleserving the attention of rulers. We will not at present go into the 
 
GLADSTOJ^E ON' CHURCH AND STATE, 521 
 
 general question of education, but will confine our remarks to the subject 
 which is more immediately before us — namely, the religious instruction of the 
 people. 
 
 We may illustrate our view of the policy which governments ought to pursue, 
 with respect to religious instruction, by recurring to the analogy of a hospital* 
 Religious instruction is not the main end for which a hospital is built ; and to 
 introduce into a hospital any regulations prejudicial to the health of the 
 patients on the plea of promoting their spiritual improvement — to send a 
 ranting preacher to a man who has just been ordered by the physician to lie 
 quiet and try to get a little sleep — to impose a strict observance of Lent on a 
 convalescent who has been advised to eat heartily of nourishing food — to 
 direct, as the bigoted Pius the Fifth actually did, that no medical assistance 
 should be given to any person who declined spiritual attendance — would be 
 the most extravagant folly. Yet it by no means follows that it would not be 
 right to have a chaplain to attend the sick, and to pay such a chaplain out of the 
 hospital funds. Whether it will be proper to have such a chaplain at all, and 
 of what religious persuasion such a chaplain ought to be, must depend on 
 circumstances. There may be a town in which it would be impossible to set 
 up a good hospital without the help of people of different opinions. And 
 religious parties may run so high that, though people of different opinions are 
 willing to contribute for the relief of the sick, they will not concur in the 
 choice of any one chaplain. The high Churchmen insist that, if there is a 
 paid chaplain, he shall be a high Churchman. The Evangelicals stickle for 
 an Evangelical. Here it would evidently be absurd and cruel to let an useful 
 and humane design, about which all are agreed, fall to the ground because all 
 cannot agree about something else. The governors must either appoint two 
 chaplains and pay them both, or they must appoint none ; and every one of 
 them must, in his individual capacity, do what he can for the purpose of 
 providing the sick with such religious instruction and consolation as will, vn. 
 his opinion, be most useful to them. 
 
 We should say the same of government. Government is not an institution 
 for the propagation of religion, any more than St. George's Hospital is an 
 institution for the propagation of religion : and the most absurd and pernicious 
 consequences would follow if Government should pursue, as its primary end, 
 that which can never be more than its secondary end, though intrinsically 
 more important than its primary end. But a government which considers the 
 religious instruction of the people as a secondary end, and follows out that 
 principle faithfully, will, we think, be likely to do much good and little harm. 
 
 We will rapidly run over some of the consequences to which this principle 
 leads, and point out how it solves some problems which, on Mr. Gladstone's* 
 hypothesis, admit of no satisfactory solution. 
 
 All persecutions directed against the persons or property of men is, on our 
 principle, obviously indefensible. For the protection of the persons and 
 property of men being the primary end of government, and religious instruction 
 only a secondary end, to secure the people from heresy by making their lives, 
 their limbs or their estates insecure, would be to sacrifice the primary end to 
 the secondary end. It would be as absurd as it would be in the governors of a 
 hospital to direct that the wounds of all Arian and Socinian patients should be 
 dressed in such a way as to make them fester. 
 
 Again, on our principles, all civil disabilities on account of religious opinions 
 are indefensible. For all such disabilities make government less efficient for 
 its main end : they limit its choice of able men for the administration and 
 defence of the state ; they alienate from it the hearts of the sufferers ; they 
 deprive it of a part of its effective strength in all contests with foreign nations. 
 
522 GLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STA TE, 
 
 Such a course is as absurd as it would be in the governors of a hospital to 
 reject an able surgeon because he is an Universal Restitutionist and to send a 
 bungler to operate because he is perfectly orthodox. 
 
 Again, on our principles, no government ought to press on the people 
 religious instruction, however sound, in such a manner as to excite among 
 them discontents dangerous to public order. For here again government 
 would sacrifice its primary end to an end intrinsically indeed of the highest 
 importance, but still only a secondary end of government, as government. 
 This rule at once disposes of the difficulty about India, a difficulty of which 
 Mr. Gladstone can get rid only by putting in an imaginary discharge in order 
 to set aside an imaginary obligation. There is assuredly no country where it 
 is more desirable that Christianity should be propagated. But there is no 
 country in which the government is so completely disqualified for the task. 
 By using our power in order to make proselytes, we should produce the dis- 
 solution of society and bring utter ruin on all those interests for the protec- 
 tion of which government exists. Here the secondary end is, at present, 
 inconsistent with the primary end, and must therefore be abandoned. 
 Christian instruction given by individuals and voluntary societies may do much 
 good. Given by the government it would do unmixed harm. At the same 
 time, we quite agree with Mr. Gladstone in thinking that the English autho- 
 rities in India ought not to participate in any idolatrous rite ; and, indeed, we 
 are fully satisfied that all such participation is not only unchristian, but also 
 unwise and most undignified. 
 
 Supposing the circumstances of a country be such that the government may 
 with propriety, on c^r principles, give religious instruction to a people. The 
 next question is, what religion shall be taught ? Bishop Warburton answers, 
 the religion of the majority. And we so far agree with him that we can 
 scarcely conceive any circumstances in which it would be proper to establish, as 
 the one exclusive religion of the state, the religion of the minority. Such a 
 'preference could hardly be ginen without exciting most serious discontent and 
 endangering those interests, the protection of which is the first object of 
 government. But we never can admit that a ruler can be justified in assisting to 
 spread a system of opinions solely because that system is pleasing to the 
 majority. On the other hand^ we cannot agree with Mr. Gladstone, who 
 would of course answer that the only religion which a ruler ought to propagate 
 is the religion of his own conscience. In truth, this is an impossibility. And,, 
 as we have shown, Mr. Gladstone himself, whenever he supports a grant of 
 money to the Church of England, is really assisting to propagate, not the 
 precise religion of his own conscience, but some one or more, he knows not 
 how many or which, of the innumerable religions which lie between the 
 confines of Pelagianism and those of Antinomianism, and between the confines of 
 Popery and those of Presbyterianism. In our opinion, that religious instruction 
 which the ruler ought, in his public capacity, to patronise, is the instruction 
 from which he, in his conscience, believes that the people will learn most good 
 with the smallest mixture of evil. And thus it is not necessarily his own 
 religion that he will select. He \yill, of course, believe that his own religion 
 is unmixedly good. But the question which he has to consider is, not how 
 much good his religion contains, but how much good the people will learn if 
 instruction is given them in that religion. lie may prefer the doctrine and 
 government of the Church of England to those pf the Church of Scotland. But 
 if he knows that a Scotch congregation will listen with deep attention and 
 respect while an Erskine or a Chalmers sets before them the fundamental doc- 
 trines of Christianity; and that a glimpse of a cassock or a single fine of a 
 liturgy would be the signal for hooting and riot, and would probably bring 
 
VLADSTONE ON CHURCH AND STATE. . 523 
 
 stools and brickbats about the ears of the;minister ; he acts wisely if he conveys 
 religious knowledge to the Scotch rather by means of that imperfect Church, 
 as he may think it, from which they will learn much, than by means of that 
 perfect Church from which they will learn nothing. The only end of teaching 
 is, that men may learn ; and it is idle to talk of the duty of teaching truth in 
 ways which only cause men to cling more firmly to falsehood. • 
 
 On these principles, we conceive that a statesman, who might be fer.ind.eed 
 from regarding the Church of England with the reverence whidh Mr. 
 Gladstone feels for her, might yet firmly oppose all attempts to destroy her. 
 Such a statesman may be too well acquainted with her origin to look upon her 
 with superstitious awe. He may know that she sprang from a compromise 
 huddled up between the eager zeal of reformers and the selfishness of greedy, 
 ambitious and time-serving politicians. He may find in every page of her 
 annals ample cause for censure. He may feel that he could not, with ease to 
 his conscience subscribe all her articles. He may regret that all the attempts 
 which have been made to open her gates to large classes of nonconformists 
 should have failed. Her episcopal polity he may consider as of purely human 
 institution. He cannot defend her on the ground that she possesses the 
 apostolical succession ; for he does not know whether that succession may not 
 be altogether a fable. He cannot defend her on the ground of her unity ; for 
 he knows that her frontier sects are much more remote from each other than 
 one frontier is from the Church of Rome or the other from the Church of 
 Geneva. But he may think that she teaches more truth with less alloy of 
 error than would be taught by those who, if she were swept away, would 
 occupy the vacant space. He may think that the effect produced by her 
 beautiful services and by hef pulpits on the national mind is, on the whole, 
 highly beneficial. He may think that her civilising influence is usefully felt in 
 remote districts. He may think that, if she were destroyed, a large portion of 
 those who now compose her congregations would neglect all religious duties ; 
 and that a still larger part would fall under the influence of spiritual mounte- 
 banks, hungry for gain or drunk with fanaticism. While he would witlv*" 
 pleasure admit that all the qualities of Christian pastors are to be found in 
 large measure within the existing body of Dissenting ministers, he would per- 
 haps be inclined to think that the standard of intellectual and moral character 
 among that exemplary class of men may have been raised to its present high 
 point and maintained there by the indirect influence of the Establishment. 
 And he may be by no means satisfied that, if the Church were at once swept 
 away, the place of our Sumners and Whateleys would be supplied by Dodd- 
 ridges and Halls. He may think that the advantages which we have described 
 are obtained, or might, if the existing system were slightly modified, be 
 obtained, without any sacrifice of the paramount objects which all governments 
 ought to have chiefly in view. Nay, he may be of opinion that an institution, 
 so deeply fixed in the hearts and minds of millions, could not be subverted 
 without loosening and shaking all the foundations of civil society. With at 
 least equal ease he would fmd reasons for supporting the Church of Scotland. 
 Nor would he be under the necessity of resorting to any contract to justify the 
 "connection of two religious establishments with one government. He would 
 think scruples on that head frivolous in any person who is zealous for a Church 
 of which both Dr. Herbert Marsh and Dr. Daniel Wilson are bishops. 
 I Indeed, he would gladly follow out his principles much further. He would 
 have been willing to vote in 1825 for Lord Francis Egerton's resolution, that 
 it is expedient to give a public maintenance to the Catholic clergy of Ireland j 
 ftnd he would deeply regret that no such measure was adopted in 1829. 
 
 In this way, we conceive, a statesman might, on oiif principles, satisfy 
 
524 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 himself that it would be in ihe highest degree inexpedient \o abolish tlie 
 Church, either of England or of Scotland. 
 
 But if there were, in any part of the world, a national church regarded as 
 heretical by four-fifths of the nation committed to its care — a church estab- 
 lished and maintained by the sword — a church producing twice as many riots 
 as conversions — a church which, though possessing great wealth and power, 
 and though long backed by persecuting laws, had, in the course of many 
 generations, been found unable to propagate its doctrines and barely able to 
 maintain its ground — a church so odious, that fraud and violence, when used 
 against its clear rights of property, were generally regarded as fair play — a 
 church, whose ministers were preaching to desolate walls, and with difficulty 
 obtaining their lawful subsistence by the help of bayonets — such a church, on 
 our principles, could not, we must own, be defended. We should say that 
 the state which allied itself with such a church postponed the primary end of 
 government to the secondary ; and that the consequences had been such as 
 any sagacious observer would have predicted. Neither the primary nor the 
 secondary end is attained. The temporal and spiritual interests of the people 
 suffer alike. The minds of men, instead of being drawn to the church, are 
 alienated from the state. The magistrate, after sacrificing order, peace, union, 
 all the interests which it is his first duty to protect for the purpose of pro- 
 moting pure religion, is forced, after the experience of centuries, to admit 
 that he has really been promoting error. The sounder the doctrines of such a 
 church — the more absurd and noxious the superstition by which those doctrines 
 are opposed — the stronger are the arguments against the policy which has 
 deprived a good cause of its natural advantages. Those who preach to rulers 
 the duty of employing power to propagate truth would do well to remember 
 that falsehood, though no match for truth alone, has often been found more 
 than a match for truth and power together. 
 
 A statesman, judging on our principles, would pronounce without hesitation 
 thafa church, such as we have last described, never ought to have been set 
 up. Further than this we will not venture to speak for him. He would doubt- 
 less remember that the world is full of institutions which, though they never 
 ought to have been set up, yet, having been set up, ought not to be rudely 
 pulled down; and that it is often wise in practice to be content with the 
 mitigation of an abuse which, looking at it in the abstract, we might feel 
 impatient to destroy. 
 
 We have done ; and nothing remains but that we part from Mr. Gladstone 
 with the courtesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We dissent from his 
 opinions, but we admire his talents ; we respect his integrity and benevolence ; 
 and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so entirely to engros$« 
 him as to leave him no leisure for literature and philosophy, , -^ 
 
 LORD CLIVE. (January, 1840.) 
 
 The Life of Robert, Lord Clive ; collected from the Family Papers communicated by the 
 Earl of Powis. By Major-Generai, Sir John Malcolm, KCB. 3 vols., 8vo. 
 London, 1836. 
 
 - We have always thought it strange that, while the history of the Spanish 
 
 empire in America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great 
 
 .actions of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves, excite 
 
 little interest. Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned A'lontezuma and whp 
 
 gtra,i:igled AtabaHpa, But we dcubt wJiethgr one in t^n, §ven an^orig Eng^sh 
 
 
LORD CLIVE. 525 
 
 gentlemen of highly cultivated minds, can tell who won the battle of Buxar, 
 who perpetrated the massacre of Patna, <?Tiether Sujah Dowlah ruled in Oude 
 or in Travancore, or whether Holkar was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet the 
 victories of Cortes were gained over savages who had no letters, who v/ere 
 ignorant of the use of metals, who had not broken in a single animal to labour, 
 who wielded no better weapons than those which could be made out of sticks, 
 flints and fish-bones, who regarded a horse-soldier as a monster, half man and 
 half beast, who took a harquebusier for a sorcerer able to scatter the thunder 
 and lightning of the skies. The people of India, when we subdued them, 
 were ten times as numerous as the vanquished Americans and were at the 
 same time quite as highly civilised as the victorious Spaniards. They had 
 reared cities larger and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more 
 beautiful and costly than the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers 
 richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose splendour 
 far surpassed that of Ferdinand the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long 
 trains of artillery which would have astonished the great Captain. It might 
 have been expected that every Englishman who takes any interest in any part 
 of history would be curious to know how a handful of his countrymen, separated 
 from their home by an immense ocean, subjugated, in the course of a few- 
 years, one of the greatest empires in the world. Yet, unless we greatly err, 
 this subject is, to most readers, not only insipid, but positively distasteful. 
 ■ Perhaps the fault lies partly with the historians. Mr. Mill's book, though it 
 has undoubtedly great and rare merit, is not sufficiently animated and pictures- 
 que to attract those who read for amusement. Orme, inferior to no English 
 historian in style and power of painting, is minute even to tediousness. In one 
 volume he allots, on an average, a closely printed quarto page to the events of 
 every forty-eight hours. The consequence is, that his narrative, though one of 
 the most authentic and one of the most finely written in our language, has 
 never been very popular, and is now scarcely ever read. 
 
 We fear that Sir John Malcolm's volumes will not much attract those readers 
 whom Orme and Mill have repelled. The materials placed at his disposal by 
 the late Lord Powis were indeed of great value. But we cannot say that they 
 have been very skilfully worked up. It would, however, be unjust to criticise ' 
 wdth severity a work which, if the author had lived to complete and revise it, 
 would probably have been improved by condensation and by a better arrange- 
 ment. We are more disposed to perform th2 pleasing duty of expressing our 
 gratitude to the noble family to which the public owes so much useful and 
 curious infonnation. 
 
 The effect of the book, even when we make the largest allowance for the 
 partiality of those who have furnished and of those who have digested the 
 materials, is, on the whole, greatly to raise the character of Lord Clive. We 
 are far indeed from sympathising with Sir John Malcolm, whose love passes 
 the love of biographers, and who can see nothing but wisdom and justice in the 
 actions of his idol. But we are at least equally far from concurring in 
 the severe judgment of Mr. Mill, who seems to us to show less discri- 
 mination in his account of Clive than in any other part of his valuable work. 
 Clive, like most men who are born with strong passions, and tried by strong 
 temptations, committed great faults. But every person who takes a fair and 
 enlightened view of his whole career must admit that our island, so fertile in 
 heroes and statesmen, has scarcely ever produced a man more truly great either 
 in arms or in council. 
 
 • The Clives had been settled, ever since the twelfth century, on an estate of 
 no great value near Market-Drayton, in Shropshire. In the reign of George 
 tl>e first, this moderate but anciept inheritance vvas possessed by Mr. Richard 
 
iS26 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 Oive, who seems to have been a plain man of no great tact or capacity. He 
 Ihad been bred to the law, and divided his time between professional business 
 land the avocations of a small proprietor. He married a lady from Manchester 
 fof the name of Gaskill, and became the father of a, very numerous, family. His 
 "'eldest son, Robert, the founder of the British empire in India, was born at tlie 
 'old seat of his ancestors on the twenty-ninth of September, 1725. ' 
 
 ^ Some lineaments of the character of the man were early discerned in . the 
 'child. There remain letters written by his relations when he was in his seventh' 
 year ; and from these it appears that, even at that early age, his strong will 
 and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity which sometimes 
 seemed hardly compatible with soundness of mind, had. begun to cause great 
 uneasiness to his family. " Fighting," says one of his uncles, "to which he is 
 out of m.easure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and imperiousness 
 that he flies out on every trifling occasion. " The old people of the neighbour- 
 hood still remember to have heard from their parents ilow Bob Glivd climbed to 
 the top of the lofty steeple of Market-Drayton, and with what terror the inhab-, 
 itants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit. They' also relate how 
 he formed all the good-for-nothing lads of the town into a kind of predatory 
 army, and compelled the shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and half- 
 pence, in consideration of which he guaranteed the security of their windows J 
 He was sent from school to school, making very little progress in his learning, 
 and gaining for himself everywhere the character of an exceedingly naugjity 
 boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough to prophesy tlTatthe 
 idle lad would make a great figure in the world. But the general opinion 
 seems to have been that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a reprobate. His 
 family expected nothing good from such slender parts and such a headstrong 
 temper. It is not strange, therefore, that they gladly accepted for him, when 
 he was in his eighteenth year, a-writership in the service of the East India 
 Company, and shipped him off to make a fortune or to die of a fever at 
 Madras. 
 
 Far different were the prospects of Clive from those of the youths whom the 
 East India College now annually sends to the Presidencies of our Asiatic 
 empire. The Company was then purely a trading corporation. Its territory 
 consisted of a few square miles, for which rent was paid to the native govern^ 
 ments. Its troops were scarcely numerous enough to man the battei'ies of three 
 or four ill-constructed forts which had been erected for the protection of the 
 warehouses. The natives, who composed a considerable part of these little 
 garrisons, had not yet been trained in the discipline of Europe, and were 
 armed, some with swords and shields, some with bows and arrows. The busi- 
 ness of the servant of the Company was not, as now, to conduct the judicial, 
 financial and diplomatic business of a great country, but to take stock, to 
 make advances to weavers, to ship cargoes, and to keep a sharp look-out on 
 private traders who dared to infringe the monopoly. The younger clerks were 
 so miserably paid that they could scarcely sul:)sist without incurring debt ; the 
 elder enriched themselves by tradi:»g on their own account ; and those who 
 lived to rise to the top of the service often accumulated considerable fortunes. 
 
 Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, was, at this time, perhaps, the 
 first in importance of the Company's settlements. In the preceding century. 
 Fort St. George had arisen on a barren spot beaten by a raging surf ; and in 
 the neighbourhood a town, inhabited by many thousands of natives, had 
 sprung up, as towns spring up in the East, with the rapidity of the prophet's 
 gourd. There were already in the suburbs many white villas, each surrounded 
 by its garden, whither the wealthy agents of the Company retired, after the 
 labours of the desk and the warehouse, to enjoy the cool breeze which springs 
 
LORD CLIVE. 527 
 
 up. at sunset from the Bay of Bengal, ^he habits of tliese mercantile grandees '" "^ " 
 appear to have been more profuse, luxurious and ostentatious than those of the' \>y^ 
 high judicial and political functionaries who have succeeded them. But comfort /^ 
 was far less understood. Many devices which now mitigate the heat of the /V% 
 climate, preserve health and prolong life were unknown. There was far less , \ 
 intercourse with Europe than at present. The voyage by the Cape, which in /»>*<^ 
 our time has often been performed within three months, was then very seldom 
 accomplished in six, and was sometimes protracted to more than a year. Con- 
 sequently, the Anglo-Indian was then much more estranged from his country, 
 much more an Oriental in his tastes and habits, and much less fitted to mix in 
 society after his return to Europe than the Anglo-Indian of the present day. 
 
 Within the fort and its precinct, the EngUsh governors exercised, by per- 
 mission of the native rulers, an extensive authority. But they had never.^^ 
 dreamed of claiming independent power. The surrounding country was ruled 'i 
 by the Nabob of the Carnatic, a deputy of the Viceroy of the Decoan, commonly ' 
 called the Nizam, who was himself only a deputy of the mighty prince design 
 nated by our ancestors as the Great Mogul. Those names, once so august and 
 formidable, still remain. There is still a Nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on 
 a pension allowed to him by the Company out of the revenues of the province 
 which his ancestors ruled. There is still a Nizam, whose capital is overawed 
 by a British cantonment, and to whom a British resident gives, under the name 
 of advice, commands which are not to be disputed. There is still a Mogul, who 
 is permitted to play at holding courts and receiving petitions, but who has less 
 power to help or hurt than the youngest civil servant of the Company. 
 
 Clive's voyage was unusually tedious even for that age. The ship remained 
 some months at the Brazils, where the young adventurer picked up some know- 
 ledge of Portuguese and spent all his pocket-money. He did not arrive in 
 India till more than a year after he had left England. His situation at Madras 
 was most painful. His funds were exhausted. His pay was small. He had 
 contracted debts. He was wretchedly lodged — no small calamity in a climate 
 which can be made tolerable to an European only by spacious and well-placed 
 apartments. He had been furnished with letters of recommendation to a 
 gentleman who might have assisted him ; but when he landed at Fort St. 
 George he found that this gentleman had sailed for England. His shy and 
 haughty disposition withheld him from introducing himself. He was several 
 months in India before he became acquainted with a single family. The 
 climate affected his health and spirits. His duties were of a kind ill suited to 
 his ardent and daring character. He pined for his home, and in his letters to 
 his relations expressed his feelings in language softer and more pensive than we 
 should have expected from the waywardness of his boyhood or from the 
 inflexible sternness of his later years. '* I have not enjoyed," says he, *' one 
 happy day since I left my native country;" and again, "I must confess, at 
 intervals, when I think of my dear native England, it affects me in a very 
 
 particular manner If I should be so far blest as to revisit again my own 
 
 country, but more Copecially Manchester, the centre of all my wishes, all that 
 I could hope or desire for would be presented before me in one view." 
 
 One solace he found of the most respectable kind. The Governor possessed 
 a good library, and permitted Clive to have access to it. The young man 
 devoted much of his leisure to reading, and acquired at this time almost all the 
 knowledge of books that he ever possessed. As a boy he had been too idle, 
 ^s a man he soon became too busy, for literary pursuits. 
 
 But neither climate nor poverty, neither study nor the sorrows of a home-sick ' 
 exile, could tame the desperate audacity of his spirit. He behaved to his 
 official superiors as he had behaved to his schoolmasters, and was several times 
 
528 LOkD ClIVM. 
 
 in danger of losing his situation. Twice, while residing in the Writer's 
 Buildings, he attempted to destroy himself;- and twice the pistol which he 
 snapped at his own head failed to go off. This circumstance, it is said, affected 
 him as a similar escape affected Wallenstein. After satisfying hirtself that the 
 pistol was really well loaded, he burst forth into an exclamation that surely he 
 was reserved for something great. 
 
 About this time an event which at first seemed likely to destroy all his hopes 
 in life suddenly opened "before him a new path to emihence. Europe had been 
 during some years distracted by the war of the Austrian succession. George II. 
 was the steady ally of Maria Theresa. The house of Bourbon took the opposite 
 side. Though England was even then the first of maritime powers, she was 
 not, as she has since become, more than a match on the sea for all the nations 
 of the world together ; and she found it difficult to maintain a contest against 
 the united navies of France and Spain. In the eastern seas, France obtained 
 the ascendency. Labourdonnais, governor of Mauritius, a -man of eminent 
 , talents and virtues, conducted an expedition ';o the continent of India in spite 
 of the opposition of the British fleet — landed, assembled an army, appeared 
 before Madras, and compelled the town and iort to capitulate. The keys were 
 delivered up ; the French colours were displayed on Fort St. George ; and the 
 contents of the Company's warehouses were seized as prize of war by the con- 
 querors. It was stipulated by the capitulation that the English inhabitants 
 should be prisoners of war on parole, and that the town should remain in the 
 hands of the French till it should be ransomed. Labourdonnais pledged his 
 honour that only a moderate ransom should be required. 
 
 But the success of Labourdonnais had awakened the jealousy of his country- 
 man, Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry. Dupleix, moreover, had already 
 begun to revolve gigantic schemes, with which the restoration of Madras to the 
 English was by no means compatible. He declared that Labourdonnais. had 
 gone beyond his powers ; that conquests made by the French arms on the con- 
 tinent of India were at the disposal of the governor of Pondicherry alone ; and 
 that Madras should be rased to the ground. Labourdonnais was compelled to 
 yield. The anger which the breach of the capitulation excited among the 
 English was increased by the ungenerous manner in which Dupleix treated the 
 principal servants of the Company. The Governor and several of the first 
 gentlemen of Fort St. George were carried under a guard to Pondicherry and 
 conducted through the town in a triumphal procession under the eyes of fifty 
 thousand spectators. It was with reason thought that this gross violation of 
 public faith absolved the inhabitants of Madras from the engagements into 
 which they had entered with Labourdonnais. Clive fled from the town by 
 night in the disguise of a Mussulman and took refuge at Fort St. David, one 
 of the small English settlements subordinate to Madras. 
 
 The circumstances in which he was now placed naturally led him to adopt 
 a profession better suited to his restless and intrepid spirit than the business of 
 examining packages and casting accounts. He solicited and obtained an 
 ensign's commission in the service of the Company, and at twenty-one entered 
 on his military career. His personal courage, of which he had, while still a 
 writer, given signal proof by a desperate duel with a military bully who was 
 the terror of Fort St. David, speedily made him conspicuous even among 
 hundreds of brave men. He soon began to show in his new calling other 
 qualities which had not before been discerned in him — judgment, sagacity, 
 deference to legitimate authority. He distinguished himself highly in several 
 operations against the French, and was particularly noticed by Major Law- 
 rence, who was then considered as the ablest British officer in India. 
 , ^ Clive had been only a few months in the army when intelligence arrived 
 
Lord clivr. 529 
 
 that peace had beeti concluded between Great Britain . and France. Dupleix 
 was in consequence compelled to restore Madras to the English Company, and' 
 the young ensign was at liberty to resume his former business. He did indeed^ 
 return for a short time to his desk. He again quitted it in order to assist 
 Major Lawrence in some petty hostilities with the natives, and then again 
 returned to it. While he was thus wavering between a military and a com- 
 mercial life, events took place which decided his choice. The politics of India / » 
 assumed a new aspect. There was peace between the English and French ^^Li 
 Crowns ; but there arose between the English and French Companies trading 7 ./ 
 to the East a war most eventful and important — a warin which the prize was/ j!> -^ 
 nothing less than the -magnificent inheritancd'^^dfthe" house of Tamerlane. 'aX V/ 
 
 The empire which Baber and his Moguls reared in the sixteenth century was j^'Mi^, 
 long one of the most extensive and splendid in the worla. In no European ''" 
 kingdom was so large a population subject to a single prince, or so large a 
 revenue poured into the treasury. The beauty and magnificence of the ^ 
 
 buildings erected by the sovereigns of Hindostan amazed even travellers who i ^ • 
 had seen St. Peter's. The innumerable retinues and gorgeous decorations; \ ^^^ 
 which surrounded the throne of Delhi, dazzled even eyes which were accus- f ^v 
 tomed to the pomp of Versailles. Some of the great viceroys, who held their ^ 
 posts by virtue of commissions from the Mogul, ruled as many subjects and 
 enjoyed as large an income as the King of France or the Emperor of Germany. 
 Even the deputies of these deputies might well rank, as to extent of territory 
 and amount of revenue, with the Grand Duke of Tuscany or the Elector of 
 Saxony. 
 
 There can be little doubt that this great empire, powerful and prosperous as 
 it appears on a superficial view, was yet, even in its best days, far worse 
 governed than the worst governed parts of Europe now are. The administra- 
 tion was tainted with all the vices of Oriental despotism, and with all the 
 vices' inseparable from the domination of race over race. The conflicting 
 •pretensions of the princes of the royal house produced a long series of crimes 
 and public disasters. Ambitious lieutenants of the sovereign sometimes aspired 
 to independence. Fierce tribes of Hindoos, impatient of a foreign yoke, 
 frequently withheld tribute, repelled the armies of the government from the 
 mountain fastnesses, and poured down in arms on the cultivated plains. In 
 spite, however, of much constant maladministration, in spite of occasional 
 convulsions which shook the whole frame of society, this great monarchy, on 
 the whole, retained, during some generations, an outward appearance of unity, 
 majesty and energy. But, throughout the long reign of Aurungzebe, the 
 state, notwithstanding all that the vigour and policy of the prince could effect, 
 was hastening to dissolution. After his death, which took place in the year 
 1707, the ruin was fearfully rapid. Violent shocks from without co-operated 
 with an incurable decay which was fast proceeding within ; and in a few years 
 the empire had undergone utter decomposition. 
 
 The history of the successors of Theodosius bears no small analogy to that) , • - 
 of the successors of Aurungzebe. But perhaps the fall of the Carlovingians ? ' ,^ . ^, 
 furnishes the nearest parallel to the falls of the Moguls. Charlemagne was [' / 
 
 scarcely interred when the imbecility and disputes of his descendants began to 
 bring contempt on themselves and destruction on their subjects. The wide 
 dominion of the Franks was severed into a thousand pieces. Nothing more 
 than a nominal dignity was left to the abject heirs of an illustrious name, 
 Charles the Bald, and Charles the Fat, and Charles the Simple. Fierce 
 invaders, differing from each other in race, language and religion, flocked, as 
 if by concert, from the farthest corners of the earth to plunder provinces which 
 the government could no longer defend. The pirates of the Baltic extended 
 
530 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 their ravages from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, and at length fixed their seat iji' 
 the rich valley of the Seine. The Hungarian, in whom the trembling monies 
 fancied that they recognised the Gog or Magog of prophecy, carried back the 
 plunder of the cities of Lombardy to the depths of the Pannonian forests. The 
 Saracen ruled in Sicily, desolated the fertile plains of Campania, and spread 
 terror even to the walls of Rome. In the midst of these sufferings, a great 
 i»ternal change passed upon the empire. The corruption of death began to 
 ferment into new forms of life. While the great body, as a whole, was torpid 
 and passive, every separate member began to feel with a sense and to move 
 witli an energy all its own. Just here, in the most barren and dreary tract o£ 
 European history, all feudal privileges, all modern nobility, take their source. 
 To this point we trace the power of those princes who, nominally vassals, but 
 really independent, long governed, with the titles of dukes, marquesses and 
 counts, almost every part of the dominions which had obeyed Charlemagne. 
 
 Such, or nearly such, was. the change which passed on the Mogul empire 
 during the forty years which' followed the death o^Aurungzebe. A series of 
 nominal sovereigns, sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered away life in 
 secluded palaces, chewing bang, fondling concubines and listening to buffoons, 
 A series of ferocious invaders had descended .through the western passes to 
 prey on the defenceless wealth of Hindostan. A Persian conqueror crossed 
 the Indus, marched through the gates of Delhi, and bore away in triumph 
 those treasures of which the magnificence had astounded Roe and Bernier — the 
 Peacock Throne, on which the richest jewels of Golconda had been disposed 
 by the most skilful hands of Europe, and the inestimable Mountain 
 of Light, which, after many strange vicissitudes, lately shpne in the 
 bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now destined to adorn the hideous idol of 
 Orissa. The Afghan soon followed to complete the work of devastation which 
 the Persian had begun. The warlike tribes of Rajpoos threw off the Mussul- 
 man yoke. A band of mercenary soldiers occupied Rphilcund. The Seiks 
 ruled on the Indus. The Jauts spread terror along the Jumna. The high- 
 lands, which border on the western sea-coa§t of India poured forth a yet more 
 formidable race — a race which was long the terror of every native power, and 
 which yielded only after many desperate and doubtful struggles to the fortune 
 and genius of England. It was under the reign of Aurungzebe that this wild 
 clan of plunderers first descended from the mountains ; and soon after his 
 death, every corner bf his wide empire learned to tremble at the mighty name 
 of the Mahrattas. Many fertile viceroyalties were entirely subdued by them. 
 Their dominions stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea. Their captains 
 reigned at Poonah, at Gualior, in Guzerat, in Berar and in Tanjore. Nor did 
 they, though they had become great sovereigns, therefore cease to be free- 
 booters. They still retained the predatory habits of their forefathers. Every 
 region which was not subject to their rule was wasted by their incursions. 
 Wherever their kettle-drums were heard, the peasant threw his bag of rice on 
 his shoulder, hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled with his wife and 
 children to the mountains or the jungles— to the milder neighbourhood of the 
 hyaena and the tiger. Many provinces redeemed their harvests by the payment 
 of an annual ransom. Even the wretched phantom who still bore the imperial 
 title stooped to pay this ignominious "black-mail." The camp-fires of one 
 rapacious leader were seen from the walls of the palace of Delhi. Another, at 
 the head of his innumerable cavalry, descended year after year on the rice- 
 fields of Bengal. Even the European factors trembled for their magazines. 
 Less than a hundred years ago, it was thought necessary to fortify Calcutta 
 against the horsemen of Berar; and the narne of the Mahratta ditch still 
 preserves the memory of the danger., , ; _ 
 
LORD CLIVE. 531 
 
 Wherever the viceroys of the Mggul retained authority they became 
 sovereigns. They might still acknowledge in words the superiority of the 
 house of Tamerlane ; as a Count of Flanders or a Duke of Burgundy would 
 have acknowledged the superiority of the most helpless driveller among the 
 later Catlovingians. They might occasionally send to their titular sovereign 
 a complimentary present, or solicit from him a title of honour. But they were, 
 in truth, no • longer lieutenants removable at pleasure, but independent 
 hereditary princes. In this way originated those great Mussulman houses 
 which formerly ruled Bengal and the Carnatic, and those which still, though 
 in a state of vassalage, exercise some of the powers of royalty at Lucknow and 
 Hyderabad. 
 
 In what was this confusion to end? Was the strife to continue during" 
 centuries ? Was it to terminate in the rise of another great monarchy ? Was 
 the Mussulman or the Mahratta to be the Lord -of Indian? ..Was another 
 Baber tOf descend from the mountains and to lead . the hardy tribes of 
 Cabul and Ghorasan against a wealthier and less warlike race ? None of these 
 events seemed improbable. But scarcely any man, however sagacious, W'Quld' 
 have> thought .it possible that a trading company, separated from India by 
 fifteen thousand miles of sea,' and possessing in- India only a few acres fcrr 
 purposes of commerce, would, in less than a hundred years, spread its empire 
 from Cape Comorin to the eternal snow of the Himalayas — would compel 
 Mahratta and Mahommedan to forget their mutual feuds in common subjection 
 — -M'ould tame down-even those wild races which had resisted the most powerful 
 of the Moguls— and having established a government far stronger than any 
 ever known in those countries, would carry its^ victorious arms far to the east 
 of the Burrampooter and far to the west of the Hj'daspes — dictate terms of 
 peace at the gates of Ava and seat its vassal on the throne of Candahar. 
 
 The man who first saw that it was possible to found an European empire on 
 the ruins of the Mogul monarchy was Dupleix. His restless, capacious and 
 inventive mind had formed this scheme at a time when the ablest servants of 
 the English Company were busied only about invoices and bills of lading. 
 Nor had he only proposed to himself the end. He had also a just and distinct 
 view of the means by which it was to be attained. He clearly saw that the 
 greatest force which the princes of India could bring into the field would be no 
 match for a small body of men trained in the discipline and guided by the 
 tactics of the West. He saw also that the natives of India might, under 
 European commanders, be formed into armies such as vSaxe or Frederic would 
 be proud to command. He was perfectly aware that the most easy and con- 
 venient way in which an European adventurer could exercise sovereignty in 
 India was to govern the motions and to speak through the mouth of some 
 glittering puppet dignified by the title of Nabob or Nizam. The arts both of 
 war and policy, which a few years later were employed successfully by the 
 English, were first understood and practised by this ingenious and' aspiring 
 Frenchman. ^ 
 
 The state of India was such that scarcely any aggression could be without a 
 decent pretext, either in old laws or in recent practice. All rights were in a 
 state of utter uncertainty ; and the Europeans who took part in the disputes of 
 the^ natives confounded the confusion by applying to Asiatic politics the public 
 law of the West and analogies drawn from the feudal system. If it was con- 
 venient to treat a Nabob as an independent prince, there was an excellent 
 plea for doing so. He was independent, in fact. If it was convenient to 
 treat him as a mere deputy of the Court of Delhi, there was no difficulty, for 
 he was so in theory. If it was convenient to consider his office as an hereditary 
 dignity,' or as a dignity held during life only, gr as a dignity held only during 
 
532 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 the good pleasure of the Mogul, arguments and precedents might be found for 
 every one of those views. The party who had the heir of Baber in their 
 hands represented him as the undoubted, the legitimate, the absolute sove- 
 reign, whom all subordinate authorities were bound to obey. The party 
 against whom his name was used did not want plausible pretexts for main- 
 taining that the empire was de facto dissolved ; and that, though it might be 
 proper to treat the Mogul with respect, as a venerable relique of an order of 
 things which had passed away, it was absurd to regard him as the real master 
 of Hindostan. 
 
 In the year 174S died one of the most powerful of the new masters of India 
 — the great Nizam al Mulk, Viceroy of the Deccan. His authority descended 
 to his son, Nazir Jung. Of the provinces subject to this high functionary, the 
 Carnatic was the wealthiest and the most extensive. It was governed by an 
 ancient Nabob, whose name the English corrupted into Anaverdy Khan. 
 
 But there were pretenders to the government both of the viceroyalty and of 
 the subordinate province. Mirzapha Jung, a grandson of Nizam al Mulk, 
 appeared as the competitor of Nazir Jung. Chunda Sahib, son-in-law of a 
 former Nabob of the Carnatic, disputed the title of Anaverdy Khan. In the 
 unsettled state of Indian law, it was easy for both Mirzapha Jung and Chunda 
 Sahib to make out something like a claim of right. In a society altogether 
 disorganised, they had no difficulty in finding greedy adventurers to follow 
 their standards. They united their interests, invaded the Carnatic and applied 
 for assistance to the French, whose fame had been raised by their success 
 against the English in the recent war on the coast of Coromandel. 
 
 Nothing could have happened more pleasing to the subtle and ambitious 
 Dupleix. To make a Nabob of the Carnatic, to make a Viceroy of the 
 Deccan, to rule under their names the whole of Southern India ; this was in- 
 deed an attractive prospect. He allied himself with the pretenders, and sent 
 four hundred French soldiers and two thousand Sepoys, disciplined after the 
 European fashion, to the assistance of his confederates. A battle was fought. 
 The French distinguished themselves greatly. Anaverdy Khan was defeated 
 and slain. His son, Mahommed Ali, who was afterwards well known in 
 England as the Nabob of Arcot, and who owes to the eloquence of Burke a 
 most unenviable immortality, fled with a scanty remnant of his army to 
 Trichinopoly ; and the conquerors became at once masters of almost every 
 part of the Carnatic. 
 
 This was but the beginning of the greatness of Dupleix. After some months 
 of fighting, negotiation and intrigue, his ability and good fortune seemed to 
 have prevailed everywhere. Nazir Jung perished by the hands of his own 
 followers ; Mirzapha Jung was master of the Deccan ; and the triumph of 
 French arms and French policy was complete. At Pondicherry all was ex- 
 ultation and festivity. Salutes were fired from the batteries and Te Deum 
 sung in the churches. The new Nizam came thither to visit his allies, and the 
 ceremony of his installation was performed there wuth great pomp, Dupleix, 
 dressed in the garb worn by Mahommedans of the highest rank, entered the 
 town in the same palanquin with the Nizam, and, in the pageant which fol- 
 lowed, took precedence of all the court. He was declared Governor of India 
 from the river Kristna to Cape Comorin, with authority superior even to that 
 of Chunda Sahib. He was entrusted with the command of seven thoisand 
 cavalry. It was announced that no mint would be suffered to exist in the 
 Carnatic except that at Pondicherry. A large portion of the treasures which 
 former Viceroys of the Deccan had accumulated found its way into the coffers 
 of the French governor. It was rumoured that he had received two hundred 
 ^hQUsand pounds sterling ii> jpopey, besides many vf^lu^ble jewQl?. In f^g^, 
 
LORD CLIVE. 533 
 
 there could scarcely be any limit to his pains. He now ruled thirty millions 
 of people with almost absolute power. No honour or emolument could be 
 obtained from the government but by his intervention. No petition, unless 
 signed by him, was even perused by the Nizam. 
 
 Mirzapha Jung survived his elevation only a few months. But another 
 prince of the same house was raised to the throne by French influence, and 
 ratified all the promises of his predecessor. Dupleix was now the greatest 
 potentate in India. His countrymen boasted that his name was mentioned 
 with awe even in the chambers of the palace of Delhi. The native 
 population looked with amazement on the progress which, in the short 
 space of four years, an European adventurer had made towards dominion 
 in Asia. Nor was the vainglorious Frenchman content with the reality of 
 power. He loved to display it with arrogant ostentation before the eyes 
 of his subjects and of his rivals. Near the spot where his policy had 
 obtained its chief triumph, by the fall of Nazir Jung and the elevation of 
 Mirzapha, he determined to erect a column, on the four sides of which four 
 pompous inscriptions, in four languages, should proclaim his victory to all 
 the nations of the East. Medals stamped with emblems of his suc- 
 cesses were buried beneath the foundations of this stately pillar, and round 
 it arose a town bearing the haughty name of Dupleix Fatihabad, which is, 
 being interpreted, the City of the Victory of Dupleix. 
 
 The English had made some feeble and irresolute attempts to stop the 
 rapid and brilliant career of the rival Company, and continued to recognise 
 Mahommed Ali as Nabob of the Carnatic. But the dominions of Mahommed 
 Ali consisted of Trichinopoly alone, and Trichinopoly was now infested by 
 Chunda Sahib and his French auxiliaries. To raise the siege seemed impos- 
 sible. The small force which was then at Madras had no commander. Major 
 Lawrence had returned to England, and not a single officer of established 
 character remained in the settlement. The natives had learned to look with 
 contempt on the mighty nation which was soon to conquer and to rule them. 
 They had seen the French colours flying on Fort St. George, they had seen 
 the chiefs of the English factory led in triumph through the streets of Pondi- 
 cherry, they had seen the arms and counsels of Dupleix everywhere successful, 
 while the opposition which the authorities of Madras had made to his progress 
 had served only to expose their own weakness and to heighten his glory. At 
 this moment, the valour and genius of an obscure English youth suddenly turned 
 the tide of fortune. 
 
 Clive was now twenty-five years old. After hesitating for some time between 
 a military and a commercial life, he had at length l)een placed in a post which 
 partook of both characters, that of commissary to the troops with the rank of 
 captain. The present emergency called forth all his powers. He represented 
 to his superiors that unless some vigorous effort were made, Trichinopoly would 
 fall, the house of Anaverdy Khan would perish, and the French would become 
 the real masters of the whole peninsula of India. It was absolutely necessary 
 to strike some daring blow. If an attack were made on Arcot, the capital of 
 the Carnatic and the favourite residence of the Nabobs, it was not impossible that 
 the siege of Trichinopoly would be raised. The heads of the English settle- 
 ment, now thoroughly alarmed by the success of Dupleix, and apprehensive 
 that, in the event of a new war between France and Great Britain, Madras 
 would be instantly taken and destroyed, approved of Clive's plan, and intrusted 
 the execution of it to himself. The young captain was put at the head of 
 two hundred English soldiers and three hundred sepoys, armed and disci- 
 plined after the European fashion. Of tfce eight officers who commanded 
 thiij little force under him, TiOt u single one had ev(jr been in action, ^nd four 
 
534 LORD CLIV£. 
 
 of the eight were factors of the Company whom Clive's example had induced 
 to offer their services. . The weather was stormy ; but Chve pushed on, through 
 thunder, lightning and rain, to the gates of Arcot. The garrison, in a panic, 
 evacuated the fort, and the English entered it without a blow. 
 .__, 'But Clive well knew that he should not be suffered to retain undisturbed 
 possession of h^s conquest. He instantly began to collect provisions, to throv; 
 up works, and to make preparations for sustaining a siege. The garrison, 
 which 'had fled at his approach, had now recovered from its dismay, and, 
 having been swollen by large reinforcements from the neighbourhood to a 
 force of three thousand men, encamped close to the town. At dead of 
 night, Clive marched out of the fort, attacked the camp by surprise, slew 
 great numbers, dispersed the rest, and returned to his quarters without 
 having lost a single man. . 
 
 The intelligence of these events was soon carried to Chunda Sahib, who 
 with his French allies was besieging Trichinopoly. He immediately 
 detached four thousand men from his camp and sent them to Arcot. They 
 were speedily joined by the remains of the force which Clive had lately 
 scattered. They were further strengthened by two thousand men from 
 Vellore ; and by a still more important reinforcement of a hundred and fifty 
 French soldiers whom Dupleix despatched from Pondicherry. The whole of 
 this army, amounting to about ten thousand men, was under the command of 
 Rajah Sahib, son of Chunda Sahib. 
 
 Rajah Sahib proceeded to invest the fort of Arcot, which seemed quite 
 incapable of sustaining a siege. The walls were ruinous, the ditches dry, 
 the ramparts too narrow to admit the guns, the battlements too low to 
 protect the soldiers. The little garrison had been greatly reduced by casualties. 
 It now consisted of a hundred and twenty Europeans and two hundred 
 sepoys. Only four officers were left, the stock of provisions was scanty, and 
 the commander, who had to conduct the defence under circumstances so 
 discouraging, was a young man of five-and-twenty who had been bred a 
 bookkeeper. 
 
 During fifty days the siege went on. During fifty days the young captain 
 maintained the defence with a firmness, vigilance and ability which would 
 have done honour to the oldest marshall in Europe. The breach, however, 
 increased day by day. The garrison began to feel the pressure of hunger. 
 Under such circumstances, .any troops so scantily provided with officers 
 might have been expected to show signs of insubordination ; and the 
 danger was peculiarly great in a force composed of men differing widely from 
 each other in extraction, colour, language,' manners and religion. But 
 the devotion of the little band to its chief surpassed anything that is related 
 of the Tenth Legion of Csesar or of the Gld Guard of Napolieon. The 
 sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose 
 that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who required more 
 nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which 
 was strained away from the rice, would, suffice for themselves. History 
 contains no more touching instance ofmihtary fidehty, or of the influence of a 
 commanding mind. 
 
 An attempt made by the government of Madras to relieve the place had 
 failed. But there was hope from another quarter. A body of six thousand Mah- 
 rattas, half soldiers, half robbers, under the command of a chief named Morari 
 Row, had been hired to assist Mahommed Ali, but thinking the P>ench power 
 irresistible and the triumph of Chunda Sahib certain, they had hitherto remained 
 iwactive on the frontiers of the Carnatic. The fame of the defence of Arcot 
 rpused them from their tprpor, Morari Row decl?iredthathehad never before 
 
LORD CLIVM. $35 
 
 believed that Englishmen could fight,>^ut that he would willingly help them 
 since he saw that they had spirit to help themselves. Rajah Sahib learned 
 that the Mahrattas were in motion. It was necessary for him to be expe- 
 ditious. He first tried negotiation. He offered large bribes to Clive, whidh 
 were rejected with scorn. He vowed that, if his proposals were not accepted^ 
 he would instantly storm the fort and put every man in it to the sword. 
 Clive told him in reply, with characteristic haughtiness, that his father 
 was an usurper, that his army was a rabble, and that he would do well to 
 think twice before he sent such poltroons into a breach defended by English 
 soldiers. ' • ' 
 
 Rajah Sahib determined to storm the fort. The day was well suited to 
 a bold military enterprise. It was the great Mahommedan festival which is 
 sacred to the memor}'^ of Hosein, the son of AH. The history of Islam con^'. "£/ '-t 
 tains nothing more touching than that mournful legend : How the chief of the ' ^ 
 Fatimites, when all his brave followers had perished round him, drank his ^ |^ 
 latest draught of water and uttered his latest prayer — how the assassins ^ ^^ 
 carried his head in triumph — how the tyrant smote the lifeless lips with his ''^' 'd 
 staff— and how a few old men recollected with tears that they had seen those ^ J 
 lips pressed to the lips of the Prophet of God. After the lapse of near , f^ 
 twelve centuries, the recurrence of this solemn season excites the fiercest 
 and saddest emotions in the bosoms of the devout Moslem of India. They 
 work themselves up to such agonies of rage and lamentation that some, 
 it is said, have given up the ghost from the mere effect of mental ex- 
 citement. They believe fhat whoever, during this festival, falls in arifis 
 against the infidels, atones by his death for all the sins of his life, and passes 
 at once to the garden of the Houris. It was at this time that Rajah Sahib 
 determined to assault Arcot. Stimulating drugs were employed to aid the 
 effect of religious zeal, and the besiegers, drunk with enthusiasm, drunk 
 with bangi rushed furiously to the attack. 
 
 Clive had received secret intelligence of the design, had made his arrange- 
 ments, and, exhausted by fatigue, had thrown himself on his bed. He 
 was awakened by the alarm, and was instantly at his post. The enemy 
 adv^^nced, driving before them elephants whose foreheads were armed with 
 iron plates. It was expected that the gates would yield to the shock of 
 these living battering-rams. But the huge beasts no sooner felt the English 
 musket-balls than they turned round and rushed furiously away, trampling 
 on the multitude which had urged them forward. A raft was launched on 
 the water which filled one part of the ditch. Clive, perceiving that his 
 gunners at that post did not understand their business, took the manage- 
 ment of a piece of artillery himself and cleared the raft in a few minutes. 
 Where the moat was dr>', the assailants mounted with great boldness ; but 
 they were received with a fire so heavy and so well directed, that it soon 
 quelled the courage even of fanaticism and of intoxication. The rear ratiks 
 of the English kept the front ranks supplied with a constant succession of 
 loaded muskets, and every shot told on the living mass below. After three 
 desperate onsets, the besiegers retired behind the ditch. 
 
 The struggle lasted about an hour. Four hundred of the assailants fell. 
 The garrison lost only five or sHt men. The besieged passed an anxious night, 
 looking for a renewal of the attack. But when day brpke the enemy were 
 no more to be seen. They had retired, leaving tQ the English several gufls 
 and a large quantity of ammunition. •' ^ ' ' "-■' 
 
 The news was received at Fort St. ' George with transports of joy fttifl 
 
 Eride. Clive was justly regarded as a man equal to any command. Two 
 undred English soldiers and se\'en hundred sepoys were sent to him, aftd 
 
 :iuhnu an )o nnni 
 
S36 LORD CLIV^, 
 
 with this force he instantly commenced offensive operations. He took the -fort 
 of Timery, effected a junction with a division of Morari Row's army, and 
 hastened, by forced marches, to attack Rajah Sahib, who was at the head of 
 about five thousand men, of whom three hundred were French. The action 
 was sharp ; but Chve gained a complete victory. The military chest of Rajah 
 Sahib fell into the hands of the conquerors. Six hundred sepoys, who had 
 served in the enemy's army, came over to Clive's quarters, and were taken into 
 the British service. Conjeveram surrendered without a blow. The governor 
 of Arnee deserted Chunda Sahib and recognised the title of Mahommed Ali. 
 
 Had the entire direction of the war been entrusted to Clive, it would pro- 
 bably have been brought to a speedy close. But the timidity and incapa- 
 city which appeared in all the movements of the English, except where he 
 was personally present, protracted the struggle. The Mahrattas muttered 
 that his soldiers were of a different race from the British whom they found 
 elsewhere. The effect of this languor was that in no long time Rajah Sahib, 
 at the head of a considerable army, in which were four hundred French troops, 
 appeared almost under the guns of Fort St. George, and laid waste the 
 villas and gardens of the gentlemen of the English settlement. But he was 
 again encountered and defeated by Clive. More than a hundred of the 
 French were killed or taken, a loss more serious than that of thousands of 
 natives. The victorious army marched from the field of battle to Fort St. 
 David. On the road lay the City of the Victory of Dupleix and the stntely 
 monument which was designed to commemorate the triumphs of France 
 ^in the East. Clive ordered both the city and the monument to be rased to 
 the ground. He was induced, we believe, to take this step, not by personal 
 or national malevolence, but by a just and profound policy. The town and 
 its pompous name, the pillar and its vaunting inscriptions, were among the 
 devices by which Dupleix had laid the public mind of India under a spell. 
 This spell it was Clive's business to break. The natives had been taught 
 that France was confessedly the first power in Europe, and that the English 
 did not presume to dispute her supremacy. No measure could be more 
 effectual for the removing of this delusion than the public and solemn de- 
 molition of the French trophies. 
 
 The government of Madras, encouraged by these events, determined to 
 send a strong detachment, under Clive, to reinforce the garrison of Trich- 
 inoply. But just at this conjuncture. Major Lawrence arrived from Eng- 
 land and assumed the chief command. From the waywardness and impatience 
 of control which had characterised Clive, both at school and in the counting- 
 house, it might have been expected that he would not, after such achievements, 
 act with zeal and good humour in a subordinate capacity. But Lawrence had 
 early treated him with kindness ; and it is bare justice to Clive to say that, 
 proud and overbearing as he was, kindness was never thrown away upon him. 
 He cheerfully placed himself under the orders of his old friend, and exerted 
 himself as strenuously in the second post as he could have done in the first. 
 Lawrence well knew the value of such assistance. Though himself gifted 
 with no intellectual faculty higher than plain good sense, he fully appreciated 
 the powers of his brilliant coadjutor. Though he had made a methodical 
 study of military tactics, and, like all men regularly bred to a profession, 
 was disposed to look with disdain on interlopers, he had yet liberality enough 
 to acknowledge that Clive was an exception to common rules. "Some 
 people," he wrote, "are pleased to term Captain Clive fortunate and lucky; 
 but, in my opinion, from the knowledge I have of the gentleman, he de- 
 served and might expect from his conduct everything as it fell out ; a 
 man of an undaunted resolution, of a cool temper, and of a presence of mind 
 
LORD CLIVE. S37 
 
 which never left him in the greatest- danger — born a soldier ; for, without 
 a military education of any sort, or much conversing with any of the pro- 
 fession, from his judgment and good sense, he led on an army like an ex- 
 perienced officer and a brave soldier, with a prudence that certainly warranted 
 success. " 
 
 The French had no commander to oppose to the two friends. Dupleix, not 
 inferior in talents for negotiation and intrigue to any European who has borne 
 a part in the revolutions of India, was ill quahfied to direct in person military 
 operations. He had not been bred a soldier, and had no inclination to become 
 one. His enemies accused him of personal cowardice ; and he defended him- 
 self in a strain worthy of Captain Bobadil. He kept away from shot, he said, 
 because silence and tranquility were propitious to his genius, and he found it 
 difficult to pursue his meditations amidst the noise of fire-arms. He was thus 
 under the necessity of intrusting to others the execution of his great warlike 
 designs ; and he bitterly complained that he was ill served. He had indeed 
 been assisted by one officer of eminent merit, the celebrated Bussy. But Bussy 
 had marched northward with the Nizam, and was fully employed in lookiiig 
 after his own interests and those of France ac the court of that prince. Among 
 the officers who remained with Dupleix, there was not a single man of talent ; 
 and many of them were boys, at whose ignorance and folly the common 
 soldiers laughed. 
 
 The English triumphed everywhere. The besiegers of Trichinopoly were 
 themselves besieged and compelled to capitulate. Chunda Sahib fell into the 
 hands of the Mahrattas, and was put to death at the instigation probably of his 
 competitor, Mahommed Ali. The spirit of Dupleix, however, was unconquer- 
 able, and his resources inexhaustible. From his employers in Europe he no 
 longer received help or countenance. They condemned his policy. They allowed 
 him no pecuniary assistance. They sent him for troops only the sweepings of 
 the galleys. Yet still he persisted, intrigued, bribed, promised — lavished his 
 private fortune, strained his credit, procured new diplomas from Delhi, raised 
 up new enemies to the government of Madras on every side, and even among 
 the allies of the English Company. But all was in vain. Slowly, but steadily, 
 the power of Britain continued to increase and that of France to decline. 
 
 The health of Clive had never been good during his residence in India ; and 
 his constitution was now so much impaired that he determined to return to 
 England. Before his departure he undertook a service of considerable difficulty, 
 and performed it with his usual vigour and dexterity. The forts of Covelong 
 and Chingleput were occupied by French garrisons. It was determined to send 
 a force against th'efii."" But the only force available for this purpose was of such 
 a description that rib officer but Clive would risk his reputation by commanding 
 it. It consisted of five hundred newly-levied sepoys and two hundred recruits 
 who had just kinded from England, and whc were the worst and lowest wretches 
 that the Company's crimps could pick up in the flash-houses of London. Clive, 
 ill and exhausted as he was, undertook to make an army of this undisciplined 
 rabble, and marched with them to Covelong. A shot from the fort killed one of 
 these extraordinary soldiers ; on which all the rest faced about and ran away, 
 and it was with the greatest difficulty that Clive rallied them. On another 
 occasion the noise of a gun terrified the sentmels so much that one of them was 
 found, some hours later, at the bottom of a well. Clive gradually accustomed 
 them to danger, and, by exposing himself constantly in the most perilous situa- 
 tions, shamed them into courage. He at length succeeded in forming a 
 respectable force out of his unpromising materials. Covelong fell. Clive 
 learned that a strong detachment was marching to relieve it from Chingleput. 
 He took measures to prevent the enemy from learning that they were too late. 
 
^38" LORD CLIVE. 
 
 — — — — \ — 
 
 laid an ambuscade for them on the road, killed a hundred of them with one 
 fire, took three hundred prisoners, pursued the fugitives to the gates of Chingle- 
 put-, laid siege instantly to that fastness, reputed one of the strongest in India, 
 made a breach, and was on the point of storming, when the French commandant 
 capitulated and retired with his men. 
 
 ■ Clive returned to Madras victorious, but in a state of health which rendered 
 it 'impossible for him to remain there long. He married at this time a young 
 lady of the name of Maskelyne, sister of the eminent mathematician, who long 
 held the post of Astronomer Royal. She is described as handsome and accom- 
 plished ; and her husband's letters, it is said, contain proofs that he was 
 devotedly attached to her. 
 p^ Almost immediately after the liiarriage, Clive embarked with his bride for 
 
 ^ ' >, England. He returned a very different person from the poor slighted boy who 
 ''''' had been sent out ten years before to seek his fortune. He was only twenty- 
 seven ; yet his country already respected him as one of her firsTt soldiers. There 
 was then general peace in Europe. The Carnatic was the only part of the 
 \yorld where the English and French were in arms against each other. The 
 vast schemes of Dupleix had excited no small uneasiness in the city of London ; 
 and the rapid turn of fortune, which was chiefly owing to the courage and 
 talents of Clive, had been hailed with great delight. The young captain was 
 known at the India House by the honourable nickname of General Clive, 
 and was toasted by that appellation at the feasts of the Directors. On his 
 arrival in England he found himself an object of general interest and admira- 
 tion. The East India Company thanked him for his services in the warmest 
 terms, and presented him with a sword set with diamonds. With rare delicacy, 
 he refused to receive this token of gratitude unless a similar compliment was 
 paid to his friend and commander, Lawrence. 
 w It may easily be supposed that Clive was most cordially welcomed home by 
 
 |,. his family, who were delighted by his success, though they seem to have been 
 ^^^ hardly able to comprehend how their naughty idle Bobby had become so great 
 a man. His father had been singularly hard of belief. Not until the news of 
 the defence of Arcot arrived in England was the old gentleman heard to growl 
 out that after all the booby had something in him. His expressions of appro- 
 Hation became stronger and stronger as news arrived of one brilliant exploit 
 after another ; and he vras at length immoderately fond and proud of his son. 
 Clive's relations had very substantial reasons for rejoicing at his return. 
 Considerable sums of prize money had fallen to his share ; and he had brought 
 heme a moderate fortune, part of which he expended in extricating his father 
 from pecuniary difficulties and in redeeming the family estate. The remainder 
 he appears to have dissipated in the course of about two years. He lived 
 splendidly, dressed gaily even for those times, kept a carriage and saddle 
 horses, and, not content with these ways of getting rid of his money, resorted 
 to the most speedy and effectual of all modes of evacuation, a contested election 
 followed by a petition. 
 
 At the time of the general election of 1 754, the government was in a very singu- 
 lar state. There was scarcely any formal Opposition. The Jacobites had been, 
 cowed by the issue of the last rebellion. The Tory party bad fallen into utter 
 |, j^ contempt. It had been deserted by all the men of talents -who had belonged 
 1,4 to it, and had scarcely given a sympton of life during some years. The small 
 ^. faction which had been held together by the influence and promises of Prince 
 " '' Frederic had been dispersed by his death. Almost every public man of dis- 
 tingviished talents in the kingdom, whatever his early connections might have 
 been, was in office, and called himself a Whig. But this extraordinary appear- 
 1. ance of concord was quite 'delusive. The administration itself was distracted 
 
 M<^' 
 
 k 
 
LORD CLIVE. -Jg^ 
 
 by bitter enmities and conflicting pretensions. The chief object of its memb^ir^ 
 was to depress and supplant each other. The prime minister, Newcastle, weakV 
 timid, jealous and perfidious, was at once detested and despised by some of 
 the most important members of his government, and by none more than by 
 Henry Fox, the Secretary at War. This able, daring and ambitious man 
 seized every opportunity of crossing the First Lord of the Treasury, from whom 
 he. well knew that he had little to dread and little to hope ; forNewcastl? was 
 iPhrough life equally afraid- of breaking with men of parts ati^ tjfipiroTtiOting 
 Ihem. •■/^ - • < - y' "- ■■' 
 
 Newcastle had set his heart on returning two members for St. Michael, one 
 of those wretched Cornish boroughs which were swept away by the Reform 
 Act in 1832. He was opposed by Lord Sandwich, whose influence hid long 
 been paramount there : and Fox exerted himself strenuously in Sandwich's 
 behalf. Clive, who had been introduced to Fox and very kindly received by 
 him, was brought forward on the Sandwich interest, and was returned. . 
 But a petition was presented against the return, and was backed by the whole 
 influence of the Duke of Newcastle. ''-'"' 
 
 The case was heard, according to the usage c>f that time, before a comniitt^ 
 of the whole House. Questions respecting election^ were then considered 
 merely as party questions. Judicial impartiality was not even affected. Sir 
 Robert Walpole was in the habit of saying openly that, in election battles, 
 there ought to be no quarter. On the present occasion the excitement was 
 great. The matter really at issue was, not whether Clive had been properly 
 or improperly returned, but whether Newcastle or I*'ox was to be master of the 
 new House of Commons, and consequently first minister. The contest was 
 long and obstinate, and success seemed to lean sometimes to one side and 
 sometimes to the other. Fox put forth all his rare powers of debate, beat half 
 the lawyers in the House at their own weapons, and carried division after 
 division against the whole influence of the Treasury. The committee decided 
 in Clive's favour. But when the resolution v/as reported to the House, things 
 took a different course. The remnant of the Tory Opposition, contemptible 
 as it was, had yet sufficient weight to turn the scale between the nicely 
 balanced parties of Newcastle and Fox. JS'ewcastle the Tories could only 
 despise. Fox they hatedj as the boldest and most subtle politician and the 
 ablest debater amon^ the Whigs— as 'the steady friend of Walpole— as" the 
 devoted adherent of the Duke of Cumberland. After wavering till the last 
 moment, they determined to vote in a' body with the' Prime Minister's friends. 
 The consequence was that the House, by a small majority, rescinded- the 
 decision of the committee, and Clive Was unseated. ' •''•':;'". J 
 
 Ejected from Paliament and straitened in his means, he naturally begaii to 
 look again towards India. The Company and the Government were eager to 
 avail themselves of his services. A treaty favourable to England had indeed 
 been concluded in the Carnatic. Dupleix had been superseded, and had 
 returned with the wreck of his immense fortune to Europe, where calumny and (^ 
 chicanery soon hunted him to his grave. But many signs indicated that a war 
 T)etween France and Great Britian was at hand ; and it was therefore thought "> ^ 
 desirable to send an able commander to the Company's s'ettlements in Ihtnd. ' 
 The Directors appointed Clive governor of Fort St. David. The Kirlg gave • 
 him the commission of a lieutenant-colonel in the British army, arid in 1755 
 he again sailed for Asia. '"'>/, 
 
 The first service on which he was employed aft^r he returned to the East 
 was the reduction of the stronghold of Gheriah. This fortress, built on a 
 craggy promontory and almost surrounded by the ocean, was the den of a 
 pirate named Angria, whose barks hail long b6eili' the terror of the Arabian 
 
540 LORD CLIVM. 
 
 Gulf. Admiral Watson, who -comnlanded the English squadron in the 
 Eastern seas, burned Angria's fleet, while Clive attacked the fastness by 
 land. The place soon fell, and a booty of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds 
 sterling was divided among the conquerors. 
 
 After this exploit, Clive proceeded to his government of Fort St. David. 
 Before he had been their two months, he received intelligence which called 
 forth all the energy of his bold and active mind. 
 
 Of the provinces which had been subject to the house of Tamerlane, the 
 wealthiest was Bengal. No part of India possessed such natural advantages both 
 for agriculture and for commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a hundred 
 channels to the sea, has formed a vast plain of rich mould which, even under 
 the tropical sky, rivals the verdure of an English April. The rice fields yield 
 an increase such as is elsewhere unknown. .Spices, sugar, vegetable oils are 
 produced with marvellous exuberance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible 
 supply offish. The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown by noxious 
 vegetation and swarming with deer and tigers, supply the cultivated districts 
 with abundance of salt. The great stream which fertilises the soil is, at the 
 same time, the chief highway of Eastern commerce. On its banks, and on 
 those of its tributary waters, are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid 
 capitals and the most sacred shrines of India, The tyranny of man had for 
 ages struggled in vain against the overflowing bounty of nature. In spite of 
 the Mussulman despot and of the Mahratta freebooter, Bengal was known 
 through the East as the garden of Eden, as the rich kingdom. Its population 
 multiplied exceedingly. Other provinces were nourished from the overflowing 
 of its granaries ; and the ladies of London and Paris were clothed in 
 \the delicate produce of its looms. The race by whom this rich tract was 
 peopled, enervated by a soft climate and accustomed to peaceful employments, 
 bore the same relation to other Asiatics which the Asiatics generally bear to 
 the bold and energetic children of Europe. The Castilians have a proverb, 
 that in Valencia the earth is water and the men women ; and the description 
 is at least equally applicable to the vast plain of the Lower Ganges. What- 
 ever the Bengalee does he does languidly. His favourite pursuits are 
 sedentary. He shrinks from bodily exertion ; and, though voluble in dispute 
 and singularly pertinacious in the war of chicane, he seldom engages in a 
 personal conflict and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. We doubt whether 
 there be a hundred genuine Bengalees in the whole army of the East India 
 Company. There never, perhaps, existed a people so thoroughly fitted by 
 nature and by habit for a foreign yoke. 
 
 The great commercial companies of Europe had long possessed factories in 
 Bengal. The French were settled, as they still are, at Chandernagore on the 
 Hoogley. Lower down the stream, the English had built Fort William. A 
 church and ample warehouses rose in the vicinity. A row of spacious houses, 
 belonging to the chief factors of the East India Company, lined the banks of 
 the river ; and in the neighbourhood had sprung up a large and busy native 
 town where some Hindoo merchants of great opulence had fixed their abode. 
 But the tract now covered by the palaces of Chowringhee contained only a 
 few miserable huts thatched with straw. A jungle, abandoned to water-fowl 
 and alligators, covered the site of the present Citadel and the Course, which 
 is now daily crowded at sunset with the gayest equipages of Calcutta. For 
 the ground on which the settlement stood, the English, like other great 
 landholders, paid rent to the government ; and they were, hke other great 
 landholders, permitted to exercise a certain jurisdiction within their domain. 
 
 The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and Bahar, had long 
 been governed by a viceroy whom tiie English called Aliverdy Khan, and who, 
 
LOkb CUVE. 54! 
 
 like the other viceroys of the Mogul, hjfH become virtually independent. He 
 died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended to his girandson, a youth undei^ 
 twenty years of age> who bore the name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental despots' 
 are perhaps the worst class of human beings ; and this unhappy boy was one 
 of the worst specimens of his class. His understanding was naturally feeble 
 and his temper naturally- tinamiable. His education had been strcR as would. 
 have enervated_eVena vigorous intellect and perverted even a generous disposi- 
 tion. Hewas unrSasbnable, because nobody everdared to reason with him, and 
 selfish, because he had never been made to feel himself dependent on the 
 
 food will of others. Early debauchery had unnerved his body and his mind. 
 le indulged immoderately in the use of ardent spirits, which inflamed his 
 weak brain almost to madness. His chosen companions were flatterers sprung 
 from the dregs of the people and recommended by nothing but buffoonery and. 
 servility. It is said that he had arrived at the last stage of human depravity, 
 when cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake — when the sight of pain as 
 pain, where no advantage is to be gained, no offence punished, no danger- 
 averted, is an agreeable excitement. It had early been his amusement^ 
 to torture beasts and birds ; and, when he grew up, he enjoyed with still- 
 keener relish the misery of his fellow-creatures. 
 
 From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim to 
 do so ; and his whims was never opposed. He had also formed a very exag- 
 gerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them ; 
 and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that the 
 riches of Calcutta, had they been even greater than he imagined, would not 
 compensate him for what he must lose if the European trade, of which Bengal 
 was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some other quarter. Pre- 
 texts for a quarrel were readily found. The English, in expectation of a war 
 with France, had begun to fortify their settlement without special pertnission 
 from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken refuge 
 at Calcutta and had not been delivered up. On such grounds as these, Surajah 
 Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William. 
 
 The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by Dupleix to 
 become statesmen and soldiers. Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and 
 were terrified and bewildered by the approaching danger. The governor, 
 who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah's cruelty, was frightened out of his 
 wits, jumped into a boat and took refuge in the nearest ship. The military 
 commandant thought that he could not do better than follow so good an exam- 
 ple. The fort was taken after a feeble resistance ; and great numbers of the 
 English fell into the hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself 
 with regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory and ordered Mr. Holwell, 
 the first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before him. He abused 
 ■ the insolence of the English and grumbled at the smallness of the treasure 
 which he had found, but promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest. 
 
 Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, 
 memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed. The 
 English captives were left to the mercy of the guards ; and the guards deter- 
 mined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber 
 known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European 
 malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and 
 narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small' 
 and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat 
 of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty 
 halls and by the constant waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was one 
 hundred and forty-six. \Vhen they were ordered to enter the cell, they ima. 
 
Ui LOkD CllVM. 
 
 gined that the soldiers were joking; and being in high spirits on account of 
 the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laUghed and jested at the 
 absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostu- 
 lated ; they entreated ; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all 
 who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the 
 sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them. 
 
 Nothing in history or fiction— not even the story which Ugolino told in the 
 sea. of everlasting ice after he had wiped his bloody lips on t"he" scalp of his 
 murderer — approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors 
 of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, 
 who even in that extremity retained some presence of mind, offered large 
 bribes to the jaolers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without 
 the Nabob's orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if 
 anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They 
 trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the 
 pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their 
 agonies — raved, prayed, blasphemed — implored the guards to fire among them. 
 The jaolers in the meantime held lights to the bars and shouted with laughter 
 at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in 
 low gaspings and-, moanings. The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his 
 debauch and permitted the door' to "be Opened. But it was some time before 
 the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the 
 heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its 
 loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly 
 figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by 
 one out of the charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a 
 hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously and 
 covered up. 
 
 But these things, which, after the lapse of more than eighty years, cannot be 
 told or read without horror, awakened neither remorse nor pity in the bosom of 
 the savage Nabob. He inflicted no punishment on the murderers. He showed 
 no tenderness to- the survivors. Some of them, indeed, from whom nothing 
 was to be got, wer-e suffered to depart ; but -those from whom it was tTibught 
 that anything could be extorted were treated with execrable cruelty, llolwell, 
 unable to walk, was carried before the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened 
 him, and sent him up the country in irons, together with some other gentlemen 
 who were suspected of knowing, more than they chose to tell about the trea- 
 sures of the Company. These persons, still bowed down by the siifferings of 
 thait great agony, were lodged in miserable sheds and fed only with grain and 
 water, till at length the intercessions of the female relations of the Nabob pro- 
 cured their release. One Englishwoman had survived that night. She was 
 placed in the harem of the Prince at Moorshedabad. 
 
 Surajah Dowlah, in the meantime, sent letters to his nominal sovereign at 
 Delhi, describing the late conquest in the most pompous language. He placed 
 a garrison in Fort William, forbade Englishmen to dwell* in the neighbourhood, 
 and directed that in memory of his great actions, Calcutta should thencefor- 
 ward be called Alinagore, that is to say, the Port of God. 
 
 In August the news of the fall of Calcutta reached Madras, and excited the 
 fiercest and bitterest resentment. The cry of the whole settlement was for 
 vengeance. Within forty-eight hours. after the arrival of the intelligence, it 
 was^'deter mined that an expedition should be sent to the Hoogley and that 
 Clive should, be at the head of the land forces. The naval armament, was 
 under the command of Admiral Watson. Nine hundred English infantry-7- 
 fine troops and full of spirit — and fifteen hundred sepoYs composed the army 
 
LORD CLIVE. 50 i\ 
 
 which sailed to punish a Prince who had more subjects and larger reveriuesl" 
 than the King of Prussia or the Empress Maria Theresa. In October the* 
 expedition sailed, but it had to make its way against adverse winds and did 
 not reach Bengal till December. , i/i , i, 
 
 ' The Nabob was revelling in fancied security at Moorshedaba:d. 'He was so • 
 profoundly ignorant of the state of foreign countries that he often used to say 
 that there were not ten thousand men in all Europe ; and it had never occurred 
 to him as possible that the English would dare to invade his dominions. But 
 though undisturbed by any fear of their military power, he began to miss them 
 greatly. His revenues fell off; and his ministers succeeded in making him 
 understand that a ruler may sometimes find it more profitable to protect traders 
 ill the open enjoyment of their gains than to put them to the torture for the 
 purpose of discovering hidden chests of gold and jewels. He was already dis- 
 posed to permit the Company to resume its mercantile operations in his coun- 
 try when he received the news that an English armament was in the Hoogley. 
 He instantly ordered all his troops to assemble at Moorshedabad and marched 
 towards Calcutta. 
 
 Clive had commenced -operations with his usual vigour. He took Budge- 
 budge, routed the garrison of Fort William, recovered Calcutta, stormed and 
 sacked Hoogley. The Nabob, already disposed to make some concessions to 
 the English, was confirmed in his pacific disposition by these proofs of their 
 power and spirit. He accordingly made overtures to the chiefs of the invading 
 armament, and oflered to restore the factory and to give compensation to 
 those whom he had despoiled. 
 
 Clive's profession was war ; and he felt that there was something discreditable 
 in an accommodation with Surajah Dowlah. But his power was limited. A 
 committee, chiefly composed of servants of the Company who had fled from 
 Calcutta, had the principal direction of affairs ; and these persons were eager 
 to be restored to their posts and compensated for their losses. The govern- 
 ment of Madras, apprised that war had commenced in Europe and apprehen- 
 sive of an attack from the French, became impatient for the return of the 
 armament. The promises of the Nabob were large, the chances of a contest 
 doubtful ; and Clive consented to treat, though he expressed his regret that 
 things should not be concluded in so glorious a manner as he could have '. 
 wished. 
 
 ^ With this negotiation commences a new chapter in the life of Clive. 
 |llitherto he had been merely a soldier carrying into effect, with eminent 
 ability and valour, the plans of others. Henceforth he is to be chiefly 
 regarded as a statesman ; and his military movements are to be considered as 
 subordiniate to his political designs. That in his new capacity he displayed 
 great talents and obtained great success, is undeniable. But it is also unde- 
 niable that the transactions in which he now began to take a part have left ;\ 
 btain On his moral character. . - . . • ■ ■ ■ 
 
 We can by no means agree ■^ith Sii* John Malcolm, who is obstinately re- 
 solved to see nothing but honour and integrity in the conduct of his hero. (\, 
 But we can as little agree with Mr. Mill, who has gone so far as to say that 
 Clive was a man *' to whom deception, when it suited his purpose, never cost \ . 
 a pang." Clive seems to us to have been constitutionally the very opposite of \ \^ 
 a knave — bold even to temerity — sincere even to indiscretion— hearty in ) 
 friendship — open in enmity. Neither in his private life, nor in those parts of i 
 his public life in which he had to do with his countrymen, do we find any signs \ 
 of a propensity to cunning. On the contrary, in all the disputes in which he 
 was engaged as an Englishman against Englishmen — from his boxing-matches 
 at school to those stormv altercations -at the India lloui^c and in Parliament 
 
544 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 amidst which his later years were passed — his very faults were those of a 
 high and magnanimous spirit. The truth seems to have been that he con- 
 sidered Oriental politics as a game in which nothing was unfair. He knew 
 that the standard of morality among the natives of India differed widely from 
 that established in England. He knew that he had to deal with men destitute 
 of what in Europe is called honour — with men who would give any promise 
 without hesitation and break any promise without shame — with men who 
 would unscrupulously employ corruption, perjury, forgery to compass their 
 ends. His letters show that the great difference between Asiatic and Earopean 
 morality was constantly in his thoughts. He seems to have imagined, most 
 erroneously in our opinion, that he could effect nothing against such adversaries 
 if he was content to be bound by ties from which they were free — if he went 
 on telling truth and hearing none — if he fulfilled, to his own hurt, all his 
 engagements with confederates who never kept an engagement that was not 
 to their advantage. Accordingly, this man, in the other parts of his life an 
 honourable English gentleman and a soldier, was no sooner matched against 
 an Indian intriguer than he became himself an Indian intriguer, and descended, 
 without scruple, to falsehood, to hypocritical caresses, to the substitution of 
 documents and to the counterfeiting of hands. 
 
 The negotiations between the English and the Nabob were carried on 
 chiefly by two agents — Mr. Watts, a servant of the Company, and a Bengalee 
 of the name of Omichund. This Omichund had been one of the wealthiest 
 native merchants resident at Calcutta and had sustained great losses in con- 
 sequence of the Nabob's expedition against that place. In the course of his 
 commercial transactions he had seen much of the English, and was peculiarly 
 qualified to serve as a medium of communication between them and a native 
 court. He possessed great influence with his own race, and had in large 
 measure the Hindoo talents — quick observation, tact, dexterity, perseverance — 
 and the Hindoo vices, servility, greediness and treachery. 
 
 The Nabob behaved with all the faithlessness of an Indian statesman and 
 with all the levity of a boy whose mind had been enfeebled by power and 
 self-indulgence. He promised, retracted, hesitated, evaded. At one time he 
 advanced with his army in a threatening manner towards Calcutta ; but wKen 
 he saw the resolute front which the English presented, he fell back in alarm 
 and consented to make peace with them on their own terms. The treaty was 
 no sooner concluded than he formed new designs against them. He intrigued 
 with the French authorities at Chandernagore. He invited Bussy to march 
 from the Deccan to the Hoogley and to drive the ^English out of Bengal. All 
 this was well known to Clive and Watson. They determined accordingly to 
 strike a decisive blow and to attack Chandernagore before the force there 
 could be strengthened by new arrivals, either from the south of India or from 
 Europe. Watson directed the expedition by water, Clive by land. The 
 success of the combined movements was rapid and complete. The fort, the 
 garrison, the artillery, the military stores, all fell into the hands of the English. 
 Nearly five hundred European troops were among the prisoners. 
 ; The Nabob had feared and hated the English, even while he was still able 
 to oppose to them their French rivals. The French were now vanquished ; 
 and he began to regard the English with still greater fear and still greater 
 hatred. His weak and unprincipled mind oscillated between servility and 
 insolence. One day he sent a large sum to Calcutta, as part of the compensa- 
 tion due for the wrongs which he had committed. The next day he sent a 
 present of jewels to Bussy, exhorting that distinguished officer to hasten to 
 protect Bengal against "Clive, the daring in war, on whom," says his high- 
 ness, "may all bad fortune attend." He ordered his army to march against 
 
LORD CLIVE. 545 
 
 -7^ 
 
 the English. He countermanded his orders. He tore Clive's letters. He 
 then sent answers in the most florid language of compliment. He ordered 
 Watts out of his presence and threatened to impale him. He again sent for 
 him and begged pardon for the insult. In the meantime, his wretched mal- 
 administration, his folly, his dissolute manners and his love of the lowest 
 company had disgusted all classes of his subjects — soldiers, traders, civil func- 
 tionaries, the proud and ostentatious Mahommedans, the timid, supple and 
 parsimonious Hindoos. A formidable confederacy was formed against him, in 
 which were included Roydullub, the minister of finance, Meer Jaffier, the 
 ■principal commander of the troops, and Jugget Seit, the richest banker in 
 India. The plot was confided to the English agents ; and a communication 
 was opened between the malcontents at Moorshedabad and the committee at 
 Calcutta. J 
 
 In the committee there was much hesitation ; but Clive'^s voice was given 
 in favour of the conspirators, and his vigour and firmness bore down all oppo- 
 sition. It was determined that the English should lend their powerful assist- 
 ance to depose Surajah Dowlah and to place Meer Jaffier on the throne of 
 Bengal. In return, Meer Jaffier promised ample compensation to the Com- 
 pany and its servants and a liberal donative to the army, the navy and the 
 committee. The odious vices of Surajah Dowlah, the wrongs which the Eng- 
 lish had suffered at his hands, the dangers to which our trade must have been 
 exposed, had he continued to reign, appear to us fully to justify the resolution 
 of deposing him. But nothing can justify the dissimulation which Clive . ^^ 
 stooped to practise. He wrote to Surajah Dowlah in terms so affectionate l 
 that they for a time lulled that weak prince into perfect security. The same' j 
 courier who carried this " soothing letter," as Clive calls it, to the Nabob, j 
 carried to Mr. Watts a letter in the following terms: "Tell Meer Jaffier to f 
 fear nothing. I will join him with five thousand men who never turned their ■ ( 
 backs. Assure him I will march night and day to his assistance and stand by ' 
 him as long as I have a man left." 
 
 It was impossible that a plot which had so many ramifications should long 
 remain entirely concealed. Enough reached the ears of the Nabob to arouse 
 his suspicions. But he was soon quieted by the fictions and artifices which 
 the inventive genius of Omichund produced with miraculoiis readiness. All 
 was going well ; the plot was nearly ripe ; when Clive learned that Omi- 
 chund was likely to play false. The artful Bengalee had been prom- 
 ised a liberal compensation for all that he had lost at Calcutta. But this 
 would not satisfy him. His services had been great. He held the thread of 
 the whole intrigue. By one word breathed in the ear of Surajah Dowlah, 
 he could undo all that he had done. The lives of Watts, of Meer Jaffier, of 
 all the conspirators, were at his mercy ; and he determined to take advantage 
 of his situation and to make his own terms. He demanded three hundred 
 thousand pounds sterling as a price of his secrecy and of his assistance. The 
 committee, incensed by the treachery and appalled by the danger, knew not 
 what course to take. But Clive was more than Omichund's match in Omi- 
 chund's own arts. The man, he said, was a vilHan.* Any artifice which would 
 defeat such knavery was justifiable. The best course would be to promise what 
 was asked. Omichund would soon be at their mercy ; and then they might 
 punish him by witholding from him, not only the bribe which he now de- 
 manded, but all the compensation which all the other sufferers of Calcutta were 
 to receive. 
 
 His advice was taken. But how was the wary and sagacious Hindoo to 
 be deceived ? He had demanded that an article touching his claims' should be 
 inserted in the treaty between Meer Jaffier and the English, and he would not 
 
 T 
 
 
5^6. LORD QLIVE. 
 
 be satisfied unless he saw it with his own eyes. Clive had an expedient ready. 
 Two treaties were drawn up, one on white paper, the other on red, the former 
 real, the latter fictitious. In the former, Omichund's name was not mentioned ; 
 the latter, which was to be shown to him, contained a stipulation in his 
 favour. 
 
 But another difficulty arose. Admiral Watson had scruples about signing the 
 red treaty. Omichund's vigilance and acuteness were such that the absence of 
 so important a name would probably awaken his suspicions. But Clive was 
 not a man to do anything by halves. We almost blush to write it. He forged 
 Admiral Watson's name. 
 
 All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts fled secretly from Moorshedabad. 
 Clive put his troops in motion, and wrote to the Nabob in a: tone very different 
 from that of his previous letters. He set forth all the wrongs which the 
 British had suffered, offered to submit the points in dispute to the arbitration 
 of Meer Jaffier, and concluded by announcing that, as the rains were about to 
 set in, he and his men would do themselves the honour of waiting on his High- 
 ness for an answer. 
 
 Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his whole force and marched to encoun- 
 ter the English. It had been agreed that Meer Jaffier should separate himself 
 from the Nabob and carry over his division to Clive. But, as the decisive 
 moment approached, the fears of the conspirator overpowered his ambition. 
 Clive had advanced to Cossimbuzar ; the Nabob lay with a mighty power a few 
 "A miles off at Plassey ; and still Meer Jaffier delayed to fulfil his engage- 
 ments and returned evasive answers to the earnest remonstrances of the 
 English general. 
 
 Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could place no confidence in 
 
 the sincerity or in the courage of his confederate : and, whatever confidence 
 
 he might place in his own military talents and in the yalour and discipline of 
 
 his troops, it ^^as no light thing to engage an army twenty times as numerous 
 
 !i as his own. ' Before him lay a river over which it was easy to advance, but 
 
 over which, if things went ill, not one of his little band would ever return. 
 
 On this occasion, for the first and for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a 
 
 few hours, shrank from the fearful responsibility of making a decision. / He 
 
 \ \ called a council of war.'iThe majority pronounced against fighting ; and Clive 
 
 -J j declared his concurrence with the majority. 'I^Long afterward, he said that he had 
 
 I never called but one council of war and that, if he had taken the advice of 
 
 •^ I that council, the British would never have been masters of BengaL^^But 
 
 ; scarcely had the meeting broken up when he was himself again. He retired 
 
 /^' alone under the shade of some trees and passed near an hour there in thought. 
 
 IJ^ came back determined to put everything to the hazard, and gave orders 
 
 tfistt all should be in readiness for passing the river on the morrow. 
 
 The river was passed ; and, at the close of a toilsome day's march, the army, 
 long after sunset, took up its quarters in a grove of mango-trees near Plassey, 
 within a mile of the enemy. Clive was unable to sleep : he heard through the 
 whole night the sound of drums and cymbals from the vast camp of the Nabob. 
 It is not strange that even his stout heart should now and then have sunk when 
 he reflected against what odds and for what a prize he was in a few hours to 
 contend. 
 
 Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful. His mind, at once weak 
 and stormy, was distracted by wild and horrible apprehensions. Appalled by 
 the greatness and nearness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dreading every- 
 one who approached bins, dreading to be left alone, he sat gloomily in his tent, 
 haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the furies of those who had Qursed 
 him with their last breath in the Black Hole. 
 
 ^ 
 
''+.74 
 
 LdkD CLtPE. ' 547, 
 
 «;^.,.._ -^ : ^ V-»v>lVf 
 
 TKe day broke, the day which was to decide the fate of India, At sunrise ^^ 
 the army of the Nabob, pouring through many openings of the camp, began to ' ^ 
 move towards the grove wT^e the Enghsh lay. Forty thousand infantry, armed l-:^>^ 
 with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and arrows, covered the plain. They were 
 accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each tugged by a 
 long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from behind by an elephant. 
 Some smaller guns, under the direction of a few French auxiliaries, were perhaps 
 more formidable. The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn, not from the 
 effeminate population of Bengal, but from the bolder race which inhabits the 
 northern provinces ; and the practiced eye of Clive could perceive that both the 
 men and the horses were more powerful than those of the Carnatic. The force 
 which he had to oppose to this great multitude consisted of only three thousand 
 men. But of these nearly a thousand were English j and all were led by 
 English officers and trained in the English discipline. Conspicuous in the \ 
 ranks of the little army were the men of the Thirty-Ninth Regiment, which ! . 
 still bears on its colours, amidst many honourable additions won under Wei- ' 
 lington in Spain and Gascony, the name of Plassey and the proud motto 
 Primus in Indis, 
 
 The battle commenced with a canonade, in which the artillery of the Nabob 
 did scarcely any execution while the few field-pieces of the English produced 
 great effect. Several of the most distinguished officers in Surajah Dowlah's 
 service fell. Disorder began to spread through his ranks. His own terror in- \ 
 creased every moment. One of the conspirators urged on him the expediency | 
 of retreating. The insidious advice, agreeing as it did with what his own \ 
 terrors suggested, was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and 
 this order decided his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops 
 to advance. The confused and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset 
 of disciplined valour. No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more 
 completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured to con- 
 front the English, were swept down the stream of fugitives. In an hour the 
 forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed, never to reassemble. Only five hun- 
 dred of the vanquished were slain. But their camp, their guns, their baggage, 
 innumerable wagons, innumerable cattle, remained in the power of the con- 
 querors. With the loss of twenty-two soldiers killed and fifty wounded, 
 Clive had scattered an army of near sixty thousand men and subdued an 
 empire larger and more populous than Great Britain. 
 
 Meer Jaffier had given no assistance to the English during the action. But, 
 as soon as he saw that the fate of the day was decided, he drew off his division 
 of the army, and, when the battle was over, sent his congratulations to his 
 ally. The next day he repaired to the English quarters,' not a little uneasy as 
 to the reception which awaited him there. He gave evident signs of alarm 
 when a guard was drawn out to receive him with the honours due to his rank. 
 But his apprehensions were speedily removed. Clive came forward k) meet 
 him, erribraced him, saluted him as Nabob of the three great provinces of Bengal, , 
 Bahar and Orissa, listened graciously to his apologies, and advised him ,10 > 
 march without delay to Moorshedabad. , , ' 
 
 Surajah Dowlah had fled from the fieFd of battle with all the speed with .A 
 which a fleet camel could carry him, and arrived at Moorshedabad in little. ^*^^ 
 more than twenty-foui hours. There he called his counsellors round him. The, ^ *, 
 wisest advised him to put himself into the hands of the English, from whom he (}**^ 
 had nothing worse to fear than deposition and confinement. But he attributed 
 this suggestion to treachery. Others urged him to try the chance of war again. 
 He approved the advice, and issued orders accordingly. But he wajitcd spirit 
 to adhere even during one day to a manly resolution. He learned that Meej' 
 
548 LOkD CLIVEi 
 
 Jafifier had arrived ; and his terrors became insupportable. Disguised in a mean 
 dress, with a casket of jewels in his hand, he let himself down at night from a 
 window of his palace and, accompanied by only two attendants, en. barked on 
 the river for Patna. 
 
 In a few days Clive arrived at Moorshedabad, escorted by two hundred 
 English soldiers and three hundred sepoys, For his residence had been 
 r.ssigned a palace, which was surrounded by a garden so spacious that all the 
 troops who accompanied him could conveniently encamp within it. The 
 ceremony of the installation of Meer Jaffier was instantly performed. Clive 
 led the new Nabob to the seat of honour, placed him on it, presented to him, 
 after the immemorial fashion of the East, an offering of gold, and then, turning 
 to the natives who filled the hall, congratulated them on the good fortune 
 which had freed them from a tyrant. He was compelled on this occasion to 
 use the services of an interpreter ; for it is remarkable that, long as he resided 
 in India, intimately acquainted as he was with Indian politics and with the 
 Indian character, and adored as he was by his Indian soldiery, he never learned 
 to express himself with facility in any Indian language ; and is said to have 
 been sometimes under the necessity of employing the smattering of Portuguese 
 
 : which he had acquired, when a lad, in Brazil. 
 
 \ The new sovereign was now called upon to fulfil the engagements into 
 which he had entered with his allies. A conference was held at the house ot 
 Jugget Seit, the great banker, for the purpose of making the necessary ar- 
 rangements. Omichund came thither, fully believing himself to stand high 
 in the favour of Clive, v/ho, with dissimulation surpassing even the dissimula- 
 tion of Bengal, had up to that day treated him with undiminished kindness. 
 
 \ The white treaty was produced and read. Clive then turned to Mr. Scrafton, 
 
 \ one of the servants of the Company, and said in English, " It is now time to 
 
 undeceive Omichund." "Omichund," said Mr. Scrafton in Hindostanee, 
 
 " the red treaty is a taken-in. You are to have nothing. " Omichund fell back 
 
 insensible into the arms of his attendants. He revived ; but his mind was 
 
 t irreparably ruined. Clive, who though inscrupulous in his dealings with 
 
 Indian politicians, was not inhuman, seems to have been touched. He saw 
 
 Omichund a few days later, spoke to him kindly, advised him to make a 
 
 pilgrimage to one of the great temples of India in the hope that change of 
 
 scene might restore his health, and was even disposed, notwithstanding all that 
 
 .had passed, again to employ his talents in the public service. But from the 
 
 moment of that sudden shock, the unhappy man sank gradually into idiocy. 
 
 \ He who had formerly been distinguished by the strength of his underi,tanding 
 
 ' and the simplicity of his habits, now squandered the remains of his fortune on 
 
 childish trinkets, and loved to exhibit himself dressed in rich garments and 
 
 rhung with precious stones. In this abject state he languished a few months 
 '' v-and then died. 
 ^We should not think it necessary to offer any remarks for the pu/pose of 
 v^, % directing the judgment of our readers with respect to this transaction, had not 
 \f' Sir John Malcolm undertaken to defend it in all its parts. He regrets, 
 indeed, that it was necessary to employ means so liable to abuse as forgery ; 
 but he will not admit that any blame attaches to those who deceived the 
 deceiver. He thinks that the English were not bound to keep faith with one 
 who kept no faith with them ; and that if they had fulfilled their engagements 
 with the wily Bengalee, so signal an example of successful treason would have 
 produced a crowd of imitators. Now, we will not discuss this point on any 
 rigid principles of morality. Indeed, it is quite unnecessary to do so ; for, 
 looking at the question as a question of expediency in the lowest sense of the 
 word, and using no arguments but such as Machiavelli might have employed 
 
<? 
 
 LVRD CLiVE. S49 
 
 in his conferences with Borgia, we are convinced that Clive was altogether 
 in the wrong, and that hS^Tfmiitted, not merely a crime, but a blunder. That 
 honesty is the best policy is a maxim which we firmly believe to be generally 
 correct, even with respect to the temporal interest of individuals ; but, with 
 respect to societies, the rule is sublet to still fewer exceptions, and that for 
 this reason, that the life of societies is longer than the \\{q. of individuals. It 
 is possible to mention men who have owed great worldly prosperity to breaches 
 of private faith ; but we doubt whether it be possible to mention a state 
 which has on the whole been a gainer by a breach of public faith. The 
 entire history of British India is an illustration of this great truth, that it 
 is not prudent to oppose perfidy to perfidy — that the most efficient weapon 
 with which men can encounter falsehood is truth. During a long course of 
 years, the English rulers of India, surrounded by allies and enemies whom 
 no engagement could bind, have generally acted with sincerity and upright- 
 ness, and the event has proved that sincerity and uprightness are wisdom. 
 English valour and English intelligence have done less to extend and 
 to preserve our Oriental empire than English veracity. All that we could 
 have gained by imitating the doublings, the evasions, the fictions, the 
 perjuries which have been employed against us, is as nothing when compared 
 with what we have gained by being the one power in India on whose word 
 reliance can be placed. No oath which superstition can devise, no hostage 
 however precious, inspires a hundredth part of the confidence which is pro- 
 duced by the "yea, yea," and " nay, nay," of a British envoy. No fastness, 
 however strong by art or nature, gives to its inmates a security like that 
 enjoyed by the chief who, passing through the territories of powerful and deadly 
 enemies, is armed with the British guarantee. The mightiest princes of the 
 East can scarcely, by the offer of enormous usury, draw forth any portion of 
 the wealth which is concealed under the hearths of their subjects. The 
 British Government offers little more than four per cent. ; and avarice has- 
 tens to bring forth tens of millions of rupees from its most secret repositories. 
 A hostile monarch may promise mountains of gold to our sepoys, on condition 
 that they will desert the standard of the Company. The Company promises 
 only a moderate pension after a long service. But every sepoy knows that the 
 promise of the Company will be kept ; he knows that if he lives a hundred 
 years his rice and salt arc as secure as the salary of the Governor-General ; and 
 he knows that there is not another state in India which would not, in 
 spite of the most solemn vows, leave him to die of hunger in a ditch as ' 
 soon as he had ceased to be useful. The greatest advantage which a govern- 
 ment can possess is to be the one trustworthy government in the midst of 
 governments which nobody can trust. This advantage we enjoy in Asia. 
 Had we acted during the last two generations on the principles which Sir 
 John Malcolm appears to have considered as sound — had we, as often as we 
 had to deal with people like Omichund, retaliated by lying and forging and 
 breaking faith, after their fashion — it is our firm belief that no courage or 
 capacity could have upheld our empire. 
 
 Sir John Malcolm admits that Clive's breach of faith could be justified only 
 by the strongest necessity. As we think that breach of faith not only un- 
 necessary, but most inexpedient, we need hardly say that we condemn it most>'\ \ 
 severely. Vi* 
 
 Omichund was not the only victim of the revolution. Surajah Dowlah was \ \ 
 taken a few days after his flight and was brought before Meer Jafher. There ' 
 he flung himself on the ground in convulsions of fear, and with tears and loud 
 cries implored the mercy which he had never shown. Meer Jafifier hesitated ; 
 but his son Meeran, a youth of seventeen, who in feebleness of brain and ) 
 
550 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 savageness of nature greatly resembled the wretched captive, was implacable. 
 Surajah Dowlah was led into a secret chamber, to which in a short time the 
 ministers of death were sent. In this act the English bore no part ; and Meef 
 Jaffier understood so much of their feelings, that he thought it necessary to 
 apologise to them for having avenged them on their most malignant enemy. 
 
 The shower of wealth now fell copiously on the Company and its servants. 
 A sum of eight hundred thousand pounds sterling, in coined silver, was sent 
 down the river from Moorshedabad to Fort William. The fleet which con- 
 veyed this treasure consisted of more than a hundred boats, and performed its 
 triumphal voyage with flags flying and music playing. Calcutta, which but a 
 few months ago had been desolate, was now more prosperous than ever. 
 Trade revived, and the signs of affluence appeared in every English house. 
 As to Clive, there was no limit to his acquisitions but his own moderation. 
 The treasury of Bengal was thrown open to him. There were piled up, after the 
 usage of Indian princes, immense masses of coin, among which might not 
 seldom be detected the florins and byzants with which, before any European 
 ship had turned the Cape of Good Hope, the Venetians purchased the stuffs 
 and spices of the East. Clive walked between heaps of gold and silver, 
 crowned with rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty to help himself. He 
 accepted between two and three hundred thousand pounds. 
 
 The pecuniary transactions between Meer Jaffier and Clive were, sixteen 
 years later, condemned by the public voice and severely criticised in Parliament. 
 They are vehemently defended by Sir John Malcolm. The accusers of the 
 victorious general represented his gains as. the wages of corruption, or as 
 plunder extorted at the point of the sword from a helpless ally. The bio-^ 
 grapher, on the other hand, considers these great acquisitions as free gifSs, 
 honourable alike to the donor and to the receiver, and compares them to the 
 rewards bestowed by foreign powers on Marlborough, on Nelson and on 
 Wellington. It had always, he says, been customary in the East to give and 
 receive presents ; and there was, as yet, no Act of Parliament positively pro. 
 hibiting English functionaries in India from profiting by this Asiatic usage. 
 This reasoning, we own, does not quite satisfy us. We fully acquit Clive of 
 selling the interests of his employers or his country ; but we cannot acquit him 
 of having done what, if not in itself evil, was yet of evil example. Nothing is 
 m'bre clear than that a general ought to be the servant of his own government, 
 and of no other. It follows, that whatever rewards he receives for his services 
 ought to be given either by his own government, or with the full knowledge and 
 approbation of his own government. This rule ought to be strictly maintained, \ 
 even with respect to the merest bauble — with respect to a cross, a medal, or a 
 yard of coloured riband. But how can any government be well served if those 
 who command its forces are at liberty, without its permission, without its' 
 privity, to accept princely fortunes fr9m its allies ? Is it idle to say that there 
 was then no Act of Parliament prohibiting the practice of taking presents 'from 
 Asiatic sovereigns. It is not on the Act which was passed at a later period 
 for the purpose of preventing any such taking of presents, but on grounds, 
 which were valid before that Act was passed — on grounds of common law and 
 common sense — that we arraign the conduct of Clive. There is no Act that 
 we know of prohibiting the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from beings 
 in the pay of continental powers, but it is not the less true that a Secretary 
 who should receive a secret pension from France would grossly violate his 
 duty and would deserve severe punishment. Sir John Malcolm compares 
 the conduct of Clive with that of the Duke of Wellington. Suppose — and we 
 beg pardon for putting such £^ supposition even. for the sake of argument — that 
 the Duke of Wellington had, after , the campaign of 1815, and while he coia- 
 
 ;l 
 
LORDXLIVE. 551 
 
 manded the army of occupation in France, privately accepted two hundred 
 thousand pounds from Louis the Eighteenth as a mark of gratitude for the 
 great services which his Grace had rendered to the House of Bourbon ; what 
 would be thought of such a transaction ? Yet the statute-book no more forbids, 
 the taking of presents in Europe no\sKhan it forbade the taking of presents in 
 Asia then. 
 
 At the same time, it must be admitted that, in Clive's case, there were 
 many extenuating circumstances. He considered himself as the general, not 
 of the Crown, but of the Company. The Company had, by implication «t 
 least, authorised its agents to enrich themselves by means of the liberality of 
 the native princes, and by other means still more objectionable. It was hardly 
 to be expected that the servant should entertain stricter notions of his duty than 
 were entertained by his masters. Though Clive did not distinctly acquaint his 
 employers with what had taken place and request their sanction, he did not, 
 on the other hand, by studied concealment, show that he was conscious of 
 having done wrong. On the contrary, he avowed with the greatest openness 
 that the Nabob's bounty had raised him to affluence. Lastly, though we 
 think that he ought not in such a way to have taken anything, we must admit 
 that he deserves praise for having taken so little. He accepted twenty lacs of 
 rupees. It would have cost him only a word to make the twenty forty. It 
 was a very easy exercise of virtue to declaim in England against Clive's ra- 
 pacity ; but not one in a hundred of his accusers would have shown so much 
 self-command in the treasury of Moorshedabad. 
 
 Meer Jaffier could be upheld on the throne only by the hand which had placed « 
 him on it. He was not, indeed, a mere boy, nor had he been so unfortunate' 
 as to be born in the purple. He was not, therefore, quite so imbecile or quite 
 as depraved as his predecessor had been. But he had none of the talents ©r 
 virtues which his jDost required ; and his son and heir, Meeran, was another 
 Surajah Dowlah. The recent revolution had unsettled the minds of men. 
 Many chiefs were in open insurrection against the new Nabob. The viceroy 
 of the rich and powerful province of Oude, who, like the other viceroys of the 
 Mogul, was now in truth an independent sovereign, menaced Bengal with 
 invasion. Nothing but the talents and authority of Clive could support the , . 
 tottering government. While things were in this state, a ship arrived with p v^' 
 despatches which had been written at the India House before the news of i* 
 
 the Battle of Plassey had reached London. The Directors had determined ^ ^ 
 to place the English settlements in Bengal under a government constituted 
 in the most cumbrous and absurd manner ; and, to make the matter worse, 
 no place in the arrangement was assigned to Clive. The persons who were 
 selected to form this new government, gre?tly to their honour, took on 
 themselves the responsibility of disobeying these preposterous orders, and 
 invited Clive to exercise the supreme authority. He consented ; and it soon ^,^'^- 
 appeared that the servants of the Company had only anticipated the wishes of 
 their employers. . The Director's, on receiving news of CHve's brilliant 
 success, instantly appointed him governor of their possessions in Bengal, 
 with the highest marks of gratitude and esteem. His power was now 
 lx>Undless, and far surpassed even that which Dupleix had attained in the 
 south of India. Meer Jaffier regarded him with slavish awe. On one . 
 occasion, the Nabob spoke with severity to a native chief of high rank ^ 
 
 whose followers had been engaged in a brawl with some of the Company's \ - 
 sepoys. "Are you yet to learn," he said, " who that Colonel Clive is, and " J 
 in what station God has placed him ? " The chief, who,- as a famous jester ^ 
 and an old, friend of Meer Jaffier, could venture to take liberties, answered, v 
 ■^f;JB[.affiro«ttib£ Colonel ! I, who neyer get up in the moxning without making 
 
552 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 three low bows to his jackass ! " This was hardly an exaggeration. 
 Europeans and natives were alike at Clive's feet. The English regarded 
 him as the only man who could force Meer Jaffier to keep his engagements 
 with them. Meer Jaffier regarded him as the only man who could 
 protect the new dynasty against turbulent subjects and encroaching neigh- 
 bours. 
 
 It is but justice to say that Clive used his power ably and vigorously for 
 the advantage of his country. He sent forth an expedition against the tract 
 lying to the north of the Carnatic. In this tract the French still had the 
 ascendancy ; and it was important to dislodge them. The conduct of the 
 enterprise was intrusted to an officer of the name of Forde, who was then 
 little known, but in whom the keen eye of the governor had detected 
 military talents of a high order. The success of the expedition was rapid and 
 splendid. 
 
 While a considerable part of the army of Bengal was thus engaged at a 
 distance, a new and formidable danger menaced the western frontier. The 
 Great Mogul was a prisoner at Delhi in the hands of a subject. His eldest 
 son, named Shah Alum, destined to be the sport during many years of 
 adverse fortune, and to be the tool in the hands, first of the Mahrattas and 
 then of the English, had fled from the palace of his father. His birth was still 
 revered in India. Some powerful princes, the Nabob of Oude in particular, 
 were inclined to favour him. Shah Alum found it easy t© draw to his standard 
 great numbers of the military adventurers with whom every part of the country 
 swarmed. An army of forty thousand men, of various races and religions, 
 .: Mahrattas, Rohillas, Jauts and Afghans, were speedily assembled round him ; 
 and he formed the design of overthrowing the upstart whom the English had 
 elevated to a throne and of establishing his own authority throughout Bengal, 
 Orissa and Bahar. 
 
 Jaffier's terror was extreme ; and the only expedient which occurred to him 
 was to purchase, by the payment of a large sum or money, an accomodation 
 with Shah Alum. This expedient had been repeatedlv employed by those who, 
 before him, had ruled the rich and unwarlike provinces near the mouth of the 
 Ganges. I3ut Clive treated the suggestion with a scorn worthy of his strong 
 sense and dauntless courage. " If you do this," he wrote, " you will have the 
 Nabob of Oude, the Mahrattas, and many more, come from all parts of the 
 confines of your country, who will bully you out of money till you have none 
 left in your treasury. I beg your Excellency will rely on the fidelity of the 
 English, and of those troops which are attached to you. He wrote in a similar 
 strain to the governor of Patna, a brave native soldier whom he highly 
 esteemed. " Come to no terms ; defend your city to the last. Rest assured 
 that the English are staunch and firm friends, and th<tt they never desert a cause 
 in which they have once taken a part." 
 
 He kept his word. Shah Alum had invested Patna, and was on the point 
 of proceeding to storm, when he learned that the Colonel was advancing by 
 forced marches. The whole army which was approaching consisted of only 
 four hundred aud fifty Europeans and two thousand five hundred sepoys. 
 But Clive and his Englishmen were now objects of dread over all the East. As 
 soon as his advanced guard appeared, the besiegers fled before him. A few French 
 adventurers, who were about the person of the prince, advised him to try the 
 chance of battle ; but in vain. In a few days this g'-eat army, which had been 
 regarded with so much uneasiness by the court of Mocrshedabad, melted away 
 before the mere terror of the British name. 
 
 The conqueror returned in triumph to Fort William. The joy of Meer 
 Jaffier was as unbounded as his fears had been, and led him to bestow on his. 
 
LORD CLIVE. 553 
 
 preserver a princely token of gratitude. The quit-rent, which the East India 
 Company was bound to pay to the Nabob for the extensive lands held by 
 them to the south of Calcutta, amounted to near thirty thousand pounds 
 sterling a year. The whole of^his splendid estate, sufficient to support 
 with dignity the highest rank of the British peerage, was now conferred on Clive 
 for life. 
 
 This present we think Clive justified in accepting. It was a present which, 
 from its very nature, could be no secret. In fact, the Company itself was 
 his tenant, and, by its acquiescence, signified its approbation of Meer Jaffier's 
 grant. 
 
 But the gratitude of Meer Jaffier did not last long. He had for some time 
 felt that the powerful ally who had set him up might pull him down, and had 
 been looking round for support against the formidable strength by which he 
 had himself been hitherto supported. He knew that it would be impossible 
 to find among the natives of India any force which would look the Colonel's 
 little army in the face. The French power in Bengal was extinct. But the 
 fame of the Dutch had anciently been great in the Eastern seas, and it was 
 not yet distinctly known in Asia how much the power of Holland had declined 
 in Europe. Secret communications passed between the court of Moorshedabad 
 and the Dutch factory at Chinsurah, and urgent letters were sent from Chin- 
 surah, exhorting the goverment of Batavia to fit out an expedition which might 
 balance the power of the EngHsh in Bengal. The authorities of Batavia, eager 
 to extend the influence of their country, and still more eager to obtain for 
 themselves a share of the wealth which had recently raised so many English 
 adventurers to opulence, equipped a powerful armament. Seven large ships 
 from Java arrived unexpectedly in the Hoogley. The military force on board 
 amounted to fifteen hundred men, of whom about one half were Europeans. 
 The enterprise was well timed. Clive had sent such large detachments to 
 oppose the French in the Carnatic that his army was now inferior in number 
 to that of the Dutch. He knew that Meer Jaffier secretly favoured the 
 invaders. He knew that he took on himself a serious responsibility if he 
 attacked the forces of a friendly power, that the English ministers could not 
 wish to see a war with Holland added to that in which they were already 
 engaged with France ; that they might disavow his acts, that they might 
 punish him. He had recently remitted a great part of his fortune to Europe 
 through the Dutch East India Company, and he had therefore a strong 
 interest in avoiding a;;y quarrel. But he was satisfied that, if he suffered the 
 Batavian armament to pass up the river and to join the garrison of Chinsurah, 
 Meer Jaffier would throv/ himself into the arms of these new allies, and that the 
 English ascendancy in Bengal would be exposed to most serious danger. He took 
 his resolution with characteristic boldness, and was most ably seconded by his 
 officers, particularly by Colonel Forde, to whom the most important part of the 
 operations was intrusted. The Dutch attempted to force a passage. The English 
 encountered them both by land and water. On both elements the enemy had a 
 great superiority of force. On both they were signally defeated. Their ships 
 were taken. Their troops were put to a total route. Almost all the European 
 soldiers, who constituted the main strength of the invading army, were 
 killed or taken. The conquerors sat down before Chinsurah, and the 
 chiefs of that settlement, now thoroughly humbled, consented to the terms 
 which Clive dictated. They engaged to build no fortifications and to raise 
 no troops beyond a small force necessary for the police of their factories ; and 
 it was distinctly provided that any violation of these covenants should be 
 punished with instant expulsion from Bengal. 
 
 Three months after this gre.at victory, Clive sailed for England. At home. 
 
554 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 honours and rewards awaited him — not indeed equal to his claims or to his am- 
 bition, but still such as, when his age, his rank in the army and his original place 
 in society are considered, must be" pronounced rare and splendid. He was 
 raised to the Irish peerage, and encouraged to expect an English title. 
 George the Third, who had just ascended the throne, received him with 
 great distinction. The ministers paid him marked attention ; and Pitt, whose 
 influence in the House of Commons and in the country was unbounded, was 
 eager to mark his regard for one whose exploits had contributed so much to 
 the lustre of that memorable period. The great orator had already in Par- 
 liament described Clive as a heaven -born general — as a man who, bred to 
 the labour of the desk, had displayed a military genius which mijjht excite the 
 admiration of the King of Prussia. There were then no reporters in the 
 gallery ; but these 'words, emphatically spoken by the first statesman of the 
 age, had passed from mouth to mouth, had been transmitted to Clive in Bengal, 
 and had greatly delighted and flattered him. Indeed, since the death of 
 Wolfe, Clive was the only English general of whom his countrymen had 
 much reason to be proud. The Duke of Cumberland had been generally un- 
 fortunate ; and' his single victory, having been gained over his countrymen and 
 used with merciless severity, had been more fatal to his popularity than his 
 many defeats. Conway, versed in the learning of his profession, Snd person- 
 ally courageous, wanted vigour and capacity. Granby, honest, generous 
 and as brave as a lion, had neither science nor genius. Sackville, inferior 
 in knowledge and abilities to none of his contemporaries, had incurred, un- 
 justly as we believe, the imputation most fatal to the character of a soldier. 
 It was under the command of a foreign general that the British had triumphed 
 at Minden and Warburg. The people, therefore, as v/as natural, greeted with 
 pride and delight a captain of their own, whose native courage and self-taught 
 skill had placed him on a level with the great tacticians of Germany. 
 '' The wealth of Clive was such as enabled him to vie with the first gran- 
 dees of England. There remains proof that he had remitted more than a 
 hundred and eighty thousand pounds through the Dutch East India Com- 
 pany and more than forty thousand pounds through the English Company. 
 The amount which he had sent home through private houses was also con- 
 siderable. He had invested great sums in jewels, then a very common mode of 
 remittance from India. His purchases of diamonds, at Madras alone, amounted 
 to twenty-five thousand pounds. Besides a great mass of ready money, he 
 had his Indian estate, valued by himself at twenty-seven thousand a year. 
 His whole annual income, in the opinion of Sir John Malcolm, who is desirous to 
 state it as low as possible, exceeded forty thousand pounds ; and incomes of forty 
 thousand pounds at the time of the accession of George the Third were at 
 least as rare as incomes of a hundred thousand pounds now. We may safely 
 affirm that no Englishman, who started with nothing, has ever, in any line of 
 life, created such a fortune at the early age of thirty -four. 
 
 It would be unjust not to add that he made a creditable use of his- riches. 
 As soon as the battle of Plassey had laid the foundation of his fortiine, he 
 sent ten thousand pounds to his sisters, bestowed as much more on other 
 poor friends and' relations, ordered his agent to pay^eight hundred a year 
 to his parents and to insist that they should keep a carriage, and settled 
 five hundred a year en his old commander Lawrence, whose means were very 
 slender. The whole sum which he expended in this manner may be calcu* 
 lated at fifty thousand pounds. . ■ -' '^ •'.• 
 
 He now set himself to cultivate Parliamentary interest. His purcha$65 of 
 land seem to have been made in a great measure with that view; arid',' 
 after the general election of 1761, he found himself in the House of Ccrm- 
 
LORD CLIVE. 555 
 
 mons at the head of a body of dependents whose support must have been 
 important to any administration. In English politics, however, he did not 
 take a prominent part. His first attachments, as we have seen, were to 
 Mr. Fox ; at a later period he ,^as attracted by the genius and success of 
 Mr. Pitt ; but finally he connected himself in the closest manner with George 
 Grenville. Early in the session of 1764, when the illegal and impoUtic perse- 
 cution of that worthless demagogue Wilkes had strongly excited the public 
 mind, the town was amused by an anecdote, which we have seen in some 
 unpublished memoirs of Horace Walpole. Old Mr. Richard Clive, who 
 since his son's elevation had been introduced into society for which his 
 former habits had not well fitted him, presented himself ^\ the levee. The 
 King asked him where Lord Clive was. " He will be in town very soon," 
 said the old gentleman, loud enough to be heard by the whole circle, "and 
 then your Majesty will have another vote." 
 
 But, in truth, all Clive's views were directed towards the country in which 
 he had so eminently distinguished himself as a soldier and a statesman ; and 
 it was by considerations relating to India that his conduct as a public man 
 in England was regulated. The power of the Company, thoifgh an anomaly, 
 is in our time, we are firmly persuaded, a beneficial anomaly. In the time of 
 Clive it was not merely an anomaly but a nuisance. There was no Board 
 of Control. The Directors were for the most part mere traders, ignorant 
 of general politics, ignorant of the peculiarities of the empire v/hich had 
 strajigely become subject to them. The Court of Proprietors, wherever it 
 chose to interfere, was able to have its way. That Court was more numerous 
 as well as more powerful than at present ; for then every share of five hun- 
 dred pounds conferred a vote. The meetings were large, stormy, even 
 riotous — the debates indecently virulent. All the turbulence of a Westminster 
 election, all the trickery and corruption of a Grampound election, disgraced 
 the proceedings of this assembly on questions of the most solemn import 
 ance. Fictitious votes were manufactured on a gigantic scale. Clive him 
 self laid out a hundred thousand pounds in the purchase of stock, which 
 he then divided among nominal proprietors on whom he could depend, and 
 whom he brought down in his train to every discussion and every ballot. 
 Others did the same, though not to quite so enormous an extent. 
 
 The interest taken by the public of England in Indian questions was then 
 far greater than at present, and the reason is obvious. At present a writer 
 enters the service young ; he climbs slowly ;" he is fortunate if, at forty-five, 
 he can return to his country with an annuity of a thousand a year, and 
 with savings amounting to thirty thousand pounds. A great quantity 
 of wealth is mide by English functionaries in India ; but no single function- 
 ary makes a very large fortune, and what is made is slowly, hardly and 
 honestly earned. Only four or five high political offices are reserved for 
 public men from England. The residencies, the secretaryships, the seats 
 in the boards of revenue and in the Sudder courts are all filled by men who 
 have given the b^st years of life to the service of the Company : nor can any 
 talents, however splendid, or any connections, however powerful, obtain thost 
 lucrative posts for any person who has not entered by the regular door and 
 mounted by the regular gradations. Seventy years ago, much less money was 
 brought home from the East than in our time. But it was divided among a 
 vtry much smaller number of persons, and immense sums were often accumu- 
 lated in a few months. Any Englishman, whatever his age might be, might 
 hope to be one of the lucky emigrants. If he made a good speech in Leaden- 
 hall Street, or published a clever pamphlet in defence of the chairman, he 
 might be sent out in the Company's service, and might return in three or foyr 
 
556 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 years as rich as Pigot or as Clive. Thus the India House was a lottery-office, 
 ^ .:. 'jwhich invited everybody to takea^chance and held out ducal fortunes as the 
 } /brizes destined for the luclcy~tew. As soon as it was known that there was a 
 ■T^- ^zxl of the world where a lieutenant- colonel had one morning received as a 
 \ present an estate as large as that of the Earl of Bath or the Marquess of Rock- 
 ingham, and where it seemed that such a trifle as ten or twenty thousand 
 pounds was to be had by any British functionary for the asking, society began 
 to exhibit all the symptoms of the South Sea year, a feverish excitement, an 
 ungovernable impatience to be rich, a contempt for slow, sure and moderate 
 gains. 
 
 At the head of the preponderating party in the India House, had long stood 
 a powerful, able and ambitious director of the name of SulivaH. He had con- 
 ceived a strong jealousy of Clive, and remembered with bitterness the audacity 
 with which the late governor of Bengal had repeatedly set at nought the 
 authority of the distant Directors of the Company. An apparent reconciliation 
 took place after Clive's arrival ; but enmity remained deeply rooted in the 
 hearts of both. The whole body of Directors was then chosen annually. At 
 the election of 1763, Clive attempted to break down the power of the dominant 
 faction. The contest was carried on with a violence which he describes as 
 tremendous. Sulivan was victorious, and hastened to take his revenge. The 
 grant of rent which Clive had received from Meer Jaffie;' was, in the opinion of 
 the best English lawyers, valid. It had been made by exactly the same 
 authority from which the Company had received their chief possessions in ?en- 
 gal, and the Company had long acquiesced in it. The Directors, however, 
 most unjustly determined to confiscate it ; and Clive was forced to file a bill in 
 chancery against them. 
 
 But a great and sudden turn in affairs was at hand. Every ship from Bengal 
 had for some time brought alarming tidings. The internal misgovernment of 
 the province had reached such a point that it could go no further. What, in- 
 deed, was to be expected from a body of public servants exposed to temptation 
 such that, as Clive once said, flesh and blood could not bear it — armed with 
 irresistible power, and responsible only to the corrupt, turbulent, distracted, 
 ill-informed Company, situated at such a distance that the average interval 
 between the sending of a despatch and the receipt of an answer was above a 
 year and a half? Accordingly, during the five years which followed the 
 departure of Chve from Bengal, the misgovernment of the English was carried 
 to a point such as seems hardly "compatible with the very existence of society. 
 The Roman proconsul, who, in a year or two, squeezed out of a province the 
 means of rearing marble palaces and baths on the shores of Campania, of 
 drinking from amber, of feasting on singing birds, of exhibiting armies of 
 gladiators and flocks of camelopards — the Spanish viceroy, who, leaving behind 
 him the curses of Mexico or Lima, entered Madrid with a long train of gilded 
 coaches, and of sumpter-horses trapped and shod with silver, were now out- 
 done. Cruelty, indeed, properly so called, was not among the vices of the 
 servants of the Company. But cruelty itself could hardly have produced 
 greater evils than were the effect of their unprincipled eagerness to be rich. 
 They pulled down their creature, Meer Jaffier. They set up in his place 
 another Nabob named Meer Cossim. But Meer Cossim had talents and a 
 will ; and, though sufficiently inclined to oppress his subjects himself, he could 
 not bear to see them ground to the dust by oppressions which yielded him no 
 profit — nay, which destroyed his revenue in the very source. The English 
 accordingly pulled down Meer Cossim and set up Meer Jaffier again ; and 
 Meer Cossim, after revenging himself by a massacre surpassing in atrocity that 
 Qf the Black Hole, fled to the doniinion? of the Nabob pf Qud.e. At every Que 
 
LORD CLIVE. 557 
 
 of these revolutions, the new prince divided among his foreign masters whatever 
 could be scraped together in the treasury of his fallen predecessor. The immense 
 population of his dominions was given up as a prey to those who had made him 
 a sovereign and who could unmal^ him. The servants of the Company 
 obtained — not for their employers, but for themselves — a monopoly of almost 
 the whole internal trade. They forced the natives to buy dear and to 
 sell cheap. They insulted with perfect impunity the tribunals, the police 
 and the fiscal authorities of the country. They covered with their pro- 
 tection a set of native dependents who ranged through the provinces^ 
 spreading desolation and terror wherever they appeared. Every servant of 
 a British factor was armed with all the power of his master; and hi? 
 master was armed with all the power of the Company. Enormous fortunes 
 were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human 
 beings were reduced to the last extremity of wretchedness. They had been 
 accustomed to live under tyranny, but never under tyranny like this. They 
 found the little finger of the Company thicker than the loins of SurajaA Dowlah. 
 Under their old masters, they had at least one resource : when the evil became 
 insupportable, they rose and pulled down the government. But the English 
 government was not to be so shaken off. That government, oppressive as the 
 most oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was strong with all the strength 
 of civilisation It resembled the government of evil Genii rather than the gov- 
 ernment of human tyrants. Even despair could not inspire the soft Bengalee 
 with courage " to confront men of English breed — the hereditary nobility 
 of mankind, whose skill and valour had so often triumphed in spite of tenfold 
 odds. The unhappy race never attempted resistance. Sometime? they sub- 
 mitted in patient misery. Sometimes they fled from the white man, as their 
 fathers had been used to fly from the Mahratta ; and the palanquin of the 
 English traveller was often carried through silent villages and towns, which the 
 report of his approach had made desolate. 
 
 The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally objects of hatred to all the neigh- 
 bouring powers ; and to all the haughty race presented a dauntless front. The 
 English armies, everywhere outnumbered, were everywhere victorious. A suc- 
 cession of commanders, formed in the school of Clive, still maintained the fame 
 of their country. " It must be acknowledged," says the Mussulman historian 
 of those times, "that this nation's presence of mind, firmness of temper and 
 undaunted bravery are past all question. They joined the most resolute 
 courage to the most cautious prudence ; nor have they their equals in the art of 
 ranging themselves in battle array and fighting in order. If to so many military 
 qualifications they knew how to join the arts of government — if they exerted 
 as much ingenuity and solicitude in relieving the people of God as they do in 
 whatever concerns their military affairs — no nation in the world would be pre- 
 ferable to them or worthier of command. But the people under their dominion 
 groan everywhere, and are reduced to poverty and distress, O God ! come to 
 the assistance of thine afflicted servants and deliver them from the oppressions 
 which they suffer." 
 
 It was impossible, however, that even the military establishment should long 
 continue exempt from the vices which pervaded every other part of the govern- 
 ment. Rapacity, luxury and the spirit of insubordination spread from the 
 civil service to the officers of the army and from the officers to the soldiers. 
 . The evil continued to grow till every mess-room became the seat of conspiracy 
 and cabal, and till the sepoys could be kept in order only by wholesale excu- 
 tions. 
 
 At length the state of things in Bengal began to excite uneasiness at home. 
 A 5U?CCSSiQfi of yevQlutions \ a disorganised admipistration \ the paliVes 
 
558 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 pillaged, yet the Company not enriched ; every fleet bringing back individual* 
 able to purchase manors and to build stately dwellings, yet bringing back also 
 alarming accounts of the financial prospects of the government ; v^zx on the 
 frontiers ; disaffection in the army ; the national character disgraced by excesses 
 resembling those of Verres and Pizarro ; such was the spectacle which dis- 
 mayed those who were conversant with Indian affairs. The general cry was 
 that Clive, and Clive alone, could save the empire which he had founded. 
 
 This feeling manifested itself in the strongest manner at a very full General 
 Court of Proprietors. Men of all parties, forgetting their feuds and trembling 
 for their dividends, exclaimed that Clive was the man whom the crisis required, 
 that the oppressive proceedings which had been adopted respecting his estate 
 ought to be dropped, and that he ought to be entreated to return to India. 
 
 Clive rose. As to his estate, he said, he would make such propositions to 
 the Directors as would, he trusted, lead to an amicable settlement. But there 
 was a still greater difficulty. It was proper to tell them that he never would 
 undertake the government of Bengal while his enemy Sulivan was chairman of 
 the Company. The tumult was violent. Sulivan could scarcely obtain a 
 hearing. An overwhelming majority of the assembly was on Clive's side. 
 Sulivan wished to try the result of a ballot. But, according to the by-laws of 
 the Company, there can be no ballot except on a requisition signed by nine 
 proprietors ; and though hundreds were present, nine persons could not be 
 found to set their hands to such a requisition. 
 
 Clive was in consequence nominated Governor and Commander-in-chief of 
 the British possessions in Bengal. But he adhered to his declaration, and ■ 
 refused to enter on his office till the event of the next election of Directors 
 should be known. The contest was obstinate ; but Clive triumphed. Sulivan, 
 la,tely absolute master of the India House, was within a vote of losing his 
 own seat ; and both the chairman and the deputy-chairman were friends of the 
 new governor. 
 
 Such were the circumstances under which Lord Clive sailed for the third 
 and last time to India. In May, 1765, he reached Calcutta ; and he found the 
 whole machine of government even more fearfully disorganised than he had 
 anticipated. Meer Jaffier, who had some time before lost his eldest son 
 Meeran, had died while Clive was. on his voyage out. The English function- 
 aries at Calcutta had already received from home strict orders not to accept 
 presents from the native princes. But, eager for gain and unaccustomed to 
 respect the commands of their distant, ignorant and negligent masters, they 
 again set up the throne of Bengal for sale. About one hundred and forty 
 thousand pounds sterling was distributed among nine of the most powerful 
 servants of the Company ; and, in consideration of this bribe, an infant son of 
 the deceased Nabob was placed on the seat of his father. . The news of the 
 ignominious bargain met Clive on his arrival. In a private letter, written 
 immediately after his landing to an intimate friend, he poured out his feelings 
 in language which, proceeding from a man so daring, so resolute and so 
 little given to theatrical display of sentiment, seems to us singularly touching. 
 *' Alas ! " he says, "how is the English name sunk ! I could not avoid paying 
 the tribute of a few tears to the departed and lost fame of the British nation — 
 irrecoverably so, I fear. However, I do declare, by that great Being who is the 
 §earcher of all hearts, and to whom we must be accountable if there be a here- 
 ^ft,.er, that I am come out with a mind superior to all corruption, and that I 
 am determined to destroy these great and growing evils or perish in the 
 attempt." 
 
 The Council met ; and Clive stated to them his full determination to make a 
 thorough reform, ari4 to use for th^t purpose the whole Qf the ample authorityi 
 
LORD CLIVE. 559 
 
 civil and military, which had been confided to him. Johnstone, one of the 
 boldest and worst men in the assembly, made some show of opposition. Clive 
 interrupted him, and haughtily demanded whether he meant to question the 
 power of the new government. Johnstone was cowed, and disclaimed any 
 such intention. All the faces round 'The board grew long and pale ; at^d '"hot 
 another syllable of dissent was uttered. .'" ; 
 
 Clive redeemed his pledge. He remained in India about a yeaif and a 
 half ; and in that short time effected one of the most extensive, difficult and 
 salutary reforms that ever was accomplished by any statesman. This was the 
 part of his life on v/hich he afterwards looked back with most pride. He had it; 
 in his power to triple his already splendid fortune ; to connive at abuses while 
 pretending to remove them ; to conciliate the goodwill of all the English in 
 Bengal by giving up to their rapacity a helpless and timid race who knew not 
 where lay the island which sent forth their oppressors, and whose complaints 
 had little chance of being heard across fifteen thousand miles of ocean. He 
 knew that if he applied himself in earnest to the work of reformation, he should 
 raise every bad passion in arms against him. He knew how unscrupulous, how 
 implacable, would be the hatred of those ravenous adventurers who, having 
 counted on accifmulating in a few months fortunes sufficient to support 
 peerages, should find all their hopes frustrated. But he had chosen the good 
 part ; and he called up all the force of his mind for a battle far harder than 
 that of Plassey. At first success seemed hopeless ; but very soon all obstacles 
 began to bend before that iron courage and that vehement will. The receiving 
 of presents from the native;? was rigidly prohibited. The private trade of 
 the servants of the Company was put down. The whole settlement seemed 
 to be set, as one man, against these measures. But the inexorable governor 
 declared that, if he could not find support at Fort William, he would procure 
 it elsewhere, and sent for some civil servants from Madras to assist him in 
 carrying on the administration. The most factious of his opponents he turned 
 out of their offices. The rest submitted to what was inevitable ; and in a very 
 short time all resistance was quelled. 
 
 But Clive was far too wise a man not to see that the recent abuses were 
 partly to be ascribed to a cause which could not fail to produce similar abuses 
 as soon as the pressure of his strong hand was withdrawn. The Company 
 had followed a mistaken policy with respect to the remuneration of its servants. 
 The salaries w^ere too low to afford even those indulgences which are necessary 
 to the health and comfort of Europeans in a tropical climate. To lay by a 
 rupee from such scanty pay was impossible. It could not be supposed that 
 men of even average abilities would consent to pass the best years of life in 
 exile, under a burning sun, for no other consideration than these stinted wages. 
 It had accordingly been understood, from a very early period, that the Com- 
 pany's agents were at liberty to enrich themselves by their private trade. This 
 practice had been seriously injurious to the commercial interests of the cor- 
 poration. That very mtelligent observei. Sir Thomas Roe, in the reign of 
 James the First, strongly urged the Directors to apply a remedy to the abuse. 
 "Absolutely prohibit the private trade," said he ; " for your business will be 
 better done. I know this is harsh.' Men profess they come not for bare 
 wages. But you will take away this plea if you give great wages to their content ; 
 and then you know what you part from. " 
 
 In spite of this excellent advice, the Company adhered to the old system, 
 paid low salaries and connived at the by-gains of its servants. The pay pf 
 a member of Council was only three hundred pounds a year. Yet it was 
 notorious that such a functionary could hardly live in India for less than ten 
 times that sum ; and it could not be expected that he would be content to 
 
S6o LORD CLIVE. 
 
 ■ I- t - ^ . . . : ' _-' V -i. ' 
 
 live even handsomely in India without laying up something against the time of 
 his return to England. This system, before the conquest of Bengal, might 
 affect the amount of the dividends payable to the proprietors, but could do 
 little harm in any other way. But the Company was now a ruling body. Its 
 servants might still be called factors, junior merchants, senior merchants. 
 But they were in truth proconsuls, propraetors, procurators of extensive regions. 
 They had immense power. Their regular pay was universally admitted to be in- 
 sufficient. They were, by the ancient usage of the service and by the impHed 
 permission of their employers, warranted in enriching themselves by indirect 
 means ; and this had been the origin of the frightful oppression and corruption 
 which had desolated Bengal. Clive saw clearly that it was absurd to give men 
 power and to expect that they would be content to live in penury. He justly 
 concluded that no reform could be effectual which should not be coupled with 
 a plan for liberally remunerating the civil servants of the Company. The 
 Directors, he knew, were not disposed to sanction any increase of the salaries 
 out of their own treasury. The only course which remained open to the 
 governor was one which exposed him to much misrepresentation, but which 
 we think him fully justified in adopting. He appropriated to the support of 
 the service the monopoly of salt, which has formed, down to our own time, a 
 principal head of Indian revenue ; and he divided the proceeds according to a 
 scale which seems to have been not unreasonably 'fixed. He was in conse- 
 quence accused by his enemies, and has been accused by historians, of 
 disobeying his instructions — of violating his promises — of authorising that very 
 abuse which it was his special mission to destroy — namely, the trade of the 
 Company's servants. But every discerning and impartial judge will admit 
 ■that there was really nothing in common between the system which he set up 
 and that which ' he was sent to destroy. The monopoly of salt had been a 
 source of revenue to the governments of India before Clive was born. It 
 continued to be so long after his death. The civil servants were clearly 
 entitled to a maintenance out of the revenue ; and all that CUve did was to 
 charge a particular portion of the revenue with their maintenance. He thus, 
 while he put an end to the practices by which gigantic fortunes had been rapidly 
 accumulated, gave to every British functionary employed in the East the 
 means of slowly, but surely, acquiring a competence. Yet, such is the 
 injustice of mankind, that none of those acts which are the real stains of his 
 life has drawn on him so much obloquy as this measure, which was in truth 
 a reform necessary to the success of all his other reforms. 
 
 He had quelled the opposition of the civil service : that of the army was 
 more formidable. Some of the retrenchments which had been ordered by the 
 Directors affected the interests of the military service ; and a storm arose, 
 such as even Coesar would not willingly have faced. It was no light thing to 
 encounter the resistance of those who held the power of the sword in a 
 country governed only by the sword. Two hundred English officers engaged 
 in a conspiracy against the government and determined to resign their 
 commissions on the same day, not doubting that Clive would grant any 
 terms rather than see the army, on which alone the British empire in the East 
 rested, left without commanders. They httle knew the unconquerable spirit 
 with which they had to deal. Clive had still a few officers round his person 
 on whom he could rely. He sent to Fort St. George for a fresh supply. He 
 gave commissions even to mercantile agents who were disposed to support 
 him at this crisis ; and he sent orders that every officer who resigned should 
 b-; instantly brought up to Calcutta. The conspirators found that they had 
 miscalculated. The governor was inexorable. The troops were steady. 
 The sepoys, over whom Clive had always possessed extraordinary influence. 
 
LORD CUV£. 561 
 
 Btood by him with unshaken fidelity. The leaders in the plot were arrested, 
 tried and cashiered. The rest, humbled and dispirited, begged to be per- 
 mitted to withdraw their resignations. Many of them declared their repentance 
 even with tears. The younger offenders Clive treated with lenity. To the 
 ringleaders he was inflexibly severe >-lDUt his severity was pure from all taint 
 of private malevolence. While he sternly upheld the just authority of his 
 office- he passed by personal insults and injuries with magnanimous disdain. 
 One of the conspirators was accused of having planned the assassination of 
 the governor; but Clive would not listen to the charge. "The officers,"' he 
 ivaid, "are Englishmen', not assassins." 
 
 V/hile he reformed the civil service and established his authority over the 
 army, he was equally successful in his foreign policy. His landing on Indian 
 ground was the signal for immediate peace. The Nabob of Oude, with a 
 large army, lay at that time on the frontier of Bahar. He had been joined 
 by many Afghans and Mahrattas, and there was no small reason to expect a 
 general coalition of all the native powers against the English. But the name 
 of Clive quelled in an instant all opposition. The enemy implored peace in 
 the humblest language, and submitted to such terms as the new governor 
 choose to dictate. 
 
 At the same Mme, the Government of Bengal vi^as placed on a new footing. 
 The power of the English in that province hud hitherto been altogether 
 undefined. It was unknown to the ancient constitution of the empire and it 
 had been ascertained by no compact. It resembled the power which, in the 
 last decrepitude of the Western Empire, was exercised over Italy by the great 
 chiefs of foreign mercenaries, the Ricimers and the Odoacers, who put up and 
 pulled down at their pleasure a succession of insignificent princes dignified 
 with the names of Coesar and Augustus. But, as in the one case so in the 
 other, the warlike strangers at length found it expedient to give to a domi- 
 nation which had been established by arms at once the sanction of law and 
 ancient prescription. TheodoriC' thought it politic to obtain from the distant 
 court of Byzantium a commission appointing him ruler of Italy ; and Clive, in 
 the same manner, applied to the Court of Delhi for a formal grant of the 
 powers of which he already possessed the reality. The Mogul was absolutely 
 helpless ; and, though he murmured, had reason to be well pleased that the 
 English were disposed to give soiled rupees, which he never could have extorted 
 from them, in exchange for a few Persian characters which cost him nothing. 
 A bargain was speedily struck ; and the titular sovereign of Hindostan issued 
 a warrant, empowering the Company to collect and administer the revenues of 
 Bengal, Orissa and Bahar. 
 
 There was still a Nabob, who stood to the British authorities in the same 
 relation in which the last driveling Chilperics and Childerics of the Merovin- 
 gian line stood to their able and vigorous Mayors of the Palace — to Charles 
 Martel and to Pepin. At one time Clive had almost made up his mind to 
 discard this phantom altogether ; but he afterwards thought that it: might be 
 convenient still to use th^name of the Nabob, particularly in dealings with 
 oitier European Nations. The French, the Dutch and the Danes would, he 
 conceived, submit far more readily to the authority of the native Prince, whom 
 they had always been accustomed to respect, than to that of a rival trading 
 corporation. This policy may, at that time, have been judicious. But the 
 pretence was soon found to be too flimsy to impose on anybody, and it was 
 altogether laid aside. The heir of Meer Jaffier still resides at Moorshedabad, 
 the ancient capital of his house, still bears the title of Nabob, is still accosted 
 by the English as " Your Highness," and is still suffered to retain a portion of 
 the regal state which surrounded his ancestors. A pension of a hundred and 
 
562 LORD CLlVE. 
 
 sixty thousand pounds a year is annually paid to him by the government. His 
 carriage is surrounded by guards and preceded by attendants with silver 
 maces. His person and his dwelling are exempted from the ordinary authority 
 of the ministers of justice. But he has not the smallest share of political 
 power, and is, in fact, only a noble and wealthy subject of the Company. 
 
 It would have been easy for Clive, during his second administration in 
 Bengal, to accumulate riches such as no subject in Europe possessed; He 
 might, indeed, without subjecting the rich inhabitants of the province to any 
 pressure beyond that to which their mildest rulers had. accustomed them, have 
 received presents to the amount of three hundred thousand pounds a-year. 
 The neighbouring Princes would gladly have paid any price for his favour. 
 But he appears to. have strictly adhered to the rules which he had laid down for 
 the guidance of others. The Prince of Benares offered him diamonds of great 
 value. The Nabob of Oude pressed him to accept a large sum of money and 
 a casket of costly jewels. Clive courteously, but peremptorily, refused ; and it 
 should be observed that he made no merit of his refusal, and that the fact did 
 not come to light till after his death. He kept an exact account of his salary, 
 of his share of the profits accruing from the trade in salt, and of those presents 
 which, according to the fashion of the East, it would be churlish to refuse. 
 Out of the sum arising from these resources, he defrayed the expenses of his 
 situation. The surplus he divided among a few attached friends who had 
 accompanied him to India. He always boasted, and as far as we can judge, he 
 boasted with truth, that his last administration diminished instead of increasing 
 his fortune. 
 
 One large sum indeed he accepted. Meer Jaffier had left him by will above 
 sixty thousand pounds sterling in specie and jewels : and the rules which had 
 been recently laid down extended only to presents from the living and did not 
 affect legacies from the dead. Clive took the money, but not for himself. He 
 made the whole over to the Company in trust for officers and soldiers invalided 
 in their service. The fund which still bears his name owes its origin to this 
 princely donation. 
 
 After a stay of eighteen months, the state of his health rendered it necessary 
 for him to return to Europe. At the close of January, 1767, he quitted for the 
 last time the country on whose destinies he had exercised so mighty an 
 influence. 
 
 His second return from Bengal was not, like his first, greeted by the accla- 
 mations of his countrymen. Numerous causes were already at work which 
 embittered the remaining years of his life and hurried him to an untimely 
 grave. His old enemies at the India House were still powerful and active ; 
 and they had been reinforced by a large band of allies whose violence far 
 exceeded their own. The whole crew of pilferers and oppressors from whom he 
 had rescued Bengal persecuted him with the implacable rancour which belongs 
 to such abject natures. Tvlany of them even invested their property in India 
 stock me'rely that they might be better able to annoy the man whose firmness 
 had set bounds to their rapacity. Lying newspapers were set up for no purpose 
 but to abuse him ; and the temper of the public mind was then such, that these 
 arts, which under ordinary circumstances would have been ineffectual against 
 truth and merit, produced an extraordinary impression. 
 
 The great events which had taken place in India had called into existence 
 a new class of Englishmen to whom their countrymen gave the name of 
 Nabobs. These persons had generally sprung from families neither ancient nor 
 opulent,; they had generally been sent at an early age to the East ; and they 
 had there acquired large fortunes, which they had brought back to their native 
 land. It was natural that, not having had much opportunity of mixing with 
 
LO^f)(;i;IV^, 563 
 
 the best society, they should exhibit some of the awkwardness and some of the 
 pomposity of upstarts. It was natural that, during their sojourn in Asiaj they 
 should have acquired some tastes and habits surprising, if not disgusting, to 
 persons who never had quitted Europe. It was iiatural that, having enjoyed 
 great consideration in the East, they shfCuld not be disposed to sink into obscu- 
 rity at home ; and as they had money and had not birth or high connection, it 
 was natural that they should display a little obtrusively the single advantage 
 which they possessed. Wherever they settled there was a kind of feud between 
 them and the old nobility and geni:ry similar to that which raged in France 
 between the farmer-general and the marquess. This enmity to the aristocracy 
 long continued to distinguish the servants of the Company. More than twenty 
 years after the time of which we are now speakings Burke pronounced that 
 among the Jacobins might be reckoned " the East Indians almost to a man, 
 who cannot bear to find that their present importance does not bear a propor- 
 tion to there wealth. 
 
 The Nabobs soon became a most unpopular class of men. Some of them 
 had in the East displayed eminent talents and rendered great services to the 
 state ; but at home their talents were not shown to advantage and their services 
 were little known. That they had sprung from obscurity, that they had 
 acquired great wealth, that they exhibited it insolently, that they spent it extra- 
 vagantly, that they raised the price of everything in their neighbourhood from 
 fresh eggs to rotten boroughs, that their liveries outshone those of dukes, that 
 their coaches were finer than that of the Lord Mayor, that the examples of their 
 large and ill-governed households corrupted half the servants in the country, 
 that some of them, with all their magnificence, could not catch the tone of 
 good society, but, in spite of the stud and the crowd of menials, of the plate 
 and the Dresden china, of the venison and the Burgundy, were still low men ; 
 these were things which excited, both in the class from which they had sprung 
 and in that into which they attempted to force themselves, the bitter aversion 
 which is the effect of mingled envy and contempt. But when it was also 
 rumoured that the fortune, which had enabled its possessor to eclipse the Lord 
 Lieutenant on the race-ground, or to carry the county against the head of a 
 house as old as "Domes-Day Book," had been accumulated by violating pub- 
 lic faith — by deposing legitimate princes — by reducing whole provinces to 
 beggary, all the higher and better as well as all the low and evil parts, of human 
 nature were stirred against the wretch who had obtained by guilt and dishonour, 
 the riches which he now lavished with arrogant and inelegant profusion. The 
 unfortunate Nabob seemed to be made up of those foibles against which comedy 
 has pointed the most merciless ridicule, and of those crimes which have thrown 
 the deepest gloom over tradegy — of Turcaret and Nero, of Monsieur Jourdain 
 and Richard the Third. A tempest of execration and derision, such as can be 
 compared only to that outbreak of public feeling against the Puritans which 
 took place at the time of the Restoration, burst on the servants; of the Com- 
 pany. The numane man was horror-struck at the way in which they had got 
 their money, the thrifty man at the way in which they spent it. The Dilet- 
 tante sneered at their want of taste. The Maccaroni black-balled them as 
 vulgar fellows. Writers the most unlike in sentiment and style — Methodists 
 and Ubertines, philosophers and buffoons — were for once on the same side. It 
 is hardly too much to say that, during a space of about thfrty years, the 
 whole lighter literature of England was coloured by the feelings which we have 
 described. Foote brought on the stage an Anglo-Indian chief, dissolute, ungen- 
 erous and tyrannical, ashamed of the humble friends of his youth, hating the 
 aristocracy, yet childishly eager to be numbered among them, squandering his 
 wealth pn pandars and flatterers, tricking out his chairmen with the most costly 
 
564 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 hot -house flowers, and astounding the ignorant with jargon about rupees, lacs 
 and jaghires. Mackenzie, with more delicate humour, depicted a plain coun- 
 try family raised by the Indian acquisitions of one of its members to sudden 
 opulence and exciting derision by an awkward mimicry of the manners of the 
 great. Cowper, in that lofty expostulation which glows with the very spirit of 
 the Hebrew poets, placed the oppression of India foremost in the list of those 
 national crimes for which God had punished England with years of disastrous 
 war, with discomfiture in her own seas, and with the loss of her transatlantic 
 empire. If any of our readers will take the trouble to search in the dusty 
 recesses of circulating libraries for some novel published sixty years ago, the 
 chance is that the villain or sub-villian of the story will prove to be a savage 
 old Nabob, with an immense fortune, a tawny complexion, a bad liver and a 
 worse heart. 
 
 Such, as far as we can now judge, was the feeling of the country respecting 
 Nabobs in general. And Clive was eminently the Nabob — the ablest, the 
 most celebrated, the highest in rank, the highest in fortune, of all the fraternity. 
 His wealth was exhibited in a manner which could not fail to excite odium. 
 He lived with great magnificence in Berkeley Square. He reared one palace 
 in Shropshire and another at Claremont. His parliamentary influence might 
 vie with tnat of the greatest families. But in all this splendour and power 
 envy found something to sneer at. On some of his relations wealth and dignity 
 seem to have sat as awkwardly as on Mackenzie's Margery Mushroom. 
 Nor was he himself, with all his great qualities, free from those weaknesses 
 which the satirists of that ^ge represented as characteristic of his whole class. 
 In the field, indeed, his habits were !:emarkably simple. He was constantly 
 on horseback, was never seen but in his uniform, never wore silk, jiever-entered 
 "a palanquin, and was content with the plainest fare. But when he was no 
 longer at the head of an army, he laid aside this Spartan temperance for the 
 ostentatious luxury of a Sybarite. Though his person was ungraceful, and 
 though his harsh features were redeemed from vulgar ugliness only by their 
 stern, dauntless and commanding expression, he was fond of rich and gay 
 clothing, and replenished his wardrobe with absurd profusion. Sir John Mal- 
 colm gives us a letter worthy of Sir Matthew Mite, in which Clive orders 
 7b hundred shirts, the best and finest that can be got for love or money^^^ 
 A few follies of this description, grossly exaggerated by report, produced an 
 unfavourable impression on the public mind. But this was not the worst. 
 Black stories, of which the greater part were pure inventions, were circulated 
 respecting his conduct in the East. He had to bear the whole odium, not only 
 of those bad acts to which he had once or twice stooped, but of all the bad 
 acts of all the English in India — of bad acts committed w^hen he was absent — 
 nay, of bad acts which he had manfully opposed and severely punished. The 
 very abuses against which he had waged an honest, resolute and successful war 
 were laid to his account. He was, in fact, regarded as the personification of 
 all the vices and weaknesses which the public, with or without reason, ascribed 
 to the English adventurers in Asia. | We have ourselves heard old men, who 
 knew nothing of his history, but who still retained the prejudices conceived in 
 their youth, talk of him as an incarnate fiend. Johnson always held this 
 language. Brown, whom Clive employed to lay out his pleasure grounds, was 
 amazed to see in the house of his noble employer a chest which had once been 
 filled with gold from the treasury of Moorshedabad, and could not understand 
 how the conscience of the criminal could suffer him to sleep with such an object 
 so near to his bedchamber. The peasantry of Surrey looked with mysterious 
 horror on the stately house which was rising at Claremont, and whispered that 
 the great wicked lord had ordered the walls to bg mc^de 50 tl^ick iri order to 
 
LORD CLIVE, 565 
 
 keep out the devil, who would one day carry him away bodily. Among the 
 gapmg clowns who drank in this frightful story was a worthless ugly lad of the 
 name of Hunter, since widely known as William Huntingdon, S.S. ; and the 
 superstition, which was strangely mingled with the knavery of that remarkable 
 impostor, seems to have derived no smafT nutriment from the tales which he 
 heard of the life and character of Clive. * 
 
 In the meantime, the impulse which Clive had given to the administration 
 of Bengal was constantly becoming fainter and fainter. His policy was to a 
 great extent abandoned ; the abuses which he had suppressed began to revive ; 
 and, at length, the evils which a bad government had engendered were aggra- 
 vated by one of those fearful visitations which the best government cannot 
 avert. In the summer of 1770, the rains failed ; the earth was parched up; 
 the tanks were empty ; the rivers shrank within their beds ; and a famine, 
 such as is known only in countries where every household depends for support 
 on its own little patch of cultivation, filled the whole valley of the Ganges with 
 misery and death. Tender and delicate v/omen, whose veils had never been 
 lifted before the public gaze, came forth from the inner chambers in which 
 Eastern jealousy had kept watch over their beauty, threw themselves on the 
 earth before the passers-by, and, with loud wailings, implored a handful of 
 nee for their children. The Hoogley every day rolled down thousands of 
 corpses close to the porticoes and gardens of the English conquerors. The 
 very streets of Calcutta were blocked up by the dying and the dead. The lean 
 and feeble survivors had not energy enough to bear the bodies of their kindred 
 to the funeral pile or to the holy river, or even to scare away the jackals and 
 vultures, who fed on human remains in *the face , of day. The extent of the 
 mortality was never ascertained, but it was popularly reckoned by millions. 
 This melancholy intelligence added to the excitement which already prevailed 
 in England on Indian subjects. The proprietors of East India stock were 
 uneasy about their dividends. All men of common humanity were touched by 
 the calamities of our unhappy subjects ; and indignation soon began to mingle 
 itself with pity. It was rumoured that the Company's servants had created the 
 famine by engrossing all the rice of the country ; that they had sold grain for 
 eight, ten, twelve times the price at which they had bought it ; that one 
 English functionary who, the year before, was not worth a hundred guineas, 
 had, during that season of misery, remitted sixty thousand pounds to London. 
 These charges we believe to have been unfounded. That servants of the 
 Company had ventured, since Clive's departure, to deal in rice, is probable. 
 That, if they dealt in rice, they must have gained by the scarcity, is certain. 
 But there is no reason for thinking that they either produced or aggravated an 
 evil which physical causes sufficiently explain. The outcry which was raised 
 against them on this occasion was, we suspect, as absurd as the imputations 
 which, in times of dearth at home, were once thrown by statesmen and judges, 
 and are still thrown by two or three old women, on the corn factors. It was, 
 however, so loud and so general that it appears to have imposed even on an 
 intellect raised so high above vulgar prejudices as that of Adam Smith.! What 
 was still more extraordinary, these unhappy events greatly increased the un- 
 popularity of Lord Clive. He had been some years in England when the 
 famine took place. None of his acts had the smallest tendency to produce 
 such a calamity. If the servants of the Company had traded in rice, they had 
 done so in direct contravention of the rule which he had laid down and, 
 while in power, had resolutely enforced. But, in the eyes of his countrymen, 
 
 * §e? Huntingdon's Kingdom of Heaven taken by Prayer, and his Letters, 
 f Wealtli of Natipas, Pppk iv., cbap. 5— Pjsressior., 
 
566 .LORD CLIVE. 
 
 he was, as we have said, the Nabob, the Anglo-Indian character personified ; 
 and, while he was building and planting in Surrey, he was held responsible 
 for all the effects of a dry season in Bengal. 
 
 Parliament had hitherto bestowed very little attention on our Eastern 
 possessions. Since the death of George the Second, a rapid succession of 
 weak administrations, each of which was in turn flattered and betrayed by the 
 Court, had held the semblance of power. Intrigues in the palace, riots in the 
 capital and insurrectionary movements in the American colonies had left the 
 advisers of the Crown little leisure to study Indian politics. When they did 
 interfere, their interference was feeble and irresolute. Lord Chatham, indeed, 
 during the short period of his ascendancy in the councils of George the Third, 
 had meditated a bold attack on the Company. But his plans were rendered 
 abortive by the strange malady which about that time began to overcloud his 
 splendid genius. 
 
 At length, in 1772, it was generally felt that Parliament could no longer 
 neglect the affairs of India. The Government was stronger than any which 
 had held power since the breach between Mr. Pitt and the great Whig connec- 
 tion in 1 76 1. No pressing question of domestic or European policy required 
 the attention of public men. There was a short and delusive lull between two 
 tempests. The excitement produced by the Middlesex election was over ; the 
 discontents of America did not yet threaten civil war ; the financial difficulties 
 of the Company brought on a crisis ; the Ministers were forced to take up the 
 subject ; and the whole storm, which had long been gathering, now broke at 
 once on the head of Clive. , 
 
 His situation was indeed singularly unfortunate. He was hated throughout 
 the country, hated at the India House, hated, above all, by those wealthy and 
 powei-ful servants of the Company whose rapacity and tyranny he had with- 
 stood. He had to bear the double odium of his bad and of his good actions, 
 of every Indian abuse and of every Indian reform. The state of the political world 
 was such that he could count on the support of no powerful connection. The 
 party to which he had belonged, that of George Grenvjlle, had been hostile to 
 the Government, and yet had never cordially united with the other sections 
 of the Opposition — with the little band which still followed the fortunes of Lord 
 Chatham, or with the large and respectable body of which Lord Rockingham 
 was the acknowledged leader. George Grenville was now dead : his followers 
 were scattered ; and Clive, unconnected with any of the powerful factions which 
 divided the Parliament, could reckon only on the votes of those members who 
 were returned by himself. His enemies, particularly those who were the ene- 
 mies of his virtues, were imscrupulous, ferocious, implacable. Their malevo- 
 lence aimed at nothing less than the utter ruin of his fame and fortune. 
 They wished to see him expelled from Parliament, to see his spurs chopped off, 
 to see his estate confiscated ; and it may be doubted whether even such a result 
 as this would have quenched their thirst for revenge. 
 
 Clive's parliamentary tactics resembled his military tactics. Deserted, sur- 
 rounded, outnumbered, and with everything at stake, he did not even deign to 
 stand on the defensive, but pushed boldly forward to the attack. At an early stage 
 of the discussions on Indian affairs, he rose and, in a long and elaborate speech, 
 vindicated himself from a large part of the accusations which had been brought 
 against him. He is said to have produced a great impression on his audi- 
 ence. Lord Chatham, who, now the ghost of his former self, loved to haunt 
 the scene of his glory, was that night under the gallery of the House of Com- 
 mons, and declared that he had never heard a finer speech. It was subsequently 
 printed under Clive's direction, and must be allowed to exhibit, not merely 
 strong sense and a manly spirit, but talents both for disquisition and declania' 
 
LOkb CUVE. 567 
 
 tion which assiduous culture might have improved into the highest excellence. 
 He confined his defence on this occasion to the measures of his last administra* 
 tion, and succeeded so far that his enemies thenceforth thought it ■expedient 
 to direct their attacks chiefly against the earher part of his life. 
 
 The earlier part of his life unforti^iately presented some assailable points 
 to their hostility. A committee was chosen by ballot to inquire into the 
 affairs of India ; and by this committee the whole history of that great 
 revolution which threw down Surajah Dowlah and raised Meer Jaffier was 
 sifted with malignant care. Chve was subjected to the most unsparing ex- 
 amination and cross-examination, and afterwards bitterly complained that he, 
 the Baron of Plassey, had been treated like a sheep-stealer. The boldness and 
 ingenuousness of his replies would alone suffice to show how alien from 
 his nature were the frauds to which, in the course of his eastern negotiations, he 
 had sometimes descended. He avowed the arts which he had employed to de- 
 ceive Omichund, and resolutely said that he was not ashamed of them,- and 
 that, in the same circumstances, he would again act in the same manner. 
 Me admitted that he had received immense sums from Meer Jaffier ; but he 
 denied that, in doing so, he had violated any obligation of morahty or 
 honour. He laid claim, on the contrary, and not without some reason, to 
 the praise of eminent disinterestedness. He described in vivid language the 
 situation in which his victory had placed him — a great prince dependent 
 on his pleasure ; an opulent city afraid of being given up to plunder ; wealthy 
 bankers bidding against each other for his smiles; vaults piled with gold and 
 jewels thrown open to him alone. " By God, Mr. Chairman," he exclaimed, 
 "at this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation." 
 
 The inquiry was sd extensive that the Houses rose before it had been com- 
 pleted. It was continued in the following session. When at length the 
 committee had concluded its labours, enlightened and impartial men had 
 little difficulty in making up their minds as to the result. It was clear 
 that Clive had been guilty of some acts which it is impossible to vindicate with- 
 out attacking the authority of all the most sacred laws which regulate the 
 intercourse of individuals and of states. But it' was equally clear that he had 
 displayed great talents and even great virtues ; that he had rendered emin'ent 
 .services both to his country and to the people of India ; and that it was in 
 truth not for his dealings with Meer Jaffi^er, nor for the fraud which he had 
 practised on Omichund, but for his determined resistance to avarice and 
 tyranny that he was now called in question. 
 
 Ordinary criminal justice knows nothing of set-off. The greatest desert 
 cannot be pleaded in answer to a charge of the slightest transgression. If a 
 man has sold beer on a Sunday morning, it is no defence that he has saved 
 the life of a fellow-creature at the risk of his own. If he has harnessed a 
 Newfoundland dog to his little child's carriage, it is no defence that he was 
 wounded at Waterloo. But it is not in this way that we ought to deal with 
 men who, raised far above ordinary restraints and tried by far more than 
 ordinary temptations, are entitled to a more than ordinary measure of in- 
 dulgence. vSuch men should be judged by their contemporaries as they will be 
 judged by posterity. Their bad actions ought not indeed to be called good ; 
 but their good and bad actions ought to be fairly weighed — and if on the-whole 
 the good preponderate, the sentence ought to be one, not merely of' ac- 
 quittal, but of approbation. Not a ^sin^ld great ruler in histor>' can be 
 absolved by a judge who fixes his eye inexorably on one or two unjustifiable 
 acts. Bruce the deliverer of vScotland, Maurice the deliverer of Germany, 
 William the deliverer of Holland, his great descendant the deliverer of Eng- 
 land, Murray the good regent, Cosmo the father of Ms country, Henry the 
 
568 LORD CLIVE. 
 
 Fourth of France, Peter the Great of Russia — how would the best 0^ them 
 pass such a scrutiny ? History takes wider views ; and the best tribunal for 
 great political cases is the tribunal which anticipates the verdict of history. 
 
 Reasonable and moderate men of all parties felt this in Clive's case. They 
 could not pronounce him blameless ; but they were not disposed to abandon 
 him to that low-minded and rancorous pack who had run him down and were 
 eager to worry him to death. Lord North, though not very friendly to him, 
 was not disposed to go to extremities against him. While the inquiry was 
 still in progress, Clive, who had some years before been created a Knight of 
 the Bath, was installed with great pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chapel. 
 He was soon after appointed Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire. When he 
 kissed hands, George the Third, who had always been partial to him, ad- 
 mitted him to a private audience, talked to him half an hour on Indian 
 politics, and was visibly affected when the persecuted general spoke of his 
 services and cf the way in which they had been requited. 
 
 At length the charges came in a definite form before the House of 
 Commons. Burgoyne, chairman of the committee, a man of wit, fashion 
 and honour, an agreeable dramatic writer, an officer whose courage was 
 never questioned and whose skill was at that time highly esteemed, appeared 
 as the accuser. The members of the administration took different sides ; for 
 in that age all questions were open questions, except such as were brought 
 forward by the Government, or such as implied censure on the Government. 
 Thurlow, the Attorney- General, was among the assailants. Wedderburne, 
 the Solicitor-General, strongly attached to Clive, defended his friend with ex- 
 traordinary force of argument and language. It is a curious circumstance 
 that, some years later, Thurlow was the most conspicuous champion of 
 Warren Hastings, while Wedderburne was among the most unrelenting per- 
 secutors of that great though not faultless statesman. Clive spoke in his own 
 defence at less length and with less art than in the preceding year, but with 
 much energy and pathos. He recounted his great actions and his wrongs ; and, 
 after bidding his hearers remember that they were about to decide not only 
 on his honour but on their own, he retired from the House. 
 
 The Commons resolved that acquisitions made by the arms of the State 
 belong to the State alone, and that it is illegal in the servants of the State to 
 appropriate such acquisitions to themselves. They resolved that this whole- 
 some rule appeared to have been systematically violated by the English func- 
 tionaries in Bengal. On a subsequent day they went a step further, and re- 
 solved that Clive had, by means of the power which he possessed as com- 
 mander of the British forces in India, obtained large sums from Meer Jaffier. 
 Here the Commons stopped. They had voted the major and minor of 
 Burgoyne's syllogism ; but they shrank from drawing the logical conclusion. 
 When it was moved that Lord Clive had abused his powers and set an evil 
 example to the servants of the public, the previous question was put and 
 carried. At length, long after the sun had risen on an animated debate, 
 Wedderburne moved that Lord Clive had at the same time rendered great 
 and meritorious services to his country ; and this motion passed without a 
 division. 
 
 The result of this memorable inquiry appears to us, on the whole, honour- 
 able to the justice, moderation and discernment of the Commons. They had 
 indeed no great temptation to do wrong. They would have been very bad 
 judges of an accusation brought against Jenkinson or against Wilkes. But the 
 question respecting Clive was not a party question ; and the House accordingly 
 acted with the good sense and good feeling which may always be expected 
 from an assembly of English gentlemen not blinded by faction. 
 
LORD CLIVE. 569 
 
 The equitable and temperate proceedings of the British Parliament were set 
 off to the greatest advantage by a foil. The wretched government of Louis 
 the Fifteenth had murdered, directly or indirectly, almost every Frenchman 
 who had served his country with distinction in the East. Labourdonnais was 
 flung into the Bastile, and, after years of«uffering, left it only to die. Dupleix, 
 stripped of his immense fortune and broken-hearted by humiliating attend- 
 ance in ante-chambers, sank into an obscure grave. Lally was dragged to the 
 common place of execution with a gag between his lips. The Commons of 
 England, on the other hand, treated their living captain with that discrimi- 
 nating justice which is seldom shown except to the dead. They laid down 
 sound general principles ; they delicately pointed out where he had deviated 
 from those principles ; and they tempered the gentle censure with liberal 
 eulogy. The contrast struck Voltaire, always partial to England and always 
 eager to expose the abuses of the Parliaments of France. Indeed, he seems, at 
 this time, to have meditated a history of the conquest of Bengal. Pie men- 
 tioned his design to Dr. Moore, when that amusing writer visited him at 
 Ferney. Wedderburne took great interest in the matter, and pressed Clive to 
 furnish materials. Had the plan been carried into execution, we have no 
 doubt that Voltaire would have produced a book containing much lively and 
 picturesque narrative, many just and humane sentiments poignantly expressed, 
 many grotesque blunders, many sneers at the Mosaic chronology, much scandal 
 about the Catholic missionaries, and much sublime theo-philanthropy, stolen 
 from the New Testament and put into the mouths of virtuous and philo- 
 sophical Brahmins. 
 
 Clive was now secure in the enjoyment of his fortune and his honours. He 
 was surrounded by attached friends and relations ; and he had not yet passed 
 the season of vigorous bodily and mental exertion. But clouds had long been 
 gathering over his mind, and now settled on it in thick darkness. From early 
 youth he had been subject to fits of that strange melancholy " which rejoiceth 
 exceedingly and is glad when it can find the grave." While still a writer at 
 Madras, he had twice attempted to destroy himself. Business and prosperity 
 had produced a salutary effect on his spirits. In India, while he was occupied 
 by great affairs, in England, while wealth and rank had still the charm of 
 novelty, he had borne up against his constitutional misery. But he had now 
 nothing to do and nothing to wish for. His active spirit in an inactive situa- 
 tion drooped and withered like a plant in an uncongenial air. The malignity 
 with which his enemies had pursued him, the indignity with which he had 
 been treated by the committee, the censure, lenient as it was, which the House 
 of Commons had pronounced, the knowledge that he was regarded by a large 
 portion of his countrymen as a cruel and perfidious tyrant, all concurred to 
 irritate and depress him. In the meantime his temper was tried by acute 
 physical suffering. During his long residence in tropical chmates he had con- 
 tracted several painful distempers. In order to obtain ease he called in the 
 help of opium ; and he was gradually enslaved by this treacherous ally. To 
 the last, however, his genius occasionally flashed through the gloom. It was 
 said that he would sometimes, after sitting silent and torpid for hours, rouse 
 himself to the discussion of some great question, would display in full vigour 
 all the talents of the soldier and the statesman, and would then sink back into 
 his melancholy repose. 
 
 The disputes with America had now become so serious that an appeal to the 
 sword seemed inevitable ; and the Ministers were desirous to avail themselves 
 of the services of Clive. Had he still been what he was when he raised the 
 siege of Patna and annihilated the Dutch army and navy at the rrKnkh of the 
 Ganges, it is not impropable that the resistance of the colonists would have 
 
570 LORD CUVE. 
 
 been put down and that the inevitable separation would have been deferred 
 for a few years. But it was too late. His strong mind was fast sinking 
 under many kinds of suffering. . On the 22nd of November, 1774, ^^ died 
 by his own hand. He had just completed his forty-ninth year. 
 
 In the awful close of so much prosperity and glory, the vulgar saw only a 
 confirmation of all their prejudices ; and some men 'of real piety and genius 
 so far forgot the maxims- both of religion and of philosophy as confidently 
 to ascribe the mournful event to the just vengeance of God and to the 
 horrors of an evil conscience. It is with very different feelings that we con- 
 template the spectacle of a great mind ruined by the v/eariness of satiety, by 
 the pangs of wounded honour, by fatal diseases and more fatal remedies. 
 
 Clive committed great faults ; and we have not attempted to disguise them. 
 But his faults, when weighed against his merits and viewed in connection 
 with his temptations, do not appear to us to deprive him of his right to an 
 honourable place in the estimation of posterity. 
 
 From his first visit to India dates the renown of the English arms in the 
 East. Till he appeared, his countrymen were despised as mere pedlars, while 
 the French were revered as a people formed for victory and command. His 
 courage and capacity dissolved the charm. With the defence of Arcot com- 
 mences that long series of Oriental triumphs which closes with the fall of 
 Ghizni. Nor must we forget that he was only twenty-five years old when he 
 approved himself ripe for military command. This is a rare if not a singular 
 distinction. It is true that Alexander, Conde and Charles XII. won great 
 battles at a still earlier age ; but those princes were surrounded by veteran 
 generals of distinguished skill, to those suggestions must be attributed the 
 victories of the Granicus, of Rocroi and of Narva. Clive, an inexperienced 
 youth, had yet more experience than any of those who served under him. He 
 had to form himself, to form his officers and to form his army. The only 
 man, as far as we recollect, who at an equally early age ever gave equal proofs 
 of talents for war was Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 From dive's second visit to India dates the political ascendancy of the 
 English in that country. His dexterity and resolution realised, in the course 
 of a few months, more than all the gorgeous visions which had floated before 
 the imagination of Dupleix. Such an extent of cultivated territory, such an 
 amount of revenue, such a multitude of subjects, was never added to the 
 dominion of Rome by the most successful proconsul. Nor were such wealthy 
 spoils ever borne under the arches of triumph, down the Sacred Way and 
 through the crowded Forum to the threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The fame of 
 those who subdued Antiochus and Tigranes grows dim when compared with 
 the splendour of the exploits which the young English adventurer achieved at 
 the head of an army not equal in numbers to one half of a Roman legion. 
 
 From dive's third visit to India dates the purity of the administration of our 
 Eastern empire. When he landed in Calcutta in 1765, Bengal was regarded 
 as a place to which Englishmen were sent only to get rich, by any means, in 
 the shortest possible time. He first made dauntless and unsparing war on that 
 gigantic system of oppression, extortion and corruption. In that war he man- 
 fully put to hazard his ease, his fame and his splendid fortune. The same 
 .sense of justice which forbids us to conceal or extenuate the faults of his earlier 
 days compels us to admit that those faults were nobly repaired. If the re- 
 proach of the Company and of its servants has been taken away — if in India 
 the yoke of foreign masters, elsewhere the heaviest of all yokes, has been found 
 lighter than that of any native dynasty — if to that gang of public robbers, 
 which formerly spread terror through the whole plain of Bengal, has succeeded 
 a body of functionaries not more highly distinguished by ability and diligence 
 
liANKJ£'S lUSTOkV OP' THE. PQPSS. ^t 
 
 than by integrity, disinterestedness and public spirit — if we now see ^uch men 
 as Munro, Klphinstone and Metcalfe, after leading victorious armies, after 
 making and deposing kings, return, proud of their honourable poverty, from a 
 land which once held out to every greedy factor the hope of boundless wealth 
 — the praise is in no small measure dug to Clive. His name stands high on 
 the roll of conquerors. But it is found in a better list, in the list of those who 
 have done and suffered much for the happiness of mankind. To the warrior, 
 history will assign a place in the same rank with, LucuUus and Trajan. Nor 
 will she deny to the reformer a share of that veneration with which France 
 cherishes the memory of Turgot, and with which the latest generations of 
 Hindoos will contemplate the statue of Lord William Bentinck. 
 
 .VON RANKE. (October, 1840.) 
 
 The Ecclesiastical and Political History of the Popes of Rome during the Sixteenth and 
 Seventeenth Centuries. By Leopold Ranke, Professor in the Uaiversity ot Berlin. 
 Translated from the German by Sarah Austin. 3 vols., 8vo. London, 1840. 
 
 It is hardly necessary for us to say that this is an excellent book excellently 
 translated. The original work of Professor Ranke is known and esteemed 
 wherever German literature is studied, and has been found interesting even in 
 a most inaccurate and dishonest French version. It is, indeed, the work of a 
 mind fitted both for minute researches and for large speculations. It is vnritten 
 also in an admirable spirit, equally remote from levity and bigotry, serious and 
 earnest, yet tolerant and impartial. It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure 
 that we now see it take its place among the English classics. Of the transla- 
 tion we need only say that it is such as might be expected from the skill, the 
 taste and the scrupulous integrity of the accomplished lady who, as an in- 
 terpreter between the mind of Germany and the mind of Britain, has already 
 deserved so well of both countries. 
 
 The subject of this book has always appeared to us singularly interesting. 
 How it was that Protest^antism did so much, yet did no more, how it was that 
 the Church of Rome, having lost a large part of Europe, not only ceased to 
 lose, but actually regained nearly half of what she had lost,is certainly a curious 
 and most important question: and on this question Professor Ranke has thrown 
 far more light than any other person who has written on it. — :_:. '. 
 
 There is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy^^«o 
 well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church. The histor}' 
 of that Church joins together the two great ages of human civilisation. No 
 other institution is left standing which carries the mind back to the times when 
 the smoke of sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and when camelopards and 
 tigers bounded in the Flavian amphitheatre. The proudest royal houses are 
 but of yesterday when compared with the line of the Supreme Pontifl's. That 
 line we trace back in an unbroken series from the Pope who crowned 
 Napoleon in the nineteenth century to the Pope who crowned Pepin in the 
 eighth ; and far beyond the time of Pepin the august dynasty extends till it is 
 lost in the twilight of fable. The republic of Venice came next in antiquity.' 
 But the republic of Venice was modern when compared with the Papacy ; and 
 the republic of Venice is gone and the Papacy remains. The Papacy remains, 
 not in decay, not a mere antique, but full of life and youthful vigour. The 
 Catholic Church is still sending forth to the farthest ends of the woi'ld mission- 
 aries as zealous as those who landed in Kent with Augtistiji, and still confronting 
 
112 Mm^'^ m^TORV OF tm Popes, 
 
 — ^- — ■..■. '^^T ^, -a- . ■ , ;ri , t >, ii 
 
 hostile kings with the same spirit with which she confronted Atilla^ Thtf 
 number of her children is greater than in any former age. Her acquisitions in the 
 New World have more than compensated her for what she has lost in the Old. 
 Her spiritual ascendancy extends ever the vast countries which lie between the 
 plains of the Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, a century hence, may 
 •not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits 
 Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than a 
 hundred and fifty millions ; and it will be difficult to show that all the other 
 Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions. Nor do we 
 see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. 
 She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical 
 establishments that now exist in the world ; and we feel no assurance that she 
 is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before 
 the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the Frank had passed the Rhine, 
 when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still wor- 
 shipped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished 
 vigour when some traveller from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast 
 solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of I^ondon Bridge to sketch the ruins 
 of St. Paul's. 
 
 We often hear it said that the world is constantly becoming more and mor? 
 enlightened, and that this enlightening must be favourable to Protestantism 
 and unfavourable to Catholicism. We wish that we could think so. But we 
 .see great reason to doubt whether this be a well-founded expectation. We see 
 that during the last two hundred and fifty years the human mind has been in 
 the highest degree active, that it has made great advances in every branch of 
 natural philosophy — that it has produced innumerable inventions tending to 
 promote the convenience of life — that medicine, surgery, chemistry, engineering 
 have been very greatly improved — that government, police and law have been 
 improved, though not to so great an extent as the physical sciences. Yet we 
 .see that, during these two hundred and fifty years. Protestantism has made no 
 conquests worth speaking of. Nay, we believe that, as far as there has been a 
 change, that change has been in favour of the Church of Rome. We cannot, 
 therefore, feel confident that the progress of knowledge will necessarily be fatal 
 to a system which has, to say the least, stood its ground in spite of the immense 
 progress which knowledge has made since the days of Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 Indeed, the argument which we are considering seems to us to be founded 
 on an entire mistake. There are branches of knowledge with respect to which 
 the law of the human mind is progress. In mathematics, when once a propo- 
 sition has been demonstrated, it is never afterwards contested. Every fresh 
 story is as solid a basis for a new superstructure as the original foundation was. 
 Here, therefore, there is a constant addition to the stock of truth. In the in- 
 ductive sciences again, the law is progress. Every day furnishes new facts, and 
 thus brings theory nearer and nearer to perfection. There is no chance that, 
 either in the purely demonstrative or in the purely experimental sciences, the 
 world will ever go back or even remain stationary. Nobody ever heard of a 
 reaction against Taylor's theorem, or of a reaction' against Harvey's doctrine of 
 the circulation of the blood. 
 
 But with theology the case is very different. As respects natural religion — 
 revelation being for the present altogether left out of the question — it is not easy 
 V> see that a philosopher of the present day is more favourably situated than 
 Thales or Simonides. He has before him just the same evidences of design in 
 the structure of the universe which the early Greeks had. We say just the 
 same ; for the discoveries of modern astronomers and anatomists have really 
 added nothing to the force of that argument which a reflecting mind finds in 
 
^AA'KE^S histoid Y op TtiE POPES. $75 
 
 <ri,.1-.'n ■<. . 
 
 every beast, bir.l. insect, fish, leaf, flower and shell. The reasoning by which 
 Socrates, in Xenophon's hearing, confuted the little atheist Aristodemus, is 
 exactly the reasoning of Paley's "Natural Theology." Socrates makes pre- 
 cisely the same use of the statues of Polycletus and the pictures of Zeuxis which 
 Paley makec of the watch. As to the other great question — the question, wh.at 
 becomes of man after death — we do ndf see that a highly educated European, 
 left to his unassisted reason, is more likely to be in the right than a Blackfoot 
 Indian. Not a single one of the many sciences in which we surpass the Black- 
 foot Indians throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after the animal 
 life is extinct. In truth, all the philosophers, ancient and modern, who have 
 attempted, without the help of revelation, to prove the immortaUty of man, 
 from Plato down to Franklin, appear to us to have failed deplorably. 
 
 Then, again, all the great enigmas which perplex the natural theologian are 
 the same in all ages. The ingenuity of a people just emerging from barbarism 
 is quite sufficient to propound those enigmas. The wisdom of Locke or 
 Clarke is quite unable to solve them. It is a mistake to imagine that subtle 
 speculations touching the Divine attributes, the origin of evil, the necessity of 
 human actions, the foundation of moral obligation, imply any high degree of 
 intellectual culture. Such speculations, on the contrary, are in a peculiar 
 manner the delight of intellige^it children and of half-civilised men. The num- 
 ber of boys is not small who, at fourteen, have thought enough on these 
 questions to be fully entitled to the praise which Voltaire gives to Zadig. " II 
 en savait ce qu'on en a su dans tous les ages ; c'est-a-dire, fort peu de chose." 
 The book of job shows that, long before letters and arts were known to Ionia, 
 these vexing questions were debated with no common skill and eloquence 
 under the tents of the Idumean Emirs; nor has human reason, in the course of 
 three thousai.d years, discovered any satisfactory solution of the riddles which 
 perplexed Eliphaz and Zophar. 
 
 Natural theology, then, is not a progressive science. That knowledge of 
 our origin and of our destiny which we derive from revelation is indeed of very 
 different clearness and of very different importance. But neither is revealed 
 religion of the nature of a progressive science. All Divine truth is, according 
 to the doctrine of the Protestant Churches, recorded in certain books. It is 
 equally open to all who, in any age, can read those books ; nor can all the 
 discoveries of all the philosophers in the world add a single verse to any of 
 those books. It is plain, therefore, that in divinity there cannot be a progress 
 analogous to that which is constantly taking place in pharmacy, geology and 
 navigation. A Christian of the fifth century with a Bible is on a par with a 
 Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible, candour and natural acuteness 
 being, of course, supposed equal. It matters not at all that the compass, 
 printing, gunpowder, steam, gas, vaccination and a thousand other discoveries 
 and inventions, which were unknown in the fifth century, are famihar to the 
 nineteenth. None of these discoveries and inventions has the smallest bearing 
 on the question whether man is justified by faith alone, or whether the invoca- 
 tion of saints is an orthodox practice. It seems to us, therefore, that we have 
 no security for the future against the prevalence of any theological error that 
 ever has prevailed in time past among Christian men. We are confident that 
 the world will never go back to the solar system of Ptolemy ; nor is our con- 
 fidence in the least shaken by the circumstance that even so great a man as 
 Bacon rejected the theory of Galileo with scorn, for Bacon had not all the 
 means of arriving at a sound conclusion which are within our reach and which 
 secure people who would not have been worthy to mend his pens from falling 
 into his mistakes. But we are very differently affected when we reflect that 
 Sir Thomas More was read/ to die for the doctrine of transubstantiation. He 
 
574 kAJStKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 
 
 was a man of eminent talents. He had all the information on the subject that 
 we have, or that, while the world lasts, any human being will have. The text, 
 *' This is my body," was in his New Testament as it is in ours. The absurdity 
 of the literal interpretation was as great and as obvious in the sixteenth century 
 as it is now. No progress that science has made, or will make, can add to what 
 seems to us the overwhelmning force of the argument against the real presence. 
 We are, therefore, unable to understand why what Sir Thomas More believed 
 respecting transubstantiation may not be believed to the end of time by men 
 equal in abilities and honesty to Sir Thomas More. But Sir Thomas More 
 is one of the choice specimens of human wisdom and virtue ; and the doctrine 
 of transubstantiation is a kind of proof charge. A faith which stands that test 
 will stand any test. The prophecies of Brothers and the miracles of Prince 
 Hohenlohe sink to trifles in the comparison. One reservation, indeed, must 
 be made. The books and traditions of a sect may contain, mingled with 
 propositions strictly theological, other propositions, purporting to rest on the 
 same authority, which relate to physics. If new discoveries should throw dis- 
 credit on the physical propositions, the theological propositions, unless they 
 can be separated from the physical propositions, will share in that discredit. In 
 this way, undoubtedly, the progress of science may indirectly serve the cause of 
 religious truth. The Hindoo mythology, for example, is bound up with a 
 most absurd geography. Every young Brahmin, therefore, who learns geograf)hy 
 in our colleges, learns to smile at the Hindoo mythology. If Catholicism has 
 not suffered to an equal degree from the Papal decision that the sun goes 
 round the earth, this is because a 11 intelligent Catholics now hold, with Pascal, 
 that, in deciding the point at all, the Church exceeded her. powers, and was, 
 therefore, justly , left destitute of that supernatural assistance which, in the 
 exercise of her legitimate functions, the promise of her Founder authorised her 
 to expect. 
 
 This reservation affects not at all the truth of our proposition, that divinity, 
 properly so called, is not a progressive science. A very common knowledge of 
 history, a very little observation of life, will suffice to prove that no learning, 
 no sagacity, affords a security against the greatest errors on subjects relating to 
 the invisible world. Bayle and Chillingworth, two of the most sceptical of 
 mankind, turned Catholics from sincere conviction. Johnson, incredulous on 
 all other points, was a ready believer in miracles and apparitions. He would 
 not believe in Ossian ; but he believed in the second sight. He would not be- 
 lieve in the earthquake of Lisbon ; but he was willing to believe in the Cock 
 Lane Ghost. 
 
 For these reasons we have ceased to wonder at any vagaries of superstition. 
 We have seen men, not of mean intellect or neglected education, but qualified 
 by their talents and acquirements to attain eminence either in active or specu- 
 lative pursuits — well read scholars, expert logicians, keen observers of life and 
 manners — prophesying, interpreting, talking unknown tongues, working mira- 
 culous cures, coming down with messages from God to the House of Commons. 
 We have seen an old woman, with no talents beyond the cunning of a fortune- 
 teller and with the education of a scullion, exalted into a prophetess and 
 surrounded by tens of thousands of devoted followers, many of whom were in 
 station and knowledge immeasurably her superiors, and all this in the nine- 
 teenth century, and all this in London. Yet why not ? For of the dealings of 
 God with man no more has been revealed to the nineteenth century than to 
 the first, or to London than to the wildest parish in the Plebrides. . It is true 
 that, in those things which concern this life and this world, man constantly be- 
 comes wiser and wiser. But it is no less true that, as respects a higher power 
 and a future state, man, in the language of Goethe's scoffmg fiend, 
 
RANKERS HISTORY OF THE POPES. 575 
 
 " bleibt stets von gleichem Schlag, 
 Und ist so wunderlich als wie am ersten Tag." 
 
 The history of Catholicism strikingly illustrates these observations. During 
 the last seven centuries the public mirrd of Europe has made constant progress 
 in every department of secular knowledge. But in religion we can trace no 
 constant progress". The ecclesiasticalTiistory of that long period is a history 
 of movement to and fro. Four times since the authority of the Church of 
 Rome was established in Western Christendom has the human intellect risen 
 up against her yoke. Twice she remained completely victorious. Twice she 
 came forth from the conflict bearing the marks of cruel wounds, but with .the 
 principle of life still strong within her. When we reflect on the tremendous 
 assaults which she has survived, we find it difficult to conceive in what way she 
 is to perish. ' . 
 
 The first of these insurrections broke out in the region where the beautiful 
 language of Oc was spoken. That country, singularly favoured by nature, 
 was, in the twelfth century, the most flourishing and civilised pprtion of 
 Western Europe. It is in nowise a part of France. It had a distinct 
 political existence, a distinct national character, distinct usages and a dis- 
 tinct speech. The soil was fruitful and well cultivated ; and amidst the 
 cornfields and vineyards arose many rich cities, each of which was a little 
 republic, and many stately castles, each of which contained a miniature of 
 an imperial court. It was there that the spirit of chivalry fifst'laid aside its 
 terrors, first took a humane and graceful form, first appeared as the insepar- 
 able associate of art and literature, of courtesy and love. The other 
 vernacular dialects, which, since the fifth century, had sprung up in the ancient 
 provinces of the Roman empire, were still rude and imperfect. The sweet 
 Tuscan, the rich and energetic English were abandoned ■ to artisans and 
 shepherds. No clerk had ever condescended to use such barbarous jargon 
 ror the teaching of science, for the recording of great events, or for the paint- 
 ing of life and manners. But the language of Provence was already the 
 language of the learned and polite, and was employed by numerous writers, 
 studious of all the arts of composition and versification. A literature rich in 
 ballads, in war-songs, in satire and, above all, in amatory poetry, amused the 
 leisure of the knights and ladies whose fortified mansions adorned the banks of 
 of the Rhone and Garonne. With civilisation had come freedom of thought. 
 Use had taken away the horror with which misbelievers Avere elsewhere 
 regarded. No Norman or Breton ever saw a mussulman except to give and 
 receive blows on some Syrian field of battle. But the people of the rich coun- 
 tries which lay under the Pyrenees lived in- habits of courteous and profitable 
 intercourse with the Moorish kingdoms of Spain, and gave an hospitable 
 welcome to skilful leeches and mathematicians who, in the schools of Cordova 
 and Granada, had become versed in all the learning of the Arabians. The 
 Greek, still preserving in the midst of political degradation, the ready wit and 
 the inquiring spirit of his fathers, still able to read the most* perfect of human 
 compositions, still speaking the most powerful and flexible of human languages, 
 brought to the marts of'Narbonne and Toulouse, together with the drugs and 
 silks of remote climates, bold and subtle theories long unknown to the ignorant 
 and credulous West. The Paulician theology — a theology in which, as it 
 should seem, many of the doctrines of the modem Calvinists were mingled with 
 some doctrines derived from the ancient Manichees — spread rapidly through 
 Provence and Languedoc. The clergy of the Catholic Church were regarded 
 with loathing and contempt. "Viler than a priest" — " I would as soon be 
 a priest" — became proverbial expressions. The papacy had lost all authority 
 with all classes, from the great feudal princes down to the cultivators of the soil. 
 
S76 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 
 
 The danger to the hierarchy was indeed formidable. Only one transalpine 
 nation had emerged from barbarism ; and that nation had thrown olf all respect 
 for Rome. Only one of the vernacular languages of Europe had yet bee' 
 extensively employed for literary purposes ; and that language was a machine ir* 
 the hand of heretics. The geographical position of the sectaries made the 
 danger peculiarly formidable. They occupied a central region communicating 
 directly with France, with Italy and with Spain. The provinces which were 
 still untainted were separated from each other by this infected district. Under 
 these circumstances it seemed probable that a single generation would suffice to 
 spread the reformed doctrine to Lisbon, to London and to Naples. But this 
 was not to be. Rome cried for help to the warriors of northern France. She 
 appealed at once to their superstition and to their cupidity. To the devout 
 believer she promised pardons as ample as those with which she had rewarded 
 the deliverers of the Holy Sepulchre. To the rapacious and profligate she 
 offered the plunder of fertile plains and wealthy cities. Unhappily, the inge- 
 nious and polished inhabitants of the Languedocian provinces were far better 
 qualified, to enrich and embellish- their country than to defend it. Eminent in 
 the arts of peace, unrivalled in the "gay science," elevated above many vul- 
 gar superstitions, they wanted that iron courage and that skill in martial exer- 
 cises which distinguished the chivalry of the region beyond the Loire, and 
 and were ill fitted to face enemies who, in every country, from Ireland to Pales- 
 tine, had been victorious against tenfold odds. A war, distinguished even 
 among wars of religion by merciless atrocity, destroyed the Albigensian heresy, 
 and with that heresy the prosperity, the civilisation, the literature, the national 
 existence of what was once the most opulent and enlightened part of the great 
 European family. Rome, in the meantime, warned by that fearful danger 
 from which the exterminating swords of her crusaders had narrowly saved her, 
 proceeded to revise and to strengthen her whole system of polity. At this 
 period were instituted the Order of Francis, the Order of Dominic, the Tri- 
 bunal of the Inquisition. The new spiritual police was everywhere. No alley 
 in a great city, no hamlet on a remote mountain, was unvisited by the begging 
 friar. The simple Catholic, who was content to be no wiser than his fathers, 
 found, wherever he turned, a friendly voice to encourage him. The path of 
 the heretic was beset by innumerable spies ; and the Church, lately in danger 
 of utter subversion, now appeared to be impregnably fortified by the love, the 
 reverence and the terror of mankind. 
 
 A century and a half passed away, and then came the second great rising 
 up of the human intellect against the spiritual domination of Rome. During 
 the two generations which followed the Albigensian crusade, the power of the 
 Papacy had been at the height. Frederic II. — the ablest and most accom- 
 plished of the long line of German Caesars — had in vain exhausted all the 
 yesources of military and political skill in the attempt to defend the rights 
 of the civil power against the encroachments of the Church. The vengeance 
 of the priesthood had pursued his house to the third generation. Manfred had 
 perished on the field of battle, Conradin on the scaffold. Then a turn took 
 place. The secular authority, long unduly depressed, regained the ascendant 
 with startling rapidity. The change is doubtless to be ascribed chiefly to the 
 general disgust excited by the way in which the Church had abused its power 
 and its success. But something must be attributed to the character and situa-' 
 tion of individuals. The rnan who bore the chief part in effecting this revolu- ' 
 tion was Philip the Fourth of France, surnamed the Beautiful, a despot by 
 position, a despot by temperament, stern, implacable and unscrupulous, equally 
 prepared for violence and for chicanery, and surrounded by a devoted band of 
 men of the sword and of men of law. The fiercest and most highmindea 
 
RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 577 
 
 of the Roman Pontiffs, while bestowing kingdoms and citing great princes to 
 his judgment-seat, was seized in his palace by armed men, and so foully 
 outraged that he died mad with rage and terror. " Thus," sang the great 
 Florentine poet, "was Christ, in the person of his vicar, a second time seized 
 by ruffians, a second time mocked, € second time drenched with the vinegar 
 and the gall."* The seat of the Papal court was carried beyond the Alps, and 
 the Bishops of Rome became dependants of France. Then came the great 
 schism of the West. Two Popes, each with a doubtful title, made all Europe 
 ring with their mutual invectives and anathemas. Rome cried out against the 
 corruptions of Avignon ; and Avignon, with equal justice, recriminated on 
 Rome. The plain Christian people, brought up in the belief that it was a 
 sacred duty to be in communion with the Head of the Church, were unable to 
 discover, amidst conflicting testimonies and conflicting arguments, to which of 
 the two worthless priests, who were cursing and reviling each other, the head- 
 ship of the Church rightfully belonged. It was nearly at this juncture that the 
 voice of John Wicklifle began to make itself heard. The public mind of Eng- 
 land was soon stirred to its inmost depths : and the influence of the new 
 doctrines was soon felt, even in the distant kingdom of Bohemia. In Bohemia, 
 indeed, there had long been a predisposition to heresy. Merchants from the 
 Lower Danube were often seen in the fairs of Prague ; and the Lower Danube 
 was peculiarly the seat of the Paulician theology. The Church, torn by 
 schism, and fiercely assailed at once in England and in the German empire, was 
 in a situation scarcely less perilous than at the crisis which preceded the Albi- 
 gensian crusade. 
 
 But this danger also passed by. The civil power gave its strenuous support 
 to the Church ; and the Church made some show of reforming itself. The Coun- 
 cil of Constance put an end to the schism. The whole Catholic world was 
 again united under a single chief ; and rules were laid down which seemed to 
 make it improbable that the power of that chief would be grossly abused. The 
 most distinguished teachers of the new doctrine were put to death. The 
 Eng'ish government put down the Lollards with merciless rigour ; and, in the 
 next generation, no trace of the second great revolt against the Papacy could be 
 found except among the rude population of the mountains of Bohemia. 
 
 Anothei century went by ; and then began the third and the most memor- 
 able struggle for spiritual freedom, Th^ times were changed. The great 
 remains of Athenian and Roman genius were studied by thousands. The Church 
 had no longer a monopoly of learning. The powers of the modern languages 
 had at length been developed. The invention of printing had given new facil- 
 ities to the intercourse of mind with mind. With such auspices commenced 
 the great Reformation. 
 
 We will attempt to lay before our readers, in a short compass, what appears 
 to us to be the real history of the contest which began with the preaching of 
 Luther against the Indulgences, and which may, in one sense, be said to have 
 been terminated a hundred and thirty years later by the treaty of Westphalia. 
 
 In the northern parts of Europe, the victory of Protestantism was rapid and 
 decisive. The dominion of the Papacy was felt by the nations of Teutonic 
 blood as the dominion of Italians, of foreigners, of men who were aliens in lan- 
 guage, manners and intellectual constitution. The large jurisdiction exercised 
 by the spiritual tribunals of Rome seemed to be a degrading badge of servitude. 
 The sums, which, urider a thousand pretexts, were exacted by a distant court, 
 were regarded both as a humiliating and as a ruinous tribute. The character of 
 that court excited the scorn and disgust of a grave, earnest, sincere and devout 
 
 ♦ furgatorio, xx. %-j. 
 
578 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 
 
 jjeople. The new theology spread with ^ rapidity never known before. All 
 ranks, all varieties of character joined the ranks of the innovators. Sovereigns 
 impatient to appropriate to themselves the prerogatives of the Pope — nobles 
 desirous to share the plunder of abbeys — suitors exasperated by the extortions 
 of the Roman Camera — patriots impatient of a foreign rule — ^good men scan- 
 dalised by the corruptions of the Church — bad men desirous of the license 
 inseparable from great moral revolutions — wise men eager in the pursuit of 
 truth — weak men allured by the glitter of novelty — all were found on one side. 
 Alone among the northern nations, the Irish adhered to the ancient faith : and 
 the cause of this seems to have been that the national feeling which, in happier 
 countries, was directed against Rome, was in Ireland directed against England. 
 In fifty years from the day on which Luther publicly renounced communion 
 with the Church of Rome and burned the bull of Leo before the gates of 
 Wittenberg, Protestantism attained its highest ascendency — an ascendency 
 which it soon lost and which it has never regained. Hundreds, who could 
 well remember Brother Martin, a devout Catholic, lived to see the revolution, 
 of which he was the chief author, victorious in half the states of Europe. In 
 England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Livonia, Prussia, Saxony, Hesse, 
 Wurtemburg, the Palatinate, in several cantons of Switzerland, in the Northern 
 Netherlands, the Reformation had completely triumphed ; and in all the other 
 countries on this side of the Alps and the Pyrenees, it seemed on the point of 
 triumphing. 
 
 ' But while this mighty work was proceeding in the north of Europe, a revo- 
 lution of a very different kind had taken place in the south. The temper of 
 Italy and Spain was widely different from that of Germany and England. As 
 the national feeling of the Teutonic nations impelled them to throw off the 
 Italian supremacy, so the national feeling of the Italians impelled them to 
 resist any change which might deprive their country of the honours and advan- 
 tage of being the seat of the government of the Universal Church. It was in 
 Italy that the tributes were spent of which foreign nations so bitterly complained. 
 It was to adorn Italy that the traffic in Indulgencies had been carried to that 
 scandalous excess which had roused the indignation of Luther. There was 
 among the Italians both much piety and much impiety ; but, with very few 
 exceptions, neither the piety nor the impiety took the turn of Protestantism. 
 The religigus Italians desired a reform of morals and discipline, but not a 
 reform of doctrine, and least of all a schism. The irreligious Italians simply 
 disbelieved Christianity without hating it. They looked at it as artists or 
 as statesmen ; and, so looking at it, they liked it better in the estabUshed 
 form than in any other. It was to them what the old Pagan worship was 
 to Trajan and Pliny. Neither the spirit of Savonarola nor the spirit of 
 Machiavelli had anything in common with that of the religious or political 
 Protestants of the North. 
 
 Spain again was, with respect to the Catholic Church, in a situation very 
 different from that of the Teutonic nations. Italy was, in fact, a part of the 
 empire of Charles V. ; and the court of Rome was, on many important occa- 
 sions, his tool. He had not, therefore, like the distant princes of the North, 
 a strong selfish motive for attacking the Papacy. In fact, the very measures 
 Which provoked the Soverein of England to renounce all connection with 
 Rome were dictated by the Sovereign of Spain. The feelings of the Spanish 
 people concurred with the interest of the Spanish government. The attach- % 
 ment of the Castilian to the faith of his ancestors was peculiarly strong and 
 ardent. With that faith were inseparably bound up the institutions, 
 the independence and the glory of his country. Between the day when 
 tha last Gothic king was vanQuished on the Xeres and the day when 
 
kA]StKE 'S HISTORY OP THE POPES. 579 
 
 Ferdinand and Isabella entered Granada in triumph, nearly eight hundred 
 years had elapsed ; and during those years the Spanish nation had been 
 engaged in a desperate struggle against misbelievers. The Crusades had been 
 merely an episode in the history of other nations. The existence of Spain had 
 been oae long Crusade. After fighti«g Mussulmans in the Old World, she 
 began to tight heathens in the New. It was under the authority of a Papal 
 bull that her children steered into unknown seas. It was under the standard 
 of the cross that they marched fearlessly into the heart of great kingdoms. It 
 was with the cry of " St. James for Spain " that they charged armies which 
 outnumbered them a hundred fold. And men said that the Saint had heard 
 the call, and had himself, in arms, on a grey war-horse, led the onset before 
 which the worshippers of false gods had given way. After the battle, every 
 excess of rapacity or cruelty was sufficiently vindicated by the plea that the 
 sufferers were unbaptized. Avarice stimulated zeal. Zeal consecrated avarice. 
 Proselytes and gold mines were sought with equal ardour. In the very year 
 in which the Saxons, maddened by the exactions of Rome, broke loose from 
 her yoke, the Spaniards, under the authority of Rome, made themselves 
 masters of the empire and of the treasures of Montezuma. Thus Catholicism, 
 which, in the public mind of Northern Europe, was associated with spoliation 
 and oppression, was, in the public mind of Spain, associated with liberty, victory, 
 dominion, wealth and glory. 
 
 It is not, therefore, strange that the effect of the great outbreak of Pro- 
 testantism in one part of Christendom should have been to produce an equally 
 violent outbreak of Catholic zeal in another. Two reformations were pushed 
 on at once with equal energy and effect — a reformation of doctrine in 
 the North — a reformation of manners and discipline in the South. In 
 the course of a single generation, the whole spirit of the Church of Rome 
 underwent a change. From the halls of the Vatican to the most secluded 
 hermitage of the Apennines, the great revival was everywhere felt and 
 seen. All the institutions anciently devised for the propagation and de- 
 fence of the faith were furbished up and made efficient. Fresh engines of still 
 more formidable power were constructed. Everywhere old religious com- 
 munities were remodelled and new religious communities called into ex- 
 istence. Within a year after the death of Leo, the order of Camaldoli was 
 purified. The Capuchins restored the old Franciscan discipline — the mid- 
 night prayer and the life of silence. The Barnabites and the society of J 
 Somasca devoted themselves to the relief and education of the poor.^ 
 To the Theatine order a still higher interest belongs. Its great object was 
 the same with that of our early Methodists — to supply the deficiencies of 
 the parochial clergy. The Church of Rome, wiser than the Church of England^-i. 
 gave every countenance to the good work. The members of the new brother-! 
 hood preached to great multitudes in the streets and in the fields, prayed by the"' 
 beds of the sick, and administered the last sacraments to the dying. Fore-i 
 most among them in zeal and devotion was Gian Pietro Caraffa, afterwards 
 Pope Paul IV. Ih the convent of the Theatines at Venice, under the eye of 
 Caraffa, a Spanish gentleman took up his abode, tended the poor in the 
 hospitals, went about in rags, starved himself almost to death, and often sallied^ 
 into the streets, mounted on stones, and, waving his hat to invite the passers-by;J 
 began to preacih in a strange jargon of mingled Castillian and Tuscan. The 
 Theatines were among the most zealous and rigid of men ; but to this enthu- 
 siastic neophyte their discipline seemed lax and their movements sluggish, for 
 his own mind, naturally passionate and imaginative, had passed through a 
 training which had given to all its peculiarities a morbid intensity and energy. 
 In his early life he had been the very prototype of the hero of Cervantes. The 
 
5So RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POP^S: 
 
 single study of the young Hidalgo had been chivalrous romance ; and his 
 existence had been one gorgeous day-dream of princesses rescued and infidels 
 subdued. He had chosen a Dulcinea, "no countess, no duchess" — these 
 are his own words — "but one of far higher station;" and he flattered 
 himself with the hope of laying at her feet the keys of Moorish castles and the 
 jewelled turbans of Asiatic kings. In the midst of these visions of \nartial 
 glory and prosperous love, a severe wound stretched him on a bed of sickness. 
 His constitution was shattered and he was doomed to be a cripple for life. 
 The palm ct strength, grace and skill in knightly exercises was no longer for 
 him. He could no longer hope to strike down gigantic soldans, or to find 
 favour in the sight of beautiful women. A new vision th«n arose in his mind 
 and mingled itself with his old delusions in a manner which to most English- 
 man niust seem singular, but which those who know how close was the union 
 between religion and chivalry in Spain will be at no loss to understand. He 
 would still be a soldier ; he would still be a knight errant ; but the soldier 
 and knight errant of the spouse of Christ. He would smite the Great Red 
 Dragon. He would be the champion of the Woman clothed with the Sun. 
 He would break the charm under which false prophets held the souls of men in 
 bondage. His restless spirit led him to the Syrian deserts and to the chapel of 
 the Holy Sepulchre. Thence he wandered back to the farthest West, and 
 astonished the convents of Spain and the schools of France by his penances 
 and vigils. The same lively imagination, which had been employed in pic- 
 turing the tumult of unreal battles and the charms of unreal queens, now 
 peopled his solitude with saints and angels. The Holy Virgin descended to 
 commune with him. He saw the Saviour face to face with the eye of flesh. 
 Even those mysteries of religion which are the hardest trial of faith were in 
 his case palpable to sight. It is difficult to relate without a pitying smile that, 
 in the sacrifice of the mass, he saw transubstantiation take place, and that as 
 he stood praying on the steps of the Church of St. Dominic, he saw the 
 Trinity in Unity, and wept aloud with joy and wonder. Such was the cele- 
 brated Ignatius Loyola, who in the great Catholic reaction bore the sam« part 
 which Luther bore in the great Protestant movement. 
 
 Dissatisfied with the system of the Theatines, the enthusiastic Spaniard turned 
 •his face towards Rome. Poor, obscure, without a patron, without recom- 
 mendations, he entered the city where now two princely temples, rich with 
 painting and many-coloured marble, commemorate his great services to 
 the Church ; where his form stands sculptured in massivei silver ; where his 
 bones, enshrined amidst jewels, are placed beneath the altar of God. His 
 activity and zeal bore down all opposition ; and under his rule the order of 
 Jesuits began to exist and grew rapidly to the full measure of its gigantic 
 powers. With what vehemence, with what policy, with what exact dis- 
 cipline, with what dauntless courage, with what self-denial, with what for- 
 getfulness of the dearest private ties, with what intense and stubborn 
 devotion to a single end, with what unscrupulous laxity and versatility in the 
 choice of means the Jesuits fought the battle of their church is written in 
 every page of the annals of Europe during several generations. In the 
 order of j esus was concentrated the quintessence of the Catholic spirit; and 
 the history of the order of Jesus is the history of the great Catholic reaction. 
 That order possessed itself at once of all the strongholds which command the 
 pubhc mind — of the pulpit, of the press, of the confessional, of the academies. 
 Wherever the Jesuit preached, the church was too small for the audience. The 
 name of Jesuit on a title-page secured the circulation of a book. It was in the 
 ears of the Jesuit that the powerful, the noble and the beautiful breathed the 
 secret history of their lives. It was at the feet of the Jesuit that the youth of 
 
RANKE'S HISTORY OF THM POPkS. 581 
 
 the higher and middle classes were brought up from the first rudiments to the 
 courses of rhetoric and philosophy. Literature and science, lately associated 
 with infidelity or with heresy, now became the allies of orthodoxy. Dominant 
 in the South of Europe, the great order soon went forth conquering and to 
 conquer. In spite of oceans and desfrts, of hunger and pestilence, of spies 
 and penal laws, of dungeons and racks, of gibbets and quartering-blocks, Jesuits 
 were to be found under every disguise and in every country — scholars, 
 physicians, merchants, serving-men ; in the hostile court of Sweden, in the 
 old manor-houses of Cheshire, among the hovels of Connaught ; arguing, in- 
 structing, consoling, stealing away the hearts of the young, animating the 
 courage of the timid, holding up the crucifix before the eyes of the dying. Nor! 
 was it less their office to plot against the thrones and lives of apostate kings, to . 
 spread evil rumours, to raise tumults, to inflame civil wars, to arm the hand ofl 
 the assassin. Inflexible in nothing but in their fidelity to the Church, theyi 
 were equally ready to appeal in her cause to the spirit of loyalty and to the' 
 spirit of freedom. Extreme doctrines of obedience and extreme doctrines of' 
 liberty — the right of rulers to misgovern the people, the right of every one of 
 the people to plunge his knife in the heart of a bad ruler — were inculcated by^ 
 the same man, according as he addressed himself to the subject of Philip or to 
 the subject of Elizabeth. Some described these men as the most rigid, others 
 as the most indulgent of spiritual directors. And both descriptions were cor- 
 rect. The truly devout listened with awe to the high and saintly morality of 
 the Jesuit. The gay cavalier who had run his rival through the body, the frail 
 beauty who had forgotten her marriage vow, found in the Jesuit an easy, well- 
 bred man of the world, tolerant of the little irregularities of people of fashion. 
 The confessor was strict or lax, according to the temper of the penitent. His 
 first object was to drive no person out of the pale of the Church. Since there 
 were bad people, it was better that they should be bad Catholics than bad 
 Protestants. If a person was so unfortunate as to be a bravo, a libertine or a 
 gambler, that was no reason for making him a heretic too. , 
 
 The Old World was not wide enough for this strange activity. The Jesuits 
 invaded all the countries which the great maritime discoveries of the preceding 
 age had laid open to European enterprise. In the depths of the Peruvian 
 mines, at the marts of the African slave-caravans, on the shores of the Spice 
 Islands, in the observatories of China, they were to be found. They made 
 converts in regions which neither avarice nor curiosity had tempted any of 
 their countrymen to enter ; and preached and disputed in tongues of which no 
 other native of the West understood a word. 
 
 The spirit which appeared so eminently in this order animated the whole 
 Catholic world. The Court of Rome itself was purified. During the genera- 
 tion which preceded the Reformation, that court had been a scandal to the 
 Christian name. Its annals are black with treason, murder and incest. Even 
 its more respectable members were utterly unfit to be ministers of religion. ' 
 They were men like Leo X. ; men who, with the Latinity of the Augustan 
 age, had acquired its atheistical and scoffing spirit. They regarded those 
 Christian mysteries, of which they were stewards, just as the Augur Cicero and 
 the Pontifa Maximus Caesar regarded the Sibylline books and the pecking of 
 the sacred chickens. Among themselves they spoke of the Incarnation, the 
 Eucharist and the Trinity in the same tone in which Cotta and Velleius talked 
 of the oracle of Delphi or the voice of Faunus in the mountains. Their years 
 glided by in a soft dream of sensual and intellectual voluptuousness. Choice 
 cookery, delicious wines, lovely women, hounds, falcons, horses, newly-dis- 
 covered manuscripts of the classics, sonnets and burlesque romances in the 
 sweetest Tuscan — just as licentious as a fine sense of the graceful would permit; 
 
S82 RANKE -S HIS.TOR Y OF THE POPES. 
 
 pl3.te from the hand of Benvenuto, designs for palaces by Michael Angelo, 
 frescoes by Raphael, busts, mosaics and gems just dug up from among the ruins 
 of ancient temples and villas— these things were the delight and even the 
 serious business of their lives. Letters and the fine arts undoubtedly owe 
 much to this not inelegant sloth. But when the great stirring of the mind of 
 Europe began— when doctrine after doctrine was assailed — when nation after 
 nation withdrew from communion with the successor of St. Peter — it was felt 
 that the Church could not be safely confided to chiefs whose highest praise was 
 that they were good judges of Latin compositions, of paintings and of statues, 
 whose severest studies had a pagan character, and who were suspected of 
 laughing in secret at the sacraments which they administered and of believing 
 no more of the Gospel than of the Morgante Maggiore. Men of a very different 
 class now rose to the direction of ecclesiastical affairs — men whose spirit re- 
 sembled that of Dunstan and of Becket. The Roman Pontiffs exhibited in 
 their own persons all the austerity of the early anchorites of Syria. Paul IV. 
 brought to the Papal throne the same fervent zeal which had carried him into 
 the Theatine convent. Pius V. , under his gorgeous vestments, wore day and 
 night the hair shirt of a simple friar ; walked barefoot in the streets at the head 
 of processions ; found, even in the midst of his most pressing avocations, time 
 for private prayer ; often regretted that the public duties of his station were 
 unfavourable to growth in holiness ; and edified his flock by innumerable 
 instances of humility, charity and forgiveness of personal injuries; while, at the 
 same time, he upheld the authority of his see and the unadulterated doctrines 
 of his Church with all the stubbornness and vehemence of -Hildebrand. 
 Gregory XIIL exerted himself not only to imitate but to surpass Pius in the 
 severe virtues of his sacred profession. As was the head, such were the 
 members. The change in the spirit of the Catholic world may be traced in 
 every walk of Ikerature and of art. It will be at once perceived by every person 
 who compares the poem of Tasso with that of Ariosto, or the monuments of 
 Sixtus V. with those of Leo X. 
 
 But it was not on moral influence alone that the Catholic Church relied. 
 The civil sword in Spain and Italy was unsparingly employed in her support. 
 The Inquisition was armed with new powers and inspired with a new energy. 
 If Protestantism, or the semblance of Protestantism, showed itself in any 
 quarter, it was instantly met, not by petty, teasing persecution, but by persecu- 
 tion of that sort which bows down and crushes all but a very few select spirits. 
 Whoever was suspected of heresy, whatever his rank, his learning or his reputa- 
 tion, was to purge himself to the satisfaction of a severe and vigilant tribunal 
 or die by fire. Heretical books were sought out and destroyed with the same 
 unsparing rigour. Works which were once in every house were so effectually 
 suppressed that no copy of them is now to be found in the most extensive 
 libraries. One book in particular, entitled " Of the Benefits of the Death of 
 Christ," had this fate. It was written in Tuscan, was many times reprinted, 
 and was eagerly read in every part of Italy. But the Inquisitors detected in 
 it the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone. They proscribed it ; 
 and it is now as utterly lost as the second decade of Livy, 
 
 Thus, while the Protestant reformation proceeded rapidly at one extremity 
 of Europe, the Catholic revival went on as rapidly at the other. About half a 
 c:«ntury after the great separation, there were, throughout the North, Protestant 
 go'ir^nments and Protestant nations. In the South were governments and 
 nation;- actuated by the most intense zeal for the ancient Church. Between 
 these tw5 hostile regions lay, morally as well as geographically, a great debat- 
 able land, in France, Belgium, Southern Germany, Hungary and Poland, 
 the contest w^is stiU undecided. The governments (k those countries had not 
 
RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 583 
 
 renounced their connection with Rome ; but the Protestants were numerous, 
 powerful, bold and active. In France, they fprmed a commonwealth within 
 the realm, held fortresses, were able to bring.great armies, into the held, and 
 had treated with their sovereign on terms of equality. In Poland, the King 
 was still a Catholic ; but the Protesta;*ts had the upper hand in the Diet, filled 
 the chief offices in the administration, and, in the large towns, took possession of 
 the parish churches. " It appeared," says the Papal nuncio, "that in Poland 
 Protestantism would completely supersede CathoUcism." In Bavaria, the state 
 of things was nearly the same. The Protestants had a majority in the Assem- 
 bly of the States, and demanded from the duke concessions in favoiar of their 
 reUgion as the price of their subsidies. In Transylvania, the House of Austria 
 was unable to prevent the Diet from confiscating, by one sweeping decree, the 
 states of the Church. In Austria Proper, it was generally said that only one- 
 thirtieth part of the population could be counted on as good Catholics. In 
 Belgium, the adherents of the new opinions were reckoned by hundreds of 
 thousands. 
 
 The history of the two succeeding generations is the history of the great 
 struggle between Protestantism possessed of the North of Europe and Catho- 
 licism possessed of the South for the doubtful territory which lay between. 
 AH the weapons of carnal and of spiritual warfare were employed. Both 
 sides may boast of great talents and of great virtues. Both have to blush for 
 many follies and crimes. At first, the chances seemed to be decidedly in 
 favour of Protestantism ; but the victory remained with the Church of Rome. 
 On every point she was successful. If we overleap another half century, we 
 find her victorious and dominant in France, Belgium, Bavaria, Bohemia, 
 Austria, Poland and Hungary. Nor has Protestantism, in the course of two 
 hundred years, been able to reconquer any portion of what was then lost. 
 
 It is, moreover, not to • be dissembled that this wonderful triumph of the 
 Papacy is to be chiefly attributed, not to the force of arms, but to a great 
 reflux in public opinion. During the first half century after the commencement 
 of the Reformation, the current of feeling in the countries on this side of the 
 Alps and of the Pyrenees ran impetuously towards the new doctrines. Then 
 the tide turned and rushed as fiercely in the opposite direction. Neither dur- 
 ing the one period, nor during the other, did much depend upon the event of 
 battles or sieges. The Protestant movement was hardly checked for an instant 
 by the defeat at Muhlberg. The Catholic reaction went on at full speed in 
 spite of the destruction of the Armada. It is difficult to say whether the 
 violence of the first blow or of the recoil was the greater. Fifty years after the 
 Lutheran separation, Catholicism could scarcely maintain itself on the shores of 
 the Mediterranean. A hundred years after the separation. Protestantism 
 could scarcely maintain itself on the shores of the Baltic. The causes of this 
 memorable turn in human affairs well deserve to be investigated. 
 
 The contest between the two parties bore some resemblance to the fencing- 
 match in Shakspeare, " Laertes wounds Hamlet ; then, in scuffling, they 
 change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds Laertes." The war between Luther and 
 Leo was a war between firm faith and unbelief, between zeal and apathy, 
 between energy and indolence, between seriousness and frivolity, betweeri a 
 pure morality and vice. Very different was the war which degenerate Pro- 
 tdfctantism had to wage against regenerate Catholicism. To the debauchee, 
 the poisoners, the atheists, who had worn the tiara during the generation 
 which preceded the Reformation, had succeeded Popes who, in religious fer- 
 vour and severe sanctity of manners, might bear a comparison with Cyprian 
 or Ambrose. The order of Jesuits alone could show many men not inferior in 
 f sincerity, constancy, courage, aad austerity of, life to the apostles of the Refor- 
 
584 RArJKE *S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 
 
 mation. But, while danger had thus called forth in the bosom of the Church 
 of Rome many of the highest qualities of the Reformers, the Reformed Church- 
 had contracted some of the corruptions which had been iustly censured in the 
 Church of Rome. They had become lukewarm and worldly. Their great old 
 leaders had been borne to the grave and had left no successors. Among the 
 Protestant princes there was little or no hearty Protestant feeling. Elizabeth 
 herself was a Protestant rather from policy than from firm conviction. James 
 I., in order to effect his favourite object of marrying his son into one of the 
 great continental houses, was ready to make immense concessions to Rome, 
 and even to admit a modified primacy in the Pope. Henry IV. twice abjured 
 the reformed doctrines from interested motives. The Elector of Saxony, the 
 natural head of the Protestant party in Germany, submitted to become, at the 
 most important crisis of the struggle, a tool in the hands of the Papists. 
 Among the Catholic sovereigns, on the other hand, we find a religious zeal 
 often amounting to fanaticism. Philip II. was a Papist in a very different 
 sense from that in which Elizabeth was a Protestant. Maximilian of Bavaria, 
 brought up under the teaching of the Jesuits, was a fervent missionary wielding 
 the powers of a prince. The Emperor Ferdinand II. deliberately put his 
 throne to hazard over and over again, rather than make the smallest concession 
 to the spirit of religious innovation. Sigismund of Sweden lost a crown 
 which he might have preserved if he would have renounced the Catholic faith. 
 In short, everywhere on the Protestant side we see languor ; everywhere on 
 the Catholic side we see ardour and devotion. 
 
 Not only was there, at this time, a much more intense zeal among the 
 Catholics than among the Protestants, but the whole zeal of the Catholics was 
 directed against the Protestants, while almost the whole zeal of the Protestants 
 was directed against each other. Within the Catholic Church there were no 
 serious disputes on points of doctrine. The decisions of the Council of Trent 
 were received, and the Jansenian controversy had not yet arisen. The whole 
 force of Rome was, therefore, effective for the purpose of carrying on the war 
 against the Reformation. On the other hand, the force which ought to have 
 fought the battle of the Reformation was exhausted in civil conflict. While 
 Jesuit preachers, Jesuit confessors, Jesuit teachers of youth overspread 
 Europe, eager to expend every faculty of their minds and every drop of their 
 blood in the cause of their Church, Protestant doctors were confuting and 
 Protestant rulers were punishing sectaries who were just as good Protestants 
 as themselves. 
 
 " Cumque superba foret Babylon spolianda tropaeis, 
 Bella geri placuit nuUos habitura triumphos." 
 
 In the Palatinate, a Calvinistic prince persecuted the Lutherans. • In 
 Saxony, a Lutheran prince persecuted the Calvinists. In Sweden, everybody 
 who objected to any of the articles of the Confession of Augsburg was banished. 
 In Scotland, Melville was disputing with other Protestants on questions of 
 ecclesiastical government. In England, the gaols were filled with men who, 
 though zealous for the Reformation, did not exactly agree with the Court 
 on all points of discipline and doctrine. Some were in ward for denying the 
 tenet of reprobation ; some for not wearing surplices. The Irish people might 
 at that time have been, in all probability, reclaimed from Popery at the expense 
 of half the zeal and activity which Whitgift employed in oppressing Puritans 
 and Martin Marprelate in reviling bishops. 
 
 As the Catholics. in zeal and in union had a great advantage over the 
 Protestants, so had they also an infinitely superior organisation. In truth, 
 Protestantism, for aggressive purposes, had no organisation at all. The Re- 
 formed Churches ^^e^e mere national Churches. The Church of England 
 
RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 585 
 
 existed for England alone. It was an institution as purely local as the Court 
 of Common Pleas, and was utterly without any machinery for foreign 
 operations. The Church of Scotland, in the same manner, existed for Scot- 
 land alone. The operations of th^ Catholic Church, on the other hand, 
 took in the whole world. Nobody at Lambeth or at Edinburgli troubled 
 himself about what was doing in Poland or Bavaria. But at Rome, Cracow 
 and Munich were objects of as much interest as the purlieus of St. John 
 Lateran. Our island, the head of the Protestant interest, did not send out a 
 single missionary or a single instructor of youth to the scene of the great spiritual 
 war. Not a single seminary was established here for the purpose of furnishing 
 a supply of such persons to foreign countries. On the other hand, Ger- 
 many, Hungary and Poland were filled with able and active Catholic emissaries 
 of Spanish or Italian birth ; and colleges for the instruction of the northern 
 youth were founded at Rome. The spiritual force of Protestantism was a 
 mere local militia, which might be useful in case of an invasion, but could 
 not be sent abrcJad, and could therefore make no conquests. Rome had 
 such a local militia ; but she had also a force disposable at a moment's notice 
 for foreign service, however dangerous or disagreeable. If it was thought at 
 head -quarters that a Jesuit at Palermo was quahfied by his talents and charac- 
 ter to withstand the Reformers in Lithuania, the order was instantly 
 given and instantly obeyed. In a month, the faithful servant of the Church 
 v/as preaching, catechising, confessing, beyond the Niemen. 
 
 It is impossible to deny that the polity of the Church of Ron.e is the 
 very masterpiece of human wisdom. In truth, nothing but such a polity 
 could, against such assaults, have borne up such doctrines. The experience of 
 twelve hundred eventful years, the ingenuity and patient care of forty gene- 
 rations of statesmen have improved it to such perfection that, among the 
 contrivances of political abiHty, it occupies the highest place. The stronger our 
 conviction that reason and scripture were decidedly on the side of Protestant- 
 ism, the greater is the reluctant admiration with which we regard that system 
 yf tactics against which reason and scripture were arrayed in vain. 
 
 If we went at large into this most interesting subject, we should fill volumes. 
 V\'e will, therefore, at present advert to only one important part of the policy 
 of the Church of Rome. She thoroughly understands, what no other Church has 
 ever understood, how to deal with enthusiasts. In some sects — particularly in 
 infant sects — enthusiasm is suffered to be rampant. In other sects — particularly 
 in sects long established and richly endowed — it is regarded with aversion. 
 The Catholic Church neither submits to enthusiasm nor proscribes it, but uses 
 it. She considers it as a great moving force which in itself, like the muscular 
 power of a fine horse, is neither good nor evil, but which may be so directed 
 as to produce great good or great evil ; and she assumes the direction to her- 
 self. It would be absurd to run down a horse like a wolf. It would be still 
 more absurd to let him run wild, breaking fences and trampling down passen- 
 gers. The rational course is to subjugate his will without impairing his vigour — 
 to teach him to obey the rein and then to urge him to full speed. When once he 
 knows his master, he is valuable in proportion to his strength and spirit. Just 
 such has been the system of the Church of Rome with regard to enthusiasts. She 
 knows that when religious feelings have obtained the complete empire of the 
 .mind they impart a strange energy, that they raise men above the dominion 
 of pain and pleasure, that obloquy becomes glory, that death itself is con- 
 templated only as the beginning of a higher and happier life. She knows 
 that a person in this state is no object of contempt. He may be vulgar, ig- 
 norant, visionary, extravagant ; but he will do and suffer things which it is for 
 her interest that somebody should do and suffer, yet from v.hich calm and 
 
586 RAN RE'S HISTORY OP THE POPES. 
 
 ■ — iii l iiiMii 
 
 sober-minded men would shrink. She accordingly enlists him in her service, 
 assigns to him some forlorn hope, in which intrepidity and impetuosity are 
 more wanted than judgment and self-command, and sends him forth with her 
 benedictions and her applause. 
 
 In England it not unfrequently happens that a tinker or coalheaver hears 
 a sermon or falls in with a tract which alarms him about the state of his soul. 
 If he be a man of excitable nerves and strong imagination, he thinks himself 
 given over to the Evil Power. He doubts whether he has not committed the un- 
 pardonable sin. He imputes every wild fancy that springs up in his mind to the 
 whisper of a fiend. His sleep is broken by dreams of the great judgment-seat, 
 the open books and the unquenchable fire. If, in order to escape from these 
 vexing thoughts, he flies to am.usement or to licentious indulgence, the delusive 
 relief only makes his misery darker and more hopeless. At length a turn takes 
 place. He is reconciled to his offended Maker. To borrow the fine imagery of 
 one' who had himself been thus tried, he emerges from the Valley of the 
 Shadow of Death, from the dark land of gins and snares, of quagmires and 
 precipices, of evil spirits and ravenous beasts. The sunshine is on his path. 
 He ascends the Delectable Mountains, and catches from their summit a distant 
 view of the shining city which is the end of his pilgrimage. Then arises in 
 his mind a natural and surely not a censurable desire, to impart to others 
 the thoughts of which his own heart is full — to warn the careless, to comfort 
 those who are troubled in spirit. The impulse which urges him to devote his 
 whole life to the teaching of religion is a strong passion in the guise of a duty. 
 He exhorts his neighbours ; and, if he be a man of strong parts, he often does so 
 with great effect. He pleads as if he were pleading for his life, with tears 
 and pathetic gestures and burning words ; and he soon finds with dehght, 
 not perhaps wholly unmixed with the alloy of. human infirmity, that his rude 
 eloquence rouses and melts hearers who sleep very composedly while the rector 
 preaches on the apostolical succession. Zeal for God, love for his fellow-crea- 
 tures, pleasure in the exercise of his newly discovered powers, impel him to 
 become a preacher. He has no quarrel with the establishment, no objection to 
 its formularies, its government or its vestments. He would gladly be ad- 
 mitted among its humblest ministers, but, admitted or rejected, his vocation 
 is determined. His orders have come down to him, not through a long and 
 doubtful series of Arian and Popish bishops,' but direct from on high. His 
 commission is the same that on the Mountain of Ascension was given to 
 the Eleven. Nor will he, for lack of human credentials, spare to deliver the 
 glorious message with which he is charged by" the true Head of the Church. 
 For a man thus minded, there is within the pale of the estabhshment no place. 
 He has been at no college ; he cannot construe a Greek author, nor write a 
 Latin theme ; and he is told that, if he remains in the communion of the Church, 
 he must do so as a hearer, and that if he is resolved to be a teacher, he must 
 begin by being a schismatic. His choice is soon made. He harangues on Tower 
 Hill or in Smithfield. A congregation is formed. A hcense is obtained. A 
 plain brick building, with a desk and benches, is run up, and named Ebenezer 
 or Bethel. In a few weeks the Church has lost for ever a hundred families, not 
 one of which entertained the least scruple about her articles, her liturgy, her 
 government or her ceremonies. 
 
 Far different is the policy of Rome. The ignorant enthusiast whom the An- 
 glican Church makes an enemy, and whatever the polite and learned may 
 think, a most dangerous enemy, the Catholic Church makes a champion. 
 She bids him curSe his beard, covers him with a gown and hood of coarse dark 
 stuff, ties a rope round his waist and sends him forth to teach in her name. 
 He costs her nothing. He takes not a ducat away from the revenues of her 
 
HANJCE^S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 587 
 
 r >■ ■ ■ I : — 
 
 beneficed clergy. He lives by the alms of those who respect his spiritual 
 character and are grateful for his instructions. He preaches, not exactly in 
 the style of Massillon, but in a way which moves the passions of uneducated 
 hearers ; and all his influence is employed to strengthen the Church of which 
 he is a minister. To that church he becomes as strongly attached as any of the 
 cardinals whose scarlet carriages and liveries crowd the entrance of the palace 
 on the Quirinal. In this way the Church of Rome unites in herself all the 
 strength of establishment and all the strength of dissent. With the utmost 
 pomp of a dominant hierarchy above, she has all the energy of the voluntary 
 system below. It would be easy to mention very recent instances in which the 
 hearts of hundreds of thousands, estranged from her by the selfis]bpess, sloth 
 and cowardice of the beneficed cletgy, have been brought back'.jjjr ^e zeal of 
 the begging friars. _ /. 
 
 Even for female agency there is a place in her system. To devout women 
 . she assigns spiritual functions, dignities and magistracies. In our country, if a 
 noble lady is moved by more than ordinary zeal for the propagation of religion, 
 the chance is that, though she may disapprove of no doctrine or ceremony of 
 the Established Church, she will end by giving her name to a new schism. If 
 a pious . and benevolent woman enters the cells of a prison to pray with the 
 most unhappy and degraded of her own sex, she does so without any authority 
 from the Church. No line of action is traced out for her ; and it is well if the 
 Ordinary does not complain of her intrusion and if the Bishop does not 
 shake his head at such irregular benevoftence. At Rome, the Countess of 
 Huntingdon would have a place in the calendar as St. Selina and Mrs. Fry 
 would be foundress and first Superior of the Blessed Order of Sisters of the 
 Gaols. 
 
 Place Ignatius Loyola at Oxford. He is certain to become the head of a 
 formidable secession. Place John Wesley at Rome. He is certain to be the 
 first General of a new society devoted to the interest and honour of the Church. 
 , Place St. Theresa in London. Her restless enthusiasm ferments into madness, 
 not untinctured with craft. She becomes the prophetess, the mother of the 
 faithful, holds disputations with the devil, issues scaled pardons to her adorers, 
 and lies in of the Shiloh. Place Joanna Southcote at Rome. She founds" an 
 order of barefooted Carmelites, every one of whom is ready to sufier martyrdom 
 for the Church— a solemn service is consecrated to her memory— and her statue, 
 placed over the holy water, strikes the eye of every stranger who enters St. 
 Peter's. 
 
 We have dwelt long on this subject, because we believe that, of the 
 many causes to which the Church of Rome owed her safety and her triumph 
 at the close of the sixteenth century, the chief was the profound policy 
 with which she used the fanaticism of such persons as St. Ignatius and St. 
 Theresa. 
 
 The Protestant party was now, indeed, vanquished and humbled. In 
 France, so strong had been the Catholic reaction that Henry IV. found it 
 necessary to choose between his religion and his crown. In spite of his 
 clear hereditary right, in spite of his eminent personal qualities, he saw that, 
 unless he reconciled himself to the Church of Rome, he could not count on the 
 fidelity even of those gallant gentlemen whose impetuous valour turned the 
 tide of battle at Ivry. In Belgium, Poland and South Germany, Catholicism 
 had obtained complete ascendency. The resistance of Bohemia was put down. 
 The Palatinate was conquered. Upper and Lower Saxony were overflowed by 
 CathoUc invaders. The King of Denmark stood forth as the Protector of th< 
 Reformed Churches : he was defeated, driven out of the empire and attacked 
 in his own possessions. The armies of the House of Austria pressed on, sub- 
 
588 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 
 
 jugated Pomerania, and were stopped in their progress only by the ramparts 
 of Stralsund. 
 
 And now again the tide turned. Two violent outbreaks of religious feeling 
 in opposite directions had given a character to the whole history of a whole 
 century. Protestantism had at first driven back Catholicism to the Alps and 
 the Pyrenees. Catholicism had rallied and had driven back Protestantism even 
 to the German Ocean. Then the great southern reaction began to slacken, as 
 the great northern movement had slackened before. The zeal of the Catholics 
 became cool ; their union was dissolved. The paroxysm of religious excite- 
 ment was over on both sides. The one party had degenerated as far from the 
 spirit of Loyola, as the other from the spirit of Luther. During three genera- 
 tions, religion had been the mainspring of politics. The revolutions and civil 
 wars of France, Scotland, Holland, Sweden, the long struggle between Philip 
 and Elizabeth, the bloody competition for the Bohemian crown, had all origi- 
 nated in theological disputes. IBut a great change now took place. The contest 
 which was raging in Germany lost its religious character. It was now, on one side, 
 less a contest for the spiritual ascendency of the Church of Rome than for the 
 temporal ascendency of the House of Austria. On the other, it was less a contest 
 for the reformed doctrines than for national independence. Governments began 
 to form themselves into new combinations, in which community of political 
 interest was far more regarded than community of religious belief. Even at 
 Rome, the progress of the Catholic arms was observed with very mixed feelings. 
 The Supreme Pontiff was a sovereign prince of the second rank, and was 
 anxious about the balance of power as well as about the propagation of truth. 
 It was known that he dreaded the rise of an universal monarchy even more than 
 he desired the prosperity of the Universal Church. At length a great event 
 announced to the world that the war of sects had ceased and that the war of 
 states had succeeded. A coalition, including Calvinists, Lutherans and 
 Catholics, was formed against the House of Austria. At the head of that 
 coalition were the first statesman and the first warrior of the age ; the former a 
 prince of the Catholic Church, distinguished by the vigour and success with 
 which he had put down the Huguenots — the latter a Protestant king who 
 owed his throne to a revolution caused by hatred of Popery. The alliance 
 of Richelieu and Gustavus marks the time at which the great religious struggle 
 terminated. The war which followed was a war for the equilibrium of Europe. 
 When, at length, the peace of WestphaHa was concluded, it appeared that the 
 Church of Rome remained in full possession of a vast dominion, which, in the 
 middle of the preceding century, she seemed to be on the point of losing. No 
 part of Europe remained Protestant except that part which had become 
 thoroughly Protestant before the generation which heard Luther preach had 
 passed away. 
 
 Since that time there has been no religious war between Catholics and 
 Protestants as such. In the time of Cromwell, Protestant England was united 
 with Catholic France, then governed by a priest, against Catholic Spain. 
 William III. , the eminently Protestant hero, was at the head of a coalition 
 which included many Catholic powers, and which was secretly favoured even 
 by Rome against the Catholic Louis. In the time of Anne, Protestant Eng- 
 land and Protestant Holland joined with CathoHc Savoy and Cathohc 
 Portugal for the purpose of transferring the crown of Spain from one bigoted 
 Catholic to another. 
 
 The geographical frontier between the two religions has continued to run 
 almost precisely where it ran at the close of the Thirty Years' War ; nor has 
 Protestantism given any proofs of that "expansive power" which has been 
 ascribed to it. But the Protestant boasts, and boasts most justly, that wealth, 
 
RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 589 
 
 civilisation and intelligence have increased far more on the northern than on 
 the southern side of the boundary ; that countries so little favoured by nature 
 as Scotland and Prussia are now among the most flourishing and best governed 
 portions of the world — while the marble palaces of Genoa are deserted, while 
 banditti infest the beautiful shores of Campania, while the fertile sea-coast of 
 the Pontifical State is abandoned to buffaloes and wild boars. It cannot be 
 doubted that, since the sixteenth century, the Protestant nations have made 
 decidedly greater progress than their neighbours. The progress made by 
 those nations in which Protestantism, though not finally successful, yet main- 
 tained a long struggle and left permanent traces, has generally been consider- 
 able. But when we come to the Catholic Land, to the part of Europe in 
 which the first spark of reformation was trodden out as soon as it appeared, 
 and from which proceeded the impulse which drove Protestantism back, we 
 find, at best, a very slow progress, and, on the whole, a retrogression. Compare 
 Denmark and Portugal. When Luther began to preach, the superiority of the 
 Portugese was unquestionable. At present, the superiority of the Danes is no 
 less so. Compare Edinburgh and Florence. Edinburgh has owed less to 
 climate, to soil and to the fostering care of rulers than any capital, Protestant 
 or Catholic. In all these respects, Florence has been singularly happy. 
 Yet whoever knows what Florence and Edinburgh were in the generation 
 preceding the Reformation and what they are now will acknowledge that 
 some great cause has, during the last three centuries, operated to raise one 
 part of the European family and to depress the other. Compare the history 
 of England and that of Spain during the last century. In arms, arts, sciences, 
 letters, commerce, agriculture, the contrast is most striking. The distinction 
 is not confined to this side of the Atlantic. The colonies, planted by 
 England in America, have immeasurably outgrown in power those planted 
 by Spain. Yet we have no reason to believe that at the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century the Castilian was in any respect inferior to the English- 
 man. Our firm belief is, that the North owes its great civilisation and 
 prosperity chiefly to the moral effect of the Protestant Reformation ; and that 
 the decay of the southern countries of Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the 
 great Catholic revival. 
 
 About a hundred years after the final settlement of the boundary line 
 between Protestantism and Catholicism began to appear the signs of the 
 fourth great peril of the Church of Rome. The storm which was now 
 rising against her was of a very different kind from those which had preceded 
 it. Those who had formerly attacked her had questioned only a part of her 
 doctrines. A school was now growing up which rejected the whole. The 
 Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Calvanists had a positive religious 
 system and were strongly attached to it. The creed of the new sectaries was 
 altogether negative. They took one of their premises from th« Protestants 
 and one from the Catholics. From the former they borrowed the principle 
 that Catholicism was the only pure and genuine Christianity. With the latter 
 they held that some parts of the Catholic system were contrary to reason. The 
 conclusion was obvious. Two propositions, each of which separately is com- 
 patible with the most exalted piety, formed, when held in conjunction, the 
 groundwork of a system of irreligion. The doctrine of Bossuet, that tran- 
 substantiation is affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of Tillotson, that 
 transubstantiation is an absurdity, when put together, produced by logical 
 necessity the inferences of Voltaire. 
 
 Had the sect which was rising at Paris been a sect of mere scoflfers, it is 
 very improbable that it would have left deep traces of its existence in the 
 institutions and ipanners of Europe. Mere negation — mere Epicurean 
 
590 RANKE'S HISTORY OF- THE POPE$. 
 
 infidelity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes — has never disturbed the peace 
 of the world. " It furnishes no motive for action. It inspires no enthusiasm. 
 It has no missionaries, no crusaders, no martyrs. If the Patriarch of the 
 Holy Philosophical Church had contented himself with making jokes about 
 Saul's asses and David's wives and with criticising the poetry of Ezekiel in 
 the same narrow spirit in which he criticised that of Shakespeare, the Church 
 would have had little to fear. But it is due to him and to his compeers to say 
 that the real secret of their strength lay in the truth which was mingled with 
 their errors and in the generous enthusiasm which was hidden under their 
 flippancy. They were men who, with all their faults, moral and intellectual, 
 sincerely and earnestly desired the improvement of the condition of the human 
 race — whose blood boiled at the sight of cruelty and injustice— who made 
 manful war, with every faculty which they possessed, on what they considered 
 as abuses — ;and who on many, signal occasions placed themselves gallantly 
 between the powerful and the oppressed. While they assailed Christianity 
 with a rancour and an unfairness disgraceful to men who called themselves 
 philosophers, they yet had, in far greater measure than their opponents, that 
 charity towards men of all classes and races which Christianity enjoins. 
 Religious persecution, judicial torture, arbitrary imprisonment, the unnecessary 
 multiplication of capital punishments, the delay and chicanery of tribunals, 
 the exactions of farmers of the revenue, slavery, the slave trade, were the 
 constant subjects of their lively satire and eloquent disquisitions. When an 
 innocent man was broken on the wheel at Toulouse — wheu a youth, guilty only 
 of an indiscretion, was burned at Abbeville — when a brave officer, borne 
 down by public injustice, was dragged, with a gag in his mouth, to die on the 
 Place de Greve — a voice instantly went forth from the banks of Lake Leman, 
 which made itself heard from Moscow to Cadiz, and which sentenced the unjust 
 judges to the contempt and detestation of all Europe. The really efficient 
 weapons with which the philosophers assailed the evangelical faith were 
 borrowed from the evangelical morality. The ethical and dogmatical parts 
 of the Gospel were unhappily turned against each other. On the one side was 
 a Church boasting of the purity of a doctrine derived from the Apostles, but 
 disgraced by the massacre of St. Bartholomew, by the murder of the best of 
 kings, by the war of Cevennes, by the destruction of Port-Royal. On the 
 other side was a sect laughing at the Scriptures, shooting out the tongue at 
 the sacraments, but ready to encounter principalities and powers in the cause of 
 justice, mercy and toleration. 
 
 Irreligion, accidentally associated with philanthropy, triumphed for a time 
 over religion accidentally associated with political and social abuses. Every- 
 thing gave way to the zeal and activity of the new reformers. In France, 
 every man distinguished in letters was found in their ranks. Every year gave 
 birth to works in which the fundamental principles of the Church were 
 attacked with argument, invective and ridicule. The Church made no defence, 
 except by acts of power. Censures were pronounced, editions were seized, 
 insults were offered to the remains of infidel writers ; but no Boss««t, no 
 Pascal came forth to encounter Voltaire. There appeared not a single defonce 
 of the Catholic doctrine which produced any considerable effect or which is 
 now even remembered. A blood^ and unsparing persecution, like that which 
 put down the Albigenses, might have put down the philosophers. But the 
 time for De Montforts and Dominies had gone by. The punishments which 
 the priests were still able to inflict were sufficient to irritate, but not sufficient 
 to destroy. The war was between power on one side and wit on the other ; 
 and the power was under far more restraint t,han the wit. Orthodoxy soon 
 became a badge of ignorance find stupidity. It' wag as necessaiy to th^ 
 
. RANKE'S HISTORY OP THR POPES. 591 
 
 character of an accomplished man that he should despise the religion of his 
 country as that he should know his letters. The new doctrines spread 
 rapidly through Christendom. Paris was the capital of th^e whole continent. 
 French was everywhere the language^f polite circles. The literary glor>* of 
 Italy and Spain had departed. That of Germany had not yet dawned. The 
 teachers of France were the teachers of Europe. The Parisian opinions spread 
 fast among the educated classes beyond the Alps ; nor could the vigilance of 
 the Inquisition prevent the contraband importation of the new heresy into 
 Castile and Portugal. Governments — even arbitrary governments — saw with 
 pleasure the progress of this philosophy. Numerous reforms, generally laud- 
 able, sometimes hurried on without sufficient regard to time, to place and to 
 public feeling, showed the extent of its influence. The rulers of Paussia, 
 of Russia, of Austria, and of many smaller states, were supposed to be among 
 the initiated. , ■:. ■ ,- 
 
 The Church of Rome was still, in outward shov^, as stately and splendid as 
 ever ; but her foundation was undermined. No state had quitted her com- 
 munion or confiscated her revenues ; but the reverence of the people was every- 
 where departing from her. 
 
 . The first great warning stroke was the fall of that society which, in the con- 
 flict with Protestantism, had saved the Catholic Church from destruction. The 
 order of Jesus had never recovered from the injury received in the struggle with 
 Port-Royal. It was now still more rudely assailed by the philosophers. Its 
 spirit was broken ; its reputation was tainted. Insulted by all the men of 
 genius in Europe, condemned by the civil magistrate, feebly defended by the 
 chiefs of the hierarchy, it fell — and great was the fall of it. 
 
 The movement went on with increasing speed. The first generation of the 
 new sect passed away. The doctrines of Voltaire were inherited and exag- 
 gerated by successors, who bore to him the same relation which the Anabaptists 
 bore to Luther or the Fifth-Monarchy men to Pym. At length the Revolution 
 came. Down went the old Church of France, with all its pomp and wealth. 
 Some of its priests purchased a maintenance by separating themselves from 
 Rome and by becoming the authors of a fresh schism. Some, rejoicing in the 
 new license, flung away their sacred vestments, proclaimed that their whole life 
 had been an imposture, insulted and persecuted the religion of which they had 
 been ministers, and distinguished themselves, even in the Jacobin Club and the 
 Commune of Paris, by the excess of their impudence and ferocity. Others, 
 more faithful to their principles, were butchered by scores without a trial, 
 drowned, shot, hung on lamp-posts. Thousands fled from their country to 
 take sanctuary under the shade of hostile altars. The churches were closed ; 
 the bells were silent ; the shrines were plundered ; the silver crucifixes were 
 melted down. Buffoons, dressed in copes and surplices, came dancing the 
 carmapioU even to the bar of the Convention. The bust of Marat was substi- 
 tuted for the statues of the martyrs of Christianity. A prostitute, seated in 
 state in the chancel of Notre Dame, received the adoration of thousands, who 
 exclaimed that at length, for the first time, those ancient Gothic arches had 
 resounded with the accents of truth. The new unbehef was as intolerant as 
 the old superstition. To show reverence for religion was to incur the suspicion 
 Qf disaffection. It was not without imminent danger that the priest baptised 
 the infant, joined the hands of lovers, or listened to the confession of the dying. 
 The absurd worship of the Goddess of Reason was, indeed, of short duration ; 
 but the deism of Robespierre and I^paux was notices h,ostile to^ flxe Catholic 
 faith than the atheism of Clootz and Chaumette. . 
 
 Nor were the calamities of the Church confined to France. The revolutionary 
 spirit, attacked by all Europe, beat all Europe back, became conqueror in its 
 
^2 RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES. 
 
 turn ; and, not satisfied with the Belgian cities and the rich domains of the 
 spiritual electors, went raging over the Rhine and through the passes of the 
 Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war against Protestanism, Italy and 
 Spain had been the base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the 
 obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her 
 ancient principalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian repub- 
 lic, and the Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped of the 
 treasures piled up by the devotion of six hundred years. The convents of 
 Rome were pillaged. The tricoloured flag floated on the top of the Castle of 
 St. Angelo. The successor of St. Peter was carried away captive by the un- 
 believers. He died a prisoner in their hands ; and even the honours of sepul- 
 ture were long withheld from his remains. 
 
 It is not strange that, in the year 1799, even sagacious observers should have 
 thought that, at length, the hour of the Church of Rome was come. An infidel 
 power ascendant, the Pope dying in captivity, the most illustrious prelates of 
 France living in a foreign country on Protestant alms, the noblest edifices, 
 which the munificence of former ages had consecrated to the worship of God, 
 turned into temples of Victory, or into banqueting-houses for political societies, 
 or into Theophilanthropic chapels — such signs might well be supposed to indi- 
 cate the approaching end of that long domination. 
 
 But the end was not yet. Again doomed to death, the milk-white hind was 
 still fated not to die. Even before the funeral rites had been performed over 
 the ashes of Pius the Sixth, a great reaction had commenced, which, after the 
 lapse of more than forty yeari, appears to be still in progress. Anarchy had 
 had its day. A new order of things rose out of the confusion, new dynasties, 
 new (aws, new titles ; and amidst them emerged the ancient religion. The 
 Arabs have a fable that the Great Pyramid was built by antediluvian kings, 
 and alone, of all the works of men, bore the weight of the flood. Such as this 
 was the fate of the Papacy. It had been buried under the great inundation ; 
 but its deep foundations had remained unshaken ; and, when the waters abated, 
 it appeared alone amidst the ruins of a world which had passed away. The 
 republic of Holland was gone, and the empire of Germany, and the great 
 Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian League, and the House of Bourbon, 
 and the parliaments and aristocracy of France. Europe was full of young 
 creations, a French empire, a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the Rhine. 
 Nor had the late events affected only territorial limits and political institutions. 
 The distribution of property, the composition and spirit of society, had, through 
 great part of Catholic Europe, undergone a complete change ? But the un- 
 changeable Church was still there. 
 
 Some future historian, as able and temperate as Professor Ranke, will, we 
 hope, trace the progress of the Catholic revival of the nineteenth century. We 
 feel that we are drawing too near our own time, and that, if we go on, we shall 
 be in danger of saying much which may be supposed to indicate, and which 
 will certainly excite, angry feelings. We will, therefore, make only one more 
 observation, which, in our opinion, is deserving of serious attention. 
 
 During the eighteenth century, the influence of the Church of Rome was con- 
 stantly on the decHne. Unbelief made extensive conquests in all the Catholic 
 countries of Europe, and in some countries obtained a complete ascendency. 
 The Papacy was at length brought so low as to be an object of derision to 
 infidels and of pity, rather than of hatred, to Protestants. During the nineteenth 
 century, this fallen Church has been gradually rising from her depressed state 
 and reconqueriTj:^ her old dominion. No person who calmly reflects on what, 
 wthin the la^ ^w years, has passed in Spain, in Italy, in South America, in 
 Ireland, \p Jp°^' Netherlands, in Prussia, even in France, can doubt that her 
 ,c a b- 
 
 \ 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 59^ 
 
 power over the hearts and minds of men is now greater far than it was when 
 the "Encyclopaedia" and the "Philosophical Dictionary" appeared. It is 
 surely remarkable that neither the moral revolution of the eighteenth century, 
 nor the moral counter-revolution of tbe nineteenth, should, in any perceptible 
 degree, have added to the domain of rrotestanism. During the former period, 
 whatever was lost to Catholicism was lost also to Christianity ; during the latter, 
 whatever was regained by Christianity in Catholic countries was regained also 
 'by Catholicism. We should naturally have expected that many minds, on the 
 way from superstition to infidelity, or on the way back from infidelity to super- 
 stition, would have stopped at an intermediate point. Between the doctrines 
 taught in the schools of the Jesuits and those which were maintained at the 
 little supper parties of the Baron Holbach, there is a vast interval, in which 
 the human mind, it should seem, might find for itself some resting-place more 
 satisfactory than either of the two extremes. And at the time of the Reforma- 
 tion millions found such a resting-place. Whole nations then renounced 
 Popery without ceasing to believe in a first cause, in a future life, or in the 
 Divine authority of Christianity. In the last century, on the other hand, when 
 a Catholic renounced his belief in the real presence, it was a thousand to one 
 that he renounced his belief in the Gospel too ; and, when the reaction took 
 place, with beUef in the Gospel came back belief in the real presence. 
 
 We by no means venture to deduce from these phenomena any general law ; 
 but we think it a most remarkable fact that no Christian nation, which did not 
 adopt ihe principles of the Reformation before the end of the sixteenth 
 century, should ever have adopted them. Cathojic communities have, since 
 that time, become infidel and become Catholic again ; but none has become 
 Protestant. 
 
 Here we close this hasty sketch of one of the most important portions of the 
 history of mankind. Our readers will have great reason to feel obliged to us 
 if we have interested them sufficiently to induce them to peruse Professor 
 Ranke's book. We will only caution them against the French translation — a 
 performance which, in our opinion, is just as discreditable to the moral character 
 of the person from whom it proceeds as a false affidavit or a forged bill of 
 exchange would have been ; and advise them to study either the original or 
 the English version, in which the sense and spirit of the original are admirably ^„^«— , 
 preserved. .^T' \ B '^ '^ 
 
 LEIGH HUNT. gANUARY, 1841.) 
 
 The Dramatic Works of Wycherlev, Congreve, Vanbrugh and Farquhar, wiih Bio 
 graphical and Critical Notices. By Leigh Hunt. 8vo. London, 1840. 
 
 We have a kindness for Mr. Leigh Hunt. W^e form our judgment of him, 
 indeed, only from events of universal notoriety, from his own works and from 
 the works of other writers, who have generally abused him in the most rancorous 
 manner. But, unless we are greatly mistaken, he is a very clever, a very 
 honest and a very good-natured man. We can clearly discern, together with 
 many merits, many serious faults both in his writings and in his conduct. But 
 we really think that there is hardly a man living whose merits have been so 
 grudgingly allowed and whose faults have been so cruelly expiated. 
 
 In some respects, Mr. Leigh Hunt is excellently qualified for the task which 
 he has now undertaken. His style, in spite of its mannerism — nay, partly by 
 reason of its mannerism — is well suited for light, garrulous, desultory ana, half 
 critical, half biographical. We do not always agree with his literary judg- 
 
594 COMIC DRAMATISTS OP THE RUSTORATION. 
 
 merits ; but we find in him what is very rare in our time, the' power of justly 
 appreciating and heartily enjoying good things of very different kinds. \\t 
 can adore Shakspeare and Spenser without denying poetical genius to the author 
 of " Alexander's Feast," or fine observation, rich fancy and exquisite humour 
 to him who imagined "Will Honeycomb" and "Sir Roger de Coverley." 
 He has paid particular attention to the history of the English drama from the 
 age of Elizabeth down to our own time, and has every right to be heard with 
 respect on that subject.' 
 
 The plays to which he now acts as introducer are, with few exceptions, such 
 as, in the opinion of many very respectable people, ought not to be reprinted. 
 In this opinion we can by no means concur. We cannot wish that any work 
 or class of works which has exercised a great influence on the human mind, and 
 which illustrates the character of an important epoch in letters, politics and 
 morals, should disappear from the world. If we err in this 'matter, we err 
 with the gravest men and bodies of men in the empire, and especially with the 
 Church of England and with the great schools of learning which are connected 
 with her. The whole liberal education of our countryme n is conducted on the prin- 
 oiplfi-lhat no book which is valuable, either by reason of_the excelJence-j^fJts 
 style or by reason of the light which jt jhrows on the hi story, polity and manners 
 oFn ations, should^ be jadiliheld^Jrom^T Ee studen t on^ccoun t of its impuri ty. 
 The Athenian ll^omedies, in wliich~tTi«-e are scarcely aTiundred lines together 
 without som.e passage of which Rochester would have been ashamed, have been 
 reprinted at the Pitt Press and the Clarendon Press under the direction of 
 Syndics and delegates appointed by the Universities, and have been illustrated 
 with notes by reverend, very reverend and right reverend commentators. Every 
 'year the most distinguished young men in the kingdom are examined by bishops 
 and professors of divinity on the " Lysistrata" of Aristophanes and the Sixth 
 Satire of Juvenal. There is certainly something a little ludicrous in the idea 
 of a conclave of venerable fathers of the Church rewarding a lad for his intimate 
 acquaintance with writings compared with which the loosest tale in Prior 
 is modest. But, for our own part^ we have no doubt that the greatest 
 societies which direct the education of the English gentry have herein judged 
 wisely. It is , unquestionable that an extensive acquaintance with, ancient 
 literature enlarges and enriches the mind. It is unquestionable that a man^ 
 whose mind has been thus enlarged and enriched, is likely to be far more use- 
 ful to the state and to the Church than one who is unskilled, or little skilled, 
 in classical learning. On the other hand, we find it difficult to believe t hat, 
 in a world so full of temptation as t his, any gentleman, whose life woidd have 
 been virtuous if he had not read Aris tophanes a nd Juvenal, will be made^^icious 
 by reading them. A man who, exposed to alHthe influences of such a state of 
 society as that in which we live, is yet afraid of exposing himself to the in- 
 fluoTices of a few Greek or Latin verses, acts, we think, much like the felon 
 who begged the sheriffs to let him have an umbrella held over his head from 
 the door of Newgate to the gallows because it was a 'drizzling morning atid he 
 was apt to take cold. T he virtue whic h the WQrM-Want_sis. a healthful virtue, 
 not a valetudinairian virtue — a virtue which can expose itself to the , xisks ij i- 
 separable from allspirited exertion^— not a virtue which keeps out of the common 
 air forlear of infection^nd eschews the common food as too stimulating. It 
 would be indeed absurd to attempt to keep men from acquiring those qualifica- 
 tions which fit them to play their part in life with honour to themselves and 
 advantage to their country, for the sake of preserving a delicacy which cannot 
 be preserved — a delicacy which a walk from Westminster to the Temple iS 
 sufficient to destroy. 
 
 But we should be justly chargeable with gross inconsistency if, while we 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 595 
 
 defend the policy which invites the youth of our country to study such writers 
 as Theocritus and Catullus, we were to set up a cry against a new edition of 
 the " Country Wife " or the "Way of the World." T he immoral Eng lish 
 writers of the sevent eenth century are indeed muc h less excusable tha n_those 
 of jSreece and"Rome. But the w(5rst English writmgs ot the sev'enteenth 
 century are d(>cent compa red with much that lias,- .bpen . bequeathed to 
 us by Greece and Rome. Plato, we have little doubt, was a much better 
 man than Sir George Etherege. But Plato has written things at which Sir 
 George Etherege would have shuddered. Buckhurst and Sedley, even in ' 
 those wild orgies at the Cock in Bow-street, for which they were pelted by the 
 rabble and fined by the Court of King's Bench, would never have dared to 
 hold such discourse as -passed between Socrates and Phaedrus on that fine 
 summer day under the plane-tree, while the fountain warbled at their feet and 
 the cicadas chirped overhead. If it be, as we think it is, desirable that an 
 English gentleman should be well informed touching the government and the 
 manners of little commonwealths which, both in place and time, are far removed 
 from us — whose independence has been more than two thousand years ex- 
 tinguished — whose language has not been spoken for ages— and whose ancient 
 magnificence is attested only by a few broken columns and friezes — much more' 
 must it be -desirable that he should be intimately acq uainte d with the histor y of 
 the public mind of his own country, a nd with the causes^. the, jintnrp nnrl the,' 
 
 extent of those revolu tions of opinion and feeHng which, during the kst two 
 iiienturies, have alternately raispd and df^presspd the standarjoj our national 
 morality. And knowledge of this sort is to be very sparingly gleaned from V^^^ 
 Parliamentary debates, from state papers and from the works of grave ^^* 
 historians. It must either not be acquired at all, or it must be acquired by the 'y 
 perusal of the light literature which has at various periods been fashionables,,.^^ "^ 
 W'e are therefore by no means disposed to condemn this publication, thmffff" 
 we certainly cannot recommend the handsome volume* before us as an appro- 
 priate Christmas present for young ladies. . 
 
 We have said that we think the present publication perfectly justifiable. But 
 we can by no means agree with Mr. Leigh Hunt, who seems to hold that there 
 is little or nb ground for the charge of immorality so often brought against the 
 iiterature of the Restoration. We do not blame him for not bringing to the . 
 judgment-seat the merciless rigour of Lord Angelo ; but we really think that 
 such flagitious and impudent offenders, as those who are now at the bar, 
 
 deserved at least the gentle rebuke of Escalus. Mr. Leigh Hunt treats the -- 
 
 whole matter a little too much in the easy style of Lucio ; and perhaps his _^^ 
 
 exceeding lenity disposes us to be somewhat too severe. 
 
 And yet it is not easy to be too severe. For in truth t his part of our 
 literatu re is a'disgrace to our language and our national charac ter, it is clever". 
 indee3r~and very entertaining ; but it is, in the most einphatic sense of the 
 J^ words, "earthly, sensual, devilish." Its indecency, though perpetually such 
 as is condemned, not less by the rules of good taste than by those of morality, 
 is not, in our opinion, so disgraceful a fault as its singularly inhuman spirit. — 
 W^e have here BeHal, not as when he inspired Ovid and Ariosto, " graceful and 
 humane," but with the iron eye and cruel sneer of Mephistophiles. We find 
 ourselves in a world in which the ladies are like very profligate, impudent 
 and unfeeling men, and in which the men are too bad for any place but 
 
 * Mr. Moxem, its publisher, is well entitled to commendation and support for having-— 
 by a series of corresponding Reprints (comprising the works of the elder Dramatists), 
 executed in a compendious but very comely form, and accompanied with useful prole- 
 gomena — put it in the pow«r of anyone desirous of such an acquisition, to procure, at a 
 comparatively small cost, the noblest Dramatic Library in the world, 
 
596 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION, 
 
 Pandasmonium or Norfolk Island. We are surrounded by foreheads of bronze, 
 hearts like the nether nfiillstone and tongues set on fire of hell. 
 
 Dryden defended or excused his own offences and those of his con- 
 temporaries by pleading the example of the earlier English dramatists ; and 
 Mr. Leigh Hunt seems to think that there is force in the plea. We altogether 
 differ from this opinion. The crime charged is not mere coarseness of expres- 
 sion. The terms which are delicate in one age become gross in the next. 
 The diction of the English version of the Pentateuch is sometimes such as 
 Addison would not have ventured to imitate ; and Addison, the standard of 
 moral purity in his own age, used many phrases which are now proscribed. 
 Whether a thing shall be designated by a plain noun-substantive or by a cir- 
 cumlocution is mere matter of fashion. Morality is not at all interested in the 
 question. But morality is deep l^intereste(Liii-this — that-jadiatis Jmmeral 
 shall not be prese nted to the imaginatiQiTof the young and sus ceptible in c on- 
 gtant connection with what is attractive. For every person who has observed 
 the~operation of^e iaw~nf~aS§ociiitiQn in his own mind and in the minds of 
 others, knows th at whatever is constan tly presented to the imagination i ncon- 
 nection with what is attractive will co mmonly JtsJJr.bftrnmfiAttractiye." TH^re 
 is ^uh'doubtedty'^a'great deaTorindelicate writing in Fletcher and Massinger, 
 and more than might be wished even in Bqnjojispn and Shakspearf , who are 
 comparativ^ly_£ure. But it is ii gpossible to tra ce jnjheir plays any systematic 
 atte mpt to as sociate vice wiUi^those things which men value most and desire 
 most and virtue wTthi everything ridiculous and degrading. And such a 
 systematic attempt jwefind in the whole dramaticJiteraturc of the generation 
 whicTi followed theTeturn of Charlesjhe Second. We will take, as an instance 
 of what we mean, a single subject of the highest importance to the happiness 
 of mankind — conjugal fidelity. We can at present hardly call to mind a single 
 English play, written before the civil war, in which the character of a seducer 
 of married women is represented in a favourable light. We remember many 
 plays in which such persons are baffled, exposed, covered with derision and 
 insulted by triumphant husbands. Such is the fate of Falstaff, with all his wit 
 and knowledge of the world. Such is the fate of Brisac in Fletcher's '* Elder 
 Brother," and of Ricardo and Ubaldo in Massinger's " Picture." Sometimes, 
 as in the "Fatal Dowry" and "Love's Cruelty," the outraged honour of 
 families is repaired by a bloody revenge. If now and then the lover is repre 
 sented as an accomplished man and the husband as a person of weak or odiou.s 
 character, this only makes the triumph of female virtue the more signal, as in 
 Jonson's Celia and Mrs. Fitzdottrel, and in Fletcher's Maria. In 
 general, we will venture to s^, that the dramatists of the age of Elizabeth 
 and James the First either treat the breach of the marriage-vow as a serious 
 crime, or, if they treat it as matter for laughter, turn the laugh against the 
 gallant. 
 
 On the contrary, during the forty jyears which fo llowedthe Restorad on. the 
 whole body of the_dramatists invariably represen tadultery ^we do not say as 
 a peccadillo — we^o not sa/ as an error which the violence of passion may 
 excuse — but as the calling ofafine^entlemanr-as a grace without which his 
 character wouH'^BeTrnpertecf: IT^^s essential to his breeding and to his 
 place in society that he should make love to the wives of his neighbours, as 
 that he should know French, or that he should have a sword at his side. In 
 all this, there is no passion and scarcely anything that can be called preference. 
 The hero intrigues just as he wears a wig ; because, if he did not, he would be 
 a queer fellow, a city prig, perhaps a Puritan. All the agreeable qualities are 
 always given to the gallant. All the contempt and aversion are the portion of 
 the unfortunate husband, Take Dryden for example ; and compare Woodall 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 597 
 
 with Brainsick, or Lorenzo with Gomez. Take Wycherley ; and compare 
 Horner with Pinchvvife. Take Vanbrugh ; and compare Constant with Sir 
 John Brute. Take Farquhar ; and compare Archer with Squire Sullen. Take 
 Congreve ; and compare Bellmore vfith Fondlewife, Careless with Sir Paul 
 Plyant, or Scandal with Foresight. l a all these cases, and in many more which 
 might be named, the dramatist evidently does his best to make the perso n 
 who commits the injury^gracejuL sensible and spirited^ and t he person who 
 suffers it a fool, or aj^ya nt, or both. 
 
 Mr. Charles Lamb, mdeed, attempted to set up a defence for this way of 
 writing. The dramatists of the latter part of the seventeenth century are not, 
 according to him, to be tried by the standard of morality which exists, and 
 ought to exist, in real life. Their world is a conventional world. Their heroes 
 and heroines belong, not to England, not to Christendom, but to an Utopia of 
 gallantry, to a Fairyland where the Bible and Burn's Justice are unknown — 
 where a prank, which on this earth would be rewarded with the pillory, is 
 merely matter for a peal of elvish laughter. A real Horner, a real Careless, 
 would, it is admitted, be exceedingly bad men. But to predicate morality or 
 immorality of the Horner of "Wycherley and the Careless of Congreve, is as 
 absurd as it would be to arraign a sleeper for his dreams. " They belong to 
 the regions of pure comedy, where no cold moral reigns. When we are 
 amongst them, we are amongst a chaotic people. We are not to judge them 
 by our usages. No reverend institutions are insulted by their proceedings, for 
 they have none among them. No peace of families is violated, for no family 
 ties exist amongst them. There is neither right nor wrong — gratitude or its 
 opposite — claim or duty, paternity orsonship." 
 
 This is, we believe, a fair summary of Mr. Lamb's doctrine. We are sure 
 that we do not wish to represent him unfairly. For we admire his genius ; we 
 love the kind nature which appears in all his writing ; and we cherish his 
 memory as much as if we had known him personally. But we must plainly 
 say that his argument, though ingenious, is altogether sophistical. 
 
 Of course we perfectly understand that it is possible for a writer to create 
 a conventional world in which things forbidden by the Decalogue and the 
 Statute Book shall be lawful, and yet that the exhibition may be harmless, or 
 even edifying. For example, we suppose that the most austere critics would 
 not accuse Fenelon of impiety and immorality on account of his "Telemachus" 
 and his " Dialogues of the Dead." In '* Telemachus " and the " Dialogues of the 
 Dead " we have a false religion, and consequently a morality which is in some 
 points incorrect. We have a right and a wrong, differing from the right and 
 the wrong of real life. It. s represented as the first duty of men to pay honour 
 to Jove and Minerva. Philocles, who employs his leisure in making graven 
 images of these deities is extolled for his piety in a way which contrasts 
 singularly with the expressions of Isaiah on the same subject. The dead are 
 judged by Minos, and rewarded with lasting happiness for actions which- 
 Fenelon would have been the first to pronounce splendid sins. The same 
 may be said of Mr. Southey's Mahommedan and Hindoo heroes and heroines. 
 In Thalaba, to speak i n derogation of the Arabian impostor is blasphemy — to 
 drink wine is a crime — l) perform ablutions and to pay honour to the holy cities 
 are works of merit. In the *' Curse of Kehama," Kailyal is commended for her 
 devotion to the statue of Mariataly, the goddess of the poor. But certainly no 
 person will accuse Mr. Southey of having promoted or intended to promote 
 either Islamism or Brahminism. 
 
 It is easy to see why the conventional worlds of Fenelon and Mr. Sou they y 
 are unobjectionable. In the first place they are utterly unlike the real 
 worid in which we live, The state of society, the laws even of the physical 
 
598 COMIC DRAMATISTS OR. THE RESTORATION. 
 
 world, are so different from those with which we are familiar, that we 
 cannot be shocked at finding the morahty also very different. But in truth 
 y^ t he morality of these con vgntion al worlds differs from the moraUty o f the 
 real world only in poin ts wheTe there is no danger that the real wofld 
 wjilLever jTo w rQiig.^_ The generosity and docility of Telemachus, the fortitude, 
 the modesty, the filial tenderness of Kailyal, kre virtues of all ages and nations. 
 And there was very little danger that the Dauphin would worship Minerva, 
 or that an English damsel would dance, with a bucket on her head, before 
 the statue of Mariataly. 
 
 The case is widely different with what Mr. Charles Lamb calls the_conyen- 
 tional world of Wycherley and Congreve. Here the^ costume, the m anners, • 
 the topics of conversation are those of the reaTTown and of^he^ passing_day. 
 The hero is in all superficial •'accomplishments exactly the fi^iTe gentleman, 
 whom every youth in the pit would gladly resemble. The heroine is the fine 
 lady whom every youth in the pit would gladly marry. The scene is laid in 
 some place which is as well known to the audience as their own houses, in 
 St. James's Park, or Hyde Park, or Westminster Hall. The lawyer bustles 
 about with his bag between the Common Pleas and the Exchequer. The 
 Peer calls for his carriage to go to the House of Lords on a private bill. A 
 hundred little touches are employed to make the fictitious world appear like 
 the actual world. And the immorality is of a sort which never can be out of 
 date, and which all the force of religion, law and public opinion united can 
 but imperfectly restrain. 
 
 In the name of art, as well as in the name of virtue, we protest against the 
 principle that the world of pure comedy is one into which no moral enters. 
 If comedy bean imitatjon^nder whate ver con ventions , of real lifr^ hnvf k it 
 possible that it can have ho "reference to the great Tule which directs life, and 
 tbTeelirigs' whtch are c alled forth by ever)^ _incident of fite >' If what MrT 
 Charles Lamb says were correct, the inference would be that these dramatists 
 did not in the least understand the very first principles of their craft. Pure 
 landscape-painting into which no light or shade entefs, pure portrait-painting 
 into which no expression enters, are phrases less at variance with sound 
 criticism than pure comedy into which no moral enters. 
 
 But it is not the fact that the world of these dramatists is a world into which 
 no moral enters. Morality constantly enters into that world, a sound morality 
 and an unsound morality ; the sound morality to be insulted, derided, asso- 
 ciated with everything mean and hateful ; the unsound morality to be set off 
 to every advantage and inculcated by all methods, direct and indirect. It is 
 not the fact that none of the inhabitants of this conventional world feel 
 reverence for sacred institutions and family ties. Fondlewife, Pinch wife, every 
 person, in short, of narrow understanding and disgusting manners, expresses that 
 reverence strongly. The heroes and hecQ inesT-4eoT~ha ye a moral -eede-ef-their 
 ocBai4„aiL-e^tceedingly bad one, but^not a s Mr. Charl es Lnmb seems to think, a 
 Ciod e existing, on ly in the , imaginatioiLjQL-dramatists. It^s, on the contrary, a 
 c ode actually received and obeyed by great iiumbers-jQfLpeople. We need not 
 go to liJ^topia or Fairyland to find them. They are near at hand. Every 
 night some of them play at the " hells " in the Quadrant and others pace the 
 Piazza in Co vent -Garden: Without flying to Nephelococcygia or to the Court 
 of Queen Mab, we can meet with sharpers, bullies, hard-hearted impudent 
 debauchees and women worthy of such paramours. T he moralit] ^ of the, 
 *' Country Wife " and the " Old Bachelor " js the mo rality, not, as Mr. Charles 
 Lamb mamfainsrof ah unreal woirld, but o f a world which is a grea t deal too 
 r«;al. It is the morality, not of"a chaotic^people, but of low town-rakes and 
 oT^those ladies whom the newspapers call ''dashing-Cyprians," And the' 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 599 
 
 question is simply whether a man of genius, who constantly and systematically 
 endeavours to make this sort of character attractive by uniting it with beauty, 
 grace, dignity, spirit, a high social position, popularity, literature, Wit, taste, 
 knowledge of the world, brilliant 5uc<?ess in every undertaking, does or does 
 not make an ill use of his powers. We own that we are unable to understand 
 how this question can be answered in any way but one. 
 
 It must, indeed, be acknowledged, in justice to thejtfiiters. of whom we have 
 spoken thus severely, that th ey were, to a great extent, t he creatures of thei r 
 age. And if it be asked why that age encouraged immorality which no other 
 age would have tolerated, we have no hesitation in answering that this great 
 depravation of the national taste was the effect of t he prevalence of Purita nism 
 under the C omrnonwealth . ■ 
 
 To punish public outrages on morals and religion is unquestionably within^ 
 the competence of rulers. But when a government, not content with requiri ng 
 Hpryn^ y, rpqnirps < ^opc tity, it_ oversteps the bound which mark its proper func- 
 tions. And it may be laid down as an universal rule, that a go vernm eiit 
 which attempts more than it oug ht will perform less. A lawgiver, who, in 
 in order~t o p r otect distressed "borrowers, limits the rate of interest, either 
 makes it impossible for the objects of his care to borrow at all, or places them 
 at the mercy of the worst class of usurers. A lawgiver, who, from tenderness 
 for labouring men, fixes the hours of their work and the amount of their 
 wages, is certain to make them far more wretched than he found them. 
 And soagovernment, which, not content with repressing scandalous excesses, 
 dema£3r^mltOu^cts_Jerv^^ 
 
 whil e atte mpting to rendeF an impossible service to the cause of virtue, it hft s 
 in truth onlypromotecrvrce. - ' .. 
 
 For what are th£_ means by which a goyernrn gntixaiL effect Jt ends ? Two 
 only, rewards_^jid_^ni.shTn^tS3-powerf^ means, indeed, for influencing the 
 exterior act, but altogetherimpotentib r the purpose of touchi n g the hea rt., A 
 public functionary, who is told that he will be advanced if he is a devout Catho- 
 lic and turned out of his place if he is not, will probably go to mass every 
 morning, exclude meat from his table on Fridays, shrive himself regularly, r.nd 
 perhaps let his superiors know that he wears a" hair shirt nex this skin. Under 
 a Puritan government, a person who is apprised that piety is essential to thriv- 
 ing in the world, will be strict in the observance of the Sunday, or, as he will 
 call it. Sabbath, and will avoid a theatre as if it were plague-stricken. Such a 
 show'o'f religion as this, the hope of gain and the fear of loss will produce, at 
 a week's notice, in any abundance' which' a government may require. But 
 under this show, sensuality, ambition, avarice and hatred retain unimpaired 
 power ; and the seeming convert has only added to the vices of a man of the 
 world all the still darker vices which are engendered by the constant practice 
 of dissimulation. The truth cannot be long concealed. The pubHc discovers 
 that the grave persons, who are proposed to it as patterns, are more utterly 
 destitute of moral principle and of moral Sensibility than avowed libertines. 
 It sees that these Pharisees are farther removed from real goodness that publi- 
 cans and harlots. And, as usual, it rushes to the extreme opposite to that which 
 it quits. It considers a high religious profession as a sure mark of meanness 
 and depravity. On the very first day on which the restraint of fear is taken 
 away and on which men can venture to say what they feel, a frightful peel of 
 blasphemy and ribaldry proclaims that the short-sighted policy which aimed at 
 making a nation of saints has made a nation of* Scoffers. 
 
 It was thus in France about the beginning of the eighteenth centur}\ Louis 
 the Fourteenth in his old age became religious, and determined that his sub- 
 jects should be religious too — shrugged his shoulders and knitted his brows if 
 
/ 
 
 6oo COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 
 
 he observed at his levee or near his dinner-table any gentleman who neglected 
 the duties enjoined ty the church — and rewarded piety with blue ribands, invi- 
 tations to Marli, governments, pensions and regiments. Forthwith Versailles 
 became, in everything but dress, a convent. The pulpits and confessionals 
 were surrounded by swords and embroidery. The Marshals of France were 
 much in prayer ; and there was hardly one among the Dukes and Peers who 
 did not carry good little books in his pocket, fast during Lent and communi- 
 cate at Easter. Madame de Maintenon, who had a great share in the blessed 
 work, boasted that devotion had become quite the fashion. A fashion indeed 
 it was ; and like a fashion it passed away. No sooner had the old king been 
 carried to St. Denis than the whole court unmasked. Every man hastened to 
 indemnify himself by the excess of licentiousness and impudence, for years of 
 mortification. The same persons, who, a few months before, with meek voices 
 and demure looks, had consulted divines about the state of their souls, now 
 surrounded the midnight table where, amidst the bounding of champagne corks, 
 a drunken prince, enthroned between Dubois and Madame de Parabere, hic- 
 coughed out atheistical arguments and obscene jests. The early part of the 
 reign of Louis the Fourteenth had been a time of license ; but the most disso- 
 lute men of that generation would have blushed at the orgies of the Regency. 
 
 It was the same with our fathers in the time of the Great Civil War. We 
 are by no means unmindful of the great debt which mankind owes to the 
 Puritans of that time ; the deliverers of England, the founders of the Great 
 American Commonwealths. But, in the day of their power, they committed 
 one great fault, which left deep and lasting traces in the national character and 
 manners. They mistook the end and overrated the force of governmenL 
 They determined, not merely to protect religion and public morals from insult, 
 an object for which the civil sword, in discreet hands, may be beneficially 
 employed — but to make the people committed to their rule truly devout. Yet, 
 if they had only reflected on events which they had themselves witnessed, and 
 in which they had themselves borne a great part, they would have seen what 
 was likely to be the result of their enterprise. They had lived under a govern- 
 ment which, during a long course of years, did all that could be done, by 
 lavish bounty and by rigorous punishment, to enforce conformity to the doctrine 
 and discipline of the Church of England. No person suspected of hostility to 
 that church had the smallest chance of obtaining favour at the court of Charles. 
 Avowed dissent was punished by imprisonment, by ignominious exposure, by 
 cruel mutilations and by ruinous fines. And the event had been that the 
 Church had fallen, and had, in its fall, dragged down with it a monarchy which 
 had stood six hundred years. The Puritan might have learned, if from nothing 
 else, yet from his own recent victory, that governments which attempt things 
 beyond their reach are likely, not merely to fail, but to produce an effect directly 
 the opposite of that which they contemplate as desirable. 
 
 All this was overlooked. The saints were to inherit the earth. The thea- 
 tres were closed. The fine arts were placed under absurd restraints. Vices 
 \ which had never before been even misdemeanors were made capital felonies. 
 It was solemnly resolved by Parliament, "that no person shall be employed 
 but such as the House shall be satisfied of his real godliness." The pious 
 assembly had a Bible lying on the table for reference. If they had consulted 
 it they might have learned that the wheat and the tares grow together insepar- 
 ably, and must either be spared together or rooted uf> together. To know 
 whether a man was really godly was impossible. But it was easy to know 
 whether' he had a plain dress, lank hair, no starch in his linen, no gay furniture 
 in his house ; whether he talked through his nose and showed ^^e whites of his 
 eyes ; whether he named his children Assurance, Tribulation and Mahersha- 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 6oi 
 
 lar-hash-baz ; whether he avoided Spring Garden when in town and abstained 
 from hunting and hawking when in the country — whether he expounded hard 
 scriptures to his troop of dragoons — and talked in a committee of ways and 
 means about seeking the Lord. These were tests which could easily be 
 applied. The misfortune was that ^ey were tests which proved nothing. 
 Such as they were, they were employed by the dominant party. And the con- 
 sequence was, that a crowd of impostors, in every walk oflife, began to 
 mimic and to caricature what were then regarded as the outward signs of sanc- 
 tity. The nation was not duped. The restraints of that gloomy time were 
 such as would have been impatiently borne if imposed by men who were uni- 
 versally believed to be saints. Those restraints became altogether insupport- 
 able when they were known to be kept up for the profit of hypocrites. It Ls 
 quite certain that, even if the royal family had never returned — even if Richard 
 Cromwell or Henry Cromwell had been at the head of the administration — 
 there would have been a great relaxation of manners. Before the Revolution 
 many signs indicated that a period of license was at hand. The Restoration 
 crushed for a time the Puritan party and placed supreme power in the hands 
 of a libertine. The political counter-revolution assisted the moral counter- 
 revolution and was in turn assisted by it. A period of wild and desperate dis- 
 soluteness followed. Even in remote manor-houses and hamlets, the change 
 was in some degree felt ; but in London the outbreak of debauchery was appal- 
 ling. And in London the places most deeply infected were the Palace, the 
 quarters inhabited by the aristocracy and the Inns of Court. It was on the 
 support of these parts of the town that the playhouses depended. T he c ha- 
 racter of the drama became conformed to the cham rtpr nf its pntrnTT;. 
 The^ rr>\n\( ^, pnpt wn<; the m nnthpipce nf tVip Tr>nc;t Hp^pjy rnrniptpH parf 
 
 or X'corrupte'd s ociety^- And in the plays bef ore _u5„we^-iind>- distilled -and 
 condense d, the esse ntial spirit ^Tt Ke fashionable world d uring the Anti-pur itan 
 r eaHIonr "" ~~~ 
 
 " The Puritan had affected formality; the ' comic poet laughed at decorum,^^ 
 The Puritan had frowned at innocent diversions ; the comic poet took under 
 his patronage the most flagitious excesses. The Puritan had canted ; th* 
 comic poet blasphemed. The Puritan had made an affair of gallantry felony 
 without benefit of clerg)' ; the comic poet represented it as an honourable dis- 
 tinction. The Puritan spoke with disdain of the low standard of popular 
 morality ; his life was regulated by a far more rigid code ; his virtue was sus- 
 tained by motives unknown to men of the world. Unhappily, it had been 
 amply proved in many cases, and might well be suspected in many more, that 
 these high pretensions were unfounded. Accordingly, the fashionable circles, 
 and the comic poets who were the spokesmen of those circles, took up the 
 notion that all professions of piety and Integrity were to be construed by tha 
 rule of contrary ; that it might well be doubted whether there was such a thing 
 as virtue in the world ; but that, at all events, a person who affected to \yi 
 better than his neighbours was sure to be a knave. 
 
 In the old drama there had been much that was reprehensible. But who- 
 ever compares even the least decorous plays of Fletcher with those contained 
 in the volume before us Will see how much the profligacy which follows a 
 period of overstrained austerity goes beyond the profligacy which precedes 
 such a period. The nation resembled the demoniac in the New Testament. 
 The Puritans boasted tliat the unclean spirit was cast out. The house was 
 empty, swept and garnished : and for a time the expelled tenant wandered 
 through dry places seeking rest and finding none. But the force of the 
 exorcism was spent. The fiend returned to his abode and returned not 
 alone. He took to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. 
 
Co2 COMIC DRAMA TISTS OF. THE RESTORA TION, 
 
 They entered in and dwelt together j . and the second possession was worse 
 tlian the first. . . . , 
 
 We will now, as far as our limits wiH permit, pass in review the writers to 
 whona Mr. Leigh Hunt h,as introduced us/' Of the four, Wycherley stands , we 
 think, l ast in literairy merit^ but'lirst 'in' order of time, a nd_first, beyond ^11 
 doubt, in immoralitj' '" " 
 
 William Wycherley was born in 1640. He was the son of a Shropshire 
 gentleman of old family, and of what was then accounted a good estate. The 
 property was estimated at ;!^6oo a year, a fortune which, among the fortunes 
 at that time, probably ranked as a fortune of £2,000 a year would rank in our 
 days. 
 
 William was an infant when the civil war broke out ; and, while he was 
 still in his rudiments, a Presbyterian hierarchy and a republican government 
 were established on the ruins of the, ancient church and throne. Old Mr. 
 Wycherley was attached to the royal cause, and was not disposed to intrust 
 the education of his heir to the solemn Puritans who now ruled the universities 
 and public schools. Accordingly, the young gentleman was sent at fifteen to 
 France. He resided some time in the neighbourhood of the Duke of Montau- 
 sier, chief of one of the noblest families of Touraine. The Duke's wife, a 
 daughter of the house of Rambouillet, was a finished specimen of those talents 
 and accomplishments for which her house was celebrated. The young foreigner 
 was introduced to the splendid circle which surrounded the duchess, and there 
 he appears to have learned some good and some evil. In a few years he 
 returned to this country a fine gentleman and a Papist. His conversion, it 
 may safely be affirmed, was the effect not of any strong impression on his 
 understanding or feelings, but partly of intercourse with an agreeable society in 
 which the Church of Rome was the fashion, and partly of that aversion to 
 Calvinistic austerities which was then almost universal among young \English- 
 men of parts and spirit, and which, at one time, seemed likely to make one half 
 of them Catholics and the other half Atheists. 
 
 But the Restoration came. The universities were again in loyal hands, and 
 there was reason to hope that there would be again a national church" fit for a 
 gentleman. Wycherley became a member of Queen's College, Oxford, and 
 abjured the errors of the Church of Rome. The somewhat equivocal glory of 
 t\irning, for a short time,' a good-for-nothing Papist into a very good-for-nothing 
 Protestant is ascribed to Bishop Barlow. 
 
 W^ycherley left Oxford without taking a degree and entered at the Temple, 
 where he lived gaily for some years, observing the humours of the town, enjoy- 
 ing its pleasures and picking up just as much law as was necessary to make 
 the character of a pettifogging attorney or of a litigious client entertaining in a 
 comedy. ' ^ 
 
 From an early age, he had been in th^ habit of amusing himself by writing. 
 Some wretched lines of his on the Restoration are still extant. Had he 
 devoted himself to the making of verses he would have been nearly as far 
 below Tate and Blackmore as Tate and Blackmore are below Dryden. His 
 only chance for renown would have been that he might have occupied a niche 
 in a satire_ between Flecknoe and Settle. There was, however, another kind 
 of composition in which his talents and acquirements qualified him to succeed ; 
 and to that he judiciously betook himself. 
 
 In his old age he used to say that he wrote " Love in a Wood " at nineteen, 
 the "Gentleman Dancing- Master " at twenty-one, the "Plain Dealer" at 
 twenty-five and the " Country Wife " at one or two and thirty. We are 
 incredulous, w^. own,, as tQ.the truth of this stoiy. . Nothing that we know of 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF TH^ REStORATIOH. 603 
 
 Wycherley leads us to think him incapable of sacrificing truth to vanity. And 
 his memory in the decline of his .life played him sUch strange tricks that we 
 might question the correctness of 'his' assertioTn withoti't throwing -any iniputa- 
 tion on his veracity. It is certain' that none of his plays was acted till 1672, 
 when he gave "Love in a Wood " to the public. It seems improbable that 
 hfe should resolve, on so important an occasion as that of a first appearance 
 before the world, to run his chance with a feeble piece, written before his 
 talents, were ripe before his style was formed, before he had looked abroad 
 into the world ; and this when he had actually in his desk two highly finished 
 plays, the fruit of his matured powers. When we look minutely at the pieces 
 themselves, %ve find in every part of them reason to suspect the accuracy of 
 Wycherley 's statement. In the first scene of *' Love in a Wood, " to go no 
 further, we find many passages which he could not have written when he was 
 nineteen. There is an allusion to gentlemen's periwigs, which first came into 
 fashion in 1663 ; an allusion to guineas, which were first struck in 1663 ; an 
 allusion to the vests which Charles ordered to be worn at court in 1666 ; an 
 allusion to the fire of 1666 ; and several allusions to political and ecclesiastical 
 affairs which must be assigned to times later than the year of the Restoration — 
 to times when the government and the city were opposed to each other, and 
 when the Presbyterian ministers had been driven from the parish churches to 
 the conventicles. But it is needless to dwell on particular expressions. The 
 whole air and spirit of the piece belong to a period subsequent to that men- 
 tioned by Wycherley. As to the "Plain Dealer," which is said to have been 
 written when he was twenty-five, it contains one scene unquestionably written 
 after 1675, several which are later than 1668, and scarcely a line which can 
 have been composed before the end of 1666. •> '" 
 
 Whatever may have been the age at which Wycherley composed his plays, 
 it is certain that he did not bring them before the pubHc till he was upwards 
 of thirty. In 1672, " Love in a Wood " was acted with more success than it 
 deserved, and this event produced a great change in the fortunes of the 
 author. The Duchess of Cleveland cast her eyes upon him and was pleased 
 with his appearance. This abandoned woman, not content with her 
 complaisant husband and her royal keeper, lavished her fondness on a 
 crowd of pararnours of all ranks, from dukes to rope-dancers. In the time of 
 the commonwealth she commenced her career of gall^try, and terminated it 
 under Anne, by marrying, when a great-grandmother, that worthless fop. 
 Beau Fielding. It is not strange that she should have regarded Wycherley 
 with favour. His figure was commanding, his countenance strikingly 
 handsome, his look and deportment full ol grace and dignity. He had, as 
 Pope said long after, " the true nobleman look," the look which seems to in- 
 dicate superiority, and a not unbecoming consciousness of superiority. 
 His hair indeed, as he says in one of his poems, was prematurely grey. But 
 in that age of periwigs this misfortune was of little importance. The Duchess 
 admired him, and proceeded to make love to him after the fashion of the 
 ooarsejminded and shameless circle to which she belonged. In the > Ring, 
 when the crowd of beauties and fine gentlemen was thickest, she put her 
 head out of her coach- window and bawled to him — ' * Sir, you are a rascal ; 
 you are a villain ; " and, if she is not belied, she added another phrase of 
 ybuse which we will not quote, but of which we may say that it might most 
 justly have been applied to her own children. Wycherley called on her 
 Grace the next day, and with great humility begged to know in what way 
 he had beeil so unfortunate as to disoblige her. Thus began an intimacy 
 from, which the poet probably expected wealth and honours. Nor were such 
 expectations unreasonable. A handsome young fellow about the court, known 
 
6o4 COMIC Dramatists o^ the restoration. 
 
 by the name of Jack Churchill, was, about the same time, so lucky as to be- 
 come the object of a short-lived fancy of the Duchess^ She had presented 
 him with ;^4, 500, the price, in all probability, of some title or some pardon* 
 The prudent youth had lent the money on high interest and on landed security ; 
 and this judicious investment was the beginning of the most splendid private 
 fortune in Europe. Wycherley was not so lucky. Tlie partiality with which 
 the great lady regarded him was indeed the talk of the whole town ; and, 
 sixty years later, old men who remembered those days told Voltaire that she 
 often stole from the court to her lover's chambers in the Temple, disguised 
 like a country girl, with a straw hat on her head, pattens on her feet and 
 a basket in her hand. The poet was indeed too happy and proud to be dis- 
 creet. He dedicated to the Duchess the play which had led to their ac- 
 quaintance, and in the dedication expressed himself in terms which could 
 not but confirm the reports which had gone abroad. But at Whitehall such 
 an aftair was regarded in no serious light. The lady was not afraid to 
 bring Wycherley to court and to introduce him to a splendid society, with 
 which, as far as appears, he had never before mixed. The easy king, who 
 allowed to his mistresses the same liberty which he claimed for himself, 
 was pleased with the conversation and manners of his new rival. So 
 high did Wycherley stand in the royal favour that once, when he wa* 
 confined by a fever to his lodgings in Bow Street, Charles, who, vdth 
 all his faults, was certainly a man of social and affable disposition, called 
 on him, sat by his bed, advised him to try change of air, and gave 
 him a handsome sum of money to defray the expense of a journey. 
 Buckingham, then Master of the Horse and one of that infamous ministry 
 known by the name of the Cabal, had been one of the Duchess's in- 
 numerable paramours. He at first showed some symptoms of jealousy, 
 but he soon, after his fashion, veered round from anger to fondness, and 
 gave Wycherley a commission in his own regiment and a place in the royal 
 household. 
 
 It would be unjust to Wycherley's memory not to mention here the only 
 good action, as far as we know, of his whole life. He is said to have made 
 great exertions to obtain the patronage of Buckingham for the illustrious 
 author of " Hudibras," who was now sinking into an obscure grave, ne- 
 glected by a nation pfoud of his genius and by a court which he had 
 served too well. His Grace consented to see poor Butler ; and an appoint- 
 ment was made. But unhappily two pretty v/omen passed by ; the volatile 
 Duke ran after them ; the opportunity was lost and could never be re- 
 gained. 
 
 The second Dutch war, the most disgraceful war in the whole history of 
 England, was now raging. It was not in that age considered as by any means \ 
 necessary that a naval officer should receive a professional education. 
 Young men of rank, who were hardly able to keep their feet in a breeze, 
 served on board the King's ships, sometimes with commissions and some- 
 times as volunteers. Mulgrave, Dorset, Rochester and many others left the 
 playhouses and the Mall for hammocks and salt pork ; and, ignorant as 
 they were of the rudiments of naval service, showed, at least, on the day 
 of battle, the caurage which is seldom wanting in an English gentleman. 
 All good judges of maritime affairs complained that, under this system, 
 the ships were grossly mismanaged, and that the tarpaulins contracted the 
 vices, without acquiring the graces, of the court. But on this subject, as 
 on every other, the government of Charles was deaf to all remonstrances 
 where the interests or whims of favourites were concerned. Wycherley did 
 not choose to ])e oui of the fashion. He embarked, >vas viresejit at a 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 66^ 
 
 ,.M . ____ — — — ' 
 
 battle, and celebrated it, on his return, in a copy of verses too bad for the 
 bellman. * 
 
 About the same time he brought on the stage his second piece, the 
 "Gentleman Dancing-Master." The biographers say nothing, as far as we re- 
 member, about the iate of this play.-^ There is, however, reason to believe 
 that, though certainly far superior to *'Love in a Wood," it was not equally 
 successful. It was tirst tried at the west end of the town, and, as the poet 
 confessed, ** would scarce do there." It was then performed in Sahsbury 
 Court, but, as it should seem, with no better event. For, in the prologue to 
 the "Country Wife," Wycherley described himself as "the late so baffled 
 scribbler." 
 
 In 1675, the "Country Wife" was performed with brilliant success, which, 
 in a literary point of view, was not wholly unmerited. For, though one 
 of the most profligate and heartless of human compositions, it is the elaborate 
 production of a mind, not indeed rich, original or imaginative, but ingenious, 
 observant, quick to seize hints and patient of the toil of polishing. 
 
 The " Plain Dealer," equally immoral and equally well written, appeared in 
 1677. At first this piece pleased the people less than the critics ; but after 
 a time its unquestionable merits and the zealous support of Lord Dorset, 
 whose influence in literary and fashionable society was unbounded, established 
 it in the public favour. , 
 
 The fortune of Wycherley was now in the zenith and began to decline. 
 A long life was still before him. But it was destined to be filled with nothing 
 but shame and wretchedness, domestic dissensions, literary failures and pecu- 
 niary embarrassments. 
 
 The King, who was looking about for an accomplished man to conduct 
 the education of his natural son, the young Duke of Richmond, at length 
 fixed on Wycherley. The poet, exulting in his good luck, went down to 
 amuse himself at I'unbridge, looked into a bookseller's shop on the Pan- 
 tiles, and, to his great delight, heard a handsome woman ask for the ' ' Plain 
 Dealer," which had just been published. He made acquaintance with the lady, 
 who proved to be the Countess of Drogheda, a gay young widow with an 
 ample jointure. She was charmed with his person and his wit, and, after a 
 short flirtation, agreed to become his wife. Wycherley seems to have been 
 apprehensive that this connection might not suit well with the King's plans 
 respecting the Duke of Richmond. He accordingly prevailed on the lady to 
 consent to a private marriage. All came out. Charles thought the conduct of 
 Wycherley both disrespectful and disingenuous. Other causes probably assisted 
 to alienate the sovereign from the subject who had lately been so highly 
 favoured. Buckingham was now in opposition and had been committed to 
 the Tower ; not, as Mr. Leigh Hunt supposes, on a charge of treason, but by 
 an order of the House of Lords for some expressions^ which he had used in 
 
 ♦ Mr. Leigh Hunt supposes that the battle at which Wycherley was present was that 
 which the Duke of York gained over Opdam, in 1665. We believe that it was one of the 
 battles between Rupert and De Ruyter, in if^-i,. 
 
 The point is of no importance ; and there cannot be said to be much evidence either 
 way. We offer, however, to Mr. Leigh Hunt's consideration three arguments— of no 
 great weight certainly— yet such as ought, we think, to prevail in the absence of better. 
 First, it is not very likely that a young Templar, quite unknown in the world— and 
 Wycherley was such in 1665— should bave quitted his chambers to go to sea. On the 
 other hand, it would have been in the regular course of things that, when a courtier and 
 an equerry, he should offer his services. Secondly, his verses appear to have been 
 written after a drawn battle, like those of 1673, and not after a complete victory, like that 
 of 1665. Thirdly, in the epilogue to the Gentleman Dancing-Master, written in 1673, he 
 says that •' all gentlemen must pack to sea ;" an expression which makes it probable that 
 he did not himself mean to stay behind, 
 
6o6 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF TUM RESTORATION. 
 
 — .. - ...- ■. . ■ ■ '■ ■ ■ ■ ■■ ■ ■ '■ !' ■ -tt 
 
 debate. Wycherley wrote some bad lines in praise of his imprisoned patron, 
 which, if they came to the knowledge of the King, would certainly have made 
 his majesty very angry. The favour of the court was completely withdrawn 
 from the poet. An amiable woman with a large fortune miglit indeed have 
 been an ample compensation for the loss. But Lady Drogheda was iil- 
 tempered, imperious and extravagantly jealous. vShe had herself been a maid 
 of honour at Whitehall. She well knew in what estimation conjugal fidelity 
 was held among the fine gentleman there, and watched her town husband as 
 assiduously as Mr. Pinchwife watched his country wife. The unfortunate wit 
 was, indeed, allowed to meet his friends at a tavern opposite to his own house. 
 But on such occasions the windows were always open, in order that her lady- 
 ship, who was posted on the other side of the street, might be satisfied that no 
 woman was of the party. 
 
 The death of Lady Drogheda released the poet from this distress ; but a 
 series of disasters in rapid succession broke down his health, his spirits and his 
 fortune. His wife meant to leave him a good property and left him only a 
 lawsuit. His father could not or would not assist him. Pie was at length 
 thrown into the Fleet, and languished there during seven years, utterly for-,' 
 gotten, as it should seem, by the gay and lively circle of which he had been a 
 distinguished ornament. In the extremity of his distress, he implored the 
 publisher who had been enriched by the sale of his works to lend him twenty 
 pounds, and was refused. His comedies, however, still kept possession of the 
 stage aad drew great audiences, which troubled themselves little about the 
 situation of the author. At length, James the Second, who had now succeeded 
 to the throne, happened to go to the theatre on an evening when the "Plain 
 Dealer " was acted, • He was pleased with the performance, and touched by 
 the fate of the writer, whom he probably remembered as one of the gayest and 
 handsomest of his brother's courtiers. The King determined to pay Wycher- 
 ley 's debts and to settle on the unfortunate poet a pension of ;^200 a-year. 
 This munificence on the part of a prince v/ho was little in the habit of reward- 
 ing literary merit, and whose whole soul was devoted to the interests of hi^i 
 Church, raises in us a surmise which Mr. Leigh Hunt will, we fear, pronounce ' 
 very uncharitable. We cannot help suspecting that it was at this time that 
 Wycherley returned to the communion of the Church of Rome. That he did 
 return to the communion of the Church of Rome is certain. The date of his 
 reconversion, as far as we know, has never been mentioned by any biographer. 
 We believe that, if we place it at this time, we do no injustice to the character 
 either of Wycherley or James. 
 
 Not long after, old Mr. Wycherley died ; and his son, now past the middle 
 of life, came to the family estate. Still, however, he was not at his ease. His 
 embarrassments were great ; his property was strictly tied up ; and he was on 
 very bad terms with the heir-at-law. He appears to have led, during a long 
 course of years, that most wretched life, the life of an old boy about town. 
 Expensive tastes with Httle money and licentious appetites with declining 
 vigour, were the just penance. for his early irregularities. A severe illness had 
 produced a singular effect on his intellect. His memory played him pranks 
 stranger than almost any that are to be found in the history of that strange 
 faculty. It seemed to be at once preternatu rally strong and preternaturally 
 weak. If a book was read to him before he went to bed, he would wake the next 
 morning with his mind full of the thoughts and expressions which he had heard 
 over night ; and he would write them down, without in the least suspecting 
 that they were not his own. In his verses the same ideas, and even the same 
 words, came over and over again several times in a short composition. • His 
 fine person bore the marks of age, sickness and sorrow ; and he mourned for 
 
COMIC, DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 607 
 
 his departed beauty with an effeminate regret. He could not look without a 
 sigh at the portrait which Lely had painted of him when he was only twenty- 
 eight, and often murmured, Quantum mutatas ab illo. He was still nervously 
 anxious about his literary reputation, and, not content with the fame which he 
 _^till possessed as a dramatist, was determined to be renowned as a satirist and 
 ','an amatory poet.' In 1704, after twenty-seven years of silence, he again ap- 
 ''pfcared as an author. He put forth a large folio of miscellaneous verses, which, 
 we believe, has never been reprinted. Some of these pieces had probably 
 circulated through the town in manuscript. For, before the volume ap- 
 peared, the critics at the coffee-houses very confidently predicted that it would 
 ' be utterly worthless, and were in consequence bitterly reviled by the poet in 
 an , ill- written, foolish and egotistical preface. The book amply vindicated the 
 "most unfavourable prophecies that had been hazarded. The style and versifica- 
 ' iion are beneath criticism ; the morals are those of Rochester. For Rochester, 
 'findeed, there was some excuse. When his offences against decorum were com- 
 ^"initted, he was a very young man, misled by a prevailing fashion. Wycherley 
 was sixty-four. He had long outlived the times when libertinism was regarded 
 as essential to the character of a wit and a gentleman. Most of the rising 
 poets, Addison, for example, John Philips and Rowe, were studious of decency. 
 We can hardly conceive anything more miserable , than the figure which the 
 ribald old man makes in the midst of so many sober and well-conducted 
 L^ouths. 
 
 , / In the very year in which this bulky volume of obscene doggerel was pub- 
 lished, Wycherley formed an acquaintance of a very singular kind. A little, 
 pale, crooked, sickly, bright-eyed urchin, just turned of sixteen, had written 
 some copies of verses in which discerning judges could detect the promise of 
 future eminence. There was, indeed, as yet nothing very striking or original 
 in the conceptions of the young poet. But he was already skilled in the art of 
 metrical composition. His diction and his music were not those of the great 
 old masters ; but that which his. ablest contemporaries were labouring to do he 
 ' already did best. His style was not richly poetical ; but it was always neat, 
 compact and pointed. His verse wanted variety of pause, of swell and of 
 cadence, but never grated harshly on the ear or disappointed it by a feeble 
 close. The youth was already free of the company of wits, and was greatly 
 elated at being introduced to the author of the "Plain Dealer" and the 
 "Country Wife." 
 
 It is curious to trace the history of the intercourse which took place be- 
 ^tween Wycherley and Pope — between the representative of the age that was 
 going out and the representative of the age that was coming in — between 
 the friend of Rochester and Buckingham and the friend of Lyttleton and 
 Mansfield. At first the boy was enchanted by the kindness and conde- 
 scension of his new friend, haunted his door and followed him about like 
 a spaniel from coffee-house to coffee-house. Letters full of affection, hu- 
 mility and fulsome flattery were interchanged between the friends. But the 
 first ardour of affection could not last. Pope, though at no time scrupulously 
 delicate in his writings or fastidious as to the morals of his associates, 
 was shocked by the indecency of a rake who, at seventy, was still the 
 representative of the monstrous profligacy of the Restoration. As the youth 
 grew older, as his mind expanded and his fame rose, he appreciated both him- 
 self and Wycherley more correctly. He felt a well founded contempt for the 
 old gentleman's verses, and was at no great pains to conceal his opinion. Wycher- 
 ley, on the other hand, though blinded by self-love to the imperfections x)f what 
 he called his poetry, could not but see that there was an immense difference 
 between his young companion's rhymes jtndhis o.wn. He was divided between 
 
6o8 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 
 
 two feelings. He wished to have the assistance of so skilful a hand to polish 
 his lines ; 5.nd yet he shrank from the humiliation of being beholden for literary 
 assistance to a lad who might have been his grandson. Pope was willing to 
 give assistance, but was by no means disposed to give assistance and flattery 
 too. He took the trouble to retoucli whole reams of feeble, stumbling verses, 
 and inserted many vigorous lines, which the least skilful reader will distinguish 
 in an instant. But he thought that by these services he acquired a right to ex- 
 press himself in terms which would not, under ordinary circumstances, become 
 one who was addressing a man of four times his age. In one letter, he tells 
 Wycherley tha.^ " the worst pieces are such as, to render them very good, 
 would require almost the entire new writing of them." In another, he gives 
 the following account of his corrections : *' Though the whole be as short again 
 as at first, there is not one thought omitted but what is a repetition of some- 
 thing in your first volume or in this very paper ; and the versification through- 
 out is, I believe, such as nobody can be shocked at. The repeated permission 
 you give me of dealing freely with you, will, I hope, excuse what I have done; 
 for, if I have not spared you when I thought severity would do you a kindness, 
 I have not mangled you where I thought there was no absolute need of ampu- 
 tation. " Wycherley continued to return thanks for all this hacking and hew- 
 ing, which was, indeed, of inestimable service to his compositions. But by 
 degrees his thanks began to sound very like reproaches. In private, he is said 
 to have described Pope as a person who could not cut out a suit, but who had 
 some skill in turning old coats. In his letters to Pope, while he acknowledged 
 that the versification of the poems had been greatly improved, he spoke of the 
 whole art of versification with scorn, and sneered at those who preferred sound 
 to sense. Pope revenged himself for this outbreak of spleen by return of post. 
 He had in his hands a volume of Wycherley's rhymes, and he wrote to say that 
 this volume was so full of faults that he could not correct it without completely, 
 defacing the manuscript. "I am," he said, "equally afraid of sparing you 
 and of offending you by too impudent a correction. " This was more than flesh 
 and blood could bear. Wycherley reclaimed his papers in a letter in which 
 resentment shows itself plainly through the thin disguise of civility. Pope, 
 glad to be rid of a troublesome and inglorious task, sent back the deposit, and, 
 by way of a parting courtesy, advised the old man to turn his poetry into prose, 
 and assured him that the public would like thoughts much better without his 
 versification. Thus ended this memorable correspondence. 
 
 Wycherley lived some years after the termination of the strange friendship 
 which we have described. The last scene of his life was, perhaps, the most 
 scandalous. Ten days before his death, at seventy-five, he married a young 
 girl, merely in order to injure his nephew, an act which proves that neither 
 years nor adversity, nor what he called his philosophy, nor either of the 
 religions which he had at different times professed, had taught him the rudi- 
 ments of morality. He died in December, 17 15, and lies in the vault under 
 the church of St. Paul in'Covent Garden. 
 
 His bride soon after married a Captain Shrimpton, who thus became pos- 
 sessed of a large collection of manuscripts. These were sold to a bookseller. 
 They were so full of erasures and interlineations that no printer could decipher 
 them. It was necessary to call in the aid of a professed critic ; and Theobald, 
 the editor of Shakspeare and the hero of the first Dunciad, was employed to 
 ascertain the true reading. In this way, a volume of miscellanies in verse and 
 prose was got up for the market. The collection derives all its value from the 
 traces of Pope's hand, which are everywhere discernible. 
 
 Of the moral character of Wycherley it can hardly be necessary for us to say 
 more. His faine as a writer rests wholly on his comedies, and chiefly on the 
 
COMIC DRAMA TISTS OF THE REST OKA TION. 609 
 
 last two. Even as a comic writer, he was neither of the best school, nor 
 highest in his school. He was in truth a worse Congreve. His chief merit, 
 like Congreve's, lies in the style o£his_ dialogue. But the wit which lights up 
 the "Plain Dealer~^ ancPthe "Country Wife" is pale and flickering when 
 compared with the gorgeous blaze/^hich dazzles us Umost to blindness in 
 "Love for Love" and the "Way of the W^orld." Like Congreve, and, 
 indeed, even more than Congreve, Wycherley is ready to sacrifice dramatic, 
 propriety to the liveliness of his dialogue. The poet speaks out of the mouths 
 of all his dunces and coxcombs, and makes them describe themselves with a 
 good sense and acuteness which puts them on a level with the wits and heroes. 
 We will give two instances, the first which occur to us, from the " Country 
 W^ife." There are in the world fools who find the society of old friends insipid 
 and who are always running after new companions. Such a character is a fair 
 subject for comedy. But nothing can be more absurd than to introduce a man 
 of this sort saying to his comrade, ' ' I can deny you nothing : for though I have 
 known thee a great while, never go if I do not love thee as well as a new 
 acquaintance." That town- wits, again, have always been rather a heartless 
 class, is true. But none of them, we will answer for it, ever said to a young 
 lady to whom he was making love, " We wits rail and make love often but to 
 show our parts : as we have no affections, so we have no malice." 
 
 Wycherley 's plays are said to have been the produce of long and patient 
 labour. The epithet of "slow" was early given to him by Rochester, and was 
 frequently repeated. In truth, his mind, unless we are greatly mistaken, was 
 naturally a very meagre soil, and was forced only by great labour and outlay 
 to bear fruit which, after all, was not of the highest flavour. He has scarcely 
 more claim to originality than Terence. It is not too much to say that there is 
 hardly anything of the least value in his plays of which the hint is not to be 
 found elsewhere. The best scenes in the " Gentleman Dancing-Master " were 
 suggested by Calderon's " Maestro de Danzar," not by any means one of the 
 happiest comedies of the great Castilian poet. The "Country Wife" is bor- 
 rowed from the " Ecole des Maris" and the " Ecole des Femmes." The' 
 groundwork of the "Plain Dealer" is taken from the "Misanthrope" of. 
 Moliere. One whole scene is almost translated from the " Critique de rEcolel 
 des Femmes." Fidelia is Shakspeare's Viola stolen, and marred in the steal-! 
 ing ; and the W^idow Blackacrc, beyond comparison Wycherley 's best comic 
 character, is the Countess in Racine's " Plaideurs," talking the jargon of 
 English instead of that of French chicane. 
 
 Th e only thing original about W'yrhprlpy, thp nnly thing which he c ould 
 fu rnish from his own mind in inexhaustib le- abundance, was proflig acy. It is 
 curious to observe how everything that he touched, however pure and noble, 
 took in an instant the colour of his own mind. Compare the " Ecole des 
 Femmes" with the "Country Wife." Agnes is a simple and amiable girl, 
 whose heart is indeed full of love, but of love sanctioned by honour, morality 
 and religion. Her natural talents are great. They have been hidden and, as 
 it might appear, destroyed by an education elaborately bad. But they are 
 called forth into full energy by a virtuous passion. Her lover, while he adores 
 her beauty, is too honest a man to abuse tne confiding tenderness of a creaturt 
 so charming and inexperienced. Wycherley takes this plot into his hands ; 
 and forthwith this sweet and graceful courtship becomes a licentious intrigue of 
 the lowest and least sentimental kind, between an impudent London rake and 
 the idiot wife of a country squire. We will not go into details. In truth, 
 Wycherley's indecency is {jrotected against the critics as a skunk is protected 
 against the hunters. It is safe, because it is too filthy to handle and too 
 noisome even to approach. I 
 
6io COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 
 
 It is the same with the " Plain Dealer." How careful has Shakspeare been 
 in " Twelfth Night " to preserve the dignity and delicacy of Viola under 
 her disguise ! Even when wearing a page's doublet and hose, she is never 
 mixed up with any transaction which the most fastidious mind could regard as 
 leaving a stain on her. She is employed by the Duke on an embassy of love 
 to Olivia, but on an embassy of the most honourable kind. Wycherley borrows 
 Viola — and Viola forthwith becomes a pandar of the basest sort. But the 
 character of Manly is the best illustration of our meaning. Molicre exhibited 
 m his misanthrope a pure and noble mind which had been sorely vexed by the 
 sight of perfidy and malevolence disguised under the forms of politeness. As 
 every extreme naturally generates its contrary, Alceste adopts a standard of 
 good and evil directly opposed to that of the society which surrounds him. 
 Courtesy seems to him a vice ; and those stern virtues which are neglected by 
 the fops and coquettes of Paris become too exclusively the objects of his vener- 
 ation. He is often to blame ; he is often ridiculous : but he is always a good 
 man ; and the feeling which he inspires is regret that a person so estimable 
 should be so unamiable. Wycherley borrowed Alceste, and turned him — we 
 quote the words of so lenient a critic as Mr. Lefgh"Hiiht — into *'a ferocious 
 sensuahst, who believed himself as great a rascal as he thought everybody else. " 
 The surhness of Moliere's hero is copied and caricatured. But the most nau- 
 seous libertinism and the most dastardly fraud are substituted for the purity and 
 integrity of the original. And, to make the whole complete, Wycherley does 
 not seem to have been aware that he was not drav/ing the portrait of an emi- 
 nently honest man. So depraved was his moral taste, that, while he firmly / 
 believed that he was producing a picture of virtue too exalted for the com- 1 
 merce of this world, he was really delineatirig the greatest rascal that is to bej 
 found even in his own writings. 
 
 We pass a very severe censure on Wycherley when we say that it is a relief 
 to turn from him to Congreve. Congreve's writings, indeed, are by no means 
 pure : nor was he, as far 'as are able to judge, a warm-hearted or high-minded 
 man. Yet, in coming to him, we feel that the worst is over — that we are one 
 remove further from the Restoration — that we are past the Nadir of national^ 
 taste and moraHty. 
 
 William Congreve was born in 1^70,* at Bardsey, in the neighbourhood of 
 Leeds. His father, a younger son of a very ancient Staffordshire family, had 
 distinguished himself among the cavaliers in the civil war, was set down after 
 the Restoration for the Order of the Royal Oak, and subsequently settled in 
 Ireland, under the patronage of the Earl of Burlington. 
 
 Congreve passed his childhood and youth in Ireland. He was sent to 
 school at Kilkenny, and thence went to the University of Dublin. His learn- 
 ing does great honour to his instructors. From his writings it appears not only 
 that he was well acquainted with Latin literature, but that his knowledge of 
 the Greek poets was such as was not, in his time, common even in a college. 
 
 When he had completed his academical studies, he was sent to London to 
 study the law, and was entered of the Middle Temple. He troubled himself, 
 however, very little about pleading or conveyancing, and gave himself up to 
 literature and society. Two kinds of ambition early took possession of his 
 mind, and often pulled it in opposite directions. He was conscious of great 
 fertility of thought and power of ingenious combination. His lively conversa- 
 tion, his pohshed manners and his highly respectable connections had obtained 
 for him ready access to the best company. He longed to be a great writer. 
 
 * Mt. Leigh Hunt says 1669. But the old style has misled him. 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OP THE RESTORATION. 6ii 
 
 lie longed to be a man of fashion. Either object was within his reach. But 
 could he secure both ? Was there not something vulgar in letters — something 
 inconsistent with the easy apathetic graces of a man of the mode ? Was 
 it aristocratical to be confounded w>th creatures who lived in the cocklpfts of 
 Grub Street, to bargain with publishers, to hurry printers' devils, to squabble 
 with managers, to be applauded or hissed by pit, boxes and galleries ? Could 
 he forego the renown of being the first wit of his age ? Could he attain 
 that renown without sullying, what he valued quite as much, his character for 
 gentility ? The history of his life is the history of a conflict between these \ 
 two impulses. In his youth, the desire of literary fame had the mastery ; but ■ 
 soon the meaner ambition overpowered the higher and obtained supreme * 
 dominion over his mind. 
 
 His first work, a novel of no great value, he published under the assumed 
 name of Cleophil. His second was the " Old Bachelor," acted in 1693, a play 
 inferior indeed to his other comedies, but, in its own line, inferior to them alone. 
 The plot is equally destitute of interest and of probability. The characters are 
 either ndt distinguishable, or are distinguished only by peculiarities of the most 
 glaring kind. But the dialogue is resplendent with wit and eloquence — which 
 indeed are so abundant that the fool comes in for an ample share— and yet 
 preserves a certain colloquial air, a certain indescribable ease, of which 
 Wycherley had given no example and which Sheridan in vain attempted to 
 imitate. The author, divided between pride and shame — pride at having 
 written a good play and shame at having done an ungentlemanlike thing — 
 pretended that he had merely scribbled a few scenes for his own amusement, 
 and affected to yield unwillingly to the importunities of those who pressed him 
 to try his fortune on the stage. The *' Old Ba chelor " was seen in manuscript 
 by Dryden, one of Whose best qualities was a'TTearty and generous admiration 
 for the talents of others. He declared that he had never seen such a first 
 play, and lent his services to bring it into a form fit for representation. Nothing 
 was wanted to the success of the piece. It was so cast as to bring into play 
 all the comic talent, and to exhibit on the boards in one view all the beauty 
 which Drury Lane Theatre, then the only theatre in London, could assemble. 
 The result was a complete triumph ; and the author was gratified with rewards 
 more substantial than the applauses of the pit. Montagu, then a lord of the 
 Treasury, immediately gave him a place, and, in a short time, added the rever- 
 sion of another place of much greater value, which, however, did not become 
 vacant till many years had elapsed. • 
 
 In 1694; Congreve brought out the "Bouble Dealer," a comedy in which all 
 the powers which had produced the '^TdnBacIielor'" showed themselves 
 matured by time and improved by exercise. But the audience was shocked 
 by the characters of Maskwell and Lady Touchwood. And, indeed, there 
 is something strangely revolting in the way in which a group that seems to 
 belong to .the house of Laius or of Pelops is introduced into the midst of the 
 Brisks, Froths, Carelesses and Plyants. The play was unfavourably received. 
 Yet, if the praise of distinguished men could compensate an author for the 
 disapprobation of the multitude, Congreve had no reason to repine. Dryden, 
 in one of the most ingenious, magnificent and pathetic pieces that he ever 
 wrote, extolled the author of the " Double Dealer " in terms which now appear 
 extravagantly hyperbolical. Till Congreve came forth — so ran this exquisite 
 flattery — the superiority of the poets who preceded the civil wars was acknow- 
 ledged. 
 
 " Theirs was the giant race before the flood." 
 
 Since the return of the Royal House, much art and ability had been iexerted, 
 |but the old^n^ters had been still unrivalled. 
 
6i2 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 
 
 " Our builders were with want of genius curst, 
 The second temple was not like the first." 
 
 At length a writer had arisen who, just emerging from boyhood, had surpassed 
 the authors of the " Knight of the Burning Pestle " and of the " Silent Woman," 
 and who had only one rival left to contend with. 
 
 " Heaven, that but once was prodigal before, 
 To Shakspeare gave as much, he could not give him more." 
 
 Some lines near the end of the poem are singularly graceful and touching, and 
 sank deep into the heart of Congreve. 
 
 " Already am I worn with cares and age, 
 And just abandoning the ungrateful stage ; 
 But you, whom every Muse and Grace adorn. 
 Whom I foresee to better fortune born, 
 Be kind to my remains ; and, oh, defend 
 Against your judgment your departed friend. 
 Let not the insulting foe my fame pursue. 
 But guard those laurels which descend to you." 
 
 The crowd, as usual, gradually came over to the opinion of the men of note ?i 
 and the " Double Dealer " was before long quite as much admired, though 
 perhaps never so much liked, as the " Old Bachelor." / 
 
 In 1695 appeared " Lovefor Love," superior both in wit and in scenic effect 
 to either of the preceding plays".' It was performed at a new theatre which 
 Betterton and some other actors, disgusted by the treatment which they had 
 received in Drury Lane, had just opened in a tennis-court near Lincoln's Inn. 
 Scarcely any comedy within the memory of the oldest man had.been equally 
 successful. The actors were so elated that they gave Congreve a share in their 
 theatre, and he promised in return to furnish them with a play every year, if 
 his health would permit. Two years passed, however, before he produced the 
 " Mourning Bride," a play which, paltry as it is when compared, we do not 
 say, with " Lear " or " Macbeth," but with the best dramas of Massinger and 
 Ford, stands very high among the tragedies of the age in which it was written. 
 To find anything so good we must go twelve years back to "Venice Preserved," 
 or six years forward to the *' Fair Penitent. The noble passage, whicli John- 
 son, both in writing and in conversation, extolled above any other in the Eng- 
 lish drama, has suffered greatly in the public estimation from the extravagance 
 of his praise. Had he contented himself with saying that it was finer than 
 anything in the tragedies of Dryden, Otway, Lee, Rovve, Southern, Hughes 
 and Addison, than anything, in short, that had been written for the stage since 
 the days of Charles I., he would not have been in the wrong. 
 
 The success of the " Mourning Bride " was even greater than that of *' Love . 
 for Love." Congreve was now allowed to be the first tragic as well as the first 
 comic dramatist of his timej and all this at twenty-seven. We believe that no 
 English writer except Lord Byron has, at so early an age, stood so high in the 
 estimation of his contemporaries. 
 
 At this time took place an event which deserves, in our opinion, a very dif- 
 ferent sort of notice from that which has been bestowed on it by Mr. Leigh 
 Hunt, The nation had now nearly recovered from the demoralising effect of • 
 the Puritan austerity. The^loomy follies of the reign of the Saints were but 
 faintly remembered. The evils produced by profaneness and debauchery were 
 recent and glaring. The Court, since the Revolution, had ceased to patronise 
 licentiousness. Mary was strictly pious, and the vices of the cold, stern and 
 silent William were not obtruded on the public eye. Discountenanced by the 
 government and falling in the favour of the people, the profligacy of the 
 Restoration still maintained its ground in some parts of society. Its strong- 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS 01'' THE RESTORATION. 613 
 
 holds were the places where men of wit and fashion congregated, and, above 
 all, the theatres. At this conjuncture arose a great reformer, whom, widely 
 as we differ from him in many important points, we can never mention without 
 respect. 
 
 Jer?my Collier was a clergyman of' the Church of England, bred at Cam- 
 bridge. His talents and attainments were such as might have been expected 
 to raise him to the highest honours of his profession. He had an extensive 
 knowledge of books, and yet he had mingled much with polite society, and is 
 said not to have wanted either grace or vivacity in conversation. There were 
 few branches of literature to which he had not paid some attention. But ecck- 
 siastical antiquity was his favourite study. In religious opinions, he belonged 
 to that section of the Church of England which lies furthest from Geneva and 
 nearest to Rome. His notions touching Episcopal government, holy orders, 
 the efficacy of the sacraments, the authority of the Fathers, the guilt of schism, 
 the importance of vestments, ceremonies and solemn days, differed little from 
 those which are now held by Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman. Towards the close 
 of his life, indeed. Collier took some steps which brought him still nearer to 
 Popery — mixed water with the wine in the Eucharist, made tke sign of tjie 
 cross m confirmation, employed oil in the visitation of the sick, and offered up 
 prayers for the dead. His politics were of a piece with his divinity. He was a 
 Tory of the highest sort, such as in the cant of his age was called a Tantivj-. 
 Not even the tyranny of James, not even the pessecution of the bishops and the 
 spoliation of the universities could shake his steady loyalty. While the Con- 
 vention was sitting. Collier wrote with vehemence in defence of the fugitive 
 king, and was in consequence arrested. But his dauntless spirit was not to be 
 so tamed. He refused to take the oaths, rep.ounced all his preferments, and, 
 in a succession of pamphlets written with much violence and with some ability, 
 attempted to excite the nation against its new masters. In 1692, he was again 
 arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in a treasonable plot. So 
 unbending were his principles that his friends could hardly persuade him to let 
 them bail him ; and he afterwards expressed his remorse for having been 
 induced thus to acknowledge, by implication, the authority of an usurping 
 government. He was soon in trouble again. Sir John Friend and Sir William 
 Parkins were tried and convicted of high treason for planning the murder ot 
 King William. Collier administered spiritual consolation to them, attended 
 them to Tyburn, and, just before the execution, laid his hands on their heads, 
 and, by the authority which he derived from Christ, solemnly absolved them. 
 This scene gave indescribable scandal. Tories joined with Whigs in blamine 
 the conduct of the daring priest. There are some acts, it was said, which fal 
 under the definition of treason, into which a good man may, in troubled times 
 be led even by his virtues. It may be necessary for the protection of society 
 to punish such a man. But evfen in pimishing him we consider him as legally 
 rather than morally guilty, and hope that his honest error, though it cannot be 
 pardoned here, will not be counted to him for sin hereafter. But such was not 
 the case of Collier's penitents. They were concerned in a plot for waylaying 
 and butchering, in an hour of security, one who, whether he were or were not 
 their king, was at all events their fellow-creature. Whether the Jacobite theory 
 about the rights of governments and the duties of subjects were or were not 
 well founded, assassination must always be considered as a great crime. It is 
 condemned even by the maxims of worldly honour and morality. Much more 
 must it be an object of abhorrence to the pure Spouse of Christ. The Church 
 cannot surely, without the saddest and most mournful forebodings, see one of 
 her children, who has been guilty of this great wickedness, pass into eternity 
 without any sign of repentance. That these traitors had given any sign of 
 
6 14 COMIC DRAMATISTS OP THE RESTORATION. 
 
 repentance was not alleged. It might be that they had privately declared their 
 contrition : and, if so, the minister of religion might be justified in privately 
 assuring them of the Divine forgiveness. But a public remission ought to have 
 been preceded by a public atonement. The regret of these men, if expressed 
 at all, had been expressed in secret. The hands of Collier had been laid on 
 them in the presence of thousands. The inference which his enemies drew 
 from his conduct was that he did not consider the conspiracy against the life of 
 William as sinful. But this inference he very vehemently and, we doubt not, 
 very sincerely denied. 
 
 The storm raged. The bishops put forth a solemn censure of the absolution. 
 The Attorney-General brought the matter before the Court of King's Bench. 
 Collier had now made up his mind not to give bail for his appearance before 
 any court which derived its authority from the usurper. He accordingly 
 absconded and was outlawed. He survived these events about thirty years. 
 The prosecution was not pressed, and he was soon suffered to resume his 
 literary pursuits in quiet. At a later period, many attempts were made to 
 shake his perverse integrity by offers of wealth and dignity, but in vain. When 
 he died, towards the end of the reign of George I., he was still under the ban 
 of the law. 
 
 We shall not be suspected of regarding either the politics or the theology of 
 Collier with partiality ; but we believe him to have been as honest and cour- 
 ageous a man as ever lived. We will go further, and say that, though 
 passionate and often wrongheaded, he was a singularly fair controversialist — 
 candid, generous, too high-spirited to take mean advantages even in the most 
 exciting disputes, and pure from all taint of personal malevolence. It must 
 also be admitted that his opinions on ecclesiastical and political affairs, though 
 in themselves absurd and pernicious, eminently qualified him to be the reformer 
 of our lighter literature. The libertinism of the press and of the stage was, as 
 we have said, the effect of a reaction against the Puritan strictness. Profligacy 
 was, like the oak leaf of the twenty-ninth of May, the badge of a cavalier and 
 a high churchman. Decency was associated with conventicles and calves' 
 heads. Grave prelates were too much disposed to wink at the excesses of a 
 body of zealous and able allies who covered Roundheads and Presbyterians 
 with ridicule. If a Whig raised his voice against the impiety and licentious- 
 ness of the fashionable writers, his mouth was instantly stopped by the retort, 
 You are one of those who groan at a light quotation from Scripture and raise 
 estates out of the plunder of the Church — who shudder at a double entendre 
 and chop off" the heads of kings. A Baxter, a Bnrnet, even a Tillotson, would 
 have done little to purify our literature. But when a man, fanatical in the 
 cause of episcopacy and actually under outlawry for his attachment to 
 hereditary right, came forward as the champion of decency, the battle was 
 already half won. • . 
 
 In 1698, Collier published his " Short View of the Profaneness and Inimor- 
 ality of the English Stage," a book which threw the whole literary world into 
 commotion, but which is now much less read than it deserves. The faults of the 
 work, indeed, are neither few nor small. The dissertations on the Grx^ek and 
 Latin drama do not at all help the argument, and, whatever may have been 
 thought of them by the generation which fancied that Christ Church had 
 refuted Bentley, are such as, in the present day, a scholar of very humble 
 pretensions may venture to pronounce boyish, or, rather, babyish. The censures 
 are not sufficiently discriminating. The authors whom Collier accused had 
 been guilty of such gross sins against decency that he was certain to weaken 
 instead of strengthening his fiase by introducing into his charge against them 
 any matter about which there could be the smallest dispute. He was. 
 
come DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 6i5' 
 
 however, so injudicious as to place among the outrageous offences which he 
 justly arraigned, some things which are really quite innocent, and some slight 
 instances of levity 'which, though not strictly correct, could easily be paralleled 
 from the works of writers who had rendered great services to morality and 
 religion. Thus he blames Congreve/-the number and gravity of whose real 
 transgressions made it quite unnecessary to tax him with any that were not 
 real, for using the words " martyr " and " inspiration " in a light sense ; as if 
 an archbishop might not say that a speech was inspired by claret, or that an 
 alderman was a martyr to the gout. Sometimes, again, Collier does not 
 sufficiently distinguish between the dramatist and the persons of the drama. 
 Thus he blames Vanbrugh for putting into Lord Foppington's mouth some 
 contemptuous expressions respecting the Church service ; though it is obvious 
 that Vanbrugh -could not better express reverence than by making Lord 
 Foppington express contempt. There is also throughout the "Short View" 
 too strong a display of professional feeling. Collier is not content with claim- 
 ing for his order an immunity from indiscriminate scurrility ; he will not allow 
 that, in any case, any word or act of a divine can be a proper subject for 
 ridicule. Nor does he confine this benefit of clergy to the Ministers of the 
 Established Church. He extends the privilege to Catholic priests and, what 
 in him is more surprising, to Dissenting preachers. This, however, is a mere 
 trifle. Imaums, Brahmins, priests of Jupiter, priests of Baal are all held to 
 be sacred. Dryden is blamed for making the Mufti in *' Don Sebastian " talk 
 nonsense. Lee is called to a severe account for his incivility to Tiresias. But 
 the most curious passage is that in which Collier resents some uncivil reflections 
 thrown by Cassandra, in " Cleomenes," on the calf Apis and his hierophants. 
 The words "grass-eating, foddered god," words which really are much in the 
 style of several passages in the Old Testament, give as much offence to this 
 Christian divine as they could have given to the priests of Memphis. 
 
 But, when all deductions have been made, great merit must be allowed to 
 this work. There is hardly any book of that time from which it would be 
 possible to select specimens of writing so excellent and so various. To 
 compare Collier with Pascal would indeed be absurd. Yet we hardly know 
 where, except in the " Provincial Letters," we can find mirth so harmoniously 
 and becomingly blended with solemnity as in the " Short View." In truth, all 
 the modes of ridicule, from broad fun to polished and antithetical sarcasm, 
 were at Collier's command. On the other hand, he was complete master of 
 the rhetoric of honest indignation. We scarcely know any volume which 
 contains so many bursts of that peculiar eloquence which comes from the heart 
 and goes to the heart. Indeed, the spirit of the book is truly heroic. In order 
 fairly, appreciate it, we must remember the situation in which the writer stood. 
 He was under the frown of power. His name was already a mark for the 
 invectives of one half of the writers of the age when, in the cause of good 
 taste, good sense and good morals, he gave battle to the other half. Strong 
 as his political prejudices were, he seems on this occasion to have entirely laid 
 them aside. He has forgotten that he is a Jacobite and remembers only that 
 he is a citizen and a Qiristian. Some of his sharpest censures are directed 
 against poetry which had been hailed with delight by the Tory party and had 
 inflicted a deep wound ,on the vVhigs. It is really inspiriting to see how 
 gallantly the solitary outlaw advances to attack enemies, formidable separately, 
 and it might have been thought, irresistible when combined — distributes his 
 swashing blows right and left among Wycherley, Congreve and Vanbrugh — 
 treads the wretched D'Urfey down in the dirt beneath his feet — and strikes 
 with all his strength full at the towering crest of Dryden. 
 ;^ , The effect produced by the ** Short View " was immense. The nation was 
 
6i6 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 
 
 on the side of Collier. But it could not be doubted that, in the great host 
 which he had defied, some champion would be found to Jift the gauntlet. The 
 general belief was that Dryden would take the field ; and all the wits 
 anticipated a sharp contest between two well-paired combatants. The great 
 poet had been singled out in the most marked manner. It was well known 
 that he was deeply hurt, that much smaller provocations had formerly roused 
 him to violent resentment, and that there was no literary weapon, offensive or 
 defensive, of which he was not master. But his conscience smote him ; he 
 stood abashed, like the fallen archangel at the rebuke of Zephon, 
 
 " And felt how awful goodness is, and saw 
 Virtue in her shape how lovely ; saw and pined 
 His loss." 
 
 At a later period he mentioned the " Short View " in the preface to his 
 "Fables." He complained, with some asperity, of the harshness with which 
 he had been treated, and urged some matters in mitigation. But, on the 
 whole, he frankly acknowledged that he had been justly reproved. '* If," 
 said he, " Mr. Collier be my enemy, let him triumph. If he be my friend, at 
 I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my 
 repentance." 
 
 It would have been wise in Congreve to follow his master's example. He was 
 precisely in that situation in which it is madness to attempt a vindication ; for 
 his guilt was so clear that no address or eloquence could obtain an acquittal. 
 On the other hand, there were in his case many extenuating circumstances 
 which, if he had acknowledged his error and promised amendment, would have 
 procured his pardon. The most rigid censor could not but make great allowances 
 for the faults into which so young a man had been seduced by evil example, 
 by the luxuriance of a vigorous fancy, and by the inebriating effect of popular 
 applause. The esteem, as well as the admiration of the public, was still within 
 his reach. He might easily have effaced all memory of his transgressions, and. 
 have shared with Addison the glory of showing that the most brilliant wit may 
 be the ally of virtue. But, in any case, prudence should have restrained him 
 from encountering Collier. The non-juror was a man thoroughly iitted by 
 nature, education and habit for polemical dispute. Congreve's mind, though 
 one of no common fertility and vigour, was of a different class. No man 
 understood so well the art of polishing epigrams and repartees into the clearest 
 effulgence, and setting them neatly in easy and familiar dialogue. In this sort 
 of jewellery, he attained to a mastery unprecedented and inimitable. But he 
 was altogether rude in the art of controversy ; and he had a cause to defend 
 which scarcely any art could have rendered victorious. 
 
 The ev^t was such as might have been foreseen. Congreve's answer was a 
 complete failure. He was angry, obscure and dull. Even the Green Room 
 and Will's Coffee-House were compelled to acknowledge that in wit, as well as 
 in argument, the parson had a decided advantage over the poet. Not only was 
 Congreve unable to make any show of a case where he was in the wrong ; but 
 he succeeded in putting himself completely in the wrong where he was in the 
 right. Collier had taxed him with profaneness for calling a clergyman Mr. 
 Prig and for introducing a coachman named Jehu, in allusion to the King of 
 Israel who was known at a distance by his furious driving. Had there been 
 nothing worse in the " Old Bachelor" and " Double Dealer," Congreve might 
 pass for as pure a writer as Cowper himself, who, in poems revised by so austere 
 a censor as John Newton, calls a fox-hunting squire Nimrod and gives to a 
 chaplin the disrespectful name of Smug. Congreve might with good effect 
 have appealed to the public whether it might not be fairly presumed that, when 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 6i; 
 
 such frivolous charges were made, there were no very serious charges to make. 
 Instead of doing this, he pretended that he meant no allusion to the Bible by 
 the name of Jehu and no reflection by the name of Prig. Strange, that a man 
 of such parts should, in order to defend himself against imputations which 
 nobody could regard as important, ifell untruths which it was certain that 
 nobody would believe. 
 
 One of the pleas which Congreve set up for himself and his brethren was 
 that, though they might be guilty of a httle levity here and there, they were: 
 careful to inculcate a moral, packed closed into two or three hnes, at the end 
 of every play. Had the fact been as he stated it, the defence would be 
 worth very little. For no man acquainted with human nature coukl think thai 
 a sententious couplet would undo all the mischief that five profligate acts had 
 done. But it would have been wise in Congreve to have looked again at his 
 own comedies before he used this argument. Collier did so ; and found that 
 the moral of the " Old Batchelor " — the grave apophthegm which is to be a set- 
 off against all the libertinism of the piece — is contained in the following triplet : 
 
 " What rugged ways attend the noon of life I 
 Our sun declines, and with what anxious strife, 
 What pain, we tug that galling load— a wife." 
 
 **Love for Love," says ColHer, "may have a somewhat better farewell, but 
 it would do a man little service should he remember it to his dying day j" 
 
 "The miracle to-day is, that we find • 
 
 A lover true, not that a woman's kind." 
 
 Collier's reply was severe and triumphant. One of his repartees we will 
 quote, not as a favourable specimen of his manner, but because it was called 
 forth by Congreve's characteristic affectation. The poet spoke of the "Old 
 Bachelor " as a trifle to which he attached no value and which had become • 
 public by a sort of accident. " I wrote it," he said, " to amuse myself in a 
 slow recovery from a fit of sickness." "What his disease was," replied 
 Collier, " I am not to inquire : but it must be a very ill one to be worse than 
 the remedy." 
 
 All that Congreve gained by coming forward on this occasion was that he 
 completely deprived himself of the excuse which he might with justice have 
 pleaded for his early offences. " WTiy," asked Collier, "should the man laugh 
 at the mischief of the boy and make the disorders of his nonage his own by 
 an after approbation ? 
 
 Congreve was not Collier's only opponent. Vanbrugh, Dennis and Settle 
 took the field. And from a passage in a contemporary satire, we are inclined 
 to think that among the answers to the " Short View " was one written, or 
 supposed to be written, by Wycherley. The victory remained withCoUier. A 
 great and rapid reform in all the departments of our fighter literature was tlu- 
 effect of his labours. A new race of wits and ^oets arose, who general!} 
 treated with reverence the great ties which bind society together, and whose 
 very indecencies were decent when compared with those of the school which 
 flourished during the last forty years of the seventeenth century. 
 
 This controversy probably prevented Congreve from fulfilling the engagement, 
 into which he had entered with the actors. It was not till 1700 that he pro- 
 duced the " Way of the World," the most deeply meditated and the most bril- 
 liantly written of all his works. It wants, perhaps, the constant movement, 
 the effervescence of animal spirits, which we find in " Love for Love." Bul 
 the hysterical rants of Lady Wishfort, the meeting of "\Vitwould and his bro- 
 ther, the country knight's courtship and his subsequent revel, and, above all, 
 the chase and surrender of Millamant, are superior to anything that is to be 
 
6i8 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATIOM. 
 
 found in the whole range of English comedy from the civil war downwards. It 
 is quite inexplicable to us that this play should have failed, on the stage. Yet 
 so it was ; and the author, alreaidy sore with the wounds which Collier had 
 inflicted, was galled past endurance by this new stroke. He resolved never 
 again to expose himself to the rudeness of a tasteless audience, and took leave 
 of the theatre for ever. 
 
 He lived twenty-eight years longer without adding to the high literary 
 reputation which he had attained. He read much while he retained his eye- 
 sight, and now and then v/rote a short essay or an idle tale in verse, but 
 appears never to have planned any considerable work. The miscellaneous 
 pieces which he published in 1710 are of little value and have long been 
 forgotten. The stock of fame which he had acquired by his comedies was 
 sufficient, assisted by the graces of his manner and conversation, to secure for 
 him a high place in the estimation of the world. During the winter, he lived 
 among the most distinguished and agreeable people in London. His summers 
 were passed at the splendid country-seats of ministers and peers. Literary envy 
 and political faction, which in that age respected nothing else, respected his 
 repose. He professed to be one of the party of which his patron Montagu, 
 now Lord Halifax,' was the head. But he had civil words and small good 
 offices for men of every shade of opinion. And men of every shade of opinion 
 spoke well of him in return. . , 
 
 His means were for a long time scanty. The place which he had in posses- 
 sion* barely enabled him to live with comfort. And, when the Tories came 
 into power, some thought that he would lose even this moderate provision. 
 But Harley, who was by no means disposed to adopt the exterminating policy 
 of the October club, and who, with all his faults of understanding and temper, 
 had a sincere kindness for men of genius, reassured the anxious poet by quoting 
 very gracefully and happily the lines of Virgil : 
 
 " Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Poeni, 
 Nee tam aversus equos Tyria Sol jungit ab urbe." 
 
 The indulgence with which Congreve was treated by the Tories was not 
 purchased by any concession on his part which could justly offend the Whigs. 
 It was his rare good fortune to share the triuenph of his friends without having 
 shared their proscription. When the House of Hanover came to the throne, 
 his fortunes began to flourish. The reversion, to which he had been nominated 
 twenty years before, fell in. He was made secretary to the island of Jamaica, 
 and his whole income amounted to p^i,200 a year — -a fortune which, for a single 
 man, was in that age not only easy but splendid. He continued, however, to 
 practise the frugality which he had learned when he could scarce spare, as 
 Swift tells us, a shilling to pay the chairman who carried him to Lord 
 Halifax's. Though he had nobody to save for, he laid up at least as much as 
 he spent. 
 
 The infirmities of age came early upon him. His habits had been intem- 
 perate ; he suffered much from gout ; and, when confined to his chamber, he 
 had no longer the solace of literature. Blindness, the most cruel misfortune 
 that can befall the lonely student, made his books useless to him. He was 
 thrown on society for all his amusement ; and, in society, his good breeding 
 and vivacity made him always welcome. 
 
 By the rising men of letters, he was considered not as a rival, but as a classic. 
 He had left their arena ; he never measured his strength with them ; and he 
 was always loud in applause of their exertions. They could, therefore, enter- 
 tain no jealousy of him, and thought no more of detracting from his fame than 
 of carping at the great men who had been lying a hundred years in Poet's 
 
COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 619 
 
 Comer. Even the inmates of Grub Street, even the heroes of the "Dunciad," 
 were for once just to Hving merit. There can be no stronger illustration of the 
 estimation in which Congreve v^as held than the fact that Pope's " Iliad," a work 
 which appeared with more splendid auspices than any other in our language, 
 was dedicated to him. There was not a Duke in the kingdom who would not 
 have been proud of such a compliment. Dr. Johnson expresses great admira- 
 tion for the independence of spirit which Pope showed on this- occasion, ar\d 
 some surprise at his choice. " He passed over peers and statesmen to inscribe 
 his "Iliad" to Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the praise had been com- 
 plete had his friend's virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was chosen for so 
 great an honour it is not now possible to know." It is certainly impossible to 
 know ; yet we think it is possible to guess. The translation of the " Iliad " had 
 been zealously befriended by men of all political opinions. The poet, who, at 
 an early age, had been raised to affluence by the emulous liberality of Whigs 
 and Tories, could not with propriety inscribe to a chief of either party a work 
 which had been munificently patronised by both. It v/as necessary to find 
 some person who was at once eminent and neutral. It was therefore necessary 
 to pass over peers and statesmen. Congreve had a high name in letters. He 
 had a high name in aristocratic circles. He lived on terms of civility with men 
 of all parties. By a courtesy paid to him, neither the ministers nor the leaders 
 of the opposition could be offended. 
 
 The singular affectation, which had from the first been characteristic of Con- 
 greve, grew stronger and stronger as he advanced in life. At last it became 
 disagreeable to him to hear his own comedies praised. Voltaire, whose soul 
 was burned up by the raging desire for literary renown, was half puzzled and 
 half disgusted by what he saw, during his visit to England, of this extraordinary 
 whim. Congreve disclaimed the character of a poet — declared that his plays 
 were trifles produced in an idle hour, and begged that Voltaire would consider 
 him merely as a gentleman. *• If you had been merely a gentleman," said 
 Voltaire, ' ■ I should not have come to see you. " 
 
 Congreve was not a man of warm affections. Domestic ties he had none ; 
 and in the temporary connections which he formed with a succession of beauties 
 from the green-room his heart does not appear to have been interested. Of all 
 his attachments, that to Mrs. Bracegirdle lasted the longest and was the most 
 celebrated. This charming actress, who was, during many years, the idol of 
 all London, whose face caused the fatal broil in which Mountfort fell and for 
 which Lord Mohun was tried by the Peers, and to whom the Earl of Scars- 
 dale was said to have made honourable addresses, had conducted herself, in 
 very trying circumstances, with extraordinary discretion. Congreve at length 
 became her confidential friend. They constantly rode out together and dined 
 together. Some people said that she was his mistress and others that she 
 would soon be his wife. He was at last drawn away from her by the influence 
 of a wealthier and haughtier beauty. Henrietta, daughter of the great Marl- 
 borough and wife of the Earl of Godolphin, had, on her father's death, 
 succeeded to his dukedom and to the greater part of his immense property. 
 Her husband was an insignificant man, of whom Lord Chesterfield said that he 
 came to the House of Peers only to sleep, and that he might as well sleep on 
 the right as on the left of the woolsack. Between the Duchess and Congreve 
 sprang up a most eccentric friendship. He had a seat every day at her table, 
 and assisted in the direction of her concerts. That malignAnt old hag, the 
 Dowager Duchess Sarah, who had quarrelled with her daughter as she had 
 quarrelled with everybody else, affected to suspect that there was sontething 
 wrong. But the world in general appears to have thought that a great lady 
 might, without any imputation on her character, pay attention to a man of 
 
620 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION. 
 
 eminent genius who was nearly sixty years old, who was still older in appear- 
 ance and in constitution, who was confined to his chair by gout and was un- 
 able to read from blindness. 
 
 In the summer of 1728, Congreve was ordered to try the Bath waters. 
 During his excursion he was overturned in his chariot and received some 
 severe internal injury from which he never recovered. He came back to 
 London in a dangerous state, complained constantly of a pain in his side, and 
 continued to sink till, in the following January, he expired. 
 
 He left ;^ 10,000, saved out of the emoluments of his lucrative places. John- 
 son says that this money ought to have* gone to the Congreve family, which 
 was then in great distress. Doctor Young and Mr. Leigh Hunt, two gentle- 
 men who seldom agree with each other, but with whom, on this occasion, we 
 are happy to agree, think that it ought to have gone to Mrs. Bracegirdle. Con- 
 greve bequeathed two hundred pounds to Mrs. Bracegirdle and an equal sum 
 to a certain Mrs. Jellat ; but the bulk of his accumulations went to the Duchess 
 of Marlborough, in whose immense wealth such a legacy was as a drop in the 
 bucket. It might have raised the fallen fortunes of a Staffordshire squire ; it 
 might have enabled a retired actress to enjoy every comfort and, in her sense, 
 every luxury — but it was hardly sufficient to defray the Duchess's establishment 
 for two months. 
 
 The great lady buried her friend with a pomp seldom seen at the funeral of 
 poets. The corpse lay in state under the ancient roof of the Jerusalem Chamber, 
 and was interred in Westminster Abbey. The pall was borne by the Duke of 
 Bridgewater, Lord Cobham, the Earl of Wilmington, who had been Speaker 
 and was afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, and other men of high con- 
 sideration. Her Grace laid out her friend's bequest in a superb diamond 
 necklace, which she wore in honour of him, and, if report is to be believed, 
 showed her regard in ways much more extraordinary. It is said that she had 
 a statue of him ilh ivory, which moved by clockwork, and was placed daily at 
 her table ; that she had a wax doll made in imitation of him, and that the feet 
 of the doll were regularly blistered and anointed by the doctors as poor Con- 
 greve's feet had been when he suffered from the gout. A monument was 
 erected to the poet in Westminster Abbey with an inscription written by the 
 Duchess ; and Lord Cobham honoured him with a cenotaph, which seems to us, 
 though that is a bold word, the ugliest and most absurd of the buildings at 
 Stowe. 
 
 We have said that Wycherley was a worse Congreve. There was, indeed, 
 a remarkable analogy between the writings and lives of these two men. Both 
 were gentlemen liberally educated. Both led town lives, and knew human 
 nature only as it appears between Hyde Park and the Tower. Both were men 
 of wit. Neither had much imagination. Both at an early age produced 
 lively and profligate comedies. Both retired from the field while still in 
 early manhood, and owed to their youthful achievements in literature the 
 consideration which they enjoyed in later life. Both, after they had ceased to 
 write for the stage, pulDlished volumes of miscellanies which did little credit 
 either to their talents or to their morals. Both, during their declining years, 
 hung loose upon society ; and both, in their last moments, made eccentric and 
 imjustifiable dispositions of their estates. 
 
 But in every point Congreve maintained his superiority to Wycherley. 
 Wycherley had wit ; but the wit of Congreve far outshines that of every comic 
 writer, except Sheridan, who has arisen within the last two centuries. Con- 
 greve "had not, in a large measure, the poetical faculty ; but compared vdth 
 Wycherley he might be called a great poet. Wycherley had some knowledge 
 of books ; but Congreve was a man of real learning. Congreve's offences 
 
LORD HOLLAND. 62 j 
 
 against decorum, though highly culpable, were not so gross as those of 
 Wycherley ; nor did Congreve, like Wycherley, exhibit to the world the 
 deplorable spectacle of a licentious dotage. Congreve died in the enjoyment 
 of high consideration j Wycherley forgotten or despised. Congreve's will was 
 absurd and capricious ; but WychCrley's last actions appear to have been 
 prompted by obdurate malignity. 
 
 Here, at least for the present, we must stop. Vanbrugh and Farquhar are 
 not men to be hastily dismissed, and we have not left ourselves space to do 
 them justice. 
 
 LORD HOLLAND. (July, 1841.) 
 
 The Opinions of Lord Holland, as Recorded in the Journals of the House of Lords from 
 1797 to 1841. Collected and edited by D. C. Moylan, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at- 
 Law. 8vo. London, 1841. 
 
 Many reasons make it impossible for us to lay before our readers, at the 
 present moment, a complete view of the character and public career of the late 
 Lord Holland. But we feel that we have already deferred too long the duty 
 of paying some tribute to his memory. We feel that it is more becoming to 
 bring without further delay an offering, though intrinsically of little value, than 
 to leave his tomb longer without some token of our reverence and love. 
 
 We shall say very little of the book which lies on our table. And yet it 
 is a book which, even if it had been the work of a less distinguished man or 
 had appeared under circumstances less interesting, would have well repaid an 
 attentive perusal. It is valuable, both as a record of principles and as a model 
 of composition. We find in it all the great maxims which, during more than 
 forty years, guided Lord Holland's public conduct, and the chief reasons on 
 which those maxims rest, condensed into the smallest possible space and set 
 forth with admirable perspicuity, dignity and precision. To his opinions on 
 Foreign Policy, we for the most pan cordially assent ; but, now and then, we 
 are inclined to think them imprudently generous. We could not have signed 
 the Protest against the detention of Napoleon. The Protest respecting the 
 course which England pursued at the congress of Verona, though it contains 
 much that is excellent, contains also positions which, we are inclined to think. 
 Lord Holland would, at a later period, have admitted to be unsound. But to 
 all his doctrines on Constitutional Questions, we give our hearty approbation ; 
 and wc firmly believe that no British government has ever deviated from that 
 line of internal policy which he has traced without detriment to the public. 
 
 We will give, as a specimen of this little volume, a single passage, in which 
 a chief article of the poUtical creed of the Whigs is stated and explained with 
 singular clearness, force and brevity. Our readers will remember that, in 
 1825, the CathoUc Association agitated for emancipation with most formidable 
 effect. The Tories acted after their kind. Instead of removing the grievance, 
 they tried to put down the agitation, and brought in a law, apparently sharp 
 and stringent, but, in truth, utterly impotent for restraining the right of peti- 
 tion. Lord Holland's Protest on that occasion is excellent. 
 
 " We are," says he, " well aware that the privileges of the people, the rights of free 
 discussion, and the spirit and letter of our popular institutions must render— and they 
 are intended to render — the continuance of an extensive grievance, and of the dissatis- 
 faction consequent thereupon, dangerous to the tranquillity of the "ountry, and ultimately 
 subversive of the authority of the state. Experience and theory alike forbid us to deny 
 that effect of a free constitution ; a sense pf justige and a love of liberty equally deter us 
 from lamenting it. But we have always been taught to look for *he remedy of such dig- 
 
622 LORD HOLLAND. 
 
 * \ 
 
 orders in the redress of the grievances which justify them, and in the removal of the 
 dissatisfaction from which they flow — not in restraints on ancient privileges, not in inroada 
 on the right of public discussion, nor in violations of the principles of a free government. 
 If, therefore, the legal method of seeking redress, which has been resorted to by persons 
 labouring under grievous disabilities, be fraught with immediate or remote danger to the 
 state, we draw from that circumstance a conclusion long since foretold by great authority— 
 namely, that the British constitution and large exclusions cannot subsist together ; that 
 the constitution must destroy them, or they will destroy the constitution." 
 
 It was not, however, of this little book, valuable and interesting as it is, but 
 of the author, that we meant to speak ; and we will try to do so with calmness 
 and impartiality. 
 
 In order to fully appreciate the character of Lord Holland, it is necessary to 
 go far back into the history of his family ; for he had inherited sometTiing more 
 than a coronet and an estate. To the House of which he was the head belongs 
 one distinction which we believe to be without a parallel in our annals. During 
 more than a century, there has never been a time at which a Fox has not stood 
 in a prominent station among public men. Scarcely had the chequered career 
 of the first Lord Holland closed, when his son, Charles, rose to the head of the 
 Opposition and to the first rank among Enghsh debaters. And before Charles 
 was borne to Westminster Abbey a third Fox had already become one of the 
 most conspicuous politicians in the kingdom. 
 
 It is impossible not to be struck by the strong family likeness which, in spite 
 of diversities arising from education and position, appears in these three dis- 
 tinguished persons. In their faces and figures there was a resemblance, such as 
 is common enough in novels, where one picture is good for ten generations, 
 but such as in real Hfe is seldom found. The ample person, the massy and 
 thoughtful forehead, the large eyebrows, the full cheek and lip, the expression 
 so singularly compounded of sense, humour, courage, openness, a strong will 
 and a sweet temper, were common to all. But the features of the founder of 
 the House, as the pencil of Reynolds and the chisel of Nollekens have handed 
 them down to us, were disagreeably harsh and exaggerated. In his descendants, 
 the aspect was preserved, but it was softened, till it became, in the late lord, 
 the most gracious and interesting countenance that was ever lighted up by the 
 mingled lustre of intelligence and benevolence. 
 
 As it was with the faces of the men of this noble family, so was it also with 
 their minds. Nature had done much for them all. She had moulded them 
 all of that clay %i which she is most sparing. To all she had given strong 
 reason and sharp wit ; a quick relish for every physical and intellectual enjoy- 
 ment ; constitutional intrepidity, and that frankness by which constitutional 
 intrepidity is generally accompanied ; spirits which nothing could depress ; 
 tempers easy, generous and placable ; and that genial courtesy which has its 
 seat in the heart, and of which artificial politeness is only a faint and cold imita- 
 tion. Such a disposition is the richest inheritance that ever was entailed on 
 any family. 
 
 But training and situation greatly modified the fine qualities which nature 
 lavished with such profusion on three generations of the house of Fox. The 
 first Lord Holland was a needy political adventurer. He entered public life 
 at a time when the stand^ftd of integrity among statesmen was low. He 
 started as the adherent of a minister who had indeed many titles to respect, 
 who possessed eminent talents both for administration and for debate, who un- 
 derstood the public interest well, and who meant fairly by the country ; but 
 who had seen so much perfidy and meanness that he had become sceptical as 
 to the existence of probity. Weary of the cant of patriotism, Walpole had 
 learned to talk a cant of a different kind. Disgusted by that sort of hypocrisy 
 which is at least a hpmage to virtue, he was too much in the habit of practising 
 
LORD HOLLAND. 623 
 
 the less respectable hypocrisy which ostentatiously displays, and sometimes 
 even simulates, vice. To Walpole, Fox attached himself, politically and per- 
 sonally, with the ardour which belonged to his temperament. And it is not 
 to be denied that in the school of Walpole he contracted faults which de- 
 stroyed the value of his many great widowments. He raised himself, indeed, 
 to the first consideration in the House of Commons ; he became a consum- 
 mate master of the art of debate ; he attained honours and immense wealth ; 
 but the public esteem and confidence were withheld from him. His private 
 friends, indeed, justly extolled his generosity and good nature. They main- 
 tained that in those parts of his conduct which they could least defend, 
 there was nothing sordid ; aiKl that, if he was misled, he was misled by 
 amiable feelings — by a desire to serve his friends and by anxious tenderness 
 for his children. But by the nation he was regarded as a man of insa- 
 tiable rapacity and desperate ambition ; as a mart ready to adopt, without 
 scniple, the most immoral and the most unconstitutional measures ; as a 
 man perfectly fitted, by all his opinions and feelings, for the work of managing 
 the Parliament by means of secret-service money and of keeping down 
 the people with the bayonet. Many of his contemporaries had a morality 
 quite as lax as his ; but very few among them had his talents, and none had 
 his hardihood and energy. He could not, like Sandys and Doddington, find' 
 safety in contempt. He therefore became an object of such general aversion 
 as no statesman since the fall of Strafford has incurred — of such general 
 aversion as was probably never in any country incurred by a man of so kind 
 and cordial a disposition. A weak mind would have sunk under such a 
 load of unpopularity. But that resolute spirit seemed to derive new firm- 
 ness from the public hatred. The only effect which reproaches appeared to 
 produce on him was to sour, in some degree, his naturally sweet temper. 
 The last acts of his public life were marked, not only by that audacity 
 which he had derived from nature — not only by that immorality which he had 
 learned in the school of Walpole — but by a harshness which almost amounted 
 to cruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his character. 
 His severity increased the unpopularity from which it had sprung. The well- 
 known lampoon of Gray may serve as a specimen of the feeling of the counli-y. 
 All the images are taken from shipwrecks, quicksands and cormorants. Lord , 
 Holland is represented as complaining that the cowardice of his accomplices" 
 had prevented him from putting clown the free spirit of the City of London by' 
 sword and fire, and as pining for the thne when birds of prey should make 
 their nests in Westminster Abbey and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's. 
 
 Within a few months after the death of this remarkable man, his second 
 son, Charles, appeared at the head of the party opposed to the American 
 War. Charles had inherited the bodily and mental constitution of his 
 father, and had been much — far too much — under his father's influence. It 
 was indeed impossible that a son of so affectionate and noble a spirit should 
 not have been warmly attached to a parent who possessed many fine quali- 
 ties and who carried his indulgence and liberality towards his children even 
 to a culpable extent. The young man saw that the person to whom he was 
 bound by the strongest ties was in the highest degree odious to the nation ; 
 and the effect was what might have been expected from his strong passions 
 and constitutional boldness. He cast in his lot with his father and took, while 
 still a boy, a deep part in the most unjustifiable and unpopular measures that 
 had been adopted since the reign of James the Second. In the debates on 
 the Middlesex Election, he distinguished himself, not only by his precocious 
 powers of eloquence, but by the vehement and scornful manner m which he 
 bade defiance to public opinion. He was at t that time regarded as a man 
 
624 LORD HOLLAND. 
 
 likely to be the most formidable champion of arbitrary government that 
 had appeared since the Revolution — to be a Bute with far greater powers — 
 a Mansfield with far greater courage. Happily his father's death liberated 
 him early from the pernicious influence by which he had been misled. His 
 mind expanded. His range of observation became wider. His genius 
 broke through early prejudices. His natural benevolence and magnanimity 
 had fair play. In a very short time he appeared in a situation worthy of 
 his understanding and of his heart. From a family whose name was asso- 
 ciated in the public mind with tyranny and corruption — from a party of which 
 the theory and the practice were equally servile — from the midst of the Luttrells, 
 the Dysons, the Barringtons — came forth the greatest parliamentary defender 
 of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 The late Lord Holland succeeded to the talents and to the fine natural dis- 
 positions of his house. But his situation was very different from that of 
 the two eminent men of whom we have spoken. In some important re- 
 spects it was better ; in some it was worse than theirs. He had one great 
 advantage over them. He received a good political education. The first 
 lord was educated by Sir Robert Walpole. Mr. Fox was educated by his 
 father. The late lord was educated by Mr. Fox. The pernicious maxims 
 early imbibed by the first Lord Holland made his great talents useless, 
 and worse than useless, to the state. The pernicious maxims early imbibed 
 by Mr. Fox led him, at the commencement of his public life, into great faults 
 which, though afterwards nobly expiated, were never forgotten. To the 
 very end of his career, small men, when they had nothing else to say in defence 
 of their own tyranny, bigotry and imbecility, could always raise a cheer by 
 some paltry taunt about the election of Colonel Luttrell, the imprisonment 
 of the lord mayor, and other measures in which the great Whig leader had 
 borne a part at the age of one or two and twenty. On Lord Holland, no 
 such slur could be throw?.. Those who most dissent from his opinions 
 must acknowledge that a public life more consistent is not to be found in 
 our annals. Every part of it is in perfect harmony with every other part ; 
 and the whole is in perfect harmony with the great principles of toleration 
 and civil freedom. This rare felicity is in a great measure to be attributed 
 to the influence 6f Mr. Fox. Lord Holland, as was natural in a person of 
 his talents and expectations, began at a very early age to take the keenest 
 interest in poHtics ; and Mr. Fox found the greatest pleasure in forming the 
 mind of so hopeful a pupil. They corresponded largely on political subjects 
 when the young lord was only sixteen ; and their friendship and mutual con- 
 fidence continued to the day of that mournful separation at Chiswick. Under 
 such training, such a man as Lord Holland was in no danger of falling 
 into those faults which threw a dark shade over the whole career of his grand- 
 father and from which the youth of his uncle was not wholly free. 
 
 On the other hand, the late Lord Holland, as compared with his grand- 
 father and his uncle, laboured under one great disadvantage. They were mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons. He became a Peer while still an infant. 
 When he entered public life, the House of Lords was a very small and a very 
 decorous assembly. The minority to which he belonged was scarcely able to 
 muster five or six votes on the most important nights, when eighty or ninety 
 lords were present. Debate had accordingly become a mere form, as it was in 
 the Irish House of Peers before the Union. This was a great misfortune to a 
 man like Lord Holland. It was not by occasionally addressing fifteen or 
 twenty solemn and unfriendly auditors that his grandfather and his uncle 
 attained their unrivaled parliamentary skill. The former had learned his art 
 in ''the great Walpolean battles;," on nights when Onslow was in the chair 
 
LORD HOLLAND. 625 
 
 seventeen hours without intermission, when the thick ranks on both sides 
 ktpt unbroken order till long after the winter sun had risen upon them, when 
 the blind were led out by the hand into the lobby and the paralytic laid down 
 in their bedclothes on the benches. The powers of Charles Fox v/ere, from 
 the first, exercised in conflicts not less e:^iting. The great talents of the late 
 Lord Holland had no such advantage. This was the more unfortifnate because 
 the peculiar species of eloquence which belonged to him, in common with his 
 fimily, required much practice to develope it. With strong sense and the 
 greatest readiness of wit, a certain tendency to hesitation was hereditary in the 
 Ime of Fox. This hesitation arose, not from the poverty, but from the wealth 
 of their vocabulary. They paused, not from the difliculty of 'finding one 
 expression, but from the difficulty of choosing between several. It was only 
 by slow degrees and constant exercise that the first Lord Holland and his son 
 overcame the defect. Indeed, neither of them overcame it completely. 
 
 In statement, the late Lord Holland was not successful ; his chief excellence lay 
 in reply. He had the quick eye of his house for the unsound parts of an 
 argument and a great felicity in exposing them. He was decidedly more 
 distinguished in debate than any peer of his time who had not sat in the House 
 of Commons. Nay, to find his equal among persons similarly situated, we must 
 go back eip;hty years—to Earl Granville. For Mansfield, Thurlow, Lough- 
 borough, Grey, Grenville, Brougham, Plunket and other eminent men, hving 
 and dead, whom we will not stop to enumerate, carried to the Upper House an 
 eloquence formed and matured in the Lower. The opinion of the most discerning 
 judges was that Lord Holland's oratorical performances, though sometimes most 
 successful, afforded no fair measure of his oratorical powers, and that, in an 
 assembly of which the debates were, frequent and animated, he would have 
 attained a very high order of excellence. It was, indeed, impossible to con- 
 verse with him without seeing that he was born a debater. To him, as to his 
 uncle, the exercise of the mind in discussion was a positive pleasure. With the 
 greatest good nature and good breeding, he was the very opposite to an assenter. 
 The word " disputatious " is generally used as a word of reproach ; but we can 
 express our meaning only by saying that Lord Holland was most courteously 
 and pleasantly disputatious. In truth, his quickness in discovering and appre- 
 hending distinctions and analogies was such as a veteran judge might envy. 
 The lawyers of the Duchy of Lancaster were astonished to find in an unpro- 
 fessional 'man so strong a rehsh for the esoteric parts of their science, and 
 complained that as soon as they had split a hair. Lord Holland proceeded to 
 split the filaments into filaments still finer. In a mind less happily constituted, 
 there might have been a risk that this turn for subtilty would have produced 
 serious evil. But in the heart and understanding of Lord Holland there was 
 ample security against all such danger. He was not a man to be the dupe of 
 his own ingenuity. He put his logic to its proper use ; and in him the 
 dialectician was always subordinate to the statesman. 
 
 His political life is written in the chronicles of his country. Perhaps, as 
 we have already intimated, his opinions on two or three great questions of 
 Foreign Policy were open to just objection. Yet even his errors, if he erred, 
 were amiable and respectable. We are not sure that we do not love and 
 admire him the more because he was now and then seduced from what we 
 regard as a wise policy, by sympathy with the oppressed, by generosity towards 
 the fallen, by a philanthropy so enlarged that it took in all nations, by love of 
 peace, which in him was second only to the love of freedom, by the magnani- 
 mous credulity of a mind which was as incapable of suspecting as of devising 
 mischief. 
 
 To his views on questions of Domestic Policy, the Yoice of his countrymen 
 
626 LORD HOLLAND. 
 
 does ample justice. They revere the memory of the man who was, during 
 forty years, the constant protector of all oppressed races, of all persecuted 
 sects — of the man, whom neither the prejudices nor the interests belonging to 
 his station could seduce from the path of right—of the noble, who in every 
 great crisis cast in his lot with the commons — of the planter, who made manful 
 war on the slave trade — of the landowner, whose whole heart was in the 
 struggle against the corn-laws. 
 
 We have hitherto touched almost exclusively on those parts of Lord 
 Holland's character which were open to the observation of millions. How shall 
 we express the feelings with which his memory is cherished by those who 
 were honoured with his friendship. Or in what language shall we speak of that 
 House, once celebrated for its rare attractions to the furthest ends of the 
 civilised world and now silent and desolate as the grave ? That House was 
 a hundred and twenty years ago apostrophised by a poet in tender and graceful 
 lines, which have now acquired a new meaning not less sad than that which 
 they originally bore : 
 
 •' Thou hill, whose brow the antique structures grace, 
 Reared by bold chiefs of Warwick's noble race, 
 Why, once so loved, whene'er thy bower appears, 
 O'er my dim eyeballs glance the sudden tears ? 
 How sweet were once thy prospects fresh and fair. 
 Thy sloping walks and unpolluted air ! 
 How sweet the glooms beneath thine aged trees, 
 Thy noon-tide shadow and thine evening breeze 1 
 His image thy forsaken bowers restore ; 
 Thy walks and airy prospects charm no more : 
 No more the summer in thy glooms allayed. 
 Thine evening breezes and thy noon-day shade." 
 
 Yet a few years and the shades and stnictures may follow their illus- 
 trious masters. The wonderful city which, ancient and gigantic as it is, still 
 continues to grow as fast as a young town of logwood by a water-privilege 
 in Michigan, may soon displace those turrets and gardens which are associated 
 with so much that is interesting and noble — which the courtly magnificence of 
 Rich — with the loves of Ormond — with the counsels of Cromwell — with the 
 death of Addison. The time is coming when, perhaps a few old men, the last 
 survivors of our generation, will in vain seek, amidst new streets and- squares 
 and railway stations, for the site of that dwelling which was in their youth the 
 favourite resort of wits and beauties — of painters and poets— of scholars, 
 philosophers and statesmen. They will then remember, with strange tender- 
 ness, many objects once familiar to them — the avenue and the terrace, the busts 
 and the paintings, the carving, the grotesque gilding and the enigmatical 
 mottoes. With peculiar fondness they will recall that venerable chamber, in 
 which all the antique gravity of a college library was so singularly blended with, 
 all that female grace and wit could devise to embelHsh a drawing-room. They 
 will recollect, not unmoved, those shelves loaded with the varied learning of 
 many lands and many ages ; those portraits in which were preserved the 
 features of the best and wisest Englishmen of two generations. They will 
 recollect how many men who have guided the politics of Europe — who have 
 moved great assemblies by reason and eloquence — who have put life into bronze 
 and canvas, or who have left to posterity things so written as it shall not 
 willingly let them die — were there mixed with all that was loveliest and gayest 
 in the society of the most splendid of capitals. They will remember the singular 
 character which belonged to that circle, in which every talent and accom- 
 plishment, every art and science had its place. They will remember how the 
 last debate was discussed in one corner and the last comedy of Scribe in an- 
 
I 
 
 WARREN HASTINGS. 627 
 
 o^her ; while Wilkie gazed with modest admiration on Reynold's Baretti ; 
 while Mackintosh turned over Thomas Aquinas to verify a quotation ; while 
 Talleyrand related his conversations with Barras at the Luxembourg, or his 
 ride with Lannes over the field of Austerlitz. They will remember, above all, 
 the grace — and the kindness, far more'a^dmirable than grace — with which the 
 princely hospitality of that ancient mansion was dispensed. They will remem- 
 ber the venerable and benignant countenance and the cordial voice of him who 
 bade them welcome. They will remember that temper, which years of pain, of 
 sickness, of lameness, of confinement seemed only to make sweeter and 
 sweeter ; and that frank politeness, which at once relieved all the embarrass- 
 ment of the youngest and most timid writer or artist who found himself for the 
 first time among Ambassadors and Earls. They will remember that constant 
 flow of conversation, so natural, so animated, so various, so rich with observa- 
 tion and anecdote ; that wit which never gave a wound ; that exquisite 
 mimicry which ennobled instead of degrading ; that goodness of heart which 
 appeared in every look and accent and gave additional value to every talent 
 and acquirement. They will remember, too, that he whose name they hold in 
 reverence was not less distinguished by the inflexible uprightness of his political 
 conduct than by his loving disposition and his winning manners. They will 
 remember that, in the last lines which he traced, he expressed his joy that he 
 had done nothing unworthy of the friend of Fox and Grey ; and they will have 
 reason to feel similar joy if, in looking back on many troubled years, they can- 
 not accuse themselves of having done anything unworthy of men who were 
 distinguished by the friendship of Lord Holland. 
 
 WARREN HASTINGS. (October, 1841.) 
 
 Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal. Compiled 
 from Original Papers by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1841. 
 
 This book seems to have been manufactured in pursuance of a contract, by 
 which the representatives of Warren Hastings, on the one part, bound them- 
 selves to furnish papers, and Mr. Gleig, on the other part, bound himself to 
 furnish praise. It is but just to say that the covenants on both sides have 
 been most faithfully kept ; and the result is before us in the form of three big 
 bad volumes, full of undigested correspondence and undiscerning panegyric. 
 
 If it were worth while to examine this performance in detail, we could 
 easily make a long article by merely pointing out inaccurate statements, inele- 
 gant expressions and immoral doctrines. But it would be idle to waste 
 criticism on a bookmaker ; and, whatever credit Mr. Gleig may have justly 
 earned by former works, it is as a bookmaker, and nothing more, that he now 
 comes before us. More eminent men than Mr. Gleig have written nearly as 
 ill as he, when they have stooped to similar drudgery. It would be unjust to 
 estimate Goldsmith by the "Vicar of Wakefield" or Scott by the "Life of 
 Napoleon." Mr. Gleig is neither a Goldsmith nor a Scott ; but it would be 
 unjust to deny that he is capable of something better than these Memoirs. It 
 would also, we hope and believe, be unjust to charge any Christian minister 
 with the guilt of deliberately maintaining some propositions which we find in 
 this book. It is not too much to say that Mr. Gleig has written several pas- 
 sages which bear the same relation to the "Prince" of Machiavelli that the 
 "Prince" of Machiavelli bears to the " WTiole Duty of Man," and which 
 would excite amazement in a <ien of robbers or on board of a schooner of 
 
628 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 pirates. But we are willing to attribute these offences to haste, to thoughtless* 
 ness, and to that disease of the understanding which may be called the Furor 
 Biographicus, and which is to writers of lives what the goitre is to an Alpine 
 shepherd or dirt-eating to a Negro slave. 
 
 We are inclined to think that we shall best meet the wishes of our readers if, 
 instead of dwelling on the faults of this book, we attempt to give, in a way 
 necessarily hasty and imperfect, our own view of the life and character of Mr. 
 Hastings. Our feeling towards him is not exactly that of the House of Com- 
 mons which impeached him in 1787 ; neither is it that of the House of Commons 
 which uncovered and stood up to leceive him in 1813. He had great qualities 
 and he rendered great services to the state. But to represent him as a man of 
 stainless virtue is to make him ridiculous ; and from regard for his memory, 
 if from no other feeling, his friends would have done well to lend no coun- 
 tenance to such adulation. We believe that, if he were now living, he would 
 have sufficient judgment and sufficient greatness of mind to wish to be shown 
 as he was. He must have known that there were dark spots on his fame. He 
 might also have felt with pride that the splendour of his fame would bear 
 many spots. He would nave wished posterity to have a likeness of him, 
 though an unfavourable likeness, rather than a daub at once insipid and unnat- 
 ural, resembling neither him nor anybody else. " Paint me as I am," said 
 Oliver Cromwell, while sitting to young Lely. "If you leave out the scars 
 and wrinkles, I will not pay you a shilling. " Even in such a trifle the great 
 Protector showed both his good sense and his magnanimity. He did not wish 
 all that was characteristic in his countenance to be lost in the vain attempt to 
 give him the regular features and smooth blooming cheeks of the curl-pated 
 minions of James I. He was content that his face should go forth marked 
 with all the blemishes which had been put on it by time, by war, by sleepless 
 nights, by anxiety, perhaps by remorse ; but with valour, policy, authority 
 and public care written in all its princely lines. If men truly great knew their 
 own interest, it is thus that they would wish their minds to be portrayed. 
 
 Warren Hastings sprung from an ancient and illustrious race. It has been 
 affirmed that his pedigree can be traced back to the great Danish sea-king 
 whose sails were long the terror of both coasts of the British Channel, and 
 who, after many fierce and doubtful struggles, yielded at last to the valour and 
 genius of Alfred. But the undoubted splendour of the hne of Hastings needs 
 no illustration from fable. One branch of that line wore, in the fourteenth 
 century, the coronet of Pembroke. From another branch sprang the renowned 
 Chamberlain, the faithful adherent of the White Rose, whose fate has furnished 
 so striking a theme both to poets and to historians. His family received from 
 the Tudors the earldom of Huntingdon, which, after long dispossession, was 
 regained in our time by a series of events scarcely paralleled in romance. 
 
 The lords of the manor of Daylesford, in Worcestershire, claimed to be 
 considered as the heads of this distinguished family. The main stock, indeed, 
 prospered less than some of the younger shoots. But the Daylesford family, 
 though not ennobled, was wealthy and highly considered till, about two hun- 
 dred years ago, it was overwhelmed by the great ruin of the civil war. The 
 Hastings of that time was a zealous cavalier. He raised money on his lands, 
 sent his plate to the mint at Oxford, joined tjie royal army, and, after spending 
 half his property in the cause of King Charles, was glad to ransom himself by 
 making over most of the remaining half to Speaker Lenthal. The old seat at 
 Daylesford still remained in the family ; but it could no longer be kept up, and 
 in the following generation it was sold to a merchant of London. 
 
 Before this transfer took place, the last Hastings of Daylesford had pre- 
 sented his second son to the rectory of the parish in which the ancient residence 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 629 
 
 of the family stood. The living was of little value ; and the situation of the 
 poor clerg}'raan, after the sale of the estate, vi^as deplorable. He was con- 
 stantly engaged in lawsuits about his tithes with the new lord of the manor, 
 and was at length utterly ruined. Hi^ eldest son, Howard, a well-conducted 
 young man, obtained a place in the Customs. The second son, Pynaston, an 
 idle, worthless boy, married before he was sixteen, lost his wife in two years, 
 and went to the West Indies, where he died, leaving to the care of his unfor- 
 tunate father a little orphan, destined to strange and memorable vicissitudes of 
 fortune. 
 
 Warren, the son of Pynaston, was born on the sixth of December, 1732. 
 His mother died a few days later, and he was left dependent on his distressed 
 grandfather. The child was early sent to the village school, where he learned 
 his letters on the same bench with the sons of the peasantry ; nor did anything 
 in his garb or face indicate that his life was to take a widely different coufse 
 from that of the young rustics with whom he studied and played. But no 
 cloud could overcast the dawn of so much genius and so much ambition. The 
 very ploughmen observed, and long remembered, how kindly little Warren 
 took to his book. The daily sight of the lands which his ancestors had pos- 
 sessed, and which had passed into the hands of strangers, filled his young brain 
 with wild fancies and projects. He loved to hear stories of the wealth 
 and greatness of his progenitors, of their splendid housekeeping, their loyalty 
 and their valour. On one bright summer day, the boy, then just seven years 
 old, lay on the bank of the rivulet which flows through the old domain of his 
 house to join the Isis. There, as threescore and ten years later he told the 
 tale, rose in his mind a scheme which, through all the turns of his eventful 
 career, was never abandoned. He would recover the estate which had belonged 
 to his fathers. He would be Hastings of Daylesford. This purpose, formed in 
 infancy and poverty, grew stronger as his intellect expanded and as his fortune 
 rose. He pursued his plan with that calm but indomitable force of will which 
 was the most striking peculiarity of his character. When, under a tropical sun, 
 he ruled fifty millions of Asiatics, his hopes, amidst all the cares of war, finance 
 and legislation, still pointed to Daylesford. And when his long public life, so 
 singularly chequered with good and evil, witli glory and obloquy, had at length 
 closed for ever, it was to Daylesford that he retired to die. 
 
 When he was eight years old, his uncle Howard determined to take charge 
 of him and to give him a liberal education. The boy went up to London, 
 and was sent to a school at Newington, where he was well taught but ill fed. 
 He always attributed the smallness of his stature to the hard and scanty fare of 
 this seminary. At ten he was removed to Westminster school, then flourishing 
 under the care of Dr. Nichols. Vinny Bourne, as his pupils affectionately 
 called him, was one of the masters. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, 
 Cowper, were among the students. With Cowper, Hastings formed a friend- 
 ship, v/hich neither the lapse of time nor a wide dissimilarity of opinions and 
 pursuits could wholly dissolve. It does not appear that they ever met after 
 they had grown to manhood. But forty years later, when the voices of many 
 great orators were crying for vengeance on the oppressor of India, the shy and 
 secluded poet could image to himself Hastings the Governor-General only as 
 the Hastings with whom he had rowed on the Thames and played in the 
 cloister, and refused to believe that so good-tempered a fellow could have done 
 anything very wrong. His own life had been spent in praying, musing and 
 rhyming among the water-lilies of the Ouse. He had preserved in no common 
 measure the innocence of childhood. His spirit had indeed been severely 
 tried, but not by temptations which impelled him to any gross violation of the 
 rules of social morality. He had never been attacked by qombinj^tions of 
 
636 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 powerful and deadly enemies. ' He had never been compelled to make a choice 
 between innocence and greatness, between crime and ruin. Firmly as he held 
 in theory the doctrine of human depravity, his habits were such that he was 
 unable to conceive how far from the path of right even kind and noble natures 
 may be hurried by the rage of conflict and the lust of dominion. 
 
 Hastings had another- associate zX. Westminster of whom we shall have 
 occasion to make frequent mention — Elijah Impey. We Icnow little about 
 their school days. But, we think, we may safely venture to guess that, when- 
 ever Hastings wished to play any trick more than usually naughty, he hired 
 Impey with a tart or a ball to act as fag in the worst part of the prank. 
 
 Warren was distinguished among his comrades as an excellent swimmer, 
 boatman and scholar. At fourteen he was first in the examination for 
 tlje foundation. His name in gilded letters on the walls of the dormitory 
 still attests his victory over many older competitors. He stayed two years 
 longer at the school and was looking forward to a studentship at Christ Church, 
 when an event happened which changed the whole course of his life. Howard 
 Hastings died, bequeathing his nephew to the care of a friend and distant 
 relation named Chiswick. This gentleman, though he did not absolutely 
 refuse the charge, was desirous to rid himself of it as soon as possible. Dr. 
 Nichols made strong remonstrances against the cruelty of interrupting the 
 studies of a youth who seemed likely to be one of the first scholars of the age. 
 He even offered to bear the expense of sending his favourite pupil to Oxford. 
 But Mr. Chiswick was inflexible. He thought the years which had already 
 been wasted on hexameters and pentameters quite sufficient. He had it in his 
 power to obtain for the lad a writership in the service of the East India Com- 
 pany. W^hether the young adventurer, when once shipped off, made a fortune 
 or died of a liver complaint, he equally ceased to be a burden to anybody. 
 Warren was accordingly removed from Westminster school and placed for a 
 few months at a commercial academy to study arithmetic and book-keeping. 
 In January, 1750, a few days after he had completed his seventeenth year, he 
 sailed for Bengal, and arrived at his destination in the October following. 
 
 He was immediately placed at a desk in the Secretary's office at Calcutta, 
 and laboured there during two years. Fort William was then a purely com- 
 mercial settlement. In the south of India, the encroaching policy of Dupleix 
 had transformed the servants of the English Company, against their will, into 
 diplomatists and generals. The war of the succession Was raging in the Car- 
 natic ; and the tide had been suddenly turned against the French by the genius 
 of young Robert Clive. But in Bengal the European settlers, at peace with 
 the natives and with each other, were wholly occupied with ledgers and bills 
 of lading. 
 
 After two years passed in keeping accounts at Calcutta, Hastings was sent 
 up the country to Cossimbazar, a town which lies on the Hoogley, about a mile 
 from Moorshedabad, and which then bore to Moorshedabad a relation, if we 
 may compare small things with great, such as the city of London bears to 
 W^estminster. Moorshedabad was the abode of the prince who, by an authority 
 ostensibly derived from the Mogul, but really independent, ruled the three great 
 provinces of Bengal, Orissa and Bahar. At Moorshedab were the court, the 
 harem and' the public offices. Cossimbazar was a port and a place of trade, 
 renowned for the quantity and excellence of the silks which were sold in its 
 marts, and constantly receiving and sending forth fleets of richly laden barges. 
 At this important point, the Company had established a small factory subordi- 
 nate to that of Fort William. Here, during several years, Hastings was em- 
 ployed in making bargains for stuffs with native brokers. While he was 
 thus engaged, Surajah Dowlah succeeded to the government, and de- 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 63'r 
 
 clared war against the English. The defenceless settlement of Cossimbazar, 
 lying close to the tyrant's capital, was instantly seized. Hastings was sent a 
 prisoner to Moorshedabad, but, in consequence of the humane intervention of 
 the serrants of the Dutch Company, wsfs treated with indulgence. Meanwhile 
 the Nabob marched on Calcutta ; the governor and the commandant fled ; the 
 town and citadel were taken, and most of the English prisoners perished in the 
 Black Hole. 
 
 In these events originated the greatness of Warren Hastings. The fugitive 
 governor and his companions had taken refuge on the dreary islet of Fulda, 
 near the mouth of the Hoogley. They were naturally desirous to obtain full 
 information respecting the proceedings of the Nabob ; and no person seemed so 
 likely to furnish it as Hastings, who was a prisoner at large in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the court. He thus became a diplomatic agent, and soon 
 established a high character for ability and resolution. The treason which at 
 a later period was fatal to Surajah Dowlah was already in progress ; and 
 Hastings was admitted to the deliberations of the conspirators. But the time 
 for striking had not arrived. It was necessary to postpone the execution of, the 
 design ; and Hastings, who was now in extreme peril, fled to Fulda. .,./■. 
 
 Soon after his arrival at Fulda, the expedition from Madras, commanded by 
 Clive, appeared in the Hoogley. Warren, young, intrepid and excited pro- 
 bably by the example o£ the Commander of the Forces, who, having like him- 
 self been a mercantila agent of the, Company, had been turned by public 
 calamities into a soldier, determined (o serve in the ranks. During the early 
 operations of the war he carried a musket. But the quick eye of Clive soon 
 perceived that the head of the young volunteer would be more useful than his 
 arm. When, after the battle of Plassey, Meet Jaffier was proclaimed Nabob 
 of Bengal, Hastings was appointed to reside at the court of the new prince as 
 agent for the Company. 
 
 He remained at Moorshedabad till the year 1761, when he became a Mem- 
 ber of Council, and was consequently forced to reside at Calcutta. This was 
 during the interval between Clive's first and second administration — an in- 
 terval which has left on the face of the East India Company a stain not wholly 
 effaced by many years of just and humane government. Mr. Vansittart, the 
 Governor, was at the iitad of a new and anomalous empire. On one side was 
 a band of English functionaries, daring, intelligent, eager to be rich. On the 
 other side was a great native population, helpless, timid, accustomed to crouch 
 under oppression. To keep the stronger race from preying on the weaker was 
 an undertaking which tasked to the utmost the talents and energy of Clive. 
 Vansittart, with fair intentions, was a feeble and inefficient ruler. The master 
 caste, as was natural, broke loose from all restraint ; and then was seen what 
 we believe to be the most frightful of all spectacles, the strength of civilisation 
 without its mercy. To all other despotism there is a check, imperfect, indeed, 
 and liable to gross abuse, but still sufiicient to preserve society from the last 
 extreme of misery. A time comes when the evils of submission are obviously 
 greater than those of resistance, when fear itself begets a sort of courage, when 
 a convulsive burst of popular rage and despair warns tyrants not to presume 
 too far on the patience of mankindv But against misgovernment such as then 
 afflicted Bengal it was impossible to struggle. The superior intelligence and 
 energy of the- dominant class made their power irresistible. A war of Bengalees 
 against Englishmen was like a war of sheep against wolves, of men against 
 daemons. The only protection which the conquered could find was in the 
 moderation, the clemency, the enlarged policy of the conquerors. That pro- 
 tection, at a later period, they found. But at first English power came among 
 them unaccompanied by English morality. There was an interval between the 
 
632 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 time at which they became our subjects and the time at which we began to 
 reflect that we were bound to discharge towards them the duties of rulers. 
 During that interval the business of a servant of the Company was simply to 
 wring out of the natives a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds as speedily 
 as possible, that he might return home before his constitution had suffered from 
 the heat, to marry a peer's daughter, to buy rotten boroughs in Cornwall and 
 to give balls in St. James's Square. Of the conduct of Hastings at this time 
 little is known ; but the little that is known, and the circumstance that little 
 is known, must be considered as honourable to him. He could not protect the 
 natives : all that he could do was to abstain from plundering and oppressing 
 them ; and this he appears to have done. It is certain that at this time he 
 continued poor ; and it is equally certain that by cruelty and dishonesty he 
 might easily have become rich. It is certain that he was never charged with 
 having borne a share in the abuses which then prevailed ; and it is almost 
 equally certain that, if he had borne a share in those abuses, the able and 
 bitter enemies who afterwards persecuted him would not have failed to discover 
 and to proclaim his guilt. The keen, severe and even malevolent scrutiny to 
 which his whole public life was subjected — a scrutiny unparalleled, as we be- 
 lieve, in the history of mankind — is in one respect advantageous to his reputa- 
 tion. It brought many lamentable blemishes to light ; but it entitles him to 
 be considered pure from every blemish which has not been brought to light. 
 
 The truth is that the temptations to which so many English functionaries 
 yielded in the time of Mr. Vansittart were not temptations addressed to the 
 ruling passions of Warren Hastings. He was not squeamish in pecuniary 
 transactions ; but he was neither sordid nor rapacious. He was far too en- 
 lightened a man to look on a great empire merely as a buccaneer would look 
 on a galleon. Had his heart been much worse than it was, his understanding 
 would have preserved him from that extremity of baseness. He was an un- 
 scrupulous, perhaps an unprincipled, statesman ; but still he was a statesman 
 and not a freebooter. 
 
 In 1764 Hastings returned to England. He had realised only a very 
 moderate fortune ; and that moderate fortune was soon reduced to nothing, 
 partly by his praiseworthy liberality and partly by his mismanagement. 
 Towards his relations he appears to have acted very generously. The greater 
 part of his savings he left in Bengal, hoping probably to obtain the high usury 
 of India. But high usury and bad security generally go together ; and 
 Hastings lost both interest and principal. 
 
 He remained four years in England. Of his life at this time very Httle is 
 known. But it has been asserted, and is highly probable, that liberal studies 
 and the society of men of letters occupied a great part of his time. It is to be 
 remembered to his honour that, in days when the languages of the East were 
 regarded by other servants of the Company merely as the means of communi- 
 cating with weavers and money-changers, "his enlarged and accomplished mind 
 sought in Asiatic learning for new forms of intellectual enjoyment and for new 
 views of government and society. Perhaps, like most persons who have paid 
 much attention to departments of knowledge which lie out of the common 
 track, he was inclined to overrate the value of his favourite studies. He con- 
 ceived that the cultivation of Persian literature might with advantage be made 
 a part of the liberal education of an English gentleman ; and he drew up a plan 
 with that view. It is said that the University of Oxford, in which Oriental 
 learning had never, since the revival of letters, been wholly neglected, was to 
 be the seat of the institution which he contemplated. An endowment was ex- 
 pected from the munificence of the Company : and professors thoroughly com- 
 petent to interpret Hafiz and Ferdusi were to be engaged in the East. Hastings 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 633 
 
 called on Johnson, with the hope, as it should seem, of interesting in this pro- 
 ject a man who enjoyed the highest literary reputation, and who was particu- 
 larly connected with Oxford. The interview appears to have left on Johnson's 
 mind a most favourable impression of the talents and attainments of his visitor. 
 Long after, when Hastings was ruling ^q immense population of British India, 
 the old philosopher wrote to him, and referred in the most courtly terms, 
 though with great dignity, to their short but agreeable intercourse. 
 
 Hastings soon began to look again towards India. He had little to attach 
 him to England ; and his pecuniary embarrassments were great. He solicited 
 his old masters the Directors for employment. They acceded to his request, 
 with high compliments both to his abilities and to his integrity, and appointed 
 him a Member of Council at Madras. It would be unjust not to mention that, 
 though forced to borrow money for his outfit, he did not withdraw any portion 
 of the sum which he had appropriated to the relief of his distressed relations. 
 In the spring of 1769 he embarked on board of the Duke of Grafton^ and com- 
 menced a voyage distinguished by incidents which might furnish matter for a 
 novel. 
 
 Among the passengers in the Duke of Grafton was a German of the name of 
 Imhoff. He called himself a Baron ; but he was in distressed circumstances 
 and was going out to Madras as a portrait-painter, in the hope of picking up 
 some of the pagodas which were then lightly got and as lightly spent by the 
 English in India. The Baron was accompanied by his wife, a native, we have 
 somewhere read, of Archangel. This young woman, who, born under the Arctic 
 circle, was destined to play the part of a Queen under the tropic of Cancer, had 
 an agreeable person, a cultivated mind, and manners in the highest degree en- 
 gaging. She despised her husband heartily, and, as the story which we have to 
 tell sufficiently proves, not without reason. She was interested by the conversation 
 and flattered by the attentions of Hastings. The situation was indeed perilous. 
 No place is so propitious to the formation either of close friendships or of deadly 
 enmities as an Indiaman. There are very few people who do not find a voyage 
 which lasted several months insupportably dull. Anything is welcome which 
 may break that long monotony, a* sail, a shark, an albatross, a man overboard. 
 Most passengers find some resource in eating twice as many meals as on land. 
 But the great devices for killing the time are quarrelling and flirting. The 
 facilities for both these exciting pursuits are great. The inmates of the ship 
 are thrown together far more than in any country-seat or boarding-house. 
 None can escape from the rest except by imprisoning himself in a cell in which 
 he can hardly turn. All food, all exercise is taken in company. Ceremony 
 is to a great extent banished. It is every day in the power of a mischievous 
 person to inflict innumerable annoyances ; it is every day in the power of an 
 amiable person to confer little services. It not seldom happens that serious 
 distress and danger call forth, in genuine beauty and deformity, heroic virtues 
 and abject vices which, in the ordinary intercourse of good society, might 
 remain during many years unknown even to intimate' associates. Under such 
 circumstances met Warren Hastings and the Baroness Imhoff ; two persons 
 whose accomplishments would have attracted notice in any court of Europe. 
 The gentleman had no domestic ties. The lady was tied to a husband for 
 whom she had no regard and who had no regard for his own honour. An 
 attachment sprang up, which was soon strengthened by events such as could 
 hardly have occurred on land. Hastings fell ill. The Baroness nursed him 
 with womanly tenderness, gave him his medicines with her own hand, and even 
 sat up in his cabin while he slept. Long before the Duke of Grafton 
 reached Madras, Hastings was in love. But his love was of a most character- 
 istic description. Like his hatred, like his ambition, like all his passions, it 
 
634 ' WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 was strong, but not impetuous. It was calm, deep, earnest, patient of delay, 
 unconquerable by time. ImhofF was called into council by his wife and his 
 wife's lover. It was arranged that the Baroness should institute a suit for a 
 divorce in the courts of Franconia ; that the Baron should afford every faciHty 
 to the proceeding ; and that during the years which might elapse before the 
 sentence should be pronounced they should continue to live together. It was 
 also agreed that Hastings should bestow some very substantial marks of 
 gratitude on the complaisant husband, and should, when the marriage was 
 dissolved, make the lady his wife and adopt the children whom she had 
 already born to Imhoff. 
 
 We are not inclined to judge either Hastings or the Baroness severely. 
 There was undoubtedly much to extenuate their fault. But we can by no 
 means concur with the Rev. Mr. Gleig, who carries his partiality to so injudi- 
 cious an extreme as to describe the conduct of Imhoff — conduct the baseness of 
 which is the best excuse for the lovers — as " wise and judicious." 
 
 At Madras, Hastings found the trade of the Company in a very disorganised 
 state. His own tastes would have led him rather to political than to com- 
 mercial pursuits ; but he knew that the favour of his employers depended 
 chiefly on their dividends, and their dividends depended chiefly on the invest- 
 ment. He therefore, with great judgment, determined to apply his vigorous 
 mind for a time to this department of business, which had been much 
 neglected since the servants of the Company had ceased to be clerks and had 
 become warriors and negotiators. 
 
 In a very few months he effected an important reform. The Directors 
 notified to him their high approbation, and were so much pleased with his 
 conduct that they determined to place him at the head of the government of 
 Bengal. Early in 1772 he quitted Fort St. George for his new post. The 
 Imhoffs, who were still man and wife, accompanied him, and lived at Calcutta 
 " on the same wise and judicious plan " (we quote the words of Mr. Gleig) which 
 they had already followed during more than two years. 
 
 When Hastings took his seat at the head of the council board, Bengal was 
 still governed according to the system whioh Clive had devised — a system 
 which was, perhaps, skilfully contrived for the purpose of facilitating and con- 
 cealing a great revolution, but which, when that revolution was complete and 
 irrevocable, could produce nothing but inconvenience. There were two 
 governments, the real and the ostensible. The supreme power belonged to 
 the Company, and was in truth the most despotic power that can be con- 
 ceived. The only restraint on the English masters of the country was that 
 which their own justice and humanity ifnposed on them. There was no con- 
 stitutional check on their will, and resistance to them was utterly hopeless. 
 
 But though thus absolute in reahty, the English had not yet assumed the 
 style of sovereignty. They held their territories as vassals of the throne of 
 Delhi ; they raised their revenues as collectors appointed by the imperial com- 
 mission ; their public seal was inscribed with the imperial titles ; and their 
 mint struck only the imperial coin. 
 
 There was still a nabob of Bengal, who stood in the English rulers of his 
 country in the same relation in which Augustulus stood to Odoacer, or the 
 last Merovingians to Charles Martel and Pepin. He lived at Moorshedabad, 
 surrounded by princely magnificence. He was approached with outward marks 
 of Reverence, and his name was used in public instruments. But in the 
 government of the country he had less real share than the youngest writer or 
 cadet in the Company's service. 
 
 ' The English council which represented the Company at Calcutta was con. 
 stituted on a very different plan from that which has since been adopted. At; 
 
 1 
 
tVAl^REN- HASTINGS. 63S 
 
 present the Governor is, as to all executive measures, absolute. He can declare 
 war, conclude peace, appoint public functionaries or remove them, in opposi- 
 tion to the unanimous sense of those who sit with him in council. They are, 
 indeed, entitled to know all that is done, to discuss all that is done, to advise, 
 to remonstrate, to send home protests,'^ But it is with the Governor that the 
 supreme power resides, and on him that the whole responsibilitj' rests. This 
 system, which was introduced by Mr, Pitt and Mr. Dundas in spite of the 
 strenuous opposition of Mr, Burke, we conceive to be on the whole the best 
 that was ever devised for the government of a country where no materials , 
 can be found for a representative constitution. In the time of Hastings, the 
 Governor had only one vote in council, and, in case of an equal division, a 
 casting vote. It therefore happened not unfrequently that he was overruled on 
 the gravest questions ; and it was possible that he might be wholly excluded, 
 for years together, from the real direction of public affairs. 
 
 The English functionaries at Fort William had as yet paid little or no atten- 
 tion to the internal government of Bengal. The only branch of politics about 
 which they much busied themselves was negotiation with the native princes. 
 The police, the administration of justice, the details of the collection of revenue 
 were almost entirely neglected. We may remark that the phraseology of the 
 Company's servants still bears the trace of this state of things. To this day 
 they always use the word " political " as synonymous with "diplomatic." We 
 could name a gentleman still living, who was described by the highest autho- 
 rity as an invaluable public servant, eminently fit to be at the head of the de- 
 partments of finance, revenue and justice, but unfortunately quite ignorant of 
 all political business. 
 
 The internal government of Bengal, the English rulers delegated to a great 
 native minister, who was "stationed at Moorshedabad. All military affairs and, 
 with the exception of what pertains to mere ceremonial, all foreign affairs were 
 withdrawn from his control ; but the other departments of the administration 
 were entirely confided to him. His own stipend amounted to near a hundred 
 thousand pounds sterling a-year. The civil list of the nabob, amounting to 
 more than three hundred thousand pounds a~year, passed through the minister's 
 hands and was to a great extent at his disposal. The collection of the 
 revenue, the superintendence of the household of the Prince, the administration 
 of justice, the maintenance of order were left to this high functionary ; and 
 for the exercise of his immense power he was responsible to none but the 
 British masters of the country. 
 
 A situation so important, lucrative and splendid was naturally an object 
 of ambition to the ablest and most powerful natives. Clive had found it 
 difficult to decide between conflicting pretensions. Two candidates stood out 
 prominently from the crowd, each of them the representative of a race and of 
 a religion. 
 
 , One of these was Mahommed Reza Khan, a Mussulman of Persian extrac- 
 tion, able, active, religious after the fashion of his people, and highly esteemed 
 by them. In England he might perhaps have been regarded as a corrupt and 
 greedy politician. But, tried by the lower standard of Indian morality, he 
 might be considered as a man of integrity and honour. 
 
 His competitor was a Hindoo Brahmin whose name has, by a terrible and 
 melancholy event, been inseparably associated with that of Warren Hastings — 
 the Maharajar Nuncomar. This man had played an important part in all the 
 revolutions which, since the time of Surajah Dowlah, had taken place in Ben- 
 gal. To the consideration which in that country belongs to high and pure 
 caste, he added the weight which is derived from wealth, talents and experi- 
 ence. Of his moral character it is difficult to give a notion to those who are 
 
636 WARkEN HASTINGS. 
 
 acquainted with human nature only as it appears in our island. WTiat the 
 Italian is to Englishman, what the Hindoo is to the Italian, what the Ben- 
 galee is to other Hindoos, that was Nuncomar to other Bengalees. The 
 physical organisation of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives 
 in a constant vapour bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his 
 movements languid. During many ages he has been trampled upon by men of 
 bolder and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities 
 to which his constitution and his situation are equally unfavourable. His mind 
 bears a singular analogy to his body. It is weak even to helplessness for pur- 
 poses of manly resistance ; but its suppleness and its tact move the children of 
 sterner climates to admiration not unmingled with contempt. All those arts 
 which are the natural defence of the weak are more familiar to this subtle race 
 than to the Ionian of the time of Juvenal or to the Jew of the dark ages. 
 What the horns are to the buffalo, what the paw is to the tiger, what the sting 
 is to the bee, what beauty, according to the old Greek song, is to woman, 
 deceit is to the Bengalee. Large promises, smooth excuses, elaborate tissues 
 of circumstantial falsehood, chicanery, perjury, forgery, are the weapons offen- 
 sive and defensive, of the people of the Lower Ganges. All those millions do 
 not furnish one sepoy to the armies of the Company. But as usurers, as money- 
 changers, as sharp legal practitioners, no class of human beings can bear a 
 comparison with them. With all his softness, the Bengalee is by no means 
 placable in his enmities or prone to pity. The pertinacity with which he 
 adheres to his purposes yields only to the immediate pressure of fear. Nor 
 does he lack a certain kind of courage which is often wanting to his masters. 
 To inevitable evils he is sometimes found to oppose a passive fortitude such as 
 the Stoics attributed to their ideal sage. An European warrior, wha rushes on 
 a battery of cannon with a loud hurrah, will shriek* under the surgeon's knife 
 and fall into an agony of despair at the sentence of death. But the Bengalee, 
 who would see his country overrun, his house laid in ashes, his children 
 murdered or dishonoured, without having the spirit to strike one blow, has yet 
 been known to endure torture with the firmness of Mucius and to mount the 
 scaffold with the steady step and even pulse of Algernon Sidney. 
 
 In Nuncomar, the national character was strongly and with exaggeration 
 personified. The company's servants had repeatedly detected him in the most 
 criminal intrigues. On one occasion he brought a false charge against another 
 Hindoo and tried to substantiate it by producing forged documents. On 
 another occasion it was discovered that, while professing the strongest attach- 
 ment to the English, he was engaged in several conspiracies against them, and 
 in particular that he was the medium of a correspondence between the court of 
 Delhi and the French authorities in the Camatic. For these and similar prac- 
 tices he had been long detained in confinement. But his talents and influence 
 had not only procured his liberation, but had obtained for him a certain degree 
 of consideration even among the British rulers of his country. 
 
 Clive was extremely unwilling to place a Mussulman at the head of the admini- 
 stration of Bengal. On the other hand, he could not bring himself to confer 
 immense power on a man to whom every sort of villany had repeatedly been 
 brought home. Therefore, though the Nabob, over whom Nuncomar had by 
 mtrigue acquired great influence, begged that the artful Hindoo might be 
 mtrusted with the government, Clive, after some hesitation, decided honestly 
 and wisely in favour of Mahommed Reza Khan, who, when Hastings became 
 governor, had held his high office seven years. An infant son of Meer 
 Jaffier was now nabob ; and the guardianship of the young prince's person had 
 been confided to the minister. 
 
 Nuncomar, stimulated at once by cupidity and malice, had been constantly 
 
WARREN HASTINGS, . 637 
 
 attempting to undermine his successful rival. This was, not difficult. The 
 revenues of Bengal, under the administration established by Clive, did not 
 yield such a surplus as had been anticipated by the Company ; for, at that time, 
 the most absurd notions were entertained in England respecting the wealth of 
 India. Palaces of porphyry, hung with tile richest brocade, heaps of pearls and 
 diamonds, vaults from which pagodas and gold mohurs were measured out by 
 the bushel, filled the imagination even of men of business. Nobody seemed 
 to be aware of what nevertheless was most undoubtedly the truth, that India 
 was a much poorer country than countries which in Europe are reckoned poor, 
 than Ireland, for example, than Portugal, than Sweden. It was confidently 
 believed by Lords of the Treasury and members for the city that Bengal would 
 not only defray its own charges, but would afford an increased dividend to the 
 proprietors of India stock and large relief to the English finances. These' 
 absurd expectations were disappointed ; and the Directors, naturally 
 enough, chose to attribute the disappointment rather to the mismanagement of 
 Mahommed Reza Khan than to their own ignorance of the country intrusted 
 to their care. They were confirmed in their error by the agents of Nuncomar ; 
 for Nuncomar had agents even in Leadenhall Street. Soon after Hastings 
 reached Calcutta, he received a letter addressed by the Court of Directors, 
 not to the Council generally, but to himself in particular. He was directed 
 to remove Mahommed Reza Khan, to arrest him, together with all his family 
 and all his partisans, and to institute a strict inquiry into the whole adminis- 
 tration of the province. It was added that the Governor would do well to 
 aAi^il, himself of the assistance of Nuncomar in the investigation. The vices of 
 Nuncomar were acknowledged. But even from his vices, it was said, much 
 advantage might at such a conjuncture be derived ; and, though he could not 
 safely be trusted, it might still be proper to encourage him by hopes of 
 reward. 
 
 The Governor bore no good will to Nuncomar. Many years before, they 
 nad known each other at Moorshedabad ; and then a quarrel had arisen 
 between them which all the authority of their superiors could hardly compose. 
 Widely as they differed in most points, they resembled each other in this, that 
 both were men of unforgiving natures. To Mahommed Reza Khan, on the 
 other hand, Hastings had no feelings of hostility. Nevertheless he proceeded 
 to execute the instructions of the Company with an alacrity which he never 
 showed, except when instructions were in perfect conformity with his own 
 views. He had, wisely as we think, determined to get . rid of the system of 
 double government in Bengal. The orders of the Directors furnished him 
 with the means of effecting his purpose and dispensed him from the necessity 
 of discussing the matter with his Council. He took his measures with his 
 usual vigour and dexterity. At midnight, the palace of Mahommed Reza 
 Khan at Moorshedabad was surrounded by a battalion of Sepoys. The 
 Minister was roused from his slumbers and informed that he was a prisoner. 
 With the Mussulman gravity, he bent his head and submitted himself to the 
 will of God. He fell not alone. A chief named Schitab Roy had been intrusted 
 with the government of Bahar. His valor and his attachment to the English 
 had more than once been signally proved. On that memorable day on which 
 the people of Patna saw from their walls the whole army of the Mogul 
 scattered by the little band of Captain Knox, the voice of the British con- 
 querors assigned the palm of gallantry to the brave Asiatic. ** I never," said 
 Knox, when he introduced Schitab Roy, covered with blood and dust, to the 
 English functionaries assembled in the factory, " I never saw a native fight so 
 before." Schitab Roy was involved in the ruin of Mahommed Reza Khan, was 
 deprived of his government and was placed under arreSt. The members of 
 
CjS WARREN BASTWCS. 
 
 the Counfcil received no intimation of these measures till the prisoners were on 
 their road to Calcutta. 
 
 The inquiry into the conduct of the minister was postponed on different 
 pretences. He was detained in an easy confinement during many months. In 
 the meantime, the great revolution which Hastings had planned was carried 
 into effect. The office of minister was abolished. The internal administration 
 was transferred to the servants of the Company. A system — a very imperfect 
 system, it is true — of civil and criminal justice, under English superintendence, 
 was established. The Nabob was no longer to have even an ostensible share 
 in the government ; but he was still to receive a considerable annual allowance 
 and to be surrounded with the state of sovereignty. As he was an infant, it 
 was necessary to provide guardians for his person and property. His person 
 was intrusted to a lady of his father's harem, known by the name of the Munny 
 Begum. The office of treasurer of the household was bestowed on a son of 
 Nuncomar named Goordas. Nuncomar's services were wanted ; yet he could 
 not safely be trusted with power ; and Hastings thought it a masterstroke of 
 policy to reward the able and unprincipled parent by promoting the inoffensive 
 child. 
 
 The revolution completed, the double government dissolved, the Company 
 installed in the full sovereignty of Bengal, Hastings had no motive to treat the 
 late ministers with rigour. Their trial had been put off on Various pleas till 
 the new organisation was complete. They were then brought before a com- 
 mittee, over which the Governor presided. Schitab Roy was speedily acquitted 
 with honour. A formal, apology was made to him for the restraint to which 
 he had been subjected. Ail the Eastern marks of respect were bestowed on 
 him. He was clothed in a robe of state, presented with jewels and with a 
 richly-harnessed elephant, and sent back to his government at Patna. But his 
 health had suffered from confinement; his high spirit had been cruelly wounded; 
 and soon after his liberation he died of a broken heart. ' 
 
 The innocence of Mahommed Reza Khan was not so clearly established. 
 But the Governor was not disposed to deal harshly. After a long hearing, in 
 which Nuncomar appeared as the accuser, and displayed botTi the art and the 
 inveterate rancour which distinguished him, Hastings pronounced that the 
 charges had not been made out, and ordered the fallen minister to be set at 
 liberty. 
 
 Nuncomar had purposed to destroy the Mussulman administration and to 
 rise on its ruin. Both his malevolence and his cupidity had been disappointed. 
 Hastings had made him a tool — had used him for the purpose of accomplishing 
 the transfer of the government from Moorshedabad to Calcutta, from native to 
 European hands. The rival, the enemy, so long envied, so implacably perse- 
 cuted, had been dismissed unhurt. The situation so long and ardently desired 
 had been abolished. It was natural that the Governor should be from that 
 time an object of the most intense hatred to the vindictive Brahmin. As yet, 
 however, it was necessary to suppress such feelings. The time was coming 
 when that long animosity was to end in a desperate and deadly struggle. 
 
 In the meantime, Hastings was compelled to turn his attention to foreign 
 affairs. The object of his diplomacy was at this time simply to get money. 
 The finances of his government were in an embarrassed state, and this em- 
 barrassment he was determined to relieve by some means, fair or foul. The 
 principle which directed all his dealings with his neighbours is fully expressed 
 by the old motto of one of the great predatory families of Teviotdale, '* Thou 
 shalt want ere I want." He seems to have laid it down, as a fundamental 
 proposition which could not be disputed, that, when he had not as many lacs 
 of rupees as the public service required, he was to take them from anybody who 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 639 
 
 had. One tiling, indeed, is to be said in excuse for him. The pressure applied 
 to him by his employers at home was such as only the highest virtue could 
 have withstood — such as left him no choice except to commit great wrongs or 
 to resign his high post, and with that post all his hopes of fortune aud distinc- 
 tion. It is perfectly true that the Directprs never enjoined or applauded any 
 crime. Far from it. Whoever examines their letters at that time will find 
 there many just and humane sentiments, many excellent precepts — in short, an 
 admirable code of political ethics. But every exhortation is modified or nulli- 
 fied by a demand for money. "Govern leniently and send more money ; 
 practise strict justice and moderation towards neighbouring powers and send 
 more money ;" this is, in truth, the sum of almost all the instructions that 
 Hastings ever received from home. Now these instructions, being interpreted, 
 mean simply, *' Be the father and the oppressor of the people ; be just and 
 unjust, moderate and rapacious." The Directors dealt with India as the 
 Church in the good old times dealt with a heretic. They delivered the victim 
 over to the executioners with an earnest request that all possible tenderness 
 might be shown. We by no means accuse or suspect those who framed these 
 despatches of hypocrisy. It is probable that, writing fifteen thousand miles 
 from the place where their orders were to be carried into effect, they never 
 perceived the gross inconsistency of which they were guilty. But the incon- 
 sistency was at once manifest to their lieutenant at Calcutta, who, with an 
 empty treasury, with an unpaid army, with his own salary often in arrear, with 
 deficient crops, with government tenants daily running away, was called upon 
 to rem.it home another half million without fail. Hastings saw that it was 
 absolutely necessary for him to disregard either the moral discourses or the 
 pecuniary requisitions of his employers. Being forced to disobey them in some- 
 thing, he had to. consider what kind of disobedience they would most readily 
 pardon ; and he correctly judged that the safest course would be to neglect the 
 Sermons and find th6 Rupees. - ' 
 
 A mipd so fertilcas his, and so little restrained by conscientious , scruples, 
 speedily discovered several modes of relieving the financial embarrassments of 
 the government. / The allowance of the Nabob of Bengal was reduced at a 
 stroke from £y20,ooo a-year to half that sum. The Company had bound 
 itself to pay near ;{^300,ooo a-year to the Great Mogul as a mark of homage 
 for the provinces which he had intrusted to their care, and they had ceded to 
 him the districts of Corah and Allahabad. On the plea that the Mogul was 
 not really independent, but merely a tool in the hands of others, Hastings 
 determined to retract these concessions. He accordingly declared that the 
 English would pay no more tribute, and sent troops to occupy Allahabad and 
 Corah. The situation of these places were such that there would be little 
 advantage and great expense in retaining them.. Hastings, who wanted money 
 and not territory, determined to sell them. A purchaser was not wanting. 
 The rich province of Oude had, in the general dissolution of the Mogul empire, 
 fallen to the share of the great Mussulman house by which it is still governed. 
 About twenty years ago, this house, by the permission of the British government, 
 assumed the royal title ; but in the time of Warren Hastings such an assump- 
 tion would have been considered by the Mahommedans of India as a monstrous 
 impiety. The Prince of Oude, though he held the power, did not venture to 
 use the style of sovereignty. To the appellation of Nabob or Viceroy he added 
 that of Vizier of the monarchy of Hindostan, just as in the last century the 
 Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, though independent of the Emperor and 
 often in arms against him, were proud to style themselves his Grand Chamber- 
 lain and Grand Marshal. Sujah Dowlah, then Nabob Vizier, was on excellent 
 terms with the English. He had a large treasure. Allahabad and Corah 
 
640 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 were so situated that they might be of use to him and could be of none to the 
 Company. The buyer and seller soon came to an understanding; and the 
 provinces which had been torn from the Mogul were made over to the govern- 
 ment of Oude for about half a million sterling. 
 
 But there was another matter still more important to be settled by the Vizier 
 and the Governor. The fate of a brave people was to be decided. It v,'as 
 decided in a manner which has left a lasting stain on the fame of Hastings and 
 of England. 
 
 The people of Central Asia had always been to the inhabitants of India 
 what the warriors of the German forests were to the subjects of the decaying 
 monarchy of Rome. The dark, slender and timid Hindoo shrank from a 
 conflict with the strong muscle and resolute spirit of the fair race which dwelt 
 beyond the passes. There is reason to believe that, at a period anterior to the 
 dawn of regular history, the people who spoke the rich and flexible Sanscrit 
 came from regions lying far beyond the Hyphasis and the Hystaspes and 
 imposed their yoke on the children of the soil. It is certain that, during the 
 last ten centuries, a succession of invaders descended from the west on 
 Hindostan ; nor was the course of conquest ever turned back towards the 
 setting sun till that memorable campaign in which the Cross of Saint George 
 was planted on the walls of Ghizni. 
 
 The Emperors of Hindostan themselves came from the other side of the 
 great mountain ridge ; and it had always been their practice to recruit their 
 army from the hardy and valiant race from which their own illustrious house 
 sprang. Among the military adventurers who were allured to the Mc^ul 
 standards from the neighbourhood of Cabul and Candahar, were conspicuous 
 several gallant bands, known by the name of Rohillas. Their services had 
 been rewarded with large tracts of land — fiefs of the spear, if we may use an 
 expression drawn from an analogous state of things — in that fertile plain 
 through which the Ramgunga flows from the snowy heights of Kumaon to join 
 the Ganges. In the general confusion which followed the death of Aurungzebe, 
 the warlike colony became virtually independent. The Rohillas were 
 distinguished from the other inhabitants of India by a peculiarly fair complexion. 
 They were more honourably distinguished by valour in war and by skill in the 
 arts of peace. While anarchy raged from Lahore to Cape Comorin, their little 
 territory enjoyed the blessings of repose under the guardianship of courage. 
 Agriculture and commerce flourished among them ; nor were they negligent of 
 rhetoric and poetry. Many persons now living have heard aged men talk with 
 regret of the golden days when the Afghan princes ruled in the vale of 
 Rohilcund. • - 
 
 Sujah Dowlah had set his heart on adding this rich district to his own 
 principality. Right, or show of right, he had absolutely none. His claim was 
 in no respect better founded than that of Catherine to Poland, or that of the 
 Bonaparte family to Spain. The Rohillas held their country by exactly the 
 same title by which he held his, and had governed their country far better than 
 his had ever been governed. Nor were they a people whom it was perfectly 
 safe to attack. Their land was indeed an open plain destitute of naturaP 
 defences ';• btit their veins were full of the high blood of Afghanistan" As 
 soldiers they had iiotthe steadiness' which is. seldom found except in company 
 with strict •discipline ;' but their impetuous valour had been proved on many 
 fields of battle. It was said that their chiefs, when united by common peril, 
 could bring eighty thousand men into the field. Sujah Dowlah had himself 
 seen them fight, and wisely shrank from a conflict with them. There was in 
 India one army, and only one, against which even those proud Causican tribes 
 could not stand. It had been abundantly proved that neither tenfold odds 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 641 
 
 nor the martial ardour of the boldest Asiatic nations could avail aught against 
 English science and resolution. Was it possible to induce the Uovernor of 
 Bengal to let out to hire the irresistible energies of the imperial people, the 
 skill against which the ablest chieis of ^lindostan were helpless as infants — the 
 discipline which so often triumphed over the frantic struggles of fanaticism and 
 despair — the unconquerable British courage which is never so sedate and stub- 
 born as towards the close of a doubtful and murderous day ? 
 
 This was what the Nabob Vizier asked, and what* Hastings granted. A 
 bargain was soon struck. Each of the negotiators had what the other wanted. 
 Hastings was in need of funds to carry on the Government of Bengal and to 
 send remittances to London ; and Sujah Dowlah had an ample revenue. Sujah 
 Dowlah was bent on subjugating the Rohillas ; and Hastings had at his 
 disposal the only force by which the Rohillas could be subjugated. It was 
 agreed that an English army should be lent to the Nabob Vizier, and that for 
 the loan he should pay ;,^400,ooo sterling, besides defraying all the charge of 
 the troops while employed in his service. 
 
 " I really cannot see," says the Rev. Mr. Gleig, " upon what grounds, either 
 of political or moral justice, this proposition deserves to be stigmatised as 
 infamous." If we understand the meaning of words, it is infamous to commit 
 a wicked action for hire, and it is wicked to engage in war without provo- 
 cation. In this particular war, scarcely one aggravating circumstance was 
 wanting. The object of the Rohilla war was this — to deprive a large popula- 
 tion, v,'ho had never done us the least harm, of a good gorernment, and to 
 j)lace them, against their will, under an execrably bad one. Nay, even this is 
 not all. England now descended far below the level even of those petty 
 German princes who about the same time sold us troops to fight the Americans. 
 The hussar-mongers of Hesse and Anspach had at least the assurance that the 
 expeditions on which their soldiers were to be employed would be conducted 
 in conformity with the humane rules of civilised warfare. Was the Rohilla war 
 likely to be so conducted ? He well knew what Indian warfare was. He well 
 knew that the power which he covenanted to put into Sujah Dowlah's hands 
 would, in all probability, be atrociously abused, and he required no guarantee, 
 no promise, that it should not be so abused. He did not even reserve to him- 
 self the right of withdrawing his aid in case of abuse, however gross. Mr. 
 Gleig rei:>eats Major Scott's absurd plea, that Hastings was justified in letting 
 out English troops to slaughter the Rohillas because the Rohillas were not of 
 Indian race, but a colony from a distant country. What were the English 
 themselves ? Was it for them -to proclaim a crusade for the expulsion of all 
 intruders from the countries watered by the Ganges ? Did it lie in their mouths 
 to contend that a foreign settler who establishes an Empire in India is a 
 caput laprnum ? What would they have said if any other power had, on such 
 a ground, attacked Madras or Calcutta without the slightest provocation ? 
 Such a defence was wanting to make the infamy of the transaction complete. 
 The atrocity of the crime and the hypocrisy of the apology are worthy of 
 each other. 
 
 One of the three brigades of which the Bengal army consisted was sent 
 under Colonel Champion to join Sujah Dowlah's forces. The Rohillas expos- 
 tulated, entreated, offered a large ransom, but in vain. They then resolved to 
 defend themselves to the last. A bloody battle was fought. "The enemy," 
 says Colonel Champion, "gave proof of a good share of military knowledge ; 
 and it is impossible to describe a more obstinate firmness of resolution than 
 they displayed. The dastardly sovereign of Oude fled from the field. The 
 English were left unsupported ; but their fire and their charge were irresistible. 
 It was not, however, till the most distinguished chiefs had fallen, fighting 
 
 Y 
 
642 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 bravely at the head of their troops, that the Rohilla ranks gave way. Then 
 the Nabob Vizier and his rabble made their appearance, and hastened to 
 plunder the camp of the valiant enemies whom they had never dared to look 
 in the face. The soldiers of the Company, trained in an exact discipUne, kept 
 unbroken order while the tents were pillaged by these worthless allies. But 
 many voices were heard to exclaim, " We have had all the fighting and those 
 rogues are to have all the profit. " 
 
 Then the horrors bi Indian war were let loose on the fair valleys and 
 cities of Rohilcund. The whole country was in a blaze. More than a hundred 
 thousand people fled from their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famine, 
 and fever, and the haunts of tigers to the tyranny of him to whom an English 
 and a Christian Government had, for shameful lucre, sold their substance, and 
 their blood, and the honour of their wives and daughters. Colonel Champion 
 remonstrated with the Nabob Vizier, and sent strong representations to Fort 
 William ; but the Governor had made no conditions as to the mode in which 
 the war was to be carried on. He had troubled himself about nothing but his 
 forty lacs ; and, though he might disapprove of Sujah Dowlah's wanton bar- 
 barity, he did not think himself entitled to interfere except by offering advice. 
 This delicacy excites the admiration of the Reverend biographer. *' Mr, 
 Hastings," he says, " could not himself dictate to the Nabob, nor permit the 
 commander of the Company's troops to dictate how the war was to be carried 
 on." No, to be sure, Mr. Hastings had only to put down by main force the 
 brave struggles of innocent men fighting for their liberty. Their military 
 resistance crushed, his duties ended ; and he had then only to fold his arms 
 and look on while their villages were burned, their children butchered and 
 their women violated. Will iVIr. Gleig seriously maintain this opinion ? Is any 
 rule more plain than this, that whoever voluntarily gives to another irresistible 
 power over human beings is bound to take order that such power shall not be 
 barbarously abused ? But we beg pardon of our readers for arguing a point so 
 clear. 
 
 We hasten to the end of this sad and disgraceful story. The war ceased. The 
 finest population in India was subjected to a greedy, cowardly, cruel tyrant. 
 Commerce and agriculture languished. The rich province which had tempted 
 the cupidity of Sujah Dowlah became the most miserable part even of his miser- 
 able dominions. Yet is the injured nation not yet extinct. At long intervals. 
 gleams of its ancient spirit have flashed forth ; and even at this day, valour, 
 and self-respect, and a chivalrous feeling rare among Asiatics, and a bitter 
 remembrance of the great crime of England distinguish that noble Afghan 
 race. To this day they are regarded as the best of all sepoys at the cold steel ; 
 and it was very recently remarked, by one who had enjoyed great opportunities 
 of observation, that the only natives of India to whom the word " gentleman " 
 can with perfect propriety be applied are to be found among the Rohillas. 
 
 Whatever we may think of the morality of Hastings, it cannot be denied 
 that the financial results of his policy did honour to his talents. In less than 
 two years after he assumed the government, he had, without imposing any 
 additional burdens on the people subject to his authority, added about ;^450,ooo 
 to the annual income of the Company, besides procuring about a million in 
 ready money. He had -also relieved *he finances of Bengal from military ex- 
 penditure, amounting to near ;i{^250,oc>o a-year, and had thrown that charge on 
 the Nabob ot Oude. There can be no doubt that this was a result which, if it 
 had been obtained by honest means, would have entitled him to the warmest 
 gratitude of his country, and which, by whatever means obtained, proved 
 that he possessed great talents for administration. 
 
 In the meantime. Parliament had been engaged in long and grave discussions 
 
WARREtf HASTINGS. 643 
 
 bfii Asiatic affairs. The ministry of Lord North, in the session of 1773, intro- 
 'duced a measure which made a considerable change in the constitution of the 
 Indian government. This law, known by the name of the Regulating Act, 
 provided that the presidency of Bengal sjpuL exercise a control over the other 
 possessions of the Company ; that the chief o that presidency should be styled 
 Governor-General ; that he should be assisted by four Councillors ; and that a 
 supreme court of judicature, consisting 'of a chief justice and three inferior 
 judges, should be established at Calcutta. This court was made independent 
 of the Governor-General and Council, and was intrusted with a civil and 
 criminal jurisdiction of immense and, at the same time, of undefined extent. . 
 
 The Governor-General and Councillors were named in the act, and were to 
 hold their situations for five years. Hastings was to be the first Governor- 
 General. One of the four new Councillors, Mr. Barwell, an experienced ser- 
 vant of the Company, was then in India. The other three. General Clavering, 
 Mr. Monson and Mr. Francis, were sent out from England. 
 
 The ablest of the new Councillors was, beyond all doubt, Philip Francis. 
 His acknowledged compositions prove that he possessed considerable eloquence 
 and information. Several years passed in the public offices had formed him to 
 habits of business. His enemies had never denied that he had a fearless and 
 manly spirit ; and his friends, we are afraid, must acknowledge that his 
 estimate of himself was extravagantly high, that his temper was irritable, that 
 his deportment was often rude and petulant, and that his hatred was of intense 
 bitterness and long duration. 
 
 It is scarcely possible to mention this eminent man without adverting for a 
 moment to the question which his name at once suggests to every mind. Was 
 he the author of the Letters of Junius ? Our own firm belief is that he was. 
 The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a civil, 
 nay, in a criminal, proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very peculiar 
 handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits and 
 connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be 
 considered as clearly proved : first, that he was acquainted with the technical 
 forms of the secretary of state's office; secondly, that he was intimately 
 acquainted with the business of the war office ; thirdly, that he, during the 
 year 1770, attended debates in the House of Lords and took notes of speeches 
 particularly of the speeches of Lord Chatham ; fourthly, that he bitterly 
 resented the appointment of Mr. Chamier to the place of deputy secretarj'- 
 at-war ; fifthly, that he was bound by some strong tie to the first Lord Holland. 
 Now, Francis passed some years in the secretary of state's office. He was sub- 
 sequently chief clerk of the war-office. He repeatedly mentioned that he had 
 himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham ; and some o( the speeches 
 were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his clerkship at the war- 
 office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It was by Lord 
 Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, here 
 are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five 
 found in Francis. We do not believe that more than two of them can be 
 found in any other person whatever, if this argument does not settle the 
 question, there is an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence. 
 
 The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. The style of 
 Francis bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius ; nor are we disposed to 
 admit, what is generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged compositions 
 of Francis are very decidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argument 
 from inferiority, at all events, is one which may be urged with at least equal 
 force against every claimant that has ever been mentioned, with the single ex 
 ception of Burke, who certainly was not Junius. And what conclusion, after 
 
644 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 all, can be drawn from mere inferiority? Every writer must produce Kis best 
 work ; and the interval between his best work and his second best work may He 
 very wide indeed. Nobody will say that the best letter's of Junius are more 
 decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of Francis than three or four of 
 Corneille's tragedies to the rest, than three or four of Ben Jonson's comedies to 
 the. rest, than the "Pilgrim's Progress" to any other works of Bunyari', thati 
 " Don Quixote " to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain that the 
 Man in the Mask, whoever he may have been, was a most unequal writet". 
 To go no further than the letters which have the signature of Junius — the letfe 
 to the king a-nd the letters to Home Tooke have little in common, except.the 
 asperity ;, and asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings 
 or in the speeches of Francis. V ' 
 
 Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis was Junju's*is 
 the moral resemblance between the two men. It is not difficult, ffofiV the 
 letters which, under various signatures, are knovvn to have been written;" by 
 Junius and from his dealings with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably 
 correct notion of his character. Pie was clearly a man not destitute of real 
 patriotism and magnanimity— a man whose vices were not of a sordid kittd. 
 But he must also have been a man in the highest degree arrogant and ins61(*ht ; 
 a man prone to malevolence, and prone to the error of mistaking his malevt)- 
 lencc for public virtue. " Doest thou well to be angry?" was the question 
 asked in old time by the Hebrew prophet. And he answered, "I do well," 
 This was evidently the temper of Junius ; and to this cause we attribute the 
 savage cruelty which disgraces several of his letters. No man is so merciless 
 as he who, under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies With his 
 duties. It may be added that Junius, though allied with the democratic party 
 by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. While 
 attacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws 6f 
 literary warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old institutions with^'a 
 respect amounting to pedantry — pleaded the cause of Old Sarum with fervOtir, 
 and contemptuously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they 
 wanted votes, they might buy land and become .freeholders of Lancashire arid 
 Yorkshire. All this, we believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, f6^''a 
 character of Philip Francis. It!.' 
 
 It is not strange that the great anonymous writer should have been \vilfiiig 
 at that time to leave the country which had been so powerfully stirred b;^' his 
 eloquence. Everything had gone against him. That party which he clearly 
 preferred to any other, the party of George Grenville, had "been scattered by 
 the death of its chief ; and Lord Suffolk had led the greater part of it over io 
 the ministerial benches. The ferment produced by the Middlesex election had 
 gone down. Every faction must have been alike an object of aversipii'to 
 lunius. His opinions on domestic affairs separated him from the ministry; 
 nis opinions on colonial affairs from the opposition. Under such circumstances, 
 he had thrown down his pen in misanthropical despair. His farewell letter to 
 Woodfall bears date the 19th of January, 1773. In that letter, he declared 
 that he must be an idiot to write again ; that he had meant well by the cause 
 and the public ; that both were given up ; that there were not ten men who 
 woukl act steadily together on any question. " But it is all ahke," he add-Sd, 
 " vile and conten-vptible. You have never flinched that I knew of ; and I shall 
 always rejoice to hear of your prosperity." These were the last words "of 
 Junius. In a year from that time, Philip Francis was on his voyage to Bengjil. 
 
 With the three new Councillors came out the judges of the Supreme Coah. 
 Tlie chief justice was Sir Elijah Impcy. He was an old acquaintan(:^^,^of 
 Hastings; and it is , probable. tthat the Goverpfor-General, if hje had sea^fj^Ved 
 
. WARREN BASTINGS. • 645 
 
 through alr^he inns of court, could not have found an equally serviceable tool. 
 But the members of Council were by no means in an obsequious mood. Hast- 
 ings greatly disliked the new form of government and had no very high opinion 
 of his coadjutors. They had heard of tjiis, and were disposed to be suspicious 
 and punctilious. When men are in such a frame of mind, any trifle is sufficient 
 to give occasion for dispute. The members of Council expected a salute of 
 twenty-one ^uns from the batteries of Fort William. Hastings allowed them 
 rnly seventeen. They landed in ill-humour. The first civilties were exchange<l 
 'vith cold reserve. On the morrow commenced that long quarrel which, after 
 distracting British India, was renewed in England, and in which all the most 
 eminent statesmen and orators of the age took active part on one or the other 
 side. 
 
 . Hastings was supported by Barwell. They had not always been friends. 
 But the arrival of the new members of Council from England naturally had the 
 effect of uniting the old servants of the Company. Clavering, Monson and 
 Francis formed the majority. They instantly wrested the government out of 
 the hands of Hasting ; condemned, certainly not without justice, his late 
 dealings with the Nabob Vizier ; recalled the English agent from Oude and 
 sent thither a creature of their own ; ordered the brigade which had conquered 
 the unhappy Rohillas to return to the Company's territories ; and instituted a 
 severe inquiry into the conduct of the war. Next, in spite of the Governor- 
 General's remonstrances, they proceeded to exercise, in the most indiscreet 
 manner, their new authority over the subordinate presidencies ; threw all the 
 afHairs of Bombay into confusion ; and interfered, with an incredible union of 
 rashness and feebleness, in the intestine disputes of the Mahratta government. 
 At the same time, they fell on the internal administration of Bengal, and 
 attacked the whole fiscal and judicial system — a system which was undoubtedly 
 defective, but which it was very improbable that gentlemen fresh from England 
 would be competent to amend. The effect of their reforms was that all pro- 
 tection to life and property was withdrawn ; and that gangs of robbers plundered 
 and slaughtered with impunity in the very suburbs of Calcutta. Hastings con- 
 tinued to live in the Government House and to draw the salary of Governor- 
 General. He continued even to take the lead at the council-board in the 
 transaction of ordinary business ; for his opponents could not but feel that he 
 knew much of which they were ignorant, and that he decided, both surely and 
 speedily, many cjuestions which to them would have been hopelessly puzzling. 
 But the higher powers of government and the most valuable patronage had 
 been taken from him. 
 
 The natives soon found this out. They considered him as a fallen man ; and 
 they acted after their kind. Some of our readers may have seen, in India, a 
 cloud of crows pecking a sick vulture to death — no bad type of what happens 
 in that country as often as fortune deserts one who has been great and dreaded. 
 In an instant, all the sycophants, who had lately been ready to lie for him, to 
 forge for him, to pander lor him, to poison for him, hasten to purchase the 
 favour of his victorious enemies by accusing him. An Indian government has 
 only to let it be understood that it wishes a particular man to be ruined, and 
 in twenty- four hours it will be furnished with grave charges, supported by 
 depositions so full and circumstantial, that any person unaccustomed to Asiatic 
 mendacity would regard them as decisive. It is well if t^e signature of the 
 destined victim is not counterfeited at the foot of some illegal compact, and if 
 some treasonable paper is not slipped into a hiding-place in his house Hast- 
 ings was now regarded as helpless. The power to make or mar the fortune of. 
 «V«ry man in Bengal had passed, as it seemed, into the hands of his opponents.' 
 Jinm^^iately charges agamst the Governor-General began to pour in. They 
 
646 • WARR&r^ HASTINGS. 
 
 were eagerly welcomed by the majority, who, to do them justice, W'ere men of 
 too much honour knowingly to countenance false accusations, but who were 
 not sufficiently acquainted with the East to be aware that, in that part of the 
 world, a very little encouragement from power will call forth, in a week, more 
 Oateses, and Bedloes, and Dangerfields, than Westminster Hall sees in a 
 century. 
 
 It would have been strange indeed if, at such a juncture, Nuncomar had re- 
 mained quiet. That bad man was stimulated at once by malignity, by avarice 
 and by ambition. Now was the time to be avenged on his old enemy, to 
 wreak a grudge of seventeen years, to establish himself in the favour of the 
 majority of the Council, to become the greatest native in Bengal. From the 
 time of the arrival of the new Councillors, he had paid the most marked court 
 to them, and had in consequence been excluded with all indignity from the 
 Government House. He now put into the hands of Francis, with great 
 ceremony, a paper containing several charges of the most serious description. 
 By this document, Hastings was accused of- putting offices up to sale and of 
 receiving bribes for steering offenders to escape. In particular, it was alleged 
 that Mahommed Reza Khan had been dismissed with impunity in consider- 
 ation of a great sum paid to the Governor-General. 
 
 Francis read the paper in Council. A violent altercation followed. Hastings 
 complained in bitter terms of the way in which he was treated, spoke with 
 contempt of Nuncomar and of Nuncomar's accusation, and denied the right of 
 the Council to sit in judgment on the Governor. At the next meeting of the 
 Board another communication from Nuncomar was produced. He requested 
 that he might be permitted to attend the Council, and that he might be heard 
 in support of his assertions. Another tempestuous debate took place. The 
 Governor-General maintained that the council-room was not a proper place for 
 such an investigation ; that from persons who were heated by daily conflict 
 with him he could not expect the fairness of judges ; and that he could not, 
 without betraying the dignity of his post, submit to be confronted with such a 
 man as Nuncomar. The majority, however, resolved to go into the charges. 
 Hastings rose, declared the sitting at an end, and left the room, followed by 
 B^rwell. The other members kept their seats, voted themselves a council, 
 put Glaveiring in the chair, and ordered Nuncomar to be called in. Nuncomar 
 not only adhered to the original charges, but, after the fashion of the East, 
 produced a large supplement. He stated that Hastings had received a great 
 sum for appointing' ilajah Goordas treasurer of the Nabob's household and for 
 committing the care of his Highness's person to the Munny Begum. He put 
 in a letter, purporting to bear the seal of the Munny Begum, for the purpose of 
 establishing the truth of his story. The seal, whetlier forged, as Hastings 
 affirmed, or genuine, as we are rather inclined to believe, proved nothing. 
 Nuncomar, as everybody knows who knows India, had only to tell the Munny 
 Begiun that such a letter would give pleasure to the majority of the Council in 
 order to procure her attestation. The majority, however, voted that the charge 
 was made out ; that Hastings had corruptly received between thirty and forty 
 thousand pounds ; and that he ought to be compelled to refund. 
 
 The general feeling among the English in Bengal was strongly in favour of 
 the Governor-General. In talents for business, in knowledge of the couhtry, 
 in general courtesy*of demeanour, he was decidedly superior to his persecutors. 
 The servants of the Company were naturally disposed to side with the most 
 distinguished member of their own body against a war office clerk, who, pro- 
 foundly ignorant of the native languages and of the native character, took on 
 himself to regulate every department of the administration. Hastings, how- 
 ever, in spite of the general sympathy of his countrymen, was in a most 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 647 
 
 painful situation. ' There was still an appeal to higher authority in England, 
 If that authority took part .with his enemies, nothing was left to him but to 
 throw up his office. He accordingly placed his resignation in the hands of his 
 agent in London, Colonel Macleane. Rit Macleane was instructed not to 
 produce the resignation unless it should ix: fully ascertained that, ^he . fpej^ing 
 at the India House was adverse to the Governor-General. " ., ' 
 
 The triumph of Nuncomar seemed to be complete. , He held a daily levee,. 
 to which his countrymen resorted in crowds, and to which, on one occasion, 
 the majority of the Council condescended to repair. His house was an office 
 for the purpose of receiving charges against the Governor-General. It was 
 said that, partly by threats and partly by wheedling, he had induced many of 
 the wealthiest men of the province to send in complaints. But he was playing 
 a desperate game. It was not safe to drive to despair a man of such resources 
 and of such determination as Hastings. Nuncomar, with all his acuteness, 
 did not understand the nature of the institutions under which he lived. He 
 saw that he had with him the majority of the body which ' made treaties, 
 gave places, raised taxes. The separation between political and judicial 
 functions was a thing of which he had no conception. It had probably 
 never occurred to him that there was in Bengal an authority perfectly in- 
 dependent of the Council— an authority which could protect one whom. the 
 Council wished to destroy and send to the gibbet one whom the Council 
 wished to protect. Yet such was the fact. The Supreme Court was, within 
 the sphere of its own duties, altogether independent of the Gdverhni.erit. 
 Hastings, with his usual sagacity, had seen how much advantage he might 
 derive from possessing himself of this stronghold ; and he had acted accordingly. 
 The Judges, especially the Chief Justice, were hostile to the majority of the 
 Council. The time had now come for putting this formidable machinery, into 
 action. 
 
 On a sudden, Calcutta was astounded by the news that Nuncomar had Jjeen 
 taken Kp on a charge of felony, committed, and thrown into the common gaol. 
 The crime imputed to him was, that six years before he had forged a bend. 
 The ostensible prosecutor was a native. But it was then, and still is, the 
 opinion of everybody — idiots and biographers excepted — that Hastings was the 
 real mover in the business. 
 
 The rage of the majority rose to the highest point. They protested against 
 the proceedings of the Supreme Court, and sent several urgent messages to the 
 Judges demanding that Nuncomar should be admitted to bail. The Judges 
 returned haughty and resolute answers. All that the Council could do was to 
 heap honours and emoluments on the family of Nuncomar ; and this they clid. 
 In the meantime, the assizes com.menced ; a true bill was found, and Nuncomar 
 was brought before Sir Elijah Impey and a jury composed of Englishmen. A 
 great quantity of contradictory swearing and the necessity of having every 
 word of the evidence interpreted, protracted the trial to a most unusual 
 length. At last a verdict of guilty was returned, and the Chief justice, ptp- 
 nounced sentence of death on the prisoner. ' ' ' . T- 
 
 Mr. Gleig is so strangely ignorant as to imagine that, the' Judges had no 
 further discretion in the case ; and that the power of extending mercy to 
 ]Sfuncomar resided with the Council. He therefore throws on Francis and 
 Francis's party the whole blame of what followed. We should have tlrought 
 that a gentleman who has published five or six bulky volumes on Indian 
 affairs might have taken the trouble to inform himself as to the fundamental 
 principles of the Indian Government. The Supreme Court had, under the 
 Regulating Act, the power to respite criminals till the pleasure of the Cro\vn 
 shbuM be known. The Council had, at that time, no power to interfere. 
 
648 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 That Irapey ought to have respited Nuncomar, we hold to be perfectly clear. 
 Whether the whole proceeding was not illegal, is a question. But it is certain 
 that whatever may have been, according to technical rules of construction, the 
 effect of the statute under which the trial took place, it was most unjust to 
 hang a Hindoo for forgery. The law which made forgery capital in England 
 was passed without the smallest reference to the state of society in India. 
 It was unknown to the natives of India. It had never been put in execution 
 among them, certainly not for want of delinquents. It was in the highest 
 degree shocking to all their notions. They were not accustomed to the dis- 
 tinction which many circumstances, peculiar to our own state of society, have 
 led us to make between forgery and other kinds of cheating. The counter- 
 feiting of a seal was, in their estimation, a common act of swindling ; nor had 
 it ever crossed their minds that it was to be punished as severely as gang- 
 robbery or assassination. A just judge would beyond all doubt, have reserved 
 the case for the consideration of the sovereign. But Impey would not hear of 
 mercy or delay. 
 
 The excitement among all classes was great. Francis and Francis's few 
 English adherents described the Governor-General and the Chief Justice as 
 the worst of murderers. Clavering, it was said, swore that even at the foot of 
 the gallows Nuncomar should be rescued. The bulk of the European society, 
 though strongly attached to the Governor-General, could not but feel compas- 
 sion for a man who, with all his crimes, had so long filled so large a space in 
 their sight — who had been great and powerful before the British empire in 
 India began to exist — and to whom, in the old times, governors and members 
 of council, then mere commercial factors, had paid court for protection. The 
 feeUng of the Hindoos was infinitely stronger. They were, indeed, not a 
 people to strike one blow for their countryman. But his sentence filled them 
 v/ith sorrow and dismay. Tried even by their low standard of morality, he 
 was a bad man. But, bad as he was, he was the head of their race and reli- 
 gion — a Brahmin of the Brahm.ins. He had inherited the purest and highest 
 caste. He had practised, with the greatest punctuality, all those ceremonies to 
 which the superstitious Bengalees ascribe far more importance than to the 
 correct discharge of the social duties. They felt, therefore, as a devout 
 Catholic in the dark ages would have felt at seeing a prelate of the highest 
 dignity sent to the gallows by a secular tribunal. According to their old 
 national laws, a Brahmin could not be put to death for any crime whatever. 
 And the crime for which Nuncomar was about to die was regarded by them 
 in much the same light in which the selling of an unsound horse for a sound 
 price is regarded by a Yorkshire jockey. 
 
 The Mahommedans alone appear to have seen with exultation the fate of 
 the powerful Hindoo who had attempted to rise by means of the ruin of 
 Mahommed Reza Khan. The Mussulman historian of those times takes 
 delight in aggravating the charge. He assures us, that in Nuncomar's house, a 
 casket was found containing counterfeits of the seals of all the richest men of 
 the province. We have never fallen in with any other authority for this stoty, 
 which, in itself, is by no means improbable. 
 
 'The day drew near ; and Nuncomar prepared himself to die with that quiet 
 fortitude with which the Bengalee, so effeminately timid in personal conflict, 
 often encounters calamities for which there is no remedy. The sheriff, with 
 ihe humanity which is seldom wanting in an English gentleman, visited the 
 prisoner on the eve of the execution and assured him that no indulgence, con- 
 sistent with the law, should be refused to him. Nuncomar expressed his 
 gratitude with great pohteness and unaltered composure. Not a Tnuscle of his 
 face moved. Not a sigh broke from him. He put his finger to his forehead 
 
WARRMi^ BASTINGS. 649 
 
 ' jyad calmly said that fate would have its way and that there was no resisting 
 jlhe pleasure of God. He sent his compliments to Francis, Clavering and 
 ^Monspn, and charged them to protect Rajah Goordas, who was about to be- 
 ^-^^ome the head of the Brahmins of Bengal. The sheriff withdrew, greatly 
 Imitated by what had passed, and Nurfcomar sat composedly down to write 
 joptes and examine accounts. 
 
 "The next morning, before the sun was in his power, ah immense concourse 
 
 assembled round the place where the gallows had been set Up. Grief and 
 
 sorrow were on every face ; yet, to the last the multitude could hardly believe 
 
 that the English really purposed to take the life of the great Brahmin. At 
 
 length the mournful procession came through the crowd. Nuncomar sat up in 
 
 •,Ws palanquin and looked round him with unaltered serenity. He had just 
 
 jiarted from those who were most nearly connected with him. Their cries and 
 
 jContortions had appalled the European ministers of justice, but had not pro- 
 
 ■j,<^uced the smallest effect on the iron stoicism of the prisoner. The only 
 
 anxiety which he expressed was, that men of his own priestly caste might be in 
 
 ^^ttendance to take charge of his corpse. He again desired to be remembered 
 
 ^io his friends in the Council, mounted the scaftold with firmness and gave the 
 
 -j^ignal to the executioner. The moment that the drop fell, a howl of sorrow 
 
 ^nd despair rose from the innumerable spectators. Hundreds turned away their 
 
 'Jaces from the polluting sight, fled with loud wailings towards the Hoogley 
 
 ;,and . plunged into its holy waters, as if to purify themselves from the guilt of 
 
 j~naving looked on such a crime. These feelings were not confined to Calcutta. 
 
 p;The whole province was greatly excited, and the population of Decca, in par 
 
 .,|icular, gave strong signs of grief and dismay. 
 
 ' Of Impey's conduct, it is impossible to speak too severely. We have already 
 said that, in our opinion, he acted unjustly in refusing to respite Nuncomar. 
 -j;|Sio rational man can doubt that he took this course in order to gratify the 
 jC^pvernor-General. If we had ever had any doubts on that point, they would 
 v-Hf^ve been dispelled by a letter which Mr. Gleig has published. Hastings, 
 j'lhree or four years later, described Impey as the man '" to whose support he 
 ., was at one time indebted for the safety of his fortune, honour and reputation." 
 j;\Xhese strong words can refer only to the case of Nuncomar, and they mnsr 
 'iki^n that Impey hanged Nuncomar in order to support Hastings. It is, there 
 j-ji^re, our dehberate opinion that Impey, sitting as a judge, puta man unjustly 
 *-('tfl death in order to serve a poHtical purpose. 
 
 1.1^ But we look on the conduct of Hastings in a somewhat different light. He 
 
 k-w,',^s struggling for fortune, honour, liberty— all that makes life valuable.. He 
 
 was beset by rancorous and unprincipled enemies. From his colleagues he 
 
 ■ coulxl expect no justice. He cannot be blamed for wishing to crush his 
 
 • accusers, \^Ie was indeed bound to use only legftiinate means for. that end. 
 
 ^-..^^iit it was not strange that he should have thought any means legitimate whicli 
 
 ,• were pronounced legitimate by the sages of the law — by men whose peculiar 
 
 •j^-;,<Juty it was to deal justly between adversaries, and whose edueatioii might be 
 
 ,; supposed to have peculiarly qualified them for the discharge of that duty. 
 
 "Nobody demands from a party the unbending equity of a judge. The reason 
 
 ^:^jthat; judges, are appointed is, that even good men cannot be trusted to dedde 
 
 ^^^iijiuses ia they are themselves concerned. Not" a day passed on" which an 
 
 '••ijwnest prosecutor does not ask for what none' but a dishonest tribunal would 
 
 ..jgrant. It is too muchi to expect that any man, when his dearest interests are 
 
 - At stake and his strongest passions excited, will, as against himself, be more 
 
 ;; Just than the sworn disjxmsers of justice. To take an analogous case from the 
 
 ^j,-jbistory.,of our own island. Suppose that Lord Stafford, when in the Tower on 
 
 hBW^W^'9^. being. ^QOperi^dwi Uie f opish pipt, liad done something which 
 
•650 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 might, by a questionable construction, be brought under the head of felony. 
 Should we severely blame Lord Stafford, in the supposed case, for causing a 
 prosecution to be instituted, for furnishing funds, for using all his influence to 
 intercept the mercy of the Crown ? We think not. If a judge, indeed, from 
 favour to the Catholic lords, were to strain the law in order to hang Oates, such 
 a judge would richly deserve impeachment. But it does not appear to us that 
 the Catholic lord, by bringing the case before the judge for decision, would 
 materially overstep the limits of a just self-defence. 
 
 While, therefore, we have not the least doubt that this memorable execution 
 is to be attributed to Hastings, we doubt whether it can with justice be reckoned 
 among his crimes. That his conduct was dictated by a profound policy is evi- 
 dent. He was in a minority in Council. It was possible that he might long 
 be in a minority. He knew the native character well. He knew in what 
 abundance accusations are certain to flow in against the most innocent in- 
 habitant of India who is under the frown of power. There was not in the whole 
 black population of Bengal a place-holder, a place-hunter, a government tenant, 
 who did not -think that he might better himself by sending up a deposition 
 against the Governor-General. Under these circumstances, the persecuted 
 statesman resolved to teach the whole crew of accusers and witnesses that, 
 though in a minority at the council-board, he was still to be feared. The lesson 
 which he gave them was indeed a lesson not to be forgotten. The head of the 
 combination which had been formed against him, the richest, the most powerful, 
 ttie most artful of the Hindoos, distinguished by the favour of those who then 
 held the government, fenced round by the superstitious reverence of millions, 
 was hanged in broad day before many thousands of people. Everything that 
 could make the warning impressive — dignity in the sufferer, solemnity in the 
 proceeding — was found in this case. The helpless rage and vain struggles of 
 the Council made the triumph more signal. From that moment, the conviction 
 of every native was that it was safer to take the part of Hastings in a minority 
 than that of Francis in a majority, and that he who was so venturous as to join 
 in running down the Governor-General might chance, in the phrase of the 
 Eastern poet, to find a tiger while beating the jungle for a deer. The voices 
 of a thousand informers were silenced in an instant. From that time, whatever 
 difficulties Hastings might have to encounter, he was never molested by accusa- 
 tions from natives of India. 
 
 It is a remarkable circumstance that one of the letters of Hastings to Dr. . 
 Johnson bears date a very few hours after the death of Nuncomar. ^\^lile the 
 whole settleiTient was in commotion, while a mighty and ancient priesthood 
 were weeping over the remains of their chief, the conqueror in that deadly 
 grapple sat down, with characteristic self-possession, to write about the " Tour 
 to the Hebrides," Jones's " Persian Grammar," and the history, traditions, arts 
 and natural productions of India. 
 
 In the meantime, intelligence of the Rohilla war and of the first disputes 
 between Hastings and his dolleagues had reached London. The Directors 
 took part with the majority, and sent out a letter filled with severe reflections 
 on the conduct of Hastings. They condemned, in strong but just terms, the 
 iniquity of undertaking offensive wars merely for the sake of pecuniary ad- 
 vantage. But they utterly forgot that, if Hastings had by illicit means ob- 
 tained pecuniary advantages, he had done so, not for his own benefit, but in 
 order to meet their demands. To enjoin honesty and to insist on having what 
 could not be honestly got was then the constant practice of the Company. 
 As Lady Macbeth says of her husband, they " would not play false and yet 
 would wrongly win," 
 
 The Regulating Act, by which Hastings had been appointed Governor-' 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 651 
 
 General for five years, empowered the Crown to remove him on an address frpm 
 the Company. Lord North was desirous to procure such an address. The 
 three members of Council who had been sent out from England were men of 
 his own choice. General Clavering, in particular, was supported by a large 
 parliamentary connection such as no caWnet could be inclined to disoblige. 
 The wish of the minister was to displace Hastings and to put Clavering at the 
 head of the government. In the Court of Directors, parties were very nearly 
 balanced. Eleven voted agaipst Hastings — ten for him. The Court of Pro- 
 prietors was then convened. The great sale-room presented a singular appear- 
 ance. Letters had been sent by the Secretary of the Treasury exhorting all the 
 supporters of government who held India stock to be in attendance. Lord 
 Sandwich marshalled the friends of the administration with his usual dexterity 
 and alertness. Fifty peers and privy councillors, seldom seen so far eastward, 
 were counted in the crowd. The debate lasted till midnight. The opponents 
 of Hastings had a small superiority on the division ; but a ballot was demanded; 
 and the result was that the Governor- General triumphed by a majority of above 
 a hundred votes over the combined efforts of the Directors and the Cabinet. 
 The ministers were greatly exasperated by this defeat. Even Lord North lost 
 his temper — no ordinary occurrence with him — :and threatened to convoke parlia- 
 ment before Christmas, and to bring in a bill for depriving the Company of all 
 political power and for restricting it to its old business of trading in silks and 
 teas. , . 
 
 Colonel Macleane, who through all this conflict had zealously supported the 
 cause of Hastings, now thought that his employer was in imminent danger of 
 being turned out, branded with parliamentary censure, perhaps prosecuted. 
 The opinion of the crown lawyers had already been taken respecting some 
 parts of the Governor-General's conduct. It seemed to be high time to think 
 of securing an honourable retreat. Under these circumstances, Macleane 
 thought himselfjustified in producing the resignation with which he had been 
 intrusted. The instrument was not in very accurate form ; but the Directors 
 were too eager to be scrupulous. They accepted the resignation, fixed on Mr. 
 Wheler, one of their own body, to succeed Hastings, and sent out orders that 
 General Clavering, as senior member of the Council, should exercise the func- 
 tions of Governor-General till Mr. Wheler should arrive. 
 
 But, while these things were passing in England, a great change had taken 
 place in Bengal. Monson was no more. Only four members of the govern^ 
 ment were left. Clavering and Francis were on one side, Barwell and the 
 Governor-General on the other ; and the Governor-General had the casting 
 vote. Hastings, who had been during two years destitute of all power and 
 patronage, became at once absolute. He instantly proceeded to retaliate on 
 his adversaries. Their measures were reversed : their creatures were displaced. 
 A new valuation of the lands of Bengal, for the purposes of taxation, was 
 ordered : and it was provided that the whole inquiry should be conducted by the 
 Governor-General, and that all the letters relating to it should run in his name. 
 He began, at the same time, to revolve vast plans of conquest and dominion, 
 plans which he lived to see realised — though not by himself. His project was 
 to form subsidiary alliances with the native princes, particularly with those of 
 Oude and Berar, and thus to make Britain the paramount power in India. 
 Wiile he was meditating these great designs, arrived the intelligence that he 
 had ceased to be Governor-General, that his resignation had been accepted, 
 that Wheler was coming out immediately, and that, till Wheler arrived, the 
 chair was to be filled by Clavering. 
 
 Had Hastings still beer^ in a minority he would probably have retired with- 
 out a struggle ; but he was now the real master of British India, and he was 
 
6S2 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 not disposed to quit his high place. He asserted that he had never given any 
 instructions which could warrant the steps taken at home. What his instruct 
 tions had been, he owned he had forgotten. If he had kept a copy of them, he 
 had mislaid it. But he was certain that he had repeatedly declared to the 
 Directors that he would not resign. He could not see how the court possessed 
 of that declaration from himself could receive his resignation from the cloubtfuV 
 hands of an agent. If the resignation were invalid, all the proceedings which 
 were founded on that resignation were null and Hastings was still Governor* 
 General. '4 
 
 He afterwards affirmed that, though his agents had not acted in conformity 
 with his instructions, he would nevertheless have held himself bound by their 
 acts if Clavering had not attempted to seize the supreme power by violence. 
 Whether this assertion were or were not true, it cannot be doubted that the 
 imprudence of Clavering gave Hastings an advantage. The General sent for 
 the keys of the fort and of the treasury, took possession of the records, and 
 held a council at which Francis attended. Hastings took the chair in another 
 apartment, and Barwell sat with him. Each of the two parties had a plausible 
 show of right. There was no authority entitled to their obedience within 
 fifteen thousand miles. It seemed that there remained no way of settling the 
 dispute except an appeal to arms ; and from such an appeal Hastings, confident 
 of his influence over his countrymen in India, was not inclined to shrink. He 
 directed the officers of the garrison at Fort William and of all the neighbouring 
 stations to obey no orders but his. At the same time, with admirable judg- 
 ment, he offered to submit the case to the Supreme Court and to abide by its deci- 
 sion. By making this proposition, he risked nothing ; yet it was a proposition 
 which his opponents could hardly reject. Nobody could be treated as a criminal 
 for obeying what the judges should solemnly pronounce to be the lawful govern- 
 ment. The boldest man would shrink from taking arms in defence of what 
 the judges should pronounce to be usurpation. Clavering and Francis, after 
 some delay, unwillingly consented to abide by the award of the court. The 
 court pronounced that the resignation was invalid, and that, therefore, 
 Hastings was still Governor-General under the Regulating Act ; and the 
 defeated members of the Council, finding that the sense of the whole settle- 
 ment was against them, acquiesced in the decision. 
 
 About this time arrived the news that, after a suit which had lasted several 
 years, the Franconian courts had decreed a divorce between Imhoff and his 
 wife. The Baron left Calcutta, carrying with him the means of buying an 
 estate in Saxony. The lady became Mrs. Hastings. The event was cele- 
 brated by great festivities ; and all the most conspicuous persons at Calcutta, 
 without distinction of parties, were invited to the Government House. Claver- 
 ing, as the Mahommedan chronicler tells the story, was sick in mind and 
 body, and excused himself from joining the splendid assembly. But Hastings, 
 whom, as it should seem, success in ambition and in love had put into high 
 good-humour, would take no denial. He went himself to the General's house, 
 and at length brought his vanquished rival in triumph to the gay circle which 
 surrounded the bride. The exertion was too much for a frame broken by 
 mortification as well as by disease. Clavering died a few days later. 
 
 Wheler, who came out expecting to be Governor-General and was forced to 
 content himself with a seat at the council-board, generally voted with Francis. 
 But the Governor-General, with Barwell's help and his own casting vote, was 
 still the master. Some change took place at this time in the feeling both of the 
 Court of Directors and of the Ministers of the Crown. All designs against 
 Hastings were dropped ; and, when his original term of five years expired, he 
 was quietly reappointed. The truth is, that the fearful danger? tQ which the 
 
WARREN HASTINGS, 653 
 
 public interests in every quarter were now exposed mad* both Lord 
 North and the Company unwilling to part with a Governor whose talents, 
 experience and resolution, enmity itself was compelled to acknowledge. 
 
 The crisisvvas indeed formidable. The great and victorious empire, on the 
 throne of which George the Third had Jtaken his seat eighteen years before 
 with brighter hopes than had attended the accession of any of the long line of 
 EJnglish sovereigns, had, by the most senseless mis;^overnment, been brought to 
 the verge of ruin. In America millions of Englishmen were at war with the 
 country from which their blood, theii language, their religion and their institutions 
 were derived, and to which, but a short time before, they had been as strongly 
 attached as the inhabitants of Norfolk and Leicestershire. The great powers of 
 Europe, humbled to the dust by the vigour and genius which had guided the 
 councils of George the Second, now rejoiced in the prospect of a signal revenge. 
 The time was approaching when our island, while struggling to keep down the 
 United States of America and pressed with a still nearer danger by the too just 
 discontents of Ireland, was to be assailed by France, Spain and Holland, and to 
 be threatened by the armed neutrality of the Baltic ; when even our maritime 
 supremacy was to be in jeopardy ; when hostile fleets were to command the Straits 
 6f Calpe and the Mexican Sea ; when the British flag was to be scarcely able to 
 protect the British Channel. Great as were the faults of Hastings, it was happy 
 for our country that at that conjuncture, the most terrible through which she has 
 ever passed, he was the ruler of her Indian dominions. 
 
 •; An attack by sea on Bengal was little to be apprehended. The danger was 
 tliat the European enemies of England might form an alliance with some native 
 powerj might furnish that power with troops, arms and ammunition, and might 
 thus assail our possessions on the side of the land. It was chiefly from the 
 Iviahrattas that Hastings anticipated danger. The original seat of that singular 
 people was the wild range of hills which runs along the western coast of India. 
 In the reign of Aurungzebe, the inhabitants of those regions, led by the great 
 Sevajee, began to descend on the possessions of their wealthier and less war-like 
 neighbours. The energy, ferocity and cunning of the Mahrattas soon made them 
 the most conspicuous among the new powers which were generated by the 
 corruption of the decaying monarchy. At first they were only robbers. They 
 soon rose to the dignity of conquerors. Half the provinces of the empire weie 
 turned into Mahratta principalities. Freebooters, sprung from low castes and 
 accustomed to menial employments, became mighty Rajahs. The Bonslas, at the 
 li^'ad of a band of plunderers, occupied the vast region of Berar. The Guicowar, 
 •vyhich is, being interpreted, the Herdsman, founded that dynasty which still 
 reigns in Guzerat. The houses of Scindia and Holkar waxed great in Malwa. 
 One adventurous captain made his nest on the impregnable rock of Gooti. 
 Another became the lord of the thousand villages which are scattered among the 
 green rice-ficlds of Tanjorc. 
 
 That was the time throughout India of double government. The form and 
 the power were everywhere separated. The Mussulman nabolis, who had become 
 ^sovereign princes, the Vizier in Oude and the Nizam at Hyderabad still called 
 ^Eemselves the viceroys of the house of Tamerlane. In the sanie manner, the 
 Mahratta states, though really independent of each other, pretended to be mem- 
 bers of one empire ; and acknpwiedgcd, by words and ceremonies, the supre- 
 macy of the heir of Sevajee— a roi faineant who chewed bang and toyed with 
 ;d*ancing girls in a state-prison at Sattara — and of his Peshwa, or mayor of the 
 ■'^lace, a great hereditary magistrate, who kept a court with kingly state at 
 "Fbonah, and whose authority was obeyed in the spacious provinces of Aurunga- 
 nbild and Bejapooi-. 
 " \$0m€{ njpn^}^^ befpr^ war w?is declared in. jEurope, the government of Bengal 
 
654 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 wgs alarmed by the news that a French adventurer, who passed for a man of 
 quality, had arrived at Poonah. It was said that he had been received there 
 with great. distinction — that he had delivered to the Peshwa letters and presents 
 from Louis the Sixteenth — and that a treaty-, hostile to England, had been con- 
 cluded between France and the Mahrattas. 
 
 Hastings immediately resolved to strike the. first blow. The title of the 
 Peshwa was not uhdisputed. A portion of the Mahratta nation was favourable 
 to a pretender. The Governor-General determined to espouse this pretender's 
 interest, to move an "army across the peninsula of India, and to form a close 
 alliance with the chief of the house of Bonsla, who ruled Berar, and who, in 
 power and dignity, was inferior to none of the Mahratta princes. 
 
 The army had marched, and the negotiations with Berar were in progress, 
 when a letter from the English consul at Cairo brought the news that war had 
 been proclaimed both in London and Paris. All the measures which the crisis 
 required were* adopted by Hastings without a moment of delay. The French 
 factories in Bengal were seized. Orders were sent to Madras that Pondicherry 
 should instantly be occupied. Near Calcutta works were thrown up which 
 were thought to render the approach of a hostile force impossible. A maritime 
 estabhshment was formed for the defence of the river. Nine new battalions 
 of sepoys were raised, and a corps of native artillery was formed out of the 
 hardy Lascars of the Bay of Bengal. Having made these arrangements, the 
 Governor-General, with calm confidence, pronounced his presidency secure 
 from all attack unless the Mahratta should march against it in conjunction with 
 the French. 
 
 The expedition which Hastings had sent westward was not so speedily or 
 completely successful as most of his undertakings. The commanding officer 
 procrastinated. The authorities at Bombay blundered. But the Governor- 
 General persevered. A new commander repaired the errors of his predecessor. 
 Several brilliant actions spread the military renown of the English through 
 regions where no European flag had ever been seen. It is probable that if a 
 new and more formidable danger had not' compelled Hastings to change his 
 whole policy, his plans respecting the Mahratta empire would have been 
 carried into complete effect. 
 
 The authoi*ities in England had wisely sent out to Bengal, as commander 
 of the forces and member of the Council, one of the most distinguished soldiers 
 of that time. Sir Eyre Coote had, many years before, been conspicuous among 
 the founders of the British empire in the East. At the council of war which 
 preceded the battle of Plassey, he earnestly recommended, in opposition to the 
 majority, that daring course which, after some hesitation, was adopted, and 
 which was crowned with such splendid success. He subsequently commanded 
 in the south of India against the brave and unfortunate Lally, gained the de- 
 cisive battle of Wandewash over the French and their native allies, took 
 Pondicherry, and made the English power supreme in the Carnatic. Since 
 those great exploits near twenty years had elapsed. Coote had no longer the 
 bodily activity which he had shown in earlier' days ; nor was the vigour of his 
 mind altogether unimpaired. He was capricious and fretful and required much 
 coaxing to keep him in good humour. It must, we fear, be added that the 
 love of money had grown upon him, and that he thought more about his 
 allowances and less about his duties than might have been expected from so 
 eminent a memljcr of so noble a profession. Still he was perhaps the ablest 
 officer that was then to be found in the British army. Among the native 
 soldiers his name was great and his influence unrivalled. Nor is he yet for- 
 gotten by them. Now and then a white-bearded old sepoy may still be found 
 who loves to talk of Porto Novo and PoUilore. It is but a short time sinc« 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 655 
 
 one of these aged men came to present a memorial to an English officer who 
 holds one of the highest employments in India. A print of Coote hung in the 
 room. The veteran recognised at once that face and figure which he had not 
 seen for more than half a century, and, forgetting his salam to the living, 
 halted, drew himself up, lifted his hand, and, with solemn reverence, paid his 
 military obeisance to the dead. 
 
 Coote, though he did not, like Harwell, vote constantly with the Governor- 
 General, was by no means inclined to join in systematic opposition, and on 
 most questions concurred with Hastings, who did his best, by assiduous court- 
 ship and by readily granting the most exorbitant allowances, to gratify the 
 strongest passions of the old soldier. 
 
 It seemed likely at this time that a general reconciliation would put an end 
 to the quarrels which had, during some years, weakened and disgraced the 
 government of Bengal. The dangers of the empire might well induce men of 
 patriotic feeling — and of patriotic feeling neither Hastings nor P'rancis was 
 destitute^ — to forget private enmities and to co-operate heartily for the general 
 good. Coote had never been concerned in faction. Wheler was thoroughly 
 tired of it. Barwell had made an ample fortune, and, though he had promised 
 that he would not leave Calcutta while Hastings wanted his help, was most 
 desirous to return to England, and exerted himself to promote an arranrement 
 Vihich would set him at liberty. A compact was made by which Francis 
 agreed to desist from opposition, and Hastings engaged that the friends of 
 Francis should be admitted to a fair share of the honours and emoluments of 
 the service. During a few months after this treaty there was apparent 
 harmony at the council-board. 
 
 Harmony, indeed, was never more necessary ; for at this moment internal 
 calamities, more formidable than war itself, menaced Bengal. The authors of 
 the Regulating Act of 1773 had established two independent powers, the one 
 judicial and the other political ; and, with a carelessness scandalously com- 
 nwn in English legislation, had omitted to define the limits of either. The 
 judges took advantage of the indistinctness and attempted to draw to them- 
 selves supreme authority, not only within Calcutta, but through the whole 
 of the great territory subject to the Presidency of Fort William. There are 
 few Englishmen who will not admit that the English law, in spite of modern 
 improvements, is neither so cheap nor so speedy as might be wished. Still, 
 it is a system which has grown up among us. In some points it has been 
 fashioned to suit our feelings ; in others it has gradually fashioned our feel- 
 ings to suit itself Even to its worst evils we are accustomed ; and, there- 
 fore, though we may complain of them, they do not strike us with the 
 horror and dismay which would be produced by a new grievance of smaller 
 severity. In India the case is widely different. English law, transplanted to 
 that country, has all the vices from which we suffer here ; it has them all in a 
 far higher degree ; and it has other vices compared with which the worst vices 
 from which we suffer are trifles. Dilatory here, it is far more dilatory in a 
 land where the help of an interpreter is needed by every judge and by every 
 advocate. Costly here, it is far more costly in a land into which the legal 
 practitioners must be imported from an immense distance. All Eftglish 
 labour in India, from the labour of the Governor-General and the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief down to that of a groom or a watchmaker, must be paid 
 for at higher rate than at home. No man will be banished, and banished 
 t© the torrid zone, for nothing. The rule holds good with respect to the 
 legal profession. No English barrister will work, fifteen thousand miles from 
 all his friends, with the thermometer at ninety-six in the shade, for the 
 emoluments which will content him in chambers that overlook the Thames. 
 
656 IfARl^EN IIAS77NGS. 
 
 xA.ccorclingly, the fees at Calcutta are about three times as great as the fees 
 of Westminster Hall ; and this, though the people of India are, beyond all 
 comparison, poorer than the people of England. Yet the delay and the ex- 
 pense, grievous as they are, form the smallest part of the evil which English 
 law, imported without modifications into India, could not fail to produce. 
 The strongest feelings of our nature, honour, religion, female modesty, rose up 
 against the innovation. Arrest on mesne process was the first step in most 
 civil proceedings ; and to a native of rank arrest was not merely a restraint, 
 but a foul personal indignity. Oaths were required in every stage of every 
 suit ; and the feeling of a Quaker about an oath is hardly stronger than that of 
 a respectable native. That the apartments of a woman of quaHty should be 
 entered by strange men or that her face should be seen by them, are, in the 
 East, intolerable outrages — outrages which are more dreaded than death, and 
 which can be expiated only by the shedding of blood. To these outrages the 
 most distinguished families of Bengal, Bahar and Orissa were now exposed. 
 Imagine what the state of our own country would be if a jurisprudence were 
 on a sudden introduced among us which should be to us what our juris- 
 prudence was to our Asiatic subjects. Imagine what the state of our 
 country would be if it were enacted that any man, by merely swearing 
 that a debt was due to him, should acquire a right to insult the persons of 
 men of the most honourable and sacred callings and of women of the most 
 shrinking delicacy, to horse- whip a general officer, to put a bishop in th« 
 stocks, to treat ladies in the way which called torth the blow of Wat 
 Tyler. Something like this was the effect of the: attempt which the Supreme 
 Court made to extend its jurisdiction over the whole of the Company's 
 territory. 
 
 A reign of terror began — of terror heightened by mystery ; for even that 
 which was endured was less horrible than that which was anticipated. No 
 man knew what was next to beVxpected from this strange tribunal. It came 
 from beyond the black water, as the people of India, with mysterious horror, 
 call the sea. It consisted df judgesy. not one of whom spoke the language or 
 was familiar with the usages of the millions over whom they claimed boundless' 
 authority. Its records were kept in unknown characters ; its sentences were 
 pronounced in unknown sounds. It had already collected round itself an 
 army of the worst part of the native population — informers, and false witnesses, 
 and common barrators, and agents of chicane, and, above all, a banditti of 
 bailiffs followers, compared with whom the retainers of the worst English 
 sponging-houses, in the worst times, might be considered as upright and tender- 
 hearted. Many natives, highly considered among their countrymen, were* 
 seized, hurried up to Calcutta, flung into the common gaol, not for any crime- 
 even imputed, not for any debt that had been proved, but merely as a precau- 
 tion till their cause should come to trial. There were i;nstanceS in which men 
 of the most venerable dignity, persecuted without a cause by extortioners, died 
 of rage and shame in the gripe of the vile alguazils of Impey. The harems 
 of; noble Mahommedans — sanctuaries respected in th<: East by governments 
 which respected nothing else — were burst open by gangs of bailifis. The 
 Mussulmans, braver and less accustomed to subrnission than the Hindoos, 
 sometimes stood on their defence ; and there were instances in which they 
 shed their blood in the doorway, while defending, sword in hand, the sacred 
 apartments of their women. Nay, it seemed as if even the faint-hearted 
 Bengalee, who had crouched at the feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had teen 
 / i^ute during the administration of Vr.nsittart, would at length find courag«e 
 in. despair. No Mahratta invasion had ever spread through the province such 
 dismay as this inroad of English lawyers. All tlie injustice of forraer oppressors,' 
 
pyj kKEN HASTINGS. 657 
 
 Asiatic and European, appeared as a blessing when compared with the justice 
 of the Supreme Court. 
 
 Every class of the population, English and native, with the exception of the 
 ravenous pettifoggers who fattened on the misery and terror of an immense 
 community, cried out loudly against thj? fearful oppression. But the judges 
 were immovable. If a bailiff was resisted, they ordered the soldiers to be 
 called out. If a servant of the Company, in conformity with the orders of the 
 government, withstood the miserable catchpoles who, with Impey's writs in 
 their hands, exceeded the insolence and rapacity of gang-robbers, he was flung 
 into prison for a contempt. The lapse of sixty years — the virtue and wisdom 
 of many eminent magistrates who have during that time administered justice in 
 the Supreme Court — have not effaced from the minds of the people of Bengal 
 the recollection of those evil days. 
 
 The members of the government were, on this subject, united as one man. 
 Hastings had courted the judges ; he had found them useful instruments ; but 
 he was not disposed to make them his own masters or the masters of India. 
 His mind was large ; his knowledge of the native character most accurate. He 
 saw that the system pursued by the Supreme Court was degrading to the govern- 
 ment and ruinous to the people ; and he resolved to oppose it manfully. The 
 consequence was, that the friendship — if that be the proper word for such a 
 connection— which had existed between him and Impey, was for a time com- 
 pletely dissolved. The government placed itself firmly between the tyrannical 
 tribunal and the people. The Chief Justice proceeded to the wildest excesses. 
 The Governor-General and all the members, of Council were served with 
 summonses calling on them to appear before the King's justices and to answer 
 for their public acts. This was too much. Hastings, with just scorn, refused 
 to obey the call, set at liberty the persons wrongfully detained by the Court 
 and took measures for resisting the outrageous proceedings of the sheriff's 
 officers, if necessary, by the sword. But he had in view another device which 
 might prevent the necessity of an appeal to arms. He was seldom at a loss 
 for an expedient ; and he knew Impey well. The' expedient, in this case, was 
 a very simple one — neither more nor less than a bribe. Impey was, by act of 
 parliament, a judge, independent of the government of Bengal and entitled to 
 a salary of ;^8,ooo a-year. Hastings proposed to make him also a judge in the 
 Company's service, removable at the pleasure of the government of Bengal, 
 and to give him, in that capacity, about ;^'8,ooo a-year more. It was under- 
 stood that, in consideration of this new salary, Impey would desist from urging 
 the high pretensions of his court. If he did urge these pretensions, the govern- 
 ment could, at a moment's notice, eject him from the new place which had 
 been created for him. The bargain was struck ; Bengal was saved ; an appeal 
 to force was averted ; and the Chief Justice v.'as rich, cjuiet and infarrious. 
 
 Of Impey's conduct, it is unnecessary to speak. It was of a piece with 
 almost every part of his conduct that comes under the notice of history. No 
 other such judge has dishonoured the English ermine since JefTeries drank 
 himself to death in the Tower. But we cannot agree with those who have 
 blamed Hastings for this transaction. The case stood thus. The negligent 
 manner in which the Regulating Act had been framed put it in the power 
 of the Chief Justice to throw a great country into the most dreadful con- 
 fusion. He was determined to use his power to the utmost unless he was 
 paid to be still ; and Hastings consented to pay him. The necessity was 
 to be deplored. It is also to be deplored that pirates should be able to exact 
 ransom by threatening to make their captives walk the plank. But to ransom 
 a captive from pirates has always been held a humane and Christian act ; and 
 it would be absurd to charge the paj'er of the ransom with corrupting the virtue 
 
 •n'S « A « ^ 
 
 ^ OF T«t» 
 
658 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 of the corsair. This, we seriously think, is a not unfair illustration of the rela- 
 tive position of Impey, Hastings and the people of India. Whether it was 
 right in Impey to demand or to accept a price for powers which, if they really 
 belonged to him, he could not abdicate — which, if they did not belong to him, 
 he ought never to have usurped — and which in neither case he could honestly 
 sell — is one question. It is quite another question whether Hastings was not 
 right to give any sum, however large, to any man, however worthless, rather 
 than either surrender millions of human beings to pillage or rescue them by 
 civil war. 
 
 Francis strongly opposed this arrangement. It may, indeed, be suspected 
 that personal aversion to Impey was as strong a motive with Francis as regard 
 for the welfare of the province. To a mind burning with resentment, it might 
 seem better to leave Bengal to the oppressors than to redeem it by enriching 
 them. It is not improbable, on the other hand, that Hastings may have been 
 the more willing to resort to an expedient agreeable to the Chief Justice, be- 
 cause that high functionary had already been so serviceable, and might, when 
 existing dissensions were composed, be serviceable again. 
 
 But it was not on this point alone that Francis was now opposed to Hastings. 
 The peace between them proved to be only a short and hollow truce, during 
 which their mutual aversion was constantly becoming stronger. At length an 
 explosion took place. Hastings publicly charged Francis with having deceived 
 him and induced Barwell to quit the service by insincere promises. Then 
 came a dispute such as frequently arises even between honourable men 
 when they make important agreements by mere verbal communication. An 
 impartial historian will probably be of opinion that they had misunderstood 
 each other ; but their minds were so much embittered that they imputed to 
 each other nothing less than deliberate villany. " I do not," said Hastings, 
 in a minute recorded on the Consultations of the Government — " I do not trust 
 to Mr. Francis's promises of candour, convinced that he is incapable of it. I 
 judge of his public conduct by his private, which I have found to be void of 
 tmth and honour." After the Council had risen, Francis put a challenge into 
 the Governor-General's hand. It was instantly accepted. They met, and 
 fired. Francis was shot through the body. He was carried to a neighbouring 
 house, where it appeared that the ivound, though Severe, was not mortal. 
 Hastings inquired repeatedly after his enemy's health and proposed to call on 
 him ; but Francis coldly declined the visit. He had a proper sense, he said, of 
 the Governor-General's politeness, but could not consent to any private inter- 
 \"iew. They could meet only at the Council-Board. 
 
 In a very short time it was made signally manifest to how great a danger the 
 Governor-General had, on this occasion, exposed his country. A crisis arrived 
 with which he, and he alone, was competent to deal. It was not too much to 
 say that, if he had been taken from the head of affairs, the years 1780 and 1781 
 would have been as fatal to our power in Asia as to our power in America. 
 
 The Mahrattas had been the chief objects of .apprehension to Hastings. The 
 measures which he had adopted for the purpose of breaking their power had 
 at first been frustrated by the errors of those whom he was compelled to 
 employ; but his perseverance and ability seemed lilcely to be crowned with 
 success when a far more formidable danger showed itself in a distant quarter- 
 About thirty years before this time, a Mahommedan soldier had begun to 
 distinguish himself in the wars of Southern India. His education had been 
 neglected ; his extraction was mean. His father had been a petty officer of 
 revenue ; his grandfather a wandering dervise. But though thus meanly 
 descended — though ignorant even of the alphabet — the adventurer had no 
 sooner been placed at the head of a body of troops than he approved himself a 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 659 
 
 man born for conquest and command. Among the crowd of chiefs who were 
 struggling for a share of India, none could compare with him in the qualities 
 of the captain and the statesman. He became a general — he became a prince. 
 Out of the fragments of old principalities, which had gone to pieces in the 
 general wreck, he formed for himself ar great, compact and vigorous empire. 
 That empire he ruled with the ability, severity and vigilance of Louis the 
 Eleventh. Licentious in his pleasures, inplacable in his revenge, he had yet 
 enlargement of mind enough to perceive how much the prosperity of subjects 
 adcls to the strength of governments. He was an oppressor ; but he had at 
 least the merit of protecting his people against all oppression except his own. 
 He was now in extreme old age ; but his intellect was as clear and his spirit 
 as high as in the prime of manhood. Such was the great Hyder Ali, the 
 founder of the Mahommedan kingdom of Mysore and the most formidable 
 enemy with whom the English conquerors of India have ever had to contend. 
 
 Had Hastings been governor of Madras, Hyder would have been either made 
 a friend, or vigorously encountered as an enemy. Unhappily, the English 
 authorities in the south provoked their powerful neighbour's hostility without 
 being prepared to repel it. On a sudden, an army of ninety thousand men, 
 far superior in discipline and efficiency to any other native force that could be 
 found in India, came pouring through those wild passes which, worn by moun- 
 tain torrents and dark with jungle, lead down from the table-land of Mysore 
 to the plains of the Carnatic. This great army was accompanied by a hundred 
 pieces of cannon ; and its movements were guided by many French officers, 
 trained in the best military s'chools of Europe. 
 
 Hyder was everywhere triumphant. The sepoys in many British garrisons 
 flung down their arms. Some forts were surrendered by treachery and some 
 by despair. In a few days, the whole open country north of the Coleroon had 
 submitted. The English inhabitants of Madras could already see by night, 
 ffom the top of Mount St. Thomas, the eastern sky reddened by a vast semi- 
 circle of blazing villages. The white villas — to which our countrymen retire 
 after the daily labours of government and of trade, when the cool evening 
 breeze springs up from the bay — were now left without inhabitants ; for bands 
 of the fierce horsemen of Mysore had already been seen prowling near those 
 gay verandas. Even the town was not thought secure ; and the British 
 merchants and public functionaries made haste to crowd themselves behind the 
 cannon of Fort St. George. 
 
 There were the means, indeed, of forming an army which might have de- 
 fended the presidency and even driven the invader back to his mountains. Sir 
 Hector Munro was at the head of one considerable force ; Baillie was advancing 
 with another. United, they might have presented a formidable front even to 
 such an enemy as Hyder. But the English commanders, neglecting those 
 fundamental rules of military art. of which the propriety is obvious even to 
 men who had never received a military education, deferred their junction and 
 were separately attacked. Baillie's detachment was destroyed. Munro was 
 forced to abandon his bagga^-e, to fling his gims into the tanks and to save 
 himself by a retreat which might be called a flight. In three weeks from ihe 
 commencement of the war, the British empire in Southern India had been 
 brought to the verge of ruin. Only a few fortified places remained to us. The 
 glory of our arms had departed. It was known that a great French expedition 
 might soon be expected on the coast of Coromandel. England, beset by 
 enemies on every side, was in no condition to protect such remote dependencies. 
 
 Then it was that the fertile genius and serene courage of Hastings achieved 
 their most signal triumph. A swift ship, flying before the south-west monsoon, 
 |)VOught the evil tidings in few days to Calcutta. In twenty-four hours the 
 
i6d WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 Governor 'General had framed a complete plan of policy adapted to the altered 
 state of affairs. The struggle with Hyder was a struggle for life and death. 
 All minor objects must be sacrificed to the preservation of the Carnatic. The 
 disputes with the Mahrattas must be accommodated. A large, military, force 
 and a supply of money miist be instantly sent to Madras. But even these 
 rfteasures would be insufficient unless the \sar, hitherto so grossly mismanaged, 
 wer6 placed under the direction of a vigorous mind. It was no time for trifling. 
 Hastings determined to resort to an extreme exercise of power ; to suspend ttie 
 incapable governor of Fort St. George, to send Sir Eyre Coote to oppose 
 liyder, and to intrust that distmguished general with the whole administration 
 $>f.the war. , . , 
 
 -In spite of the sullen opposition of Francis, who had now recovered from 
 his wound and had returned to the Council, the Governor-G«enerars wise and 
 firm policy was approved by the majority of the board. The reinforcements 
 were sent off with great expedition, and reached Madras before the French 
 armanent arrived in the Indian seas. Coote, broken by age and disease, was 
 ri'6 longer the Coote of Wandewash ; but he was still a resolute and skilful 
 commander. The progress of Hyder was arrested ; and in a few months the 
 great victory of Porto Novo retrieved the honour of English arms. 
 
 In the meantime, Francis had returned to England, and Hastings was now 
 kft perfectly unfettered. Wheler had gradually been relaxing in his opposition, 
 and, after the departure of his vehement and implacable colleague, co-operated 
 heartily with the Governor-General, whose influence over the British in India, 
 al\vays great, had, by the vigour and success of his recent measures, been con- 
 siderably increased. 
 
 ■; But, though the difficulties arising from factions within the Councilwere at 
 an iend, another class of difficulties had become more pressing than ever. The 
 ■financial embarrassment was extreme. Flastings had to find the means, not 
 "6nly of carrying on the Government of Bengal, but of maintaining a most 
 ■ costly war against both Indian and European enemies in the Carnatic and of 
 making remittances to England. A few years before this time, he had obtained 
 relief by plundering the Mogul and enslaving the Rohillas ; nor were the 
 -resources of his fruitful mind by any means exhausted. 
 / -q'His first design was on Benares, a city which in wealth, population, dig- 
 'flity and sanctity was among the foremost of Asia. It was commonly be- 
 lieved that half a million of human beings was crowded into that labyrinth 
 ^ lofty alleys, rich with shrines, and minarets, and balconies, and carved 
 oriels, ta which the sacred apes clung by hundreds. The traveller could scarcely 
 make his way through the press of holy mendicants and not less holy bulls. 
 The broad and stately flights of steps which descended from these swarming 
 hiaunts to the bathing-places along the Ganges were worn every day by the 
 footsteps of an innumerable multitude of worshippers. The schools and 
 temples drew crowds of pious Hindoos from every province where the 
 Brahminical faith was known. Hundreds of devotees came thither every 
 month to die — for it was believed that a peculiarly happy fate awaited the 
 man who should pass from the sacred city into the sacred river. Nor was 
 superstition the only motive which allured strangers to that great metropolis. 
 Commerce had as many pilgrims as religion. All along the shores of the 
 venerafele stream lay great fleets of vessels laden with rich merchandise. From 
 the looms of Benares went forth the most delicate silks that adorned the balls 
 of St. James's and of the Petit Trianon ; and in the bazaars the muslins of 
 Bengal and the sabres of Oude were mingled with the jewels of Golconda and 
 the shawls of Cashmere. This rich capital and the surrounding tract had long 
 been under the immediate rule of ^ Hindoo prince w|io reu4?i:ed homage X<i 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 66l 
 
 the Mogul emperors. During the great anarchy of India, the lords of Benares 
 bedame independent of the court of Delhi, but were compelled to submit to 
 the authority of the Nabob of Oude. Oppressed by this formidable neigh- 
 bour, they invoked the protection of the English. The English protection 
 was given ; and at length the Nabob Vizier, by a solemn treaty, ceded all his 
 rif^ts over Benares to the Company. From that time the Rajah was the vassal 
 of the government of Bengal, acknowledged its supremacy and sent an 
 annual tribute to P'ort Wilham. This tribute Cheyte Sing, the reigning prince, 
 had paid with strict punctuality. 
 
 About the precise nature of the legal relation between the Company and the 
 Rajah of Benares, there has been much v/arm and acute controversy. On the 
 one side, it has been maintained that Cheyte Sing was merely a great subject 
 bh whom the superior power had a right to call for aid in the necessities 
 6f the empire. On the other side, it has been contended that he was an 
 independent prince, that the only ckim which the Company had upon him 
 was for !a fixed tribute, and that while the fixed tribute was regularly paid, 
 as it assuredly was, the English had no more right to exact any further con- 
 trtbutions from him than to demand subsidies from Holland or Denmark. 
 Nothing is easier than to find precedents and analogies in favpur of either 
 
 Vle^v. 
 
 Our own impression is that neither view is corredit. It was too much the 
 habit of English pohticians to take it for granted that there was in India 
 a known and definite constitution by which questions of this kind were to be 
 decided. The truth is that, during the interval which elapsed between the 
 fall of the house of Tamerlane and the establishment of the British ascendency, 
 there was no such constitution. The old order of things had passed away ; 
 the new order of things was not yet formed. All was transition, confusion, 
 obscurity. Everybody kept his head as he best might, and scrambled for 
 ^^*Whatever he could get. There have been similar seasons in Europe. The 
 viime of the dissolution of the Carlovingian empire is an instance. Who 
 would think of seriously discussing the question, what extent of pecuniary aid 
 and of obedience Hugh Capet had a constitutional right to demand from 
 the Duke of Britanny or the Duke of Normandy? The words, "constitu- 
 tional right " had, in that state of society, no meanmg. If Hugh Capet 
 laid hands on all the possessions of the Duke of Normandy, this might be un- 
 just and immoral ; but it would not be illegal, in the sense in which the ordi- 
 nances of Charles the Tenth were illegal. If, on the other hand, the Duke 
 of Normandy made war on Hu'^h Capet, this might be unjust and immoral ; 
 but it would not be illegal, in the sense in which the expedition of Prince Louis 
 Bonaparte was illegal. 
 
 Very similar to this was the 5tate of India sixty years ago. Of the existing 
 governments, not a single one could lay claim to legitimacy or plead any 
 other title than recent occupation. There was scarcely a province in 
 which the real sovereignty and the nominal sovereignty were not disjoined. 
 Titles and forms were still retained which implied that the heir of Tamer- 
 lane was an absolute ruler and that the Nabobs of tne provinces were his 
 lieutenants. In reality, he was a captive. The Nabobs were in some places 
 independent princes. In othe. places, as in Bengal and the Carnatic, they 
 had, like their master, become mere phantoms, and the Company was su' 
 preme. Among the Mahratt?s, again, the heir of Sevajee still kept the title 
 of Rajah ; but he was a prisoner, and his prime minister, the Peshwa, had 
 become the hereditary chief of the state. The Peshwa, in his turn, was fast 
 sinking into the same degraded situation into which he had reduced the Rajah, 
 It WftS, v/e belKV^J impossible to find, from the Jiwalajras to Mysore, a single 
 
66^ WARREN HASTINGS, 
 
 government which was at once de facto and de jure — which possessed the 
 physical means of making itself feared by its neighbours and subjects, and 
 which had at the same time the authority derived from law and long prescrip- 
 tion. . 
 
 Hastings clearly discerned what was hidden from most of his contempora- 
 ries, that such a state of things gave immense advantages to a ruler of great 
 talents and few scruples. In every international question that could arise, 
 he had his option betv;een the de facto ground and the de jure ground ; and 
 the probability was that one of those grounds would sustain any claim that 
 it might be convenient for him to make and enable him to resist any claim made 
 by others. In every controversy, accordingly, he resorted to the plea which 
 suited his immediate purpose, without troubhng himself in the least about 
 consistency ; and thus he scarcely ever failed to find what, to persons of short 
 memories and scanty information, seemed to be a justification for what he 
 wanted to do. Sometimes the Nabob of Bengal is a shadow, sometimes a 
 monarch. Sometimes the Vizier is a mere deputy, sometimes an independent 
 potentate. If it is expedient for the Company to show some legal title to 
 the revenues of Bengal, the grant under the seal of the Mogul is brought for- 
 ward as an instrument of the highest authority. When the Mogul asks for 
 the rents which were reserved to him by that very grant, he is told that he is a 
 mere pageant ; that the English power rests on a very different foundation 
 from a charter given by him ; that he is welcome to play at royalty as long as 
 he likes, but that he must expect no tribute from the real masters of India. 
 
 It is true that it wa^ in the power of others, as well as of Hastings, to prac- 
 tise this legerdemain ; but in the controversies of governments, sophistry is 
 of little use unless it be backed by pov/er. Thei'e is a principle which 
 Hastings was fond of asserting in the strongest terms and on which he acted 
 with undeviating steadiness. It is a principle which, we must own, can hardly 
 be disputed in the presen state of public law. It is this — that where an am- 
 biguous question arises between two governments, there is, if they cannot 
 agree, no appeal except to force, and that the opinion of the strongest must 
 prevail. Almost every question was ambiguous in India. The English gov- 
 ernment was the strongest in India. The consequences are obvious. , The 
 English government might do exactly what it chose. 
 
 The English government now chose to wring money out of Cheyte Sing. It 
 had formerly been convenient to treat him as a sovereign prince; it was now 
 convenient to treat him as a subject. Dexterity inferior to that of Hastings 
 could easily find, in the general chaos of laws and customs, arguments for 
 either course. Hastings wanted a great supply. It was known thaf Cheyte 
 vSing had a large revenue, and it was suspected that he had accumulated a treas- 
 ure. Nor was he a favourite at Calcutta. He had, when the Governor-General 
 was in great difficulties, courted the favour of Francis and Clavering. Hastings, 
 who, less perhaps from evil passions than from policy, seldom left an injury 
 unpunished, was not sorry that the fate of Cheyte Sing should teach neighbour- 
 ing princes the same lesson which the fate of Nuncomar had already impressed 
 on the inhabitants of Bengal. ; 
 
 In 1778, on the first breaking out of the war with France, Cheyte Sing was 
 called upon to pay, in addition to his fixed tribute, an extraordinary contribu- 
 tion of ^ 50,000. In 1779, an equal sum was exacted. In 1780, the demand was 
 renewed. Cheyte Sing, in the hope "of obtaining some indulgence, secretly 
 offered the Governor-General a bribe of ;!^20,ooo. Hastings took the money ; 
 and his enemies have maintained that he took it intending to keep it. He cer- 
 ainly concealed the transaction, for a time, both from the Council in Bengal 
 and from the Directors at home ;nor did he c^rer give any satisfactory reason 
 
]VARkEN HASTINGS. 66^ 
 
 for the concealment. Public spirit or the fear of detection, however, determined 
 him to withstand the temptation. He paid over the bribe to the Company's 
 treasury, and insisted that the Rajah should instantly comply with the demands 
 pf the English government. The Rajah, after the fashion of his countrymen, 
 shuffled, solicited and pleaded pover*^. The grasp of Hastings was not to be 
 so eluded. He added to the requisition another ;^io,ooo, as a fine for delay, 
 and sent troops to exact the money. 
 
 The money was paid. But this was not enough. The late events in the 
 south of India had increased the financial embarrassments of the Company. 
 Hastings was determined to plunder Cheyte Sing, and, for that end, to fasten a 
 quarrel on him. Accordingly, the Rajah was now required to keep a. body of 
 'cavalry for the service of the British government. He objected and evaded. 
 Thi^ was exactly what the Governor-General wanted. He had now a pretext 
 for treating the wealthiest of his vassals as a criminal. " I resolved" — these 
 are the words of Hastings himself — " to draw from his guilt the means of relief 
 of the Company's distresses — to make him pay largely for his pardon, or to 
 exact a severe vengeance for past delinquency. " The plan was simply this, to 
 demand la'rger and larger contributions till the Rajah should be driven to 
 remonstrance, then to call his remonstrance a crime and to punish him by con- 
 fiscating all his possessions. 
 
 Cheyte Sing was in the greatest dismay. He offered ;^20o;ooo to propitiate 
 the British government. But Hastings replied that nothing less than half a 
 million would be accepted. Nay, he began to think of selling Benares to 
 Oude, as he had formerly sold Allahabad and Rohilcund. The matter was 
 one which could not be well managed at a distance, and Hastings resolved to 
 visit Benares. 
 
 Cheyte Sing received his liege lord with every mark of reverence, came near 
 sixty miles, with his guards, to meet and escort the illustrious visitor, and 
 expressed his deep concern at the displeasure of the English. He even took 
 off his turban and laid it in the lap of Hastings — a gesture which in India 
 marks the most profound submission and devotion. Hastings behaved with 
 cold and repulsive severity. Having arrived at Benares, he sent to the Rajah 
 a paper containing the demands of the government of Bengal. The Rajah, in 
 reply, attempted to clear himself^from the accusations brought against him. 
 Hastings, who wanted money and not excuses, was not to be put off by the 
 ordinary artifices of Eastern negotiation. He instantly ordered the Rajah to be 
 arrested and placed under the custody of two companies of sepoys. 
 
 In taking these strong measures, Hastings scarcely slibwed his usual judg- 
 ment. It is possible that, having had little opportunity of personally observing 
 any part of the population of India except the Bengalees, he was not fully 
 aware of the difference between their character and that of the tribes which 
 inhabit the upper provinces. He was now in a land far more favourable to the 
 vigour of the human frame than the Delta of the Ganges : in a land fruitfulof 
 soldiers who have been found worthy to follow English battalions to the charge 
 and into the breach. The Rajah was popular among his subjects. His admini- 
 stration had been mild ; and the prosperity of the district which he governed 
 presented a striking contrast to the depressed state of Bahar under our rule — 
 and a still more striking contrast to the misery of the provinces which were 
 cursed by the tyranny of the Nabob Vizier. The national and religious pre- 
 judices with which the English were regarded throughout India were peculiarly 
 intense in the metropoHs of the Brahminical superstition. It can therefore 
 scarcely be doubted that the Governor-General, before he outraged the dignity 
 of Cheyte Sing by an arrest, ought to have assembled a force capable of bearing 
 down all opposition. This had not been done. The handful of sepoys who 
 
664 WARREP^ BASTINGS. 
 
 attended Hastings would probably have been sufficient to overawe Moorsheda- 
 baid or the Black Town of Calcutta. But they were unequal to a conflict with 
 the hardy rabble of Benares. The streets surrounding the palace were tilled by 
 an immense multitude, of whom a large proportion, as is usual in Upper India, 
 wore arms. The tumult became a fight, and the hght a massacre. The English 
 officers defended themselves with desperate courage against overwhelming 
 numbers, and f*;ll, as became them, sword in hand. The sepoys were butchered. 
 The gates were forced. The captive prince, neglected by his gaolers during 
 the confusion, discovered an outlet which opened on the precipitous bank of 
 the Ganges, let himself down to the water by a string made of the turbai^SjPf 
 Iiis attendants, found a boat, and escaped to the opposite shore. 
 
 If Hastings had, by indiscreet violence, brought himself into a difficult and 
 perilous situation, it is only just to acknowledge that he extricated himself with 
 even more than his usual ability and presence of mind. He had only fifty men 
 With him. The building in which he had taken up his residence was on. every 
 side blockaded by the insurgents. But his fortitude remained unshaken. The 
 Rajah, from the other side of the river, sent apologies and liberal offers. They 
 were not even answered. Some subtle and enterprising men were found who 
 undertook to pass through the throng of enemies and to convey the intelligence 
 of the late events to the English cantonments. It is the fashion of the natives 
 of India to wear large earrings of gold. When they travel, the rings are laid 
 'aside' lest they should tempt some gang of robbers, and, in place of the ring, 
 a quill or a roll of paper is inserted m the orifice to prevent it from closing. 
 Hastings placed in the ears of his messengers letters rolled up in the smallest 
 compass. Some of these letters were addressed to the commanders of English 
 troops. One was written to assure his wife of his safety. One was to the 
 envoy whom he had sent to negotiate with the Mahra,ttas. Instructions for the 
 negotiations were needed, and the Governor-General framed them in. that 
 situation of extrem-e danger with as much composure as if he had been writingjn 
 his palace at Calcutta. ; ^ 
 
 Things, however, were not yet at the worst. An English ofificer of more 
 ipirit than judgment, eager to distinguish himself, made a premature attack on 
 the- insurgents beyond the river. His troops were entangled in narrow streets 
 
 - and assailed by a furious population. He fell, with many of his men, and the 
 survivors were forced to retire. . 
 
 \'-''- This event produced the effect which has never failed to follow every, check, 
 
 however slight, sustained in India by the English arms. For hundreds, of 
 
 miles round, the whole country was in commotion. The entire population .of 
 
 " tlie district of T3eriares took arms. The fields were abandoned by thehusband- 
 
 • men, who tlironged to defend their prince. The infection spread to Qude. 
 
 ■Th^<)ppressed people of that province rose up against the Nabob Vizier, 
 
 Tefusiea to pay their imposts and put the f^venue officers to flight.. ". Even 
 
 Bahar was ripe for revolt. The hopes of Gheyte Sing began to rise. Tnstead 
 
 of imploring mercy in the humble style of a vassal, he began to talk the 
 
 ~ 'language of a conqueror, and threatened, . it was said, to sweep the white 
 
 •tisttrpers out of the land; But the English troops .were :.now assembling "fast. 
 
 ■' The -officers, and even the private men,- regarded^ the.. Governor-GeneraT with 
 
 - • ehthdst'astic attachtneht;) and '- flew to " his aid with .^n alacrity • wjiich,- -as .he 
 Boasted," had" never been shown' on any other occasion. Major Popham, a 
 brave and sicllfui soldier, who had highly distinguished himself in the Mahratta 
 war, and iri whom tne Governor- General reposed the greatest confidence, took 
 the command. The tumultuary army of the Rajah was put to rout. His fast- 
 nesses were stormed. In a tew hours, abo'-'e thirty thousand men left his 
 
 'stafidard and ireturaed to their ordinary avocations. The unhappy prince fled 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 6$& 
 
 from his country for ever. His fair domain was added to the British dominions. 
 One of his relations indeed was appointed Kajah ; but the Rajah of Benares 
 was henceforth to be, like the Nabol) of Bengal, a mere pensioner. . -r^. 
 
 By this revolution, an addition of ;i^200,ooo a-year was made to therevei>v|^' 
 of the Company. But the immediatcfelief was not as great as had been ex- 
 pected. The treasure laid up by Cheyte Sing had been popularly estimated 
 at a milUon sterling. It turned out to be about a fourth part of that sum ; and, 
 •such as it was, it was seized and divided by the army as prize-money. .^ r 
 
 Disappointed in his expectations from Benares, Hastings was more violent 
 than he would otherwise have been in his dealings with Oude. Sujah Pow|ah 
 had long been dead. His son and successor, Asaph-ul-Dowlah, was one of 
 the weakest and most vicious even of Eastern princes. His life was divided 
 between torpid repose and the most odious forms of sensuality. In his court 
 there was boundless waste, throughout his dominions wretchedness and dis- 
 order. He had been, under the skilful management of the English govern- 
 ment, gradually sinking from the rank o£ an independent prince to that of ,a 
 vassal of the Company. It was only by the help of a British brigade that he 
 could be secure from the aggressions of neighbours who despised his weakness, 
 and from the vengeance of subjects who detested his tyranny. A brigade was 
 furnished ; and he engaged to defray the charge of paying and maintaining it. 
 From, that time his independence was at an end. Hastings was not a man 
 to lose the advantage which he had thus gained. The Nalxjb soon bega,n to 
 complain of the burden which he had undertaken to bear. His revenues, he 
 said, were falling off; his servants were unpaid ; he could no longer supppart 
 the expense of the arrangement which he had sanctioned. Hastings would not 
 listen to these representations. The Vizier, he said, had invited the govern- 
 ment of Bengal to send him troops and had promised to pay for them. The 
 troops had been sent. How long the troops were to remain in Oude was a 
 matter not settled by the treaty. It remained, therefore, to be settled between 
 the contracting parties. But the contracting parties differed. Who then must 
 decide ? The strongest. 
 
 Hastings also argued that, if the English force was v/ithdra\vn, Oude would 
 certainly become a prey to anarchy and would probably be overrun by a Mah- 
 ratta army. That the finances of Oude were embarrassed he admitted. But 
 he contended, not without reason, that the embarrassment was to be attributed 
 to the incapacity and vices of Asaph-ul-Dowlah himself^ and that if less were 
 spent on the troops, the only effect would be that more would be squandered 
 on worthless favourites. 
 
 Hastings had intended, after settling the affairs of Benares, to visit Lucknow 
 and there to confer with Asaph-ul-Dowlah. But the obsequious courtesy 'of 
 the Nabob Vizier prevented this visit. With a small train, he hastened to 
 meet the Governor-General. An interview took place m the fortress which, 
 from the crest of the precipitous rock of Chunar, looks down on the waters 
 of the Ganges. 
 
 At first sight it might appear impossible that the negotiation should come to 
 an amicable close. Hastings wanted an extraordinary supply of money, Asaph- 
 ul-Dowlah wanted to obtain a remission of what he dready owed. Such a 
 difference seemed to admit of no compromise. There was, however, one 
 course satisfactory to both sides — one course by which it was possible to relieve 
 the finances both of Oude and of Bengal ; and that course was adopted. It 
 was simply this — that the Governor-General and the Nabob Vizier should join 
 to rob a third party ; and the third party whom they deterniined to rol) was 
 the parent of one of the robbers. . - ' 
 
 Tne mother of the late Nabob, and his wife, who was the mother of the 
 
666 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 present Nabob, were" known as the Begums or Princesses of Oude. They had 
 possessed great influence over Sujah Dowlah, and had, at his death, been left 
 in possession of a splendid dotation. The domains of which they received the 
 rents and administered the government were of wide extent. The treasure 
 hoarded by the late Nabob — a treasure which was popularly estimated at near 
 three millions sterling — was in their hands. They continued to occupy his 
 favourite palace at Fyzabad, the Beautiful Dwelling ; while Asaph -ul-Dowlah 
 held his court in the stately Lucknow, which he had built for himself on the 
 shores of the Goomti, and had adorned with noble mosques and colleges. 
 
 Asaph-ul-Dowlah had already extorted considerable sums from his mother. 
 She had at length appealed to the English, and the English had interfered. A 
 solemn compact had been made, by which she consented to give her son some 
 pecuniary assistance and he in his turn promised never to commit any further 
 invasion of her rights. This compact was formally guaranteed by the govern- 
 ment of Bengal. But times had changed ; money was wanted ; and the power 
 which had given the guarantee was not ashamed to itisti^ate the spoiler. 
 
 It was necessary to find some pretext for'a confiscation inconsistent, not 
 merely with plighted faith — not merely with the ordinary rules of humanity and 
 justice — but also with that great law of filial piety -Cvhicn, even in the wildest 
 tjribes of savages — even in those more degraded communities which wither 
 under the influence, of a corrupt half-civilisatipri-T-reta^ns a certain authority 
 over the human mind. A pretext was.^the last thiBg that Hastings was likely 
 to want. .The, insurrection at Benares had produced disturbances in Oude. These 
 disturbances it was convenient to impute to the Princesses. Evidence for the 
 imputation there was scarcely any ; unless reports wandering from one mouth 
 to another and gaining something by every transmission may be called evidence. 
 The accused were furnished with no charge ; they were permitted to make no 
 defence ; for the Governor-General wisely considered that, if he tried them, 
 he might not be able to find a ground for plundering them. It was agreed 
 between him and the Nabob Vizier that the noble ladies should, by a sweeping 
 act, of confiscation, be stripped of their domains and treasures for the benefit of 
 theJjCornpariy,.. and that the sums thus obtained should be accepted by the 
 governn;ie.il[t of Bengal in satisfaction of its claims on the government of Oude. 
 
 \Vhil? Asaph-ul-Dowlah was at Chunar, he was completely subjugated by the 
 9J£ar and commanding intellect of the Enghsh statesman. But, when they had 
 separated, he began to reflect with uneasiness on the engagements into which 
 he had entered. His mother and grandmother protested and implored. His 
 heart, deeply corrupted by absolute power and licentious pleasures, yet not 
 naturally unfeeling, failed hirn in this crisis. Even the English resident at 
 Lucknow though hitherto devoted to Hastings, shrank from extreme measures. 
 But the Governor- -General was inexorable. He wrote to the resident in terms 
 of the greatest severity, and declared that, if the spoliation which had been 
 .igreed upon were not instantly carried into eff"ect, he would himself go to 
 lAicknow and -do that from which feebler minds recoiled with dismay. The 
 resident, thus menaced, waited on his Highness and insisted that the treaty of 
 Chimai: should be carried into full and immediate effect. Asaph-ul-Dowlah 
 yieldccl, — making at the same time a solemn protestation that he yielded • to 
 compuloion. The lands were resumed; but the treasure was not so easily 
 obtained. It was necessary to use force. A body of the Company's troops 
 marched to Fyzabad and forced the gates of the palace. The Princesses were 
 confined to their own apartments. But still they refused to submit. Some 
 more stringent mode of coercion was to be found. A mode was found of which, 
 even at this distance of time, we cannot speak without shame and sorrow. 
 
 There wcis at Fyzabad two ancient men, belonging to that unhappy class 
 
WAkkEN HASTINGS. 667 
 
 \vhich a practice, of immemorial antiquity in the East, has excluded from the 
 pleasures of love and from the hope of posterity. It has always been held in 
 Asiatic courts that beings thus estranged from sympathy with their kind are 
 those whom princes may most safely trust. Sujah Dowlah had been of this 
 opinion. He had given his entire contidence to the two eunichs ; and aftev his 
 death they remained at the head of the household of his widow. 
 
 These men were, by the orders of the British government, seized, imprisoned, 
 ironed, starved almost to death, in order to extort money from the Princesse.^. 
 After they had been two months in confinement, their health gave way. They 
 implored permission to take a little exercise in the garden of their prison. The 
 officer who was in charge of them stated that, if they were allowed this indul- 
 gence, there was not the smallest chance of their escaping, and that their irons 
 really added nothing to the security of the custody in which they were kept. 
 He did not understand the plan of his superiors. Their object in these inflic- 
 tions was not security but torture ; and all mitigation was refused. Yet this 
 was not the worst. It was resolved by an English government that these two 
 infirm old men should be delivered to the tormentors. For that purpose they 
 were removed to Lucknow. What horrors their dungeon there witnessed can 
 only be guessed. But there remains on the records of Parliament this letter, 
 written by a British resident to a British soldier. 
 
 " Sir, the Nabob having determined to inflict corporal punishment upon the 
 prisoners under your guard, this is to desire that his officers, when they shall 
 come, may have free access to the prisoners, and be permitted to do with them 
 as they shall see proper." ■ .; < • 
 
 While these barbarities were perpetrated at Lucknow, the Princesses were 
 still under duress at Fyzabad. Food was allowed to enter their apartments 
 only in such scanty quantities that their female attendants were in danger of 
 perishing with hunger. Month after month this cruelty continued, till at 
 length, after twelve hundred thousand pounds had been wrung out of the 
 Princesses, Hastings began to think that he had really got to the bottom of 
 Sheir revenue and that no rigour could extort* more. Then at length the 
 wretched men who were detained at Lucknow regained their liberty, ^^^len 
 their irons were knocked off" and the doors of their prison opened, their 
 quivering lips, the tears which ran down their cheeks and the thanksgivings 
 which they poured forth to the common Father of Mussulmans and Christians, 
 melted even the stout hearts of the English warriors who stood by. 
 
 There is a man to whom the conduct of Hastings, through the whole of these 
 proceedings, appears not only excusable but laudable. There is a man who 
 tells us that he "must really be pardoned if he ventures to characterise as 
 something pre-eminently ridiculous and wicked the sensibility which would 
 balance against the preservation of British India a little personal suffering, 
 which was applied only so long as the sufferers refused to deliver up a p®rtion 
 of that wealth, the whole of which their own and their mistresses' treason had 
 forfeited." We cannot, we must own, envy the reverend biographer either his 
 singular notion of what constitutes pre-eminent wickedness or his equally 
 singular perception of the pre-eminently ridiculous. Is this the generosity of 
 an English soldier ? Is this the charity of a Christian priest ? Could neither 
 of Mr. Gleig's professions teach him the very rudiments of morality? Or is 
 morality a thing which may be well enough in sermons, but which has nothing 
 to do with biography ? 
 
 But we must not forget to do justice to Sir Elijah Impey's conduct on this 
 occasion. It was not indeed easy for him to intrude himself into a business ?o 
 entirely alien from all his official duties. But there was something Inexpressibly 
 alluring, we must suppose, in the peculiar rankness of the infamy which was th^ 
 
66S WARDEN HASTimS. 
 
 to be got at Lucknow. He hurried thither as fast as relays of palanquin'-beareifS 
 could carry him. A crowd of people came before him with affidavits against 
 the Begums ready drawn in their hands. Those affidavits he did not read. 
 The greater part, indeed, he could not read; for they were in Persian and 
 Hindoostanee, and no interpreter was employed. He administered the oath 
 tQ the deponeats with all possible expedition, and asked not a single question, 
 noX even whether they had perused the statements to which they swore. This 
 work performed,, he got again into his palanquin and posted back to Calcutta, 
 tp be in time for the opening of term. The cause was one which, by his own 
 <;onfession, lay altogether out of his jurisdiction. Under the charter of justice, 
 he had no more right to inquire into crimes committed by natives in Oude 
 than the Lord President of the Court of Session of Scotland to hold an assize 
 at IJxeter. He had no right to try the Begums, nor did he pretend to try 
 them. With what object, then, did^he undertake so long a journey ? Evidently 
 in. order that he might give, in an irregular manner, that sanction which, in a 
 regular manner, he could not give to the crimes of those who had recently 
 hired him ; and in order that a confused mass of testimony, which he did not 
 sift, which he did not even read, might acquire an authority not properly 
 belonging to it from the signature of the highest judicial functionary in India. 
 
 The time was approaching, however, when he was to be stripped of that 
 robe which has never, since the Revolution, been disgraced so foully as by him. 
 The state of India had for some time occupied much of the attention of the 
 British Parliament. Towards the close of the American war, two committees 
 of the Commons sat on Eastern affairs. In the one Edmund Burke took the 
 lead. The other was under the presidency of the able and versatile Henry 
 Dundas, then Lord Advocate of Scotland. Great as are the changes which, 
 during the last sixty years, have taken place in our Asiatic dominions, the 
 reports which those committees laid on the table of the House will still be 
 found most interesting and instructive. .. v 
 
 There was as yet no connection between the Company and either of the 
 great parties in the state, ^he ministers had no motive to defend Indian 
 abuses. On the contrary, it was for their interest to show, if possible, that the 
 government and patronage of our Oriental empi'-e might, with advantage^ be 
 ti:ansferred to themselves. The votes, therefore, which, in consequence of the 
 reports made by the two committees, were passed by the Commons, breathed 
 the spirit of stern and indignant justice. The severest epithets were applied; to 
 several of the measures of Hastings, especially to the Rohilla war ; and it was 
 resolved, on the motion of Mr. Dundas, that the Company ought to recall a 
 Goyernor-General who had brought such calamities on the Indian people ^ind 
 such dishonour on the British name. An act was passed for limiting the juris- 
 diction of the Supreme Court. The bargain which Hastings had made with 
 ;lhe Chief Justice was condemned in the strongest terms ; and an addregs was 
 presented to the king, praying that Impey might be ordered home to answer 
 for his misdeeds. * . •'■.•: 
 
 Impey was recalled by a letter from the Secretary of State. But the .pro- 
 prietors of India Stock resolutely refused to dismiss Hastings from their service ; 
 and passed a resolution affirming, what was undeniably true, that they were 
 intrusted by law with the right of naming and removing their Governor-General, 
 and that they were not bound to obey the directions of a single branch qf. the 
 legislature with respect to such nomination or removal. ^-- 
 
 Thus supported by his employers, Hastings remained at the head of the 
 government of Bengal till the spring of 1785. His administration, so eventful 
 and stormy, closed in almost perfect quiet. In the Council, there was no 
 regular opposition to his measures. Peace was restored to India. 'i'W Ma^ 
 
-^ARREi^ BAStmc^: 669 
 
 tatta war had ceased. Hyder was no more. A treaty had been conducled 
 with his son Tippoo ; and the Carnatic had been evacuated by the armies <d1 
 Mysore. Since the termination of the American war, England had no Eiaro- 
 
 an enemy or rival in the Eastern seas: 
 
 On a general review of the long administration of Hastings, it is impos- 
 sible to deny that, against the great crimes by which it is blemished, we have 
 to set off g;reat public services. England had passed through a perilous crisi«. 
 She still, indeed, maintained her place in the foremost rank of European 
 powers; and the manner in which she had defended herself against fearfUi 
 odds had inspired surrounding nations with a high opinion both of her spirit 
 and of her strength. Nevertheless, in every part of the world, except onie, 
 she had been a loser. Not only had she been compelled to acknowledge 
 the independence of thirteen colonies peopled by her children and to con- 
 cihate the Irish by giving up the right of legislating for them, but, in the 
 Mediterranean, in the Gulf of Mexico, on the coast of Africa, on the contineint 
 of America, she had been compelled to cede the fruits of her victories in former 
 wars. Spain regained Minorca and Florida ; France regained Senegal, Go- 
 ree and several West Indian Islands. The only quarter of the world in whicli 
 Britain had lost nothing was the quarter in which her interests had been 
 committed to the care of Hastings. In spite of the utmost exertions both 
 of European and Asiatic enemies, the power of our country in the East had 
 been greatly augmented. Benares was subjected ; the Nabob Vizier rfcduced 
 to vassalage. That our influence had been thus extended, nay, that P'orL 
 William and YoxX. St. George had not been occupied by hostile armies^ was 
 owing, if we may trust the general voice of the English in India, to the skill 
 and resolution of Hastings. 
 
 His internal administration, with all its blemishes, gives him a title t6 fee 
 considered as one of the most remarkable men in our history. He dissolvtid 
 the double government. He transferred the direction of affairs to Enghsh 
 hands. Out of a frightful anarchy, he educed at least a rude and imperfect 
 order. The whole organisation by which justice was dispensed, revenue 
 collected, peace maintained throughout a territory not inferior in population to 
 the dominions of Louis the Sixteenth or the Emperor Joseph, was created 
 and superintended by him. He boasted that every public office, without ex- 
 ception, which existed when he left Bengal was his work. It is quite true 
 that this system, after all the improvements suggested by the experien(ie of 
 sixty years, still needs improvement, and that it was at first far more defective 
 than it now is. But whoever seriously considers what it is to construct from 
 the beginning the whole of the machine so vast and complex as a goverhment, 
 will allow that what Hastings effected deserves high admiration. To compare 
 the most celebrated European ministers to him seems to us as unjust as it 
 would be to compare the best baker in London with Robinson Crusoe, who, 
 before he could bake a single loaf, had to make his plough and his harrow^ lus 
 fences and his scarecrows, his sickle and his flail, his mill and his oven. 
 
 The just fame of Hastings rises still higher when we reflect that he was 
 not bred a statesman ; that he was sent from school to a counting-house ; arid 
 that he was employed during the prime of his manhood as a commercial agent, 
 far from all intellectual society. 
 
 Nor must we forget that all, or almost all, to whom, when placed at the head 
 of affairs, he could apply for assistance, were persons who owed as little as him- 
 self, or less than himself, to education. A minister in Europe finds hims<"If, on 
 the first day on which he commences his functions, surrounded by experienced 
 public servants, the depositories of official traditions. Hastings had no sUch 
 help. His own reflection, hi» own energy, were to supply the place of all 
 
670 WAkREM HASTINGS. 
 
 Downing Street and Somerset House. Having had no facilities for learning, 
 he was forced to teach. He had first to form himself and then to form his 
 instruments, and this not in a single department, but in all the departments 
 of the administration. 
 
 It must be added that, while engaged in this most arduous task, he was con- 
 stantly trammelled by orders from home and frequently borne down by 
 a rriajority in council. The preservation of an Empire from a formidable 
 combination of foreign enemies, the construction of a government in all its 
 parts, were accomplished by him while every ship brought out bales of censure 
 from his employers and while the records of every consultation were filled 
 with acrimonious minutes by his colleagues. We beheve that there never 
 was a public man whose temper was so severely tried — not Marlborough when 
 thwarted by the Dutch Deputies — not Wellington when he had to deal at 
 once with the Portuguese Regency, the Spanish Juntas and Mr. Percival. 
 But the temper of Hastings was equal to almost any trial. It was not sweet ; but 
 it was calm. Quick and vigorous as his intellect was, the patience with 
 which he endured the most cruel vexations, till a remedy could be found, 
 resembled the patience of stupidity. He seems to have been capable of re- 
 sentment, bitter and long enduring ; yet his resentment so seldom hurried 
 him into any blunder that it may be doubted whether what appeared to be 
 revenge was anything but policy. 
 
 The effect of this singular equanimity was that he always had the full 
 command of all the resources of one of the most fertile minds that ever ex- 
 isted. Accordingly, no complication of perils and embarrassments could per- 
 plex him. For every difficulty he had a contrivance ready ; and whatever 
 may be thought of the justice and humanity of some of his contrivances, it is 
 certain that they seldom failed to serve the purpose for which: they were de- 
 signed. • . • • ■ ; 
 
 Together with this extraordinary talent for devising expedients; Hastings 
 possessed^ in a very high degree, another talent scarcely less necessary to a 
 itian in his situation — we mean the talent for conducting political controversy. 
 It is as necessary to an English statesman in the East that he should be able 
 to write as it is to a minister in this country that he should be able to speak. 
 It is chiefly by the oratory of a public man here that the nation judges of his 
 powers. It is from the letters and reports of a public man in India that 
 the dispensers of patronage form their estimate of him. In each case the 
 talent which receives peculiar encouragement is developed, perhaps at the 
 expense of the other powers. In this country we sometimes hear men speak 
 above their abilities. It is not very unusual to find gentlemen in the Indian 
 service who write above their abilities. The English politician is a little too 
 much of a debater ; the Indian politician a little too much of an essayist. 
 
 Of the numerous servants of the Company who have distinguished them- 
 selves as framers of minutes and despatches, Hastings stands at the head. He 
 was indeed the person who gave to the official writing of the Indian govern- 
 ments the character which it still retains. He was matched against no 
 common antagonist. But even Francis was forced to acknowledge, with 
 "Slillen and resentful candour, that there was no contending against the pen 
 •of Hastings. And, in truth, the Governor-General's power of making out 
 a case — of perplexing what it was inconvenient that people should under- 
 std,nd — and of setting in the clearest point of \aew whatever would bear the 
 light — was incomparable. His style must be praised with some reservation. 
 It was in general forcible, pure and polished ; but it was sometimes, though 
 not often, turgid, and, on one or two occasions, even bombastic. Perhaps the 
 fondness of Hastings for Persian literature may have tended to corrupt his taste. 
 
IVA RREN HASTINGS. 67 1 
 
 - And, since we have referred to his literary tastes, it would, be most unjust 
 not to praise the judicious encouragement which, as a, ruler, he gave to 
 liberal studies and curious researches. His patronage was extended, with 
 prudent generosity, to voyages, travels^xperiments, publications. He did 
 little, it is true, towards introducing into India the learning of the West — 
 to make the young natives of Bengal familiar with Milton and Adam Smith — 
 to substitute the geography, astronomy and surgery of Europe for the dotages 
 of the Brahminical superstition or for the imperfect science of ancient Greece 
 transfused through Arabian expositions — this was a scheme reserved to crown 
 the beneficent administration of a far more virtuous ruler. Still, it is impos- 
 sible to refuse high commendation to a man who, taken from a ledger to govern 
 an empire, overwhelmed by public business, surrounded by men as busy as 
 himself and separated by thousands of leagues from almost all literary 
 society, gave, both by his example and by his munificence, a great impulse to 
 learning. In Persian and Arabic literature, he v.as deeply skilled. \Vith the 
 Sanscrit, he was not himself acquainted ; but ihose who first brought that 
 language to the knowledge of European students owed much to his encour- 
 agement. It was under his protection that the Asiatic Society commenced its 
 honourable career. That distinguished body selected him to be its first 
 president ; but with excellent taste and feeling, he declined the honour in 
 favour of Sir William Jones. But the chief advantage which the students of 
 Oriental letters derived from his patronage remains to be mentioned. The 
 Pundits of Bengal had always looked with great jealousy on the attempts of 
 foreigners to pry into those mystei-ies which were locked up in the sacred 
 dialect. Their religion had been persecuted by the . Mahommedans. What 
 they knew of the spirit of the Portuguese government might warrant them in 
 apprehending persecution from Christians. That apprehension, the wisdom 
 and moderation of Hastings removed. Pie was the first foreign ruler who suc- 
 ceeded in gaining the confidence of the hereditary priests of India and who 
 induced them to lay open to English scholars the secrets of the old Brahminical 
 theology and jurisprudence. , . 
 
 It is indeed impossible to deny that, in the great art of inspiring large masses 
 of human beings with confidence and attachment, no ruler ever surpassed 
 Hastings. If he had made himself popular with the English by giving up the 
 Bengalees to extortion and oppression, or if, on the other hand, he had con- 
 • ciliated the Bengalees and alienated the English, there would have been no 
 cause for wonder. What is peculiar to him is that, being the chief of a .small 
 band of strangers who exercised boundless power over a great indigenous 
 population, he made himself beloved both by the subject many and by the 
 dominant few. The affection felt for him by the civil service was singularly 
 ardent and constant. Through all his disasters and perils, his brethren stood 
 by him with steadfast loyalty. The army, at the same time, loved him as 
 armies have seldom loved any but the greatest chiefs who have led them to 
 victory. Even in his disputes with distinguished military men, he could always 
 count on the support of the militar>' profession. While such was his empiie 
 ^ver the hearts of his countrymen, he enjoyed among the natives a popularity 
 such as other governors have perhaps better merited, but such as no othtr 
 governor has been able to attain. He spoke their vernacular dialects wiih 
 facility and precision. He was intimately acquainted with their feelings ar.d 
 usages. On one or two occasions, for great ends, he deliberately acted in 
 defiance of their opinion ; ; but on such occasions he gained more in. their 
 respect than he lost in their love. In general, he carefully avoided all that 
 could shock their national or religious prejudices. Ilis administration was indeed 
 in many re^^ccts faulty ; but the Bengalee standard of good government was 
 
^^2 WARREN- HASTINGS. 
 
 not high. Under the Nabobs, the hurricane of Mahratta cavalry had passed 
 annually over the rich alluvial plain. But even the Mahratta shrank frorri a 
 conflict with the mighty children of the sea ; and the immense rice harvests of 
 the Lower Ganges were safely gathered in under the protection of the English 
 sword. The first English conquerors had been more rapacious and merciless 
 even then the Mahrattas ; but that generation had passed away. Defective as 
 was the police, heavy as were the public burdens, it is probable that the oldest 
 man in Bengal could not recollect a season of equal security and prosperity. 
 For the first time within living memory, the province was placed under a 
 government strong enough to prevent others from robbing and not inclined to 
 play the robber itself These things inspired good-will. At the same time, the 
 constant success of Hastings and the manner in which he extricated himself 
 from every difhcully made him an object of superstitious admiration ; and the 
 more than regal splendour which he sometimes displayed dazzled a people who 
 have much in common with children. Even n6w, after the lapse of more than 
 'fifty years, the natives of India still talk of him as the greatest of the English ; 
 and nurses sing children to sleep with a jingling ballad about the fleet horses 
 and richly caparisoned elephants of Sahib Warren Hostein. 
 
 The gravest offence of which Hastings was guilty did not affect his popularity 
 with the people of Bengal ; for those offences were committed against neigh- 
 bouring states. Those offences, as our readers must have perceived, we are not 
 'disposed to vindicate ; yet, in order that the censure may be justly apportioned 
 (to the transgression, it is fit that the motive of the criminal should be taken into 
 ; consideration. The motive which prompted the worst acts of Hastings was 
 ^misdirected and ill-regulated public spirit. The rules of justice, the sentiments 
 of humanity, the plighted faith of treaties, were in his view as nothing when 
 opposed to the immediate interest of the state. This is no justification accord- 
 ing to the principles either of morality, or, what we believe to be identical with 
 .rnorality, namely, far-sighted policy. Nevertheless, the common sense of man- 
 kind, which in questions of this sort seldom goes far wrong, will always 
 ^recognise a distinction between crimes which originate in an inordinate zeal for 
 the commonwealth and crimes which originate in selfish cupidity. To the 
 benefit of this distinction Hastings is fairly entitled. There is, we conceive, 
 no reason to suspect that the Rohilla war, the revolution of Benares or the 
 .spoliation of the Princesses of Oude added a rupee to his fortune. We will 
 ■'not affirm that, in all pecuniary dealings, he showed that punctiliouj? integrity, 
 that -dread of the faintest appearance of evil, which is now- the glory of the 
 Indian civil service. Butvvhen the school in which he had been trained and 
 • the temptations to which he was exposed are considered, we are more inclined 
 to praise him for his general uprightness with respect to money than rigidly to 
 blame him for a few transactions which would now be called indelicate and 
 f irregular, but which even now would hardly be designated as corrupt. A 
 ■; rapacious man he certainly was not. Had he been so, he would infallibly have 
 ^returned to his country the richest subject in Europe. We speak within 
 .^'compass when we say that, without applying any extraordinary pressure, he 
 J.; might easily have obtained from the zemindars of the Company's provinces 
 [c'and from neighbouring princes, in the course of thirteen years, more than three 
 "millions sterhng, and might have outshorie the splendour of Carlton House and 
 .of the. Palais Royal. He brought home a fortune such as a Governor-General, 
 ./fond of state and careless' of thrift, might easily, during so long a tenure of 
 ; oBice, save out of his legal salary. Mrs. Hastings, we are afraid, was less 
 ;' scrupulous. It was generally believed that she accepted presents with great 
 alacrity, and that she thus formed, without the connivance of her husband, a 
 private hoard amounting to several lacs of rupees. We are the more inclined 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 673 
 
 to give credit to this story because Mr. Gleig, who cannot but have heard it, 
 dqes not, as far as we have observed, notice or contradict it. 
 fii The iiiHuence of Mrs. Hastings over her husband' was indeed such that she 
 .•&i%ht> easily have obt^ained much larg^ sums than she was ever accused of 
 receiving. At length her health began \o give way ; and the Governor-General, 
 much against his will, was compelled to send her to England. He seems to 
 . fe^ve loved her with that love which is peculiar to men of strong minds, to men 
 whose affection is not easily won or widely diffused. The talk of Calcutta ran 
 .for some time on the luxurious manner in which he fitted up the round-house of 
 .;an Indiaman for her accommodation — on^ the profusion of sandal- wood and 
 •<;4rved ivory which adorned her cabin — and on the thousands which had been 
 iixpended in order to procure for her the society of an agreeable female com- 
 panion during the voyage. We may remark here, that the letters of Hastings to 
 : his wife are exceedingly characteristic — ^tender, and full of indications of esteem 
 and confidence j but, at the same time, a little more ceremonious than is usual 
 . irt so intimate a relation. The solemn courtesy with which he compliments 
 ; ''.his elegant Marian " reminds us now and then of the dignified air with which 
 Sir Charles Grandison bowed over Miss Byron's hand in the cedar parlour. 
 YJiiAfter some months, Hastings prepared to follow his wife to England. When 
 •it W[as announced that he was about to quit his office, the feeling of the society 
 •W^ich he had so long governed manifested itself by many signs. Addresses 
 .'poured in from Europeans and Asiatics, from civil functionaries, soldiers and 
 tirad^rs. On the day on which he delivered up the keys of office, a crowd of 
 . friends and admirers formed a lane to the quay where he embarked. Several 
 barges escorted him far down the river ; and some attached friends refused to 
 quit him till the low coast of Bengal was fading from the view and till the 
 .p^ot wj^ts leaving the ship. 
 
 tur.Of his voyage,, little is. known except that he amused himself with books and 
 • with bis pen ; and that^ among the compositions by which he beguiled the tedi- 
 ousriess.pf that long leisure, was a pleasing imitation of Horace's " Otium Divos 
 ■Kogat." This little poem was inscribed to Mr. Shore, afterwards Ix)rd Teign- 
 ntoutb— a man of whose integrity, humanity and honour, it is impossible to 
 speak too highly,, but who, like some other excellent members of the civil ser- 
 vice^,- ejitended to the conduct of his friend Hastings ah indulgence of which his 
 ;ijwn:.<:bnduct. never stood in need. 
 
 ,vi:Tlie yc^age wasj for those times, very speedy. Hastings was little more 
 ^.than.four months on the sea. In June, 17SS, Tie landed at riymouth, posted 
 :to-L,Qndon, appeared at Court, paid his respects in Leadenhall Street, and then 
 retired with his wife to Cheltenham. ; ' . ^, 
 
 .-,\\He was greatly pleased with his reception. The Xving treated him with 
 'marked distinction. The Queen, who had already incurred much censure on 
 account of the favour which, in spite of the ordinary severity of her virtue, she 
 ■■■had shown to the ''elegant Marian," was not less gracious to Hastings. The 
 Directors received him m a solemn sitting* and their chairman read to him a 
 i' vote of thanks, which they had passed without one dissentient voice. " I find 
 iinyseJf," said.HastingSi in.-a ,ktter written about a quarter of a year after his 
 f arrival .in Engfandr " .I- find myself everywhere, and uriiversally, treated with 
 Jj^xidences,. ap.pa:rent even :-to my -OwD; observation, that I possess, the good 
 ,i"<jpiiiidh erf my countiy."- ■ ^ . 
 
 ?o .The confident and exulting tone of his correspondence about fhi?. time is the 
 '.more remarkable because he had already received ample notice of the attack 
 ■ which, was in preparation. Within a week after he landed at Plymouth, Burke 
 . ga.Ve notice in the House of Commons of a motion seriously affeaing a gentle- 
 :■ man lately returned from India. The session, however, wa^ then so fax 
 
 z 
 
% 
 
 WARREN HASTINGS, 
 
 advanced that it was impossible to enter on so extensive and important a 
 subject. - ■ 
 
 Hastings, it is clear, was not sensible of the danger of his position. Indeed, 
 that sagacity, that judgment, that readiness in devising expedients, which had 
 distinguished him in the East, seemed now to have forsaken him ; not that his 
 abilities were at all impaired, not that he was not still the same man who had 
 triumphed over P>ancis and Nuncoinar, who had made the Chief Justice and 
 the Nabob Vizier his tools, who had deposed Cheyte Sing and repelled Hyder 
 AH — but an oak, as Mr. Grattan finely said, should not be transplanted at fifty. 
 A man, who, hating left England when a boy, returns to it after thirty or forty 
 years passed in India, will find, be his talents what they may, that he has much 
 both to learn and to unlearn before he can take a place among English states- 
 men. The working of a representative system, the war of parties, the arts of 
 debate, the influence of the press, are startling novelties to him. Surrounded 
 on every side by new machines and new tactics, he is as much bewildered as 
 Hannibal would have. been at Waterloo or Themistocles at Trafalgar. His 
 very acuteness deludes him. His very vigour causes him t6 stumble. The 
 more correct his maxims, when applied to the state of society to which he 
 is accustomed, the more certain they are to lead him astray. This was strik- 
 ingly the case v/ith Hastings. In India he had a bad hand ; but he was master 
 of the game and he won every stake. In England he held excellent cards if 
 he had known how to play them ; and it was chiefly by his own errors that he 
 was brought to the verge of ruin. 
 
 Oi all his errors, the most serious was perhaps the choice of a champion. 
 Clive, m smiilar circumstai-ices, had made a singularly happy selection. He 
 put himself into the hands of Wedderburn, afterwards Lord Loughborough, one 
 of the few great advocates who have also been great in the House of Commons. 
 To the defence of Chve, therefore, nothing was wanting, neither learning nor 
 knowledge of the world, neither forensic acuteness nor that eloquence which 
 charms political assemblies. Hastings intrusted his interests to a very different 
 person, a Major in the Bengal army named Scott. This gentleman had been 
 sent over from India some time before as the agent of the Governor-General. 
 It was rumoured that his services were rewarded with Oriental munificence ; 
 and we believe that he received much more than Hastings could conveniently 
 spare. The Major obtained a seat in Parliament, and was there regarded as 
 the organ of his employer. It was evidently impossible that a gentleman so 
 situated could speak with the authority which belongs to an independent posi- 
 tion. Nor had the agent of Hastings the talents necessary for obtaining the ear 
 of an assembly which, accustomed to listen to great orators, had naturally be- 
 come fastidious. He was always on his legs ; he was very tedious ; and he had 
 only one topic, the merits and wrongs of Hastings. Everybody who knOws 
 the House of Commons will easily guess what followed. The Major was soon 
 considered as the greatest /i'^/-iJ of his time. His exertions were not confined 
 to Parliament. There was hardly a day on which the newspapers did not con- 
 tain soirje puff upon Hastings signed Asiaiicus or B ugaknsis, but known to 
 the writtei? by the indefatigable Scott; and hardly a month in which some 
 bulky paniphlet on the same subject, and from the same pen, did not pass to the 
 trunkmakers and the pastrycooks. As to this gentleman's capacity for conduct- 
 ing a delicate question through Parliament, our readers will want no evidence 
 beyond that which they will find in letters preserved in these volumes. We 
 will give a single specimen of his temper and judgment. • He designated the 
 greatest man then living as '* that reptile Mf. Burke." 
 
 In spite, however, of this unfortunate choice, the general aspect of affairs 
 was favourable to Hastings. The Kin^ was on his side. The Company an4 
 
WARREM HASTINGS, 675 
 
 '%^ servants were zealous in his cause. Among public men he had many ardent 
 friends. Such were Lord Mansfield, who had outlived the vigour of his body, 
 but not that of his mind ; and *Lord Lansdowne, who, though unconnected 
 with any party, retained the importance which belongs to great talents and 
 knowledge. The ministers were generally believed to be favourable to the late 
 Governor-General. They owed their power to the clamour which had been 
 raised against Mr. Fox's East India Bill. The authors of that bill, when 
 accused of invading vested rights^ and of setting up powers unknown to the 
 constitution, had defended themselves by pointing to the crimes of Hastings, 
 and by arguing that abuses so extraordinary justified extraordinary measures. 
 Those who, by opposing that bill had raised themselves to the head of 
 affairs, would naturally be inclined to extenuate the evils which had been 
 made the plea for administering so violent a remedy; and such, in fact, 
 was their general disposition. The Lord Chancellor Thurlow, in particular, 
 whose great place and force of intellect gave him a weight in the government 
 inferior only to that of Mr. Pitt, espoused the cause of Hastings with inde- 
 corous violence. Mr. Pitt, though he had censured many parts of the Indian 
 system, had studiously abstained from saying a word against the late chief of 
 the Indian Government. To Major Scott, indeed, the young minister had in 
 private extolled Hastings as a great, a wonderful man, who had the highest 
 'ciaims on the government. There was only one objection to granting all that 
 so eminent a servant of the public could ask : The resolution of censure still 
 remained on the journals of the House of Commons. That resolution was, 
 indeed, unjust ; but, till it was rescinded, could the minister advise the King 
 to bestow any mark of approbation on the person censured ? If Major Scott 
 is to be trusted, Mr. Pitt declared that this was the only reason which prevented 
 the advisers of the Crown irom conterrmg a peerage on the late Governor- 
 General. Mr. Dundas was the only important member of the administratioa 
 who was deeply committed to a different view of the subject. He had moved 
 the resolution which created the difficulty ; but even from him little was to be 
 apprehended. Since he had presided over the committee on Eastern affairs, 
 great changes had taken place. He was surrounded by new allies ; he had 
 fixed his hopes on new objects ; and whatever may have been his good 
 qualities— and he had many — flattery itself never reckoned rigid consistency in 
 ^lie number. 
 
 '' From the Ministry, therefore, Hastings had every reason to expect support; 
 and the Ministry was very powerful. The Opposition was loud and vehement 
 against him. But the Opposition, though formidable from' the wealth and 
 influence of some of its members and from the admirable talents and eloquence 
 of others, was outnumbered in parliament and odious throughout the country. 
 Nor, as far as we can judge, was the Opposition generally desirous to engage 
 in so serious an undertakmg as the impeachment of an Indian Governor. 
 Such an impeachment must last for years. It must impose on the chiefs of 
 the party an immense load of labour. Yet it could scarcely in any manner 
 affect the event of the great political game. The followers of the coalition 
 were therefore more inclined to revile Hastings than to prosecute him. They 
 lost no opportunity of coupling his name with the names of the most hateful 
 tyrants of whom history makes mentiop. The wits of Brooks's aimed their 
 keenest sarcasms both at his public and at his domestic life. Some fine 
 diamonds, which he had presented, as it was rumoured, to the royal family, 
 and a certain richly carved ivory bed, which the Queen had done him the 
 honour to accept from him, were favourite subjects of ridicule. One lively 
 poet proposed that the great acts of the fair Marian's present husband 
 should be immortalised by the pencil of his predecessor ; and that Imhoff 
 
^6 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 should be employed to embellish the House of Commons with paintings of 
 the bleeding Rohillas, of Nuncomar swinging, of Cheyte Sing letting 
 himself down to the Ganges. Another, v^ exquisitely humourous par'ody 
 of Virgil's third eclogue, propounded the question — -what that mineral could 
 be of which the rays had power to make the most austere of princesses 
 the friend of a wanton? A third described, with gay malevolence, the 
 gorgeous appearance of Mrs. Hastings at St. James's, the galaxy of jewels, 
 torn from Begums, which adorned her head-dress, her necklace gleaming 
 with future votes, and the depending questions that shone upon her ears. 
 Satirical attacks of this description, and perhaps a motion for a vote ' of 
 censure, would have satisfied the great body of the Opposition. But there 
 were two men whose indignation was not to be so appeased, Philip Erahcis 
 and Edmund Burke. , . i-. 
 
 Francis had recently entered the House of Commons, and had alreiady 
 established a character there for industry and ability. He laboured indeed 
 under one most unfortunate defect, want of fluency. But he occasionally^ ex- 
 pressed himself with a dignity and energy worthy of the greatest orators. 
 Before he had been many days in Parliament, he incurred the bitter dislike of 
 Pitt, who constantly treated him with as much asperity as the laws of debate 
 would allow. Neither lapse of years nor change of scene had mitigated the 
 enmities which Francis had brought back from the East. After his usual 
 fashion, he mistook his malevolence for virtue ; nursed it, as preachers tell' us 
 that we ought to nurse our good dispositions ; and paraded it, on all occasiotiis, 
 with Pharisaical ostentation. ' :i'' 
 
 The zeal of Burke was still fiercer ; but it was far purer. Men, unable to under- 
 stand the elevation of his mind, have tried to find out some discreditable motive 
 for the vehemence and pertinacity which he showed on this occasion. But 
 they have altogether failed. The idle story, that he had some private slight to 
 revenge, has long been given up, even by the advocates of Hastings. Mr. 
 Gleig supposes that Burke was actuated by party spirit, that he retained a 
 bitter remembrance of the fall of the coaHtion, that he attributed tHatfallto 
 the exertions of the East India interest, and that he considered Hastings as the 
 head and the personification of that interest. This explanation seems to be 
 sufficiently refuted by a reference to dates. The hostility of Burke to 
 Hastings commenced loag before the coalition, and lasted long after Burl<e 
 had .become a strenuous supporter of those by whom the coalition had been 
 defeated. It began when Burke and Fox^ closely allied together, were attack- 
 ing the influence of the crown and calling for peace with the American re- 
 public. It continued till Burke, alienated from Fox and loaded with the 
 favours of the Crown, died, preaching a crusade against the French repubHc. 
 We surely cannot attribute to the events of 1784 an enmity which began itl 
 1 78 1, and which retained undiminished force long after persons far more 
 deeply implicated than Hastings in the events of 1784 had been cordially for- 
 given. And why should we look for any other explanation of Burke's conduct 
 than that which we find on the surface ? The plain truth is that Hastings had 
 committed some great crimes, and that the thought of those crimes made the 
 blood of Burke boil in his veins. For Burke was a man in whom compassion 
 for suffering and hatred of injustice and tyranny were as strong as in Las Casas 
 or Clarkson. And although in him," as in Las Casas and in Clarkson, these 
 noble feelings were alloyed with the infirmity which belongs to human nature, 
 he is, like them, entitled to this great praise, that he devoted years of "intense 
 labour to the service of a people with whom he had neither blood nor language, 
 neither rehgion nor manners in common ; and from whom no requital, no 
 thanks, no applause could be' expected. ./.. 
 
«■■> - Ji ..^^ u.^i.. , ^ . .^ . i i .m _ 
 
 His knowledge of India was such as few, even of those Europeans who have 
 passed many years in that country, have attained, and such as certainly 
 [\yr^ never attained by any public man who had not quitted Europe. He 
 ■ijEad studied the history, the laws jind the usages of the East with an 
 l^'^jjidustry such as is seldom found united to so much genius and so much 
 ' ,!$ensibility. Others have perhaps been equally laborious and have collected 
 an equal mass of materials. But the manner in which Burke' btought 
 his higher powers of intellect to work on statements of facts and on tables 
 of figures was peculiar to himself. In every part of those huge bales of 
 Indian information which repelled almost all other readers, his mind, at ortce 
 philosophical and poetical, found something to instruct or to delight. His 
 reason analysed and digested those vast and shapeless masses ; his imagination 
 animated and coloured them. Out of darkness and dullness and confusion, 
 .jhe drew a rich abundance of ingenious theories and vivid pictures. He had, 
 i; in the highest degree, th^t noble faculty whereby man is able to live in the past 
 >nd in the future, in the distant and in the unreal. India and its inhabitants 
 ^were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and abstractions, but a 
 ..real country and a real people. The burning sun, the strange vegetation of the 
 palm aiid the cocoa tree, the rice field, the tank ; the huge trees, older tlvan 
 the Mogul empire, under which the village crowds assemble ; the thatched roof 
 of the p)easant's hut and the rich tracery of the mosque, where the imaun prayed 
 with his face to Mecca ; the drums, and banners and gaudy idols ; the devotee 
 swinging in the air, the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on her head, descend- 
 ing the steps to the river side ; the black faces, the long beards, the yellow 
 .streaks of sect ; the turbans and the flowing robes ; the spears and the silver 
 maces ; the elephants with their canopies of state ; the gorgeous palanquin of 
 the prince and the close litter of the noble lady — all these things were to him 
 as the objects amidst which his own life had been passed, as the objects which 
 lay on the road between Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All India was 
 present to the eye of his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold and per- 
 fumes at the feet of sovereigns to the wild moor where the gipsy camp was 
 pitched— from the bazaar, humming like a beehive with the crowd of buyers 
 and sellers, to the jungle where the lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron 
 rings to scare away the hyxnas. He had just as lively an idea of the insurrec- 
 tion at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and of the execution of 
 Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppression in Bengal was to him 
 the same thing as oppression in the streets of London. 
 
 He saw that Hastings had been guilty of some most unjustifiable acts. All 
 that followed was natural and necessary in a mind like Burke's. His imagina- 
 tion and his passions, once excited, hurried him beyond the bounds of justice 
 and good sense. His reason, powerful as it was, was reduced to be the slave 
 of feelings which it should have controlled. His indignation, virtuous in its 
 origin, acquired too much of the character of personal aversion. He could 
 see no mitigating circumstances, no redeeming merit. His temper, which> 
 though generous and affectionate, had always been irritable, had now been 
 made almost savage by bodily infirmities and mental vexations. Conscious of 
 great powers and great virtues, he found himself, in age and poverty, a mark 
 for the hatred of a perfidious court and a deluded people. In Parliament his 
 eloquence was out of date. A young generation, which knew him not, had 
 filled the House. Whenever he rose to speak, his voice was drowned by the 
 unseemly interruption of lads who were in their cradles when his orations on the 
 Stamp Act called forth the applause of the great Earl of Chatham. These thingi^ 
 had produced on his proud and sensitive spirit an effect at which we cannot 
 wonder. He could no longer discuss any question with calmness, or inalcc 
 
67S WARREN HASTING^. 
 
 allowances for honest differences of opinion. Those who think that he "was 
 more violent and acrimonious in debates about India than on other occasions 
 are ill-informed respecting the last years of his life. In the discussions on the 
 Commercial Treaty with the Court of Versailles^ on the Regency, on the 
 French Revolution, he showed even more virulence than in conducting the 
 impeachment. Indeed, it may be remarked that the very persons who repre- 
 sented him as a mischievous maniac, for condemning iu burning words the 
 Rohilla war and the spoliation of the Begums, exalted him into a prophet as 
 soon as he began to declaim, with greater vehemence, and not with greater 
 raason, against the taking of the Bastile and the insults offered to Marie 
 Antoinette. To us he appears to have been neither a maniac in the former 
 case nor a prophet in the latter, but in both cases a great and good man, led 
 into extravagance by a tempestuous sensibility which domineered over all his 
 faculties. , • ; ': 
 
 It may be doubted whether the personal antipathy of Francis or the nobler in- 
 dignation of Burke would have led their party to adopt extreme measures against 
 Hastings if his own conduct had been judicious. He should have felt that, 
 great as his public services had been, he was not faultless ; and should have 
 been content to make his escape without aspiring to the honours of a triumph. 
 He and his agent took a different view. They were impatient for the rewards 
 which, as they conceived, w^ere deferred only till Burke's attack should be over. 
 They accordingly resolved to force on a decisive action with an enemy for 
 whom, if they had been wise, they would have made a bridge of gold. On 
 the first day of the session of 1786, Major Scott reminded Burke of the notice 
 given in the preceding year, and asked whether it was seriously intended to bring 
 any charge against the late Governor-General. This challenge left no course open 
 to the Opposition except to come forward as accusers or to acknowledge them- 
 selves calumniators. The administration of Hastings had not been so blameless, 
 nor was the great party of Fox and North so feeble, that it could be prudent to 
 venture on so bold a defiance. The leaders of the Opposition instantly returned 
 the only answer which they could with honour return, and the whole party was 
 irrevocably pledged to a prosecution. 
 
 Burke began his operations by applying for Papers. Some of the documents 
 for which he asked were refused by the ministers, who, in the debate, held 
 language such as strongly confirmed the prevailing opinion that they intended to 
 support Hastings. In April, the charges were laid on the table. They had 
 been drawn by Burke with great ability, though in a form too much resembling 
 that of a pamphlet. Hastings was furnished with a copy of the accusation, and 
 it was intimated to him that he might, if he -thought fit, be heard in his own 
 defence at th^ bar of the Commons. • , 
 
 Here again Hastings was pursued by the same fatality which had attended 
 him ever since the day when he set foot on English ground. It seemed to be 
 decreed that this man, so politic and so successful in the East; should commit 
 nothing but blunders in Europe. Any judicious adviser would have told him 
 that he best thing which he could do would be to make an eloquent, forcible 
 and affecting oration at the bar of the House ; but that, if he could not trust 
 himself to speak, and found it necessaiy to read, he ought to be as concise as 
 possible. Audiences accustomed to extemporaneous debating of the highest 
 excellence are always impatient of long, written compositions. Hastings, how- 
 ever, sat down as he would have done at the Government House in Bengal and 
 prepared a paper of immense length. This paper, if recorded on the consulta- 
 tions of an Indian administration, v/ould have been justly praised as a very able 
 minute. But it was now out of place. It fell flat, as the best written defence 
 must have fallen flat, on an assembly accustomed to the animated and strenuous 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. C79 
 
 conflicts of Pitt and Fox. The members, as soon as their curiosity about the 
 face and demeanour of so eminent a stranger was satisfied, walked away to 
 dinner and left Hastings i;© teli his story-till ' midnight td'tKe clei*ks and the 
 Serjeant-at-arms. ^ ■* J:>;-'!.'..:).y .; •.; ■ ....;:.,. -^-v/j- ;,-• ■■■■;;v ;..,. '• 
 
 All preliminary steps haviiig"'b'6en ^y taken, Burkei in th6 beginning 6f 
 June, brought forward the charge relating to the Rohilla war. - He acted dis- 
 creetly in placing this accusation in the van ; for Dundas had formerly moved, 
 and -the House had adopted, a resolution condemning, in the most severe terms, 
 tiiQ policy followed by Hastings with regard to Rohilcund. Dundas had little, 
 or rather nothing, to say in defence of his own consistency ; but he put a bold 
 face on the mattef and opposed the motion. Among other things, he declared 
 that, though he still thought the Rohilla war unjustifiable, he considered the 
 services which Hastings had subsequently rendered to the state as sufficient to 
 atone even for so great an offence. Pitt did not speak, • but voted with 
 Dundas; and Hastings was absolved by a hundred and nineteen votes against 
 sixty-seven. 
 
 Hastings was now confident of victory. It seemed, indeed, that he 
 had reason to be so. The Rohilla war was, of all his measures, 
 that which his accusers might with greatest advantage assail. It 
 had been condemned by the Court of Directors. It had been condemned 
 by the House of Commons. It had been condemned by Mr. Dundas, 
 who had since become the chief minister of the Crown for Indian affairs. Yet 
 Burke, having chosen this strong ground, had been completely defeated on it. 
 That, having failed here, he should succeed on any point, was generally 
 thought impossible. It was rumoured at the clubs and coffee-houses that one 
 or perhaps two more charges would be brought forward, that if, on those 
 charges, the sense of the House of Commons should be against impeachment, 
 the Opposition would let the matter drop ; that Hastings would be immediately 
 raised to the peerage, decorated with the star of the Bath, sworn of the privy 
 council, and invited to lend the assistance of his talents and experience to the 
 India board. Lord Thurlow, indeed, some months before, had spoken with 
 contempt of the scruples which prevented Pitt from calling Hastings to the 
 House of Lords ; and had even said that, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 was afraid of the Commons, there was nothing to prevent the Keeper . of the 
 Great vSeal from taking the royal pleasure about a patent of peerage. The 
 very title was chosen. Hastings was to be Lord Daylesford. For, through aU 
 changes of scene and changes of fortune, remained unchanged his attachment 
 to the spot which had witnessed the greatness and the fall of his family, and 
 which had borne so great a part in the first dreams of his young ambition. 
 
 But in a very few days these fair prospects were overcast. On the 13th of 
 June, Mr.' Fox brought forward, with great ability and eloquence, the charge 
 respecting the treatment of Cheyte Sing. Francis follovved on the same side. 
 The friends of Hastings were in high spirits when Pitt rose. With his usual 
 abundance and felicity of language, the Minister gave his opinion on the case. 
 He maintained that the Governor-General was justified in calling on the Rajah 
 of Benares for pecuniary assistance and in imposing a fine when that assistance 
 was contumaciously withheld. He also thought that the conduct of the 
 Governor-General during the insurrection had been distinguished by ability 
 and presence of mind. He censured, with great bitterness, the conduct of 
 Francis, both in India and in Parliament, as most dishonest and malignant. 
 The necessary inference from Pitt's argument seemed to be that Hastings ought 
 to be honourably acquitted; and both the friends and the opponents of the 
 Minister expected from him a declaration to that effect. To the astonishment 
 of all parties, he cpnchK}(?d by saying- that, though he thought it right in 
 
6So WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 Hastings to fine Cheyte Sing for contumacy, yet the amount of the fine was too 
 great for the occasion. On this ground, and on this ground alone, did Mr* 
 Pitt, applauding every other part of the conduct of Hastings with regard to 
 Benares, declare that he should vote in favour of Mr. Fox's motion* 
 
 The House was thunderstruck ; and it well might be so. For the wrong 
 done to Cheyte Sing, even had it been as flagitious as Fox and Francis eon- 
 tended, was a trifle when compared to the horrors which had been inflicted qq. 
 Rohilcuud. But if Mr. Pitt's view of the case of Cheyte Sing were correcti 
 there was no ground for an impeachment or even for a vote of censure. If the 
 ofience of Hastings was really no more than this, that, having a right to impose 
 a mulct, the amount of which mulct was not defined, but was left to be settled 
 by his discretion, he had, not for his own advantage, but for that of the state^ 
 demanded too much, was this an offence which required a criminal proceedmg 
 of the highest solemnity : a criminal proceeding to which, during sixty years^ 
 no public functionary had been subjected? We can see, we think, in whiat 
 way a man of sense and integrity might have been induced to take any course 
 respecting Hastings except the course which Mr. Pitt took. Such a man might 
 have thought a great example necessary for the preventing of injustice and for 
 the vindicating of the national honour, and might, on that ground, have voted 
 for impeachment both on the Rohilla charge and on the Benares charge. Such 
 a man might have thought that the offences of Hastings had been atoned for 
 by great services, and might, on that ground, have voted against the. impciach,- 
 ment on both charges. With great diffidence, we give it a^ our opinion that 
 the most correct course would, on the whole, have been to impeach on the 
 Rohilla charge and to acquit on the Benares charge. Had the Benares charge 
 appeared to us in the same light in which it appeared to Mr. Pitt, we should, 
 without hesitation, have voted for acquittal on that charge. The. one course 
 which it is inconceivable that any man of a tenth part of Mr. Pitt'? abilities 
 can have honestly taken was the course which he took. He acquitted Hastings 
 on the Rohilla charge. He softened down the Benares charge till it becan^tt 
 no charge at all; and then he pronounced that it contained matter for im- 
 peachment. ; •...•.; 
 
 Nor must it be forgotten that the principal reason assigned by the ministry 
 for not impeaching Hastings on account of the Rohilla war was this^ that .the* 
 delinquencies' of the early part of his administration had been atoned for by the 
 excellence of the later part. Was it not most extraordinar}' that men who 
 had held this language could afterwards vote that the later part of his adminis- 
 tration furnished matter for no less than twenty articles of impeachment? They 
 first contended that the conduct of Hastings in 1780 and 1781 was so highly 
 meritorious that, like works of supererogation in the Catholic theology, it ought 
 to be efficacious for the cancelhng of former offences ; and they then prosecuted 
 him for his conduct in 1780 and 1781. v • . - 
 
 The general astonishment was the greater, becausci only twenty-four hours 
 before, the members on whom the minister could depend had received the 
 usual notes from the Treasury, begging them to be in their places and to vote 
 against Mr. Fox's motion. It was asserted by Mr. Hastings that, early on the 
 morning of the very day on which the debate took place, Dundas called on 
 Pitt, woke him, and was closeted with him many hours. The result of this 
 conference was a determination to give up the late Governor-General to the 
 vengeance of the Opposiiion. It was impossible even for the most powerful 
 minister to carry all his followers with him in so strange a course. Several 
 persons high in office, the Attorney-General, Mr. Grenville and Lord Mul- 
 grave, divided against Mr. Pitt. But the devoted adherents who stood by the 
 head of the government without asking questions were sufficiently numerous to 
 
WARREN HASTJSy.S. CSi 
 
 turn the scale. A hundred and nineteen members voted for Mr.- Fox's motion; 
 seventy-nine against it. Dundas silently followed Pitt. - 
 
 ■ That good and great man, the late William Wilberforce, often related, the 
 events of this remarkable night. He cf^scribed tlie amazement of the House, 
 arid the bitter reflections which were muttered against the Prime Minister by 
 some of the habitual supporters of government. Pitt himself appeared to feel 
 that his conduct required some explanation. He left the treasury bench, sat 
 for" some time next to Mr. Wilberforce, and very earnestly declared that he 
 had found it impossible, as a man of conscience, to stand any longer by 
 Hiastings. The business, he said, was too bad. Mr. Wilberforce, we are 
 bound to add, fully believed that his friend was sincere, and that the suspicions 
 to which this mysterious affair gave rise were altogether unfounded. 
 ^ Those suspicions, indeed, were such as it is painful to mention. The friends 
 of Hastings, most of whom, it is to be observed, generally supported the ad- 
 ministration, affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealousy. 
 Hastings was personally a favourite with the King. He was the idol of the 
 East India Company and of its servants. If he were absolved by the 
 Commons, seated among the Lords, admitted to the Eoard of Control, 
 closely allied with the strong-minded and imperious Thurlow, was it not 
 almost certain that he would soon draw to himself the entire management of 
 Eastern affairs? Was it not possible that he might become a formidable rival 
 Yd the cabinet ? It had probably got al)road that very singular communica- 
 tions had taken place between Thurlow and Major Scott, and that, if the First 
 Lord of the Treasury was afraid to recommend Hastings for a peerage, the 
 Chancellor was ready to take the responsibihty of that step on himself. Of all 
 mmisters, Pitt was the least likely to submit with patience to such an encroach- 
 ment on his functions. If the Commons impeached Hastings, all danger was 
 at an end. The proceeding, however it might terminate, would probably last 
 some years. In the meantime, the accused person would be excluded from 
 honours and public employments, and could scarcely venture even to pay his 
 duty at court. Such were the motives attributed by a great part of the public 
 to the young minister, whose ruling passion was generally believed to be 
 avance of power. 
 
 The prorogation soon interrupted the discussions respecting Hastings. In 
 the following year, those discussions w-ere resumed. The charge touching the 
 spoliation of the Begums was brought forward by Sheridan in a speech which 
 was so imperfectly reported that it may be said to be wholly lost, but which 
 was, without doubt, the most elaborately briUiant of all the productions of his 
 ingenious mind. The impression which it produced was such as has never 
 been equalled. He sat down, not merely amidst cheering, but amidst the loud 
 clapping of hands, in which the Lords below the bar and the strangers in the 
 gallery joined. The excitement of the House was such that no other speaker 
 could obtain a hearing^ ; and the debate was adjourned. The impression made 
 by this remarkable display of eloquence on severe and experienced critics, 
 whose discernment may be supposed to have been quickened by emulation, 
 was deep and permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that the 
 speech deserved all its fame, dnd was, in spite of some faults of taste such as 
 were seldom wanting either in the literary or in the parliamentar)^ performances 
 of Sheridan, the finest that had been delivered within the memory of man. 
 Mr. Fox, about the same time, being asked by the late Lord Holland what 
 was the best speech ever made in the House of Commons, assigned the fir^i 
 place, without hesitation, to the great oration of Sheridan on the Oude charge. 
 
 When the debate was resumed, the tide ran so strongly against the accused 
 •that his friends were coughed and scraped do-vvn I*itt declared himself for 
 
682 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 Sheridan's motion ; and the question was carried by a Th'nndred and seventy-'five 
 votes against sixty-eight. - ; 
 
 The Opposition, flushed Avith victory and strongly supported by, the public 
 sympathy, proceeded to bring forward a succession of charges relating chiefly 
 to pecuniary transactions. The friends of Hastings were discouraged, and, 
 having now no h©pe of being able to avert an impeachment, v.^ere not very 
 strenuous in their exertions. At length the House, having agreed to twenty 
 articles of charge, directed Burke to go before the Lords and to impeach the 
 late Governor-General of High Crimes and Misdemeanours. Hastings was at 
 the same time arrested by the Serjeant-at-arms and carried to the bar of the 
 Peers. ',,.,• , ' . 
 
 The session was now within ten days of its clcise. It was, therefore, irtijjos- 
 sible that any progress could be made in the trial till the next year. Hastings 
 was admitted to bail ; and further proceedings were postponed till the Houses 
 •should re-assemble. 
 
 When Parliament met in the following winter, the Commons proceeded to 
 elect a committee for managing the impeachment. Burke stood at the head ; 
 and with him were associated most of the leading members of the Opposition. 
 But when the name of Francis was read, a fierce contention arose. It was said 
 that Francis and Hastings were notoriously on bad terms, that they had' been^ 
 at feud during many years, that on one occasion their mutual aversion had im- 
 pelled them to seek each other's lives, and that it would be improper and 
 indelicate to select a private enemy to be a public accuser. It was urged on 
 the other side with great force, particularly by Mr. Windham, that impartiality, 
 though the first duty of a judge, had never been reckoned among the qualities 
 of an advocate ; that in the ordinary administration of criminal justice among 
 the English, the aggrieved party, the very last person who ought to be admitted 
 into the jury-box, is the prosecutor ; that what was wanted in a manager was, 
 not that he should be free from bias, but that he should be energetic," able, 
 well-informed and active. The ability and information of Francis were ad- 
 mitted ; and the very animosity with which he was reproached, whether a virtue 
 or a vice, was at least a pledge for his energy and activity. It seems difficult 
 to refute these arguments. But the inveterate hatred borne by Francis to 
 Hastings had excited general disgust. The House decided that Francis should 
 not be a manager. Pitt voted with the majority, Dundas with the minority. 
 
 In the meantime, the preparations for the trial had proceeded rapidly ; 
 and on the 13th of February, 1788, the sittings of the Court commenced. 
 There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous • with 
 jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children, tlian 
 that whiclr was then exhibited at "Westminster ; but, perhaps, there never was 
 a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly cultivated, a reflecting, ■ an 
 imaginative mind. All the various kinds of interest which belong to the 
 near and to the distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one 
 spot and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments which are 
 developed by liberty and civilisation were now displayed with every ad- 
 vantage that could be derived both from co-operation and from contrast. 
 Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through 
 /nany troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of Qur consti- 
 tution were laid ; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, "to dusky 
 nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange god's, ' and writing 
 strange characters, from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to • 
 sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an 
 Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the lord of the 'holy city, of 
 Benares and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude. ' 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 683 
 
 The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William 
 Rufus, the haU which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of 
 thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon and the 
 just absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a 
 moment awed and melted a victorious ptffty inflamed with just resentment, the 
 hall where Charles had confronted the High Court of Justice with the placid 
 courage which has half redeemed his fame. Neither military nor pivil pomp 
 was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept 
 clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by 
 thq heralds under Garter King-at-arms. The judges in their vestments of state 
 attended to give advice on pomts of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, 
 three-fourths of the Upper House as the Upper House then was, walked in 
 solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The junior 
 Baron present led the way, Lord Heath field, recently ennobled for his memor- 
 able defence of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. 
 The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the 
 realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the King. Last 
 of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble 
 bearing. The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries 
 were crowded by an audience such as has rarely excited the fears or the 
 emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a 
 great, free, enlightened and prosperous empire, grace and female loveliness, 
 wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art. 
 There were seated round the Queen the fair-haired young daughters of the 
 house of Brunswick. There the Ambassadors of great Kings and Common- 
 wealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no other country in the 
 world could present. There Siddons, in the prime of her majestic beauty, 
 looked with emotion on a scene surpassing all the imitations of the stage. 
 There the historian of the Roman Empire thought of the days when Cicero 
 pleaded the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate which 
 still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered against the oppressor 
 of Africa. There were seen, side by side, the greatest painter and the greatest 
 scholar of the age. The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which 
 has preserved to u§ the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers and statesmen 
 and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons. It had induced Parr to suspend 
 his labours in that dark and profound mine from v/hich he had extracted a vast 
 treasure of erudition— a treasure too often buried in the earth, too often paraded 
 with injudicious and inelegant ostentation ; but still precious, massive and 
 splendid. There appeared the voluptuous charms of her to whom the heir of 
 the throne had in secret plighted his faith. There too was she, the beautiful 
 mother of a beautiful race, the Saint Cecilia, whose delicate features, lighted 
 up by love and music, art has rescued from the common decay. There were 
 the members of that briUiant society which quoted, criticised and exchanged 
 repartees under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montague. And there the 
 ladies, whose lips, more persuasive than those of !Fox himself, had carried the 
 Westminster election against palace and treasury, shone round Georgicna, 
 Duchess of Devonshire. . , 
 
 The Serjeants made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar and bent 
 his knee. The culprit was indeed not unworthy of that great presence. He 
 had ruled an extensive and populous country', had made laws and treaties, had 
 sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place 
 he had so borne himself that all had feared him, that most had loved him, 
 and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory e.xcept virtue. He 
 looked like a great man and not like a bad man. A person small and 
 
684 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 emaciated, yet deriving dignity from a carriage which, while it indicated 
 deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession atid self-respect ; 
 3^ high and intellectual forehead ; a brow, pensive, but not gloomy ; a mouth 
 of inflexible decision ; a face, pale and worn, but serene, on which was written, 
 as'iegibly as under the picture in the council-chamber at Calcutta, Mms leqtta 
 marduis ; such was the aspect with which the great Proconsul presented him- 
 self to his judges. ' " ' 
 '^Hls counsel accompanied him, men all of whom were afterwards raised by 
 their talents and learning to the highest posts in their profession — the bold and 
 siicbng-minded Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench ; the rs\oxt 
 humane and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; 
 and Plomer who, near twenty years later, successfully conducted in the same 
 high court the defence of Lord Melville, -and subsequently became Vice- 
 chancellor and Master of the Rolls. 
 
 ■fPiit neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much notice as the 
 •accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up 
 with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers, with Burke 
 at their head, appeared in full dress. The collectors of gossip did not fail to 
 remark that even Fox, generally so regardless of his appearance, had paid 
 to the illustrious tribunal the compliment of wearing a bag and sword. 
 Pitt had refused to be one of the conductors of the impeachment ; and his 
 cqtnmanding, copious and sonorous eloquence was wanting to that great muster 
 ojf various talents. Age and blindness had unfitted Lord North for the duties 
 oi;' a public prosecutor ; and his friends were left without the help of hia 
 excellent sense, his tact and his urbanity. But in spite of the absence of these 
 two distinguished members of the Lower House, the box in which the 
 managers stood contained an array of speakers such as perhaps had not 
 appeared together since the great age of Athenian eloquence. There stood 
 Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes and the English Hyperides. 
 There was Burke, ignorant, indeed, or negligent of the art of adapting his 
 reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in ampli- 
 tude of comprehension and richness of imagination superior to every orator, 
 ai>cient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke, appeared 
 the' finest gentleman of the age — his form developed by every manly exer- 
 cise — his face beaming with intelligence and spirit - the ingenious, the chival- 
 rous, the high-souled Windham. Nor, though surrounded by such men, did 
 the youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age when most of those who 
 distinguish themselves in life are still contending for prizes and fellowships at 
 college, he had won for himself a conspicuous place in parliament. No 
 advantage of fortune or connection was wanting that could set off to the height 
 his splendid talents and his unblemished honour. At twenty-three he had 
 been thought worthy to be ranked with the veteran statesmen who appeared 
 as the delegates of the British Commons at the bar of the British nobility. 
 All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone — culprit, advocates, 
 accusers. To the generation which is now in the vigour of life, he is the sole 
 representative of a great age which has passed away. But those who, within 
 the last ten years, have listened with dehght, till the morning sun shone on 
 the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of 
 Charles, Earl Grey, are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of 
 men among whom he was not the foremost. 
 
 The charges, and the answers of Hastings, were first read. The ceremony 
 occupied two whole days, and was rendered less tedious than it would other, 
 wise have been by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of 
 tl^e<^(>trrt, a pfsayj-elation of the amiable poet. On the third day Burke ros«? 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 685 
 
 I'pur, sittings of the court were occupied by his opening speech, which was 
 {^^tended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of 
 taught and a splendour of diction which more than satisfied the highly raised 
 Expectation of the audience, he described the character and institutions pf the 
 natives of India ; recounted the circumstances in which the Asiatic empire of 
 Britain had originated ; and set forth the constitution of the Company and of 
 the English Presidencies. Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers 
 an idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he 
 jypceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings, as systematically conducted 
 in^defia^nce of moralityand public law. The energy and pathos of the great 
 org^tQ.r extorted expressions of unwonted admiration from the stern and hostile 
 ChiVncellor, and, for. a moment, seemed to pierce even the resolute heart of the 
 defendant. The ladies in the galleries, unaccustomed to such displays of 
 dejquenee, excited by the solemnity of the occasion, and perhaps not unwiUing 
 1.0 display their taste and sensibility, were in a state of uncontrollable emotion. 
 Handkerchiefs were pulled out ; smelling bottles were handed round ; hysterical 
 5pbs and screams were heard : and Mrs. Sheridan was carried out in a fit. At 
 Ig^pgth the orator concluded. Raising his voice till the old arches of Irish oak 
 rebounded, "Therefore," said he, " hath it with all confidence been ordered, 
 % the Commons of Great Britain, that I impeach Warren Hastings of high 
 crimes and misdemeanours. I impeach him in the name of the Commons' 
 IJouse of Parliament, whose trust he has betrayed. I impeach him in the 
 name of the English nation, whose ancient honour he has sullied. 'I impeach 
 hini in^ the name of the people of India, whose rights he has trodden under foot 
 and whose country he has turned into a desert. Lastly, in the name of human 
 nature itself, in the name of both sexes, in the name of every age, in the name 
 of every rank, I impeach the common enemy and oppressor of all !" 
 
 When the deep murmur of various emotions had subsided, Mr. Fox rose 
 to address the Lords respecting the course of proceeding to be followed. The 
 wjsh of the accusers was that the Court would bring to a close the investigation 
 of the first charge before the second was opened. The wish of Hastings and of 
 I?is counsel was that the managers should open all the charges and produce all 
 the evidence for the prosecution before the defence began. The Lords retired 
 to. their own House to consider the question. The Chancellor took the side of 
 I listings. Lord Loughborough, who was now in opposition, supported the 
 dgniand of the managers. The division showed which way the inclination of 
 the tribunal leaned. A majority of near three to one decided in favour of the 
 course for which Hastings contended. 
 
 When the Court sat again, Mr. Fox, assisted by Mr. Grey, opened the 
 charge respecting Cheyte Sing, and several days were spent in reading papers 
 and hearing witnesses. The next article was that relating to the Princesses of 
 Quae. The conduct of this part of the case was intrusted to Sheridan. The 
 curiosity of the public to hear him was unbounded. His sparkling and highly- 
 finished declamation lasted two days ; but the Hall was crowded to suffocation 
 dviring the whole time. It was said that fifty guineas had been paid for a 
 single ticket. Sheridan, when he concluded, contrived, with a knowledge of 
 stage effect which his father might have envied, to sink back, as if exhausted, 
 into the arms of Burke, who hugged him with tlie energy of generous 
 admiration. 
 
 June was now far advanced. The session could not last much longer ; and 
 the progress which had been made in the impeachment was not very satis- 
 factory. There were twenty charges. On two only of these had even the 
 c^se for the prosecution be?n heard \ ^nd it was ii9w a year since Hoistings ha4 
 been adniitte4 to bail, 
 
686 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 The interest taken by the public in the trial was great when the Court began 
 to sit, and rose to the height when Sheridan spoke on the charge relating to 
 the Begums. From that time the excitement went down fast. The spectacle 
 had lost the attraction of novelty. The great displays of rhetoric were over. 
 What was behind was not of a nature to entice men of letters from their books 
 in the morning, or to tempt ladies who had left the masquerade at two to be 
 out of bed before eight. There remained examinations and cross-examinations. 
 There remained statements of accounts. There remained the reading of papers, 
 filled with words unintelligible to English ears— with lacs and crores, zemindars 
 and' aumils, sunnuds and perwannahi;, jaghires and nuzzurs. There remained 
 bickerings, not always carried on witli the best taste or with the best temper, 
 between the managers of the impeachment and the counsel for the defence, 
 particularly between Mr. Burke and Mr. Law. There remained the endless 
 marches and counter-marches of the Peers between their House and the Hall : 
 for as often as a point of law was to be discussed, their Lordships retired to 
 discuss it apart ; and the consequence was, as a Peer wittily said, that the 
 judges walked and the trial stood still. 
 
 It is to be added that, in the spring of 1788, when the trial commenced, no 
 important question, either of domestic or foreign policy, occupied the public 
 mind. The proceeding in Westminster Hall, therefore, naturally attracted most' 
 of the attention of Parliament and of the country. It was the one great event ot; 
 that season. But in the following year, the King's illness, the debates on the 
 Regency, the expectation of a change of ministry, completely diverted public 
 attention from Indian affairs ; and within a fortnight after George the Third 
 had returned thanks in St. Paul's for his recovery, the States-General of France 
 met at Versailles. In the midst of the agitatioii produced by these events, the 
 impeachment was for a time almost forgotten. 
 
 The trial in the Hall went on languidly. In the session of 1788, when the 
 proceedings had the interest of novelty and when the Peers had little other 
 business before them, only thirty-five days were given to the impeachment. In 
 1789, the Regency Bill occupied the Upper House till the session was far ad- 
 vanced. When the King recovered, the circuits were beginning. The judges 
 left town ; the Lords waited for the return of the oracles of jurisprudence'; and 
 the consequence was that during the whole year only seventeen days were 
 given to the case of Hastings. It was clear that the matter would be pro- 
 tracted to a length unprecedented in the annals of criminal law. 
 
 In truth, it is impossible to deny that impeachment, though it is a fine 
 ceremony, and though it may have been useful in the seventeenth century, is 
 not a proceeding from which much good can now be expected. Whatever 
 confidence may be placed in the decision of the Peers on an appeal arising out 
 of ordinary htigation, it is certain that no man has the least confidence in their 
 impartiality when a great public functionary, charged with a great state crime, 
 is brought to their bar. They are all politicians. There is hardly one among 
 them whose vote on an impeachment may not be confidently predicted before 
 a witness has been examined ; and, even if it were possible to rely on their 
 justice, they would still be quite unfit to try such a cause as that of Hastings. 
 They sit only during half the year. They have to transact much legislative 
 and much judicial business. The law-lords, whose advice is required to guide 
 the unlearned majority, are employed daily in administering justice elsewhere. 
 It is impossible, therefore, that during a busy session the Upper House should 
 give more than a few days to an impeachment. To expect that their Lord- 
 ships would give up partridge-shooting in order to bring the greatest delinquent 
 to speedy justice, or to relieve accused innocence by speedy acquittal, would 
 be unreasonable indeed, A well constituted tribunal, sitting regularly six days 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 687 
 
 in the week and nine hours in the day, would have brought the trial of 
 Hastings to a close in less than three months. The* Lords had not finished 
 their work in seven years. 
 
 The result ceased to be matter of dcrubt from the time when the Lords 
 resolved that they would be guided by the rules of evidence which are received 
 in the inferior courts of the realm. Those rules, it is well known, exclude 
 much information which would be quite sufikient to determine the conduct of 
 any reasonable man in the most important transactions of private life. These 
 rules, at every assizes, save scores of culprits whom judges, jury and spectators 
 firmly believe to be guilty. But, when those rules were rigidly applied to 
 offences committed many years before, at the distance of many thousands of 
 miles, conviction was, of course, out of the question. We do not blame the 
 accused and his counsel for availing themselves of every legal advantage in 
 order to obtain an acquittal. But it is clear that an acquittal so obtained 
 cannot b,e pleaded in bar of the judgment of history. 
 
 • Several attempts were made by tJie friends of Hastings to put a stop to the 
 trial. In 1789 they proposed a vote of censure upon Burke for some violent 
 language which he had used respecting the death of Nuncomar and the connec- 
 tion between Hastings and Impcy. Burke was then unpopular in the last 
 degree both with the House and with the country. The asperity and indecency 
 of some expressions which he had used during the debates on the Regency had 
 annoyed even his warmest friends. The vote of censure was carried ; and 
 those who had moved it hoped that the managers would resign in disgust, 
 Burke was deeply hurt. But his zeal for what he considered as the cause of 
 justice and mercy triumphed over his personal feelings. He received the 
 censure of the House with dignity and meekness, and declared that no personal 
 mortification or humiliation should induce him to flinch from the sacred duty 
 which he had undertaken. 
 
 In the following year, the Parliament was dissolved ; and the friends of 
 Hastings entertained a hope that the new Plouse of Commons might not be 
 disposed to go on with the impeachment. They beg&n by maintaining that the 
 whole proceeding was terminated by the dissolution. Defeated on this point, 
 they made a direct motion that the impeachment should be dropped ; but they 
 were defeated by the combined forces of the Government and the Opposition. 
 It was, however, resolved that, for the sake of expedition, many of the articles 
 should be withdrawn. In truth, had not some such measure been adopted, 
 the trial would have lasted till the defendant was in his grave. 
 
 At length, in the spring of 1795, the decision was pronounced, nearly eight 
 years after Hastings had been brought by the Serjeant-at-arms of the Commons 
 to the bar of the Lords. On the last day of this great procedure, the public 
 curiosity, long suspended, seemed to be revived. Anxiety about the judgment 
 there could be none ; for it had been fully ascertained that there was a great 
 majority for the defendant. But many wished to see the pageant, and the Hall 
 was as much crowded as on the first day. But those who, having been present 
 on the first day, now bore a part in the proceedings of the last- were few j and 
 most of those few were altered men. 
 
 As Hastings himself said, the arraignment had taken place before one 
 generation and the judgment was pronounced by another. The spectator 
 could not look at the woolsack, or at the red benches of the Peers, or at the 
 green benches of the Commons, without seeing something that reminded him 
 of the msiability of all human things ; of the instability of power and fame 
 and life, of the more lamentable instability of friendship. The great seal was 
 borne before Lord Loughborough, who, when the trial commenced, was a 
 fierce opponent of Mr. Pitt's government, and who was now a member of that 
 
688 WARREN: HASTINGS. 
 
 government, while Thurlow, who presided in the court when it first sat, 
 estranged from all his old allies, sat scowHng among the junior barons* Of 
 about a hundred and sixty nobles who walked in the procession on the first day, 
 sixty had been laid in their family vaults. Still more affecting must have been 
 the sight of the manager's box. What had become of that fair fellowship, so 
 closely bound together by public and private ties, so resplendent with evety 
 talent and accomplishment? It had been scattered by calamities more bitter 
 than the bitterness of death. The great chiefs were still living and still in the 
 full vigour of their genius. But their friendship was at an end. It had been 
 violently and publicly dissolved, with tears and stormy reproaches. If those 
 men, once so dear to each other, were now compelled to meet for the purpose 
 of managing the impeachment, they met as strangers whom public business 
 had brought together, and behaved to each other with cold and distant civility. 
 Burke had in his vortex whirled away Windham. Fox had been followed by 
 Sheridan and Grey. 
 
 Only twenty-nine Peers voted. Of these only six found Hastings gliilty on 
 the charges relating to Cheyte Sing and to the Begums. On other charges^ tho 
 majority in his favour was still greater. On some he was unanimously absolved. 
 He was then called to the bar, was informed from the woolsack that the Lords 
 had acquitted him, and was solemnly discharged. He bowed respectfully arid 
 retired. 
 
 We have said that the decision had been fully expected. It was also 
 generally approved. At the commencement of the trial, there had been a strong 
 and indeed unreasonable feeling against Hastings. At the close of the trial, 
 there was a feeling equally strong and equally unreasonable in his favour. One 
 cause of the change was, no doubt, what is commonly called the fickleness o'f 
 the multitude, but what seems to us to be merely the general law of human 
 nature. Both in individuals and in masses violent excitement is always followed 
 by remission, and often by reaction. We are all inclined to depreciate what- 
 ever we have overpraised, and, on the other hand, to show undue indulgence 
 where we have shown undue rigour. It was thus in the case of Hastings. The 
 length of the trial, moreover, made him an object of compassion. It was 
 thought, and not without reason, that, even if he was guilty, he was still'an 
 ill-used man, and that an impeachment of eight years was more thari a 
 sufficient punishment. It was also felt that, though, in the ordinary coursebf 
 criminal law, a defendant is not allowed to set off his good actions against Kis 
 crimes, a great political cause should be tried on different principles ; and that 
 a man who had governed a great country during thirteen years might have done 
 some ver)' reprehensible thing and yet might be on the whole deserving of 
 rewards and honours rather than of fine and imprisonment. The press, an 
 instrument neglected by the prosecutors, was used by Hastings and his friends 
 with great effect. Every ship too, that arrived from Madras or Bengal, brought 
 a cuddy full of his admirers. Every gentleman from India spoke of the late 
 Governor-General as having deserved better, and having been treated worse, 
 than any man living. The effect of this testimony, unanimously given by all 
 persons who knew the East, was naturally very great. Retired members of 
 the Indian services, civil and military, were settled in all corners of the kingdom. 
 Each of them was, of course, in his own little circle, regarded as an oracle on 
 an Indian question ; and they were, with scarcely one exception, the zealous 
 advocates of Hastings. It is to be added, that the numerous addresses to the 
 late Governor-General, which his friends in Bengal obtained from the natives 
 and transmitted to JEngland, made a considerable impression. To these 
 addresses we attach little or no importance.. That, Hastings was beloved by 
 the people whom he governed is ti;ue ; bui the eulogies of "pundits, zemindars. 
 
WARREn HASTINGS. 689 
 
 Mahommedan doctors, do not prove it to be true. For an English collector 
 or judge would have found it easy to induce any native who could write to sign 
 a panegyric on the most odious ruler that ever was in India. It is said that at 
 Benares, the very place at which thefts set forth in the first article of ini- 
 peachment had been committed, the natives had erected a temple to Hastings ; 
 and this story excited a Strong sensation in England. Burke's observations on 
 
 "the apotheosis were admirable. He saw no reason for astonishment, he said, 
 'jih the incident which had been represented as so striking. He knew something 
 'of the mythology of the Brahmins. He knew that as they worshipped some 
 gods from love, so they worshipped others from fear. He knew that th^y 
 erected shrines, not only to the benignant deities of light and plenty, but also 
 'to the fiends who preside over smallpox and murder ; rlor did he at all dispute 
 ^he claim of Mr. Hastings to be admitted into such a Pantheon. This reply 
 !has always struck us as one of the finest that ever was made in Parliament. It 
 is a grave and forcible argument, decorated by the most brilliant wit and 
 fancy. 
 
 "'' Hastings was, however, safe. But in everj'thing except character, he would 
 'll'ave been far better off if, when first impeached, he had at once pleaded girilty 
 
 ;>ild paid a fine of fifty thousand pounds. He was a ruined man. The legal 
 
 "'fexpenses of his defence had been enormous. The expenses which did not 
 appear in his attorney's bill were perhaps larger still. Great sums had been 
 paid to Major Scott. Great sums had been laid out in bribing newspapers, 
 rewarding pamphleteers and circulating tracts. Burke, so early as 1790, de- 
 
 ■'clared in the House of Commons that twenty thousand pounds had been em- 
 ^ployed in corrupting the press. It is certain that no controversial weapon, 
 Trom the gravest reasoning to the coarsest ribaldry, was left unemplo}-ed. 
 
 '^'ijogan in prose defended the accused Governor with great ability. ' For the 
 Idvers of verse, the speeches of the managers were burlesqued in Simpkin's 
 fetters. It is, we are afraid, indisputable that Hastings stooped so low as to 
 court the aid of that malignant and filthy baboon John Williams, Avho called 
 himself Anthony Pasquin, It was necessary to subsidise such allies largely. 
 The private hoards of Mrs. Hastings had disappeared. It is said that the 
 banker to whom they had been intrusted had failed. Still if Hastings had 
 practised strict economy, he would, after all his losses, have had a moderate 
 tjOrnpetence ; but in the management of his pf^ivate affairs he was imprudent. 
 
 '*^he dearest wish of his heart had always been to regain Daylesford. At length, 
 m the very year in which his trial commenced, the wish was accomplished, 
 and the domain, alienated more than seventy years before, returned to the 
 descendant of its old lords. But the manor house was a ruin, and the grounds 
 round it had, during many years, been utterly neglected. Hastings proceeded 
 to build, to plant, to form a sheet of water, to excavate a grotto, and, before 
 he was dismissed from the bar of the House of Lords, he had expended m6re 
 than forty thousand pounds in adorning his seat. 
 
 ^r The general feeling both of the Directors and of the proprietors of the East 
 
 .;'Jndia Company was that he had great claims on them, that his services to them 
 liad been eminent, and that his misfortunes had been the effect of his zealfor 
 their interest. His friends in Leadenhall Street proposed to reimburse him ttie 
 costs of his trial, and to' settle on him an annuity of five thousand pounds 
 
 ^^^•year. But the consent of the Board of Control was necessary; ancf at the 
 
 ^niead of the Board of Control was Mr. Dundas, who had himself been a party 
 to the impeachment, who had, on that account, been reviled with great bitter- 
 ness by the adherents of Hastings, and who, therefore, was not in a very com- 
 plying mood. He refifsed to couserrt to what the Directors suggested. The 
 Directors remonstrated. A long controversy followed. Hastings, in the mean 
 
690 WARREN HASTINGS. 
 
 time, was reduced to such distress that he .could hardly pay his weekly bills. 
 At length a compromise was made, An annuity of four thousand a-year was 
 settled on Hastings ; and in order to enable him to meet pressing demands, he 
 was to receive ten years' annuity in advance. The Company was also permitted 
 to lend him fifty thousand pounds, to be repaid by instalments without interest. 
 This relief, though given in the most absurd manner, was sufficient to enable 
 the retired Governor to live in comfort, and even in luxury, if he had been a 
 skilful manager. But he was careless and profuse, and was more than once 
 under the necessity of applying to the Company for assistance, which was 
 liberally given. 
 
 He had security and affluence, but not. the power and dignity which, when 
 he landed from India, he had reason to expect. He had then looked forward 
 to a coronet, a red riband, a seat at the Council Board, an office at Whitehall. 
 He was then only fifty-two, and might hope for many years of bodily and men- 
 tal vigour. The case was widely difterent when he left the bar of the Lords. 
 He was now too old a man to turn his mind to a new class of studies and 
 duties. He had no chance of receiving any mark of royal favour while Mr. 
 Pitt remained in power ; and, when Mr. Pitt retired, Hastings was approaching 
 his seventieth year. . 
 
 Once, and only once, after his acquittal, he interfered in politics ; and that 
 interference was not much to his honour. In 1S04 he exerted himself strenu- 
 ously to prevent Mr. Addington, against whom Fox and Pitt had combined, 
 from resigning the Treasury. It is difficult to believe that a man, so able and 
 energetic as Hastings, can have thought that, when Bonaparte was at Boulogne 
 with a great army, the defence of our island could safely be entrusted to a 
 ministry which did not contain a single person whom flattery could describe as 
 a great statesman. It is also certain that, on the important question which had 
 raised Mr. Addington to power and on which he differed from both Fox and 
 Pitt, Hastings, as might have been expected, agreed with Fox and Pitt and 
 was decidely opposed to Addington. Religious intolerance has never been the 
 vice of the Indian service, and certainly was not the vice of Hastings. But 
 Mr. Addington had treated him with marked favour. Fox had been a prin- 
 cipal manager of the impeachment. To Pitt it was owing that there had been 
 an impeachment ; and Hastings,, we fear, was on this occasion guided by per- 
 sonal considerations rather than by a regard to the public interest. 
 
 The last twenty-four years of his life were chiefly passed at Daylesford. 
 He amused himself with embellishing his grounds, riding fine Arab horses, 
 fattening prize-cattle, and trying to rear Indian animals and vegetables in Eng- 
 land. He sent for seeds of a very fine custard apple, from the garden of what 
 had once been his own villa, among the green hedgerows of Allipore. He tried 
 also to naturalise in Worcestershire the delicious leechee, almost the only, fruit 
 of Bengal which deserves to be regretted even amidst the plenty of Covent 
 Garden. The Mogul emperors, in the time of their greatness, had in vain 
 attempted to introduce into Hindostan the goat of the table-land of Thibet, 
 whose down supplies the looms of Cashmere with the materials of the finest 
 shawls. Hastings tried, with no better fortune, to rear a breed at Daylesford ; 
 nor does he seem to have succeeded better with the cattle of Bootari, whose 
 tails are in high esteem as the best fans for brushing away the mosquitoes. 
 
 Literature divided his attention with his conservatories and his menagerie. 
 He had always loved books, and they were now necessary to him. Though 
 aot a poet, in any high sense of the word, he wrote neat and polished lines 
 with great facility, and was fond of exercising this talent. Indeed, if we must 
 speak out, he seems to have been more of a Trissotin than was to be expected 
 from the powers of his mind and from the great part which he had played in 
 
WARREN HASTINGS. 691 
 
 life. We are assured, in these *' Memoirs," that the first thing which he did in the 
 morning was to compose a copy of verses. When the family and guests assem- 
 bled, the poem made its appearance as regularly as the eggs and rolls ; and Mr. 
 Gleig requires us to believe that, if from any accident Hastings came to the 
 breakfast-table without one of his charffiing performances in his hand, the 
 omission was felt by all as a grievous disappointment. Tastes differ widely. 
 For ourselves, we must say that, however good the breakfasts at Daylesford 
 may have been — and we are assured that the tea was of the most aromatic 
 flavour, and that neither tongue nor venison-pasty was wanting — we should 
 have thought the reckoning high if we had been forced to earn our repast by 
 listening every day to a new madrigal or sonnet composed by our host. We 
 are glad, however, that Mr. Gleig has preserved this little feature of character, 
 though we think it by no means a beauty. It is good to be often reminded of 
 the inconsistency of human nature, and to learn to look without wonder or dis- 
 gust on the weaknesses which are found in the strongest minds. Dionysius in 
 old times, Frederic in the last century, with capacity and vigour equal to the 
 conduct of the greatest affairs, united all the little vanities and affectations of 
 provincial blue-stockings. These great examples may console the admirers of 
 Hastings for the affliction of seeing him reduced to the level of the Hayleys 
 and Sewards. 
 
 When Hastings had passed many years in retirement and had long out- 
 lived the common age of men, he again became for a short time an object of 
 general attention. In 18 13, the charter of the East India Company was 
 renewed ; and much discussion about Indian affairs took place in Parliament. 
 It was determined to examine witnesses at the bar of the Commons ; and 
 Hastings was ordered to attend. He had appeared at that bar once before.' 
 It was when he read his answer to the charges which Burke had laid on the 
 table* Since that time twenty-seven years had elapsed ; public feeling had 
 undergone a complete change ; the nation had now forgotten his faults and 
 remembered only his services. The reappearance, too, of a man who had been 
 among the most distinguished of a generation that had passed away, who now 
 belonged to history, and who seemed to have risen from the dead, could not 
 but produce a solemn and pathetic effect. The Commons received him with 
 acclamations, ordered a chair to be set for him, and, when he retired,' 
 rose and uncovered. There were, indeed, a few who did not sympathise 
 vvith the general feeling. One or two of the managers of the im- 
 peachment were present. They sat in the same seats which they had oc- 
 cupied when they had been thanked for the services which they had rendered 
 in Westminster Hall : for, by the courtesy of the House, a member who has 
 been thanked in his place is considered as having a right always to occupy that 
 place. These gentlemen were not disposed to admit that they had employed 
 several of the best years of their lives in persecuting an innocent man. They 
 accordingly kept their seats and pulled their hats over their brows ; but the 
 exceptions only made the prevailing enthusiasm more remarkable. The Lords 
 received the old man with similar tokens of respect. The University of Oxford 
 conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Laws ; and, in the Sheldonian 
 Theatre, the undergraduates welcomed him with tumultuous cheering. 
 
 These marks of pul)lic esteem were soon followed by marks of the favour of 
 the Crown. Hastings was sworn of the Privy Council, and was admitted to a 
 long private audience of the Prince Regent, who- treated him very graciously. 
 When the Emperor of Russia and the King of Prussia visited England, 
 Hastings appeared in their train both at Oxford and in the Guildhall of 
 London, and, though surrounded by a crowd of princes and great warriors, 
 was everywhere received by the public witii marks of respect and admiration. 
 
692 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 He was presented by the Prince Regent both to Alexander and to Frederic 
 Williain ; and his Royal Highness went so far as to declare in public that 
 honours far higher than a seat in the Privy Council were due, and would 
 soon be paid, to the man who had saved the British dominions in Asia. 
 Hastings now confidently expected a peerage ; but, from some unexplained 
 cause, he was again disappointed. 
 
 He lived about four years longer, in the enjoyment of good spirits, of facul- 
 ties not impaired to any painful or degrading extent, and of health Euch as is 
 rarely enjoyed by those who attain such an age. At length, on the 22nd of 
 Aug;:st, i8i8, in the eighty-sixth year of his age, he met death with the same 
 tranquil and decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all the trials of his 
 various and eventful life. 
 
 With all his faults—- and they were neither few nor small— only one cemetery 
 was worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation' 
 where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which' 
 has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and 
 bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of 
 the illustrious accused should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious 
 accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill- 
 chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in e'arth 
 which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Plasiings, was 
 laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and 
 widely extended name. On the very spot, probably, fourscore years*^ before, 
 the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children 
 of ploughmen. Even then his young mind had revolved plans which might 
 be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not likely that they had 
 been so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the 
 fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased the old lands and 
 rebuilt the old dwelling — he had preserved and extended an empire. He had 
 founded a polity. He had administered government and war with more than^' 
 the capacity of Richelieu. He had patronised learning with the judiciousf' 
 li^')erality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable combina- 
 tion of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim ; and over 
 that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had at 
 length gbne down to his grave in the fulness of age — in peace, after so many 
 troubles, in honour, after so much obloquy. 
 
 Those who look on his character without favour or malevolence, will pro- 
 nounce that, in the two great elements of all social virtue — in respect for the 
 rights of others and in sympathy for the sufferings of others — he was deficient. 
 His principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though 
 we cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a merciful ruler, 
 we cannot regard without admiration and amplitude the fertility of his intellect 
 — his rare talents for command, for administration and for controversy — his 
 dauntless courage, his honourable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests of 
 the state, his noble equanimity — tried by both extremes of fortune and never 
 disturbed by either. 
 
 FREDERIC THE GREAT. (April, 1842.) 
 
 Frederic the Gyea,t and his Times, Edited, with an lutroduction, by Thomas Campbbll, 
 Esq. 2 vols.. ''Ivo. London, 1842. 
 xlity 
 
 This work.-^ sech has the high honour of being introduced to the world by the 
 author ofpowerchjel " and " l-IohQnUndQnj" is not wholly unworthy of sQ Ui^tin* 
 
FRSDERIC THE GREAT, 693 
 
 guishpd a chaferon. It professes, indeed, to be no more than a compilation ; 
 but it is an exceedingly amusing compilation, and we shall be glad to have 
 more of it. The narrative comes down at present only to the commencement 
 of the Seven Years' War, and therefore dees not comprise the most interesting 
 portion of Frederic's reign. 
 
 ''It may not be unacceptable to our readers that we should take this oppor- 
 tunity of presenting them with a slight sketch of the life of the greatest king 
 that has, in modern times, succeeded by right of birth to a throne. It may, 
 wJe fear, be impossible to compress so long and eventful a story within the 
 limits which we must prescribe to ourselves. Should we be compelled to 
 hreiak off, we shall, when the continuation of this work appears, return to the 
 siibject. 
 
 .. The Prussian monarchy, the youngest of the great European states, but in 
 pdpiilation and revenue the fifth among them, and in art, science and civili- 
 sation entitled to the third, if not to the second place, sprang from a humble 
 origin. About the beginning of the fifteenth century, the Marquisate of 
 Brandenburg was bestowed by the Emperor Sigismund on the noble family 
 of HohenzoUern. In the sixteenth century that family embraced the Lutheran 
 doctrines. Early in the seventeenth century, it obtained from the King of 
 Poland the investiture of the duchy of Prussia. Even after this accession of 
 territory, the chiefs of the house of HohenzoUern hardly ranked with the 
 Electors of Saxony and Bavaria. The soil of Brandenburg was for the most 
 part sterile. Even round Berlin, the capital of the province, and round 
 Potsdam, the favourite residence of the Margraves, the country was a desert. 
 In some tracts the deep sand could with difficulty be forced by assiduous tillage 
 to yield thin crops of rye and oats. In other places the ancient forests, from 
 wTiich the conquerors of the Roman empire had descended on the Danube, 
 reinained untouched by the hand of man. Where the soil was rich it was. 
 geiierally marshy, and its insalubrity repelled the cultivators whom its fertility 
 attracted. Frederic William, called the Great Elector, was the prince to whose 
 policy his successors have agreed to ascribe their greatness. He acquired by 
 the peace of Westphalia several valuable possessions, and among them the 
 rich city and district of Magdeburg ; and he left to his son Frederic a princi- 
 pality as considerable as any which was not called a kingdom. 
 
 , Frederic aspired to the style of royalty. Ostentatious and profuse, negli- 
 gent of his true interests and of his high duties, insatiably eager for frivo- 
 lous distinctions, he added nothing to the real weight of the state which he 
 governed : perhaps he transmitted his inheritance to his children impaired 
 rather than augmented in value ; but he succeeded in gaining the great ob- 
 ject of his life, the title of King. In the year 1700, he assumed this new 
 dignity. He had on that occasion to undergo all the mortifications which 
 fall to the lot of ambitious upstarts. Compared with the other crowned heads 
 of Europe, he made a figure resembling that which a Nabob or a Commissor}-, 
 who had bought a title, \yould make in the company of Peers whose ancestors 
 had been attainted for treason against the Plantagenets. The envy of the 
 class which he quitted, and the civil scorn of the class into which he in- 
 truded himself, were marked in very significant ways. The Elector of Saxony 
 at first refused to acknowledge the new ^Iajesty. Louis the Fourteenth looked 
 down on his brother King with an air not unlike that with which the Count 
 in Moliere's play regards Monsieur Jourdain, just fresh from the mummery 
 of being mude a gentleman. Austria exacted large sacrifices In rcttwrtr for her 
 recognition. Mid at last gave it ungraciously. -.;-,- 
 
 Frederic was succeeded by bis ''on, Frederic William, a prince who must 
 be allowed to have possessed some ^aienU for administration, but whose cha« 
 
694 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 racter was disfigured by the most odious vices, and whose eccentricities were 
 such as had never been seen out of a madhouse. He was exact and diligent 
 in the transacting of business, and he was the first who formed the design 
 of obtaining for Prussia a place among the European povvers, altogether out 
 of proportion to her extent and population, by means of a strong military 
 .organisation. vStrict economy enabled him to keep up a peace establishment 
 of sixty thousand troops. These troops were disciplined in such a' manner 
 that, placed beside them, the household regiments of Versailles and St. James's 
 would have appeared an awkward squad. . The master of stich a force could 
 not but be regarded by all his neighbours as a formidable enemy and a vahi- 
 able ally. 
 
 But the mind of Frederic William was so ill-regulated that his inclinations 
 became passions and all his passions partook of the character of moral and 
 intellectual disease. His parsimony degenerated into sordid avarice. His 
 taste for military pomp and order became a mania, like that of a Dutch bur- 
 gomaster for tulips, or that of a member of the Roxburghe Club for Caxtons. 
 While the envoys of the Court of Berlin were in a state of such squalid poverty 
 as moved the laughter of foreign capitals, while the food placed before the 
 princes and princesses of the blood-royal of Prussia was too scanty to appease 
 hunger and so bad that even hunger loathed it — no price was thought too 
 extravagant for tall recruits. The ambition of the King was to form a brigade 
 of giants, and every country was ransacked by his agents for men above the 
 ordinary stature. These researches were not confined to Europe. No head 
 that towered above the crovvd in the bazaars of Aleppo, of Cairo, or of Surat 
 could escape the crimps of Frederic William. One Irishman more than 
 seven feet high, who was picked up in London by the Prussian ambassador, 
 received a bounty of near ;^i,300 sterhng — very much more than the am- 
 bassador's salary. This extravagance was the more absurd, because a stout 
 youth of five feet eight, who might have been procured for a few dollars, vfould 
 in all probability have been a much more valuable soldier. But to Frederic 
 William this huge Irishman vv'as what a brass Otho or a Vinegar Bible is to a 
 collector of a different kind. 
 
 It is remarkable, that though the main end of Frederic William's admini- 
 'stration was to have a great military force, though his reign forms an important 
 epoch in the history of military discipline, and though his dominant passion 
 was the love of military display, he was yet one of the most pacific of princes. 
 We are afraid that his aversion to war was not the effect of humanity, but was 
 merely one of his thousand whims. His feeling about his troops seems to have 
 resembled a miser's feeling about his money. Fie loved to collect them, to 
 count them, to see them increase ; but he could not find it in his heart to break 
 ••in upon the precious hoard. He looked forward to some future time when his 
 Patagonian battalions were to drive hostile infantry before them like sheep. 
 But this future time was always receding ; and it is probable that, if his life 
 ihad been prolonged thirty years, his superb army would never have seen any 
 ^harder service than a sham fight in the fields near Berhn. But the great mili- 
 itary means which he had collected were destined to be employed by a spirit far 
 imore daring and inventive than his own. 
 
 Frederic, surnamed the Great, son of Frederic William, was born in January, 
 17 12. It may safely be pronounced that he had received from nature a 
 fitrong and sharp understanding and a rare firmness of tempfer and intensity of 
 will. As to the other parts of his character, it is difficult to say whether 
 they are to be ascribed to nature or to the strange training which he under- 
 went. The history of his boyhood is painfully interesting. Oliver Twist in 
 the parish workhouse, Smike. at Dotheboys Hall, were petted children when 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. 695 
 
 Qompared with this wi-etched heir apparent of a crown. The nature of Fred- 
 eric William was hard and bad, and the habit of exercising arbitrary power 
 had made him frightfully savage. Ilis^rage constantly vented itself to right 
 , and' left in curses and blows. When his Majesty took a walk, every human 
 Ijeing fled before him, as if a tiger had broken loose from a menagerie. If 
 he met a lady in the street, he gave her a kick and told her to go home and 
 mind her brats. If he saw a clergyman staring at the soldiers, he admonished 
 the reyerend gentleman to betake himself to study and prayer, and enforced 
 this pious advice by a sound caning administered on the spot. But it was in 
 his own house that he was most unreasonable and ferocious. His palace was 
 hell and he the most execrable of fiends — a cross between Moloch and Puck. 
 His son Frederic and his daughter Wilhelmina, afterwards Margravine of Ba- 
 reuth, were in an especial manner objects of his aversion. His own mind was 
 uncultivated. He despised literature. He hated infidels, papists and metaphy- 
 sicians, and did not very well understand in what they differed from each other. 
 The business of life, according to him, was to drill and to be drilled. The 
 recreations suited to a prince were to sit in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, to sip 
 Swedish beer between the puffs of the pipe, to play backgammon for three- 
 halfpence a rubber, to kill wild hogs and to shoot partridges by the thousand. 
 The Prince-Royal showed little inclination either for the serious employments 
 or for the amusements of his father. He shirked the duties of, the parade ; he 
 detested . the fume of tobacco ; he had no taste either for backgammon or for 
 field sports. He had an exquisite ear, and performed skilfully on the flute. 
 His earliest instructors had been French refugees, and they had awakened in 
 him a strong passion for French literature and French society. Frederic 
 William regarded these tastes as effeminate and contemptible, and, by abuse 
 and persecution, made them still stronger. Things became worse when the 
 Prince- Royal attained that time of life at which the great revolution in the 
 human mind and body takes place. He was guilty of some youthful indis- 
 cretions which no good and wise parent would regard with severity. At 
 a later period he was accused, truly or falsely, of vices from which History 
 averts her eyes, and which even Satire blushes to name — vices such that, to 
 borrow the energetic language of Lord Keeper Coventry, "the depraved na- 
 ture of man, which of itself carrieth man to all other sin, abhorreth them." 
 But the offences of his youth were not characterised by any peculiar turpi- 
 tude. They excited, however, transports of rage in the King, who hated 
 all faults except those to which he was himself inclined, and who conceived 
 that he made ample atonement to Heaven for his brutality by* holding 
 the softer passions in detestation. The Prince- Royal, too, was not one of 
 those who are content to take their religion on trust. He asked puz- 
 zling questions, and brought forward arguments - which seemed to. savour 
 of something different from pure Lutheranism. The King suspected that 
 his son was inclined to be a heretic of some sort or other, whether 
 Calvinist pr Atheist his Majesty did not very well know. The or- 
 dinary malignity of Frederic William was bad enough. Pie now 
 thought malignity a part of his duty as a Christian man and all the con- 
 science that he had stimulated his hatred. The flute was broken — the French 
 books were sent out of the palace — the Prince was kicked and cudgelled and 
 pulled by the hair. At dinner the plates were hurled at his head — sometimes 
 he was restricted to bread and water — sometimes he was forced to swallow 
 food so nauseous that he could not keep it on his stomach. Once his father 
 knocked him down, dragged him along the floor to a window, and was with 
 difficulty prevented from strangling him with the cord of the curtain. The 
 Queen, for the crime of not wishing to see her son murdered, was subjected to 
 
696 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 the grossest indignities. The Princess Wilheh-nina, who took her brother's 
 part, was treated almost as ill as Mrs. Brov-TTirigg's apprentices. Driven. ,tt) 
 despair; the unhappy youth tried to run away ; then the fury of the old tyrant 
 rose to madness. The Prince was an officer in the army ; his flight was there-' 
 fore desertion ; and, in the moral code of Frederic William, desertion was the 
 highest of all crimes— '* Desertion," says this royal theologian, in one of his 
 half crazy letters, *Ms from hell. It is a work of the children of the Devil.: 
 No child of God could possibly be guilty of it." An accomplice of the Prine$.,^ 
 in spite of the recommendation of a court-martial, Avas mercilessly put to deathv 
 it seemed probable that the Prince himself would suffer the same fate. It was 
 #ith difficulty that the intercession of the States of Holland, of the Kings of 
 Sweden and Poland, and of the Emperor of Germany, saved the House of 
 Brandenburg from the stain of an unnatural murder. After months of cruel 
 suspense, Frederic learned that his life would be spared. He remained, how- 
 ever, long a prisoner ; but he was not on that account to be pitied. He found 
 in his gaolers a tenderness which he had never found, in his father ; his table 
 was not sumptuous, but he had wholesome food insufficient quantity to' appease 
 hunger ; he could read the " Henriade " without being kicked and could play 
 on his flute without having it broken over his head. 
 
 When his confinement terminated, he was a man. He had nearly completed 
 his twenty-first year, and could scarcely even by such a parent as Frederic 
 Wilham be kept much longer under the restraints which had made his boyhood 
 miserable. Suffering had matured his understanding while it had hardened 
 his heart and soured his temper. He had learnt self-command and dis- 
 simulation : he affected to conform to some of his father's views ; and sub- 
 missively accepted a wife, who was a wife only in name, from his father's hand. 
 He also served with credit, though without any opportunity of acquiring bril- 
 liant distinction, under the command of Prince Eugene, during a campaign 
 inarked by no extraordinary events. He was now permitted to keep a separate 
 establishment, and was therefore able to indulge with caution his own tastes. 
 Partly in order to conciliate the King and partly, no doubt, from inclinadon, 
 he gave up a portion of his time to military and political business, and thus 
 gradually acquired such an aptitude for affairs as his most intimate associates 
 were not aware that he possessed. 
 
 His favourite abode was at Rheinsberg, near the frontier which separates the 
 Prussian dominions from the Duchy of Mecklenburg. Rheinsberg is a fertile 
 and smiling spot in the midst of the sandy waste of the Marquisate. The 
 mansion, surrounded by woods of oak and beech, looks out upon a spacious 
 lake. There Frederic amused himself by laying out gardens in regular alleys 
 and ititricate mazes, by building obelisks, temples and conservatories, and by 
 collecting rare fruits and flowers. His retirement was enlivened by a few 
 companions, among whom he seems to have preferred those who, by birth or 
 extraction, were French. With these inmates, he dined and supped well, 
 drank freely, and amused himself sometimes with concerts and sometimes \yith 
 holding chapters of a fraternity vvhich he called the Order of Bayard; but 
 literature was his chief resource. 
 
 His education had been entirely French. The long ascendency which Louis 
 XIV. had enjoyed, and the eminent merit of the tragic and comic dramatists, 
 of the satirists and of the preachers who had flourished under that magnificent 
 prince, had made the French language predominant in Europe. Even in 
 countries which had a national literature and which could boast of names 
 greater than those of Racine, of Moli^re and of Massillon— -in the country of 
 Dante, in the country of Cervantes, in the country* of Shakspeare and Milton-- 
 the intellectual fashions of Paris had been to a great extent adopted. Germany 
 
fREDERIC THE GREAT. 697 
 
 had not yet produced a single masterpiece of poetry or eloquence. In Germany* 
 therefore, the French taste reigned without rival and without limit. Every 
 youth of rank was taught to speak and write French. That he should speak 
 and write his own tongue with politenessrr or even with accuracy and facility* 
 was regarded as comparatively an unimportant object. Even Frederic William, 
 with all his rugged Saxon prejudices, thought it necessary that his children 
 should know French and quite unnecessary that they should be well versed in 
 German. The Latin was positively interdicted. "My son," his Majesty 
 wrote, "shall not learn Latin ; and, more than that, \ will not suffer anybody 
 even to mention such a thing to me." One of the preceptors ventured to read, 
 the "Golden Bull" in the original with the Prince-Royal. Frederic William 
 ^tered the room, and broke out in his usual kingly style. 
 ^'■'•"RascaljVvhat are you at there?" ./ , 
 
 "Please your Majesty," answered the ^ preceptor, "I was explaining 1^ 
 *■' Golden Bull " to his Royal Highness." .. ;,•. 
 
 ' "Fll Golden Bull you, you rascal!" roared the Majesty of Prussia. Up 
 went the King's cane ; away ran the terrified instructor ; and Frederic's classical 
 studies ended for ever. He now and then affected to quote Latin sentences, 
 and produced such exquisitely Ciceronian phrases as these : " Stante pede 
 morire ; " " De gustibus non est disputandus ; " "Tot verbas, tot spondera." 
 Of Italian, he had not enough to read a page of Metastasio with ease ; and of 
 the Spanish and English, he did not, as far as we are aware, understand a 
 single word. , 
 
 •'As the highest human compositioiis to, which he had access were those of th<?^ 
 French writers, it is not strange that his admiration for those writers should 
 have been unbounded. His ambitious and eager temper early prompted him 
 to imitate what he admired. The wish, perhaps, dearest to his heart wasj that 
 he might rank among the masters of French rhetoric and poetry. He wrote 
 prose and verse as indefatigably as if he had been a starving hack of Cave or 
 Osborn ; but Nature, which had bestowed on him, in a large measure, the 
 talents of a captain and of an administrator, had, withheld frorn him those 
 higher and rarer gifts without which industry labours in vain to produce 
 immortal eloquence and song. And, indeed, ha,d he been blessed with more 
 imagination, wit and fertility of thought than he appears to have had, he 
 would still have been subject to one great disadvantage, which would, in all 
 probability, have for ever prevented him him from taking a high place among 
 men of letters. He had not the full command of any language. There was 
 no machine of thought which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence 
 and freedom. He had German enough to scold his servants or to give the 
 word of command to his grenadiers, but his grammar and pronunciation were 
 extremely bad. He found it difficult to make out the meaning even of the sim- 
 plest German poetry. On one occasion, a version of Racine's " Iphigenie " was 
 read to him. He held the P'rench original in his hand ; but was forced to own 
 that, even with such help, he could not understand the translation. Yet, though 
 he had neglected his mother tongue in order to bestow all his attention on French, 
 his French was, after all, the French of a foreigner. It was necessary for him 
 to have always at his beck some men of letters from Paris to point out the sole- 
 cisms and false rhymes of which, to the last, he was frequently guilty. Even had 
 he possessed the poetic faculty — of which, as far as we can judge, he was utterly 
 destitute — the want of a language would have prevented him from being a great 
 poet. No noble work of imagination, as far as we recollect, was ever com- 
 posed by any man, except in a dialect vvhich he had learned w-ithout remem- 
 bering how or when, and which he had spoken with perfect ease before he had 
 ever analysed its structure, Romans of great talent wrote Greek verses ; but 
 
698 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 how many of those verses have deserved to hve ? Many men of eminent genius 
 have, in modern times, written Latin poems ; but, as far as we are aware, 
 none of those poems, not even Milton's, can be ranked in the first class of art, 
 or even very high' in the second. It is not strange, therefore, that, in the 
 French verses of Frederic, we can find nothing beyond the reach of any man 
 of good parts and industry, nothing above the level of Newdigate and 
 Seatonian poetry. His best pieces may perhaps rank with the worst in 
 Dodsley's collection. In history, he succeeded better. We do not, indeed, 
 find, in any part of his voluminous " Memoirs," either deep reflection or vivid 
 painting. But the narrative is distinguished by clearness, conciseness, good 
 sense and a certain air of truth and simplicity, which is singularly graceful in 
 a man who^ having done great things, sits down to relate them. On the 
 whole, however, none of his writings are so agreeable to us as his " Letters," 
 particularly those which are written with earnestness and are not enAbroidered 
 with verses. 
 
 It is not strange that a young man devoted to literature, and acquainted only 
 with the literature of France, should have looked with profound veneration on 
 the genius of Voltaire, nor is it just to condemn him for this feeling. " A man 
 who has never seen the sun," says Calderon, in one of his charming comedies, 
 "cannot be blamed for thinking that no glory can exceed that of the moon. 
 A man who has seen neither moon nor sun, cannot be blamed for talking of the 
 unrivalled brightness of the morning star." Had Frederic been able to read 
 Homer and Milton, or even Virgil and Tasso, his admiration of the "Henriade" 
 would prove that he was utterly destitute of the power of discerning what is 
 excellent in art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or Shakspeare, we 
 should have expected him to appreciate " Zaire " more justly. Had he been able 
 to study Thucydides and Tacitus in the original Greek and Latin, he would 
 have known that there were heights in the eloquence of history far beyond the 
 reach of the author of the " Life of Charles the Twelfth." But the finest heroic 
 poem, several of the most powerful tragedies, and the most brilliant and 
 picturesque historical work that Frederic had ever read, were Voltaire's. Such 
 high and various excellence moved the young Prince almost to adoration. 
 The opinions of Voltaire on religious and philosophical questions had not yet 
 been fully exhibited to the public. At a later period, when an exile from his 
 country and at open war with the Church, he spoke out. But when Frederic 
 was at Rheinsberg, Voltaire was still a courtier ; and, though he could not 
 always curb his petulant wit, he had as yet published nothing that could ex- 
 clude him from Versailles, and little that a divine of the mild and generous 
 school of Grotius and Tillotson might not read with pleasure. In the " Hen- 
 riade," in " Zaire " and in " Alzire," Christian piety is exhibited in the most 
 amiable form ; and, some years after the period of which we are writing, a Pope 
 condescended to accept the dedication of "Mahomet." The real sentiments 
 of the poet, however, might be clearly perceived by a keen eye through the 
 decent disguise with which he veiled them, and could not escape the sagacity 
 of Frederic, who held similar opinions and had been accustomed to practise 
 similar dissimulation. 
 
 The Prince wrote to his idol in the style of a worshipper ; and Voltaire 
 replied with exquisite grace and address, A correspondence followed, which 
 may be studied with advantage by those who wish to become proficients in the 
 ignoble art of flattery. No man ever paid compliments better than Voltaire. 
 His sweetest confectionery had always a delicate yet stimulating flavour which 
 was delightful to palates wearied by the coarse preparations of inferior artists. 
 It was only from his hand that so much sugar^ could be swallowed without 
 making the swallov/er sick. Copies of verses, writing desks, trinkets of amlyer. 
 
PREDERIC THE G MAT. 699 
 
 were exchanged between the fi;iends. \ j'rederic confided his writii^s Jo 
 Voltaire ; and Voltaire applauded as if Frederic had been Racine and Bossuet 
 ini one. One of his Royal Highness's performances was a refutation of the 
 ** Principe" of Machiavelli. Voltaire Undertook to convey it to the press. 
 It was entitled the " Anti-Machiavel," and was an edifying homily against 
 rapacity, perfidy, arbitrary government, unjust war — in short, against almost 
 everything for which its author is now remembered among men. 
 
 The old King uttered now and then a ferocious growl at the diversions of 
 Rheinsberg. But his health was broken ; his end was approaching ; and his 
 vigour was impaired. He had only one pleasure left, that of seeing tall soldiers. 
 He could always be propitiated by a present of a grenadier of six feet four or 
 six feet five ; and such presents were from time to time judiciously offered by 
 his son. 
 
 Early in the year 1740, Frederic William met death with a firmness and 
 dignity worthy of a better and wiser man ; and Frederic, who ha,d just com- 
 pleted his twenty-eighth year, became King of Prussia. His character was 
 little understood. That he had good abilities, indeed, no person who had 
 talked with him or corresponded with him, could doubt. But the easy 
 Epicurean life which he had lead, his love of good cookery and good wine, of 
 music, of conversation, of light literature, led many to regard him as a sensual 
 and intellectual voluptuary. His habit of canting about moderation, peace, 
 liberty and the happiness which a good mind derives from the happiness of 
 others, had imposed on some who should have known better. Those who 
 thought best of him expected a Telemachus after Fenelon's pattern. Others 
 predicted the approach of a Medicean age — an age propitious to learning and 
 art and not.unpropitious to pleasure. Nobody had the least suspicion that a 
 tyrant, of extraordinary military and political talents, of industry more extra- 
 ordinary still, without fear, without faith and without mercy, had ascended the 
 throne. 
 
 The disappointment of Falstaff at his old boon-companion's coronation vv^s 
 not more bitter than that which awaited some of the inmates of Rheinsberg. 
 They had long looked forward to the accession of their patron as to the day 
 from which their own prosperity and greatness was to date. They had at last 
 reached the promised land, the land which they had figured to themselves as 
 flowing with milk and honey ; and they found it a desert. " No more of these 
 fooleries," was the short, sharp admonition given by Frederic to one of them. 
 It soon became plain that, in the most important points, the new sovereign 
 bore a strong family likeness to his predecessor. There was indeed a wide 
 difference between the father and the son as respected extent and vigour of in- 
 tellect, speculative opinions, amusements, studies, outward demeanour. But 
 the groundwork of the character was the same in both. To both were com- 
 mon the love of order, the love of business, the military taste, the parsimony, 
 the imperious spirit, the icmper, irritable even to ferocity, the pleasure in the 
 pain and humilitation of others. But these propensities had in Frederic William 
 partaken of the general unsoundness of his mind, and wore a very different aspect 
 whein found in company with the strong and cultivated understanding, of his 
 succeissor. Thus, for example, Frederic was as anxious as any prince could be 
 about the efficacy of his army. But this anxiety never degenerated into a mono- 
 mania like that which led his father to pay fancy- prices for giants. Frederic 
 was as thrifty about money as any prince or any private man ought to be. But 
 he did not conceive, like his father, that it was worth while to eat unwholesome 
 cabbages for the sake of saving four or five rixdollars in the year. Frederic 
 was, we fear, as malevolent as his father ; Ijut Frederic's wit enabled him 
 often to show his malevolence in wavs more decent than tho';e to which his 
 
700 PREDERIC THE: GREAT. 
 
 father resorted, and to inflict misery and degradation by a taunt instead o( a 
 blow. Frederic, it is true, by no means relinquished his hereditary privilege 
 of kicking and cudgelling. His practice, however, as to that matter, differed 
 in some important respects from his father's. To Frederick William, the mere 
 circumstance that any person whatever, men, women or children, Prussians or 
 foreigners, were within reach of his t06s and of his cane, appeared to be a 
 sufficient reason for proceeding to belabour them. Frederic required provoca- 
 tion as well as vivacity ; nor was he ever known to inflict this paternal species 
 of correction on any but his born subjects, though on one occasion M. Thiebault 
 had reason, during a few seconds, to anticipate the high honour of being an 
 exception to this general rule. 
 
 The character of Frederic was still very imperfectly understood either by Tiis 
 subjects or by his neighbours, when events occurred which exhibited it in a strong 
 light. A few months after his accession died Charles VI. , Emperor of Germany, 
 the last descendant, in the male line, of the house of Austria. 
 
 Charles left no son, and had, long before his death, relinquished all hb|)es^of 
 male issue. During the latter part of his life, his principal object had be^^jto 
 secure to his descendants in the female line the many crowns of the hous^of 
 Hapsburg. With this view, he had promulgated a new law of succession, 
 widely celebrated throughout Europe under the name of the Pragmatic Sanction. 
 By virtue of this law, his daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of 
 Francis of Loraine, succeeded to the dominions of her ancestors. ' • 
 
 No sovereign has ever taken possession of a throne by a clearer title. . 'All 
 the politics of the Austrian cabinet had, during twenty years, been directed to 
 one single end — the. settlement of the succession. From every person whcise 
 rights could be considered as injuriously affected, renunciations in the most 
 solemn form had been obtained. The n6w law had been ratified by the Estates 
 of all the kingdoms and principalities which made up the great Austrian 
 monarchy. England, France, Spain, Russia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Den- 
 mark, the Germanic body, had bound themselves by treaty to maintain the 
 Pragmatic Sanction. That instrument was placed vmder the proteition of 
 the public faith of the whole civilised world. 
 
 Even if no positive stipulations on this subject had existed, the arrangesmeiit 
 was one which no good man would have been willing to disturb. It was a 
 peaceable arrangement. It was an arrangement acceptable to the great popu- 
 lation whose happiness was chiefly concerned. It was an arrangement which 
 made no change in the dis'ti'ibution of poweramong the states of Christendom. 
 It was an arrangement which could be set aside only by means of a general 
 war; and, if it were set aside, the effect would be that the equilibrixim .of 
 Europe would be deranged, that the loyal and patriotic feelings of fnilliptis 
 would be cruelly outraged, and that great provinces which had been united for 
 centuries would be torn from each other by main force. 
 
 The sovereigns of Europe were, therefore, bound by every obligation which 
 those who are intrusted with power over their fellow-creatures ought to hold 
 most sacred, to respect and defend the rights of the Archduchess. Her situation 
 and her personal qualities were such as might be expected to move the mind of 
 any generous man to pity, admiration and chivalrous tenderness. She was in 
 her twenty-fourth year. Her form was majestic, her features beautiful, her 
 countenance sweet and animated, her voice musical, her deportment gracioiis 
 ;and dignified. In all domestic relations she was without reproach. She was 
 married to a husband whom she loved, and was on the point of giving birth to 
 a child when death deprived her of her father. The loss of a parent and the 
 new cares of empire were too much for her in the delicate state of her health. 
 Her spurits were depressed and her cheek lost its bloom. Yet it seemed thrit 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. yci 
 
 she had little cause for anxiety. It seemed that justice, humanity and the faith 
 bf treaties would have their due weight, and that the settlement so solemnly 
 guaranteed would be quietly carried into effect. England, Russia, Poland and 
 Holland declared in form their intentiorj^to adhere to their engagements. The 
 French ministers made a verbal declaration to the same effect. But from no 
 quarter did the young Queen of Hungary receive stronger assurances of friend- 
 ship and support than from the King of Prussia. 
 
 Yet the King of Prussia, the Anti-Machiavel, had already fully determined 
 to commit the great crime of violating his plighted faith, of robbing the ally 
 whom he was bound to defend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody 
 and desolating war ; and all this for no end whatever, except that he might 
 extend his dominions and see his name in the gazettes. Pie determined to 
 assemble a great army with speed and secrecy, to invade Silesia before Maria 
 Theresa should be apprised of his design, and to add that rich province tp; his 
 kingdom. . ' ' 
 
 ^ We will not condescend to refute at length the pleas which the compiler of 
 ijie " Memoirs " before us has copied from Doctor Preuss. They amount to this, 
 tljat the house of Brandenburg had some ancient pretensions to Silesia,- and 
 had in the previous century been compelled, by bard usage on the. part of the 
 Court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain that, whoever 
 might originally have been in the right, Prussia had submitted. Prince after 
 prince of the house of Brandenburg had acquiesced in the existing arrange- 
 ment. Nay, the Court of Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna 
 and had guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian states. Is it not perfectly 
 clear that, if antiquated claims are to be set up against recent treaties and long 
 
 Eossession, the world can never be at peace for a day ? The laws of all nations 
 ave wisely established a time of limitation, after which titles, however illegiti- 
 rhate in their origin, cannot be questioned. It is felt by everybody that to 
 eject a person from his estate on the ground of some injustice committed in the 
 time of the Tudors would produce all the evils which result from arbitrary cpil- 
 Jiscation and would make all property insecure. It concerns the commonwealth 
 — so runs the legal maxim — that there be an end of litigation. And surely this 
 maxim is at least equally applicable to the great commonwealth' of states ; for 
 in that commonwealth Htigation means the devastation of provinces, the 
 suspension of trade and industry, sieges like those of Badajoz and St. Seb- 
 astian, pitched fields like those of Eylau and Borodino. We hold that the 
 transfer of Norway from Denmark to Sweden was an unjustifiable proceeding ; 
 but would' the King of Denmark be therefore justified in landing, without 
 any new provocation in Norway, and commencing military operations there ? 
 The King of Holland thinks, no doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the 
 l^elgian provinces. Grant that it were so. Would he, therefore, be justified 
 in marching with an army on Brussels ? The case against Frederic was still 
 ^Stronger, inasmuch as the injustice of which he complained had been committed 
 'more than a century before. Nor must it be forgotten that he owed the highest 
 personal obligations to the house of Austria. It may be doubted whetller 
 his life had not been preserved by the intercession of the prince whose daughter 
 J^e was about to plunder. '^. • 
 
 . ' To do the King justice, he pretended to no more virttie than he hiid; 'Th 
 inanifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some idle stories about his anti- 
 quated claim on Silesia ; but in his conversations and "Memoirs " he took a Very 
 different tone. To quot^ his own words : "Ambition, interest, the desire oT 
 making people talk about me, carried the day ; and I decided for war." 
 
 .J Having resolved on his course, he acted with abihty and vigour. It Was 
 ^possible wholly to conceal his preparations ; for throughotit the Prussian 
 
^ 702 FREDMRIC Tim GREA T. 
 
 territories regiments, guns and baggage were in motion. The Austrian envoy 
 at Berlin apprised his court of these facts and expressed a suspicion of Frederic's 
 designs ; but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused to give credit to so black an 
 imputation on a young prince who was known chiefly by his high professions of 
 integrity and philanthropy. *' We will not," they wrote — " we cannot believe 
 it." 
 
 In the meantime, the Prussian forces had been assembled. Without any 
 declaration of war, without any derhand for reparation, in the very act of 
 pouring forth compliments and assurances of good will, Frederic commenced 
 hostilities. Many thousands of his troops were actually in Silesia before the 
 Queen of Hungary knew that he had set up any claim to any part of her 
 territories. At length he sent her a message which could be regarded only as 
 an insult. If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by 
 her against any power which should fry to deprive her of her other dominions : 
 as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise could 
 be of more value than the old one ! 
 
 It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe and the roads deep in 
 mire. But the Prussians pressed on. Resistance was impossible. The 
 Austrian army was then neither numerous nor efficient. The small portion 
 of that army which lay in Silesia was unprepared for. hostilities. Glogau was 
 blockaded ; Breslau opened its gates ; Ohlau was evacuated. A few scattered 
 garrisons still held out ; but the whole open country was subjugated ; no enemy 
 ventured to encounter the King in the field ; and, before the end of January, 
 1741, he returned to receive the congratulations of his subjects at Berlin. 
 
 Had the Silesian question been merely a question between Frederic and 
 Maria Theresa, it would be impossible to acquit the Prussian King of gross 
 perfidy. But when we consider the effects which his policy produced, and 
 could not fail to produce, on the whole community of civilised nations, we are 
 compelled to pronounce a condemnation still more severe. Till he began the 
 war, it seemed possible, even probable, that the peace of the world would be 
 preserved. The plunder of the great Austrian heritage was indeed a strong 
 temptation ; and in more than one cabinet ambitious schemes' were already 
 meditated. But the treaties by which the Pragmatic Sanction had been 
 guaranteed were express and recent. To throw all Europe into confusion 
 for a purpose clearly unjust was no light matter. England was true to her 
 engagements. The voice of Fleury had alv/ays been for peace. He had a 
 conscience. He was now in extreme old age and" was unwilling, after a life 
 which, when his situation was considered, must be pronounced singularly pure, 
 to carry the fresh stain of a great crime before the tribunal of his God. Even 
 the vain and unprincipled Belle Isle, whose whole Hfe was one wild day-dream of 
 conquest and spohation, felt that France, bound as she was by solemn stipula- 
 tions, could not, without disgrace, make a direct attack on the Austrian 
 dominions. Charles, Elector of Bavaria, pretended that he had a right to a 
 large part of the inheritance which the Pragmatic Sanction gave to the Queen 
 of Hungary ; but he was not sufficiently powerful to move without support. 
 It might, therefore, not unreasonably be expected that, after a short period of 
 restlessness, all the potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the arrange- 
 ments made by the late Emperor. But the selfish rapacity of the King of 
 Prussia gave the signal to his neighbours. His example quieted their sense of 
 shame. KLis.success led them to underrate the difficulty of dismembering the 
 Austrian monarchy. The whole world sprang to drms. On the head of 
 Frederic is all the blood which was shed in a war which raged during many 
 years and in every quarter of the globe — tlie blood of the column of Fontenoy,- 
 the blood of the brave mountaineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. 703 
 
 evils produced by his wickedness were felt in . lands where the name of 
 Prussia was unknown ; and, in order that he might rob a neighbour whom 
 he had promised to defend, black , men fought on the coast of Coro- 
 inandel and red, men scalped each other by the Great Lakes of North 
 Ainerica. " ' > " .... 
 
 5ile§ia had been occupied without a battle ; but the Austrian troops were 
 g.dvancing to the relief of the fortresses which still held out. In the spring, 
 Frederic rejoined his army. He had seen little^ of war and had never com- 
 manded ai>y great body of men in the field. It is not, therefore, strange that 
 his first military operations showed little of that skill which, at a later period, 
 was the admiration of Europe. What connoisseurs say of some pictures painted 
 by Raphael in his youth may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederic's 
 early, bad manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to whom he was opposed 
 were men of small capacity. The discipline of his own troops, particularly of 
 the infantry, was unequalled in that age ; and some able and experienced 
 officers were at hand to assist him with their advice. Of these, the most dis- 
 tinguished was Fidd-Marshal Schwerin, a brave adventurer of Pomeranian 
 extraction, who had served half the governments in Europe, had borne the 
 commissions of the vStates-General of Holland and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, 
 had fought under Marlborough at Blenheim and had been with Charles the 
 Twelfth at Bender. 
 
 Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz ; and never did the career of a 
 great commander open in a more inauspicious manner. His army was vic- 
 torious. Not only, however, did he not establish his title to the character of 
 Kn able general, but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubtful whether he 
 possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry, which he commanded 
 in person, was put to flight. Unaccustomed to the tumult and carnage of a 
 field of battle, te lost his self-possession and listened too readily to those who 
 urged him to save himself. His English grey carried him many miles from 
 ^hq field, while Schwerin, though wounded in two places, manfully upheld the 
 day. The skill of the old Field-Marshal and the steadiness of the Prussian 
 battalions prevailed ; and the Austrian army was driven from the field with the 
 loss of eight thousand men. 
 
 The news was carried late at night to a mill in which the King had taken 
 shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was successful ; but he owed his 
 success to dispositions which others had made and to the valour of men who 
 had. fought while he <va^ flying. So unpromising was the first appearance of 
 the greatest warrior of that age \ ' 
 
 The battle of Molwitz was the signal for a general explosion throughout 
 Europe. Bavaria took up arms. France, not yet declaring herself a principal 
 in the war, took part in it as an ally of Bavaria. The two great statesmen to 
 whom mankind had owed many years of tranquility disappeared about this 
 time from the scene, but not till they had i)oth been guilty of the weakness of 
 sacrificing their sense of justice and their love of peace to the vain hope of 
 preserving their power. Fleury, sinking under age and infirmity, was borne 
 down by the impetuosity of Belle Isle. Walpole retired from the service of his 
 ungrateful country to his woods and paintings at Houghton ; and his power 
 devolved on the daring and eccentric Carteret. As were the ministers, so 
 were the nations. Thirty years, during which Europe had, with few interrup- 
 tions, enjoyed repose, had prepared the public mind for great military efforts. 
 A. new generation had grown up which could not remel-nber the siege of Turin 
 or the slaughter of Malplaquet ; which knew war by nothing but its trophies ; 
 and which, while it looked with pride on the tapestries at Blenheim or the 
 statue in the Place of Victories, little thought by what privations, by what 
 
704 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 waste of private fortunes, by how many bitter tears, conquests must b« 
 purchased. 
 
 P'or a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of Hungary. Frederic 
 invaded Moravia. The French and Bavarians penetrated into Bohemia and 
 were there joined by the Saxons. Prague was taken. The Elector of Bavaria 
 was raised by the suffrages of his colleagues to the Imperial throne, a throne 
 which the practice of centuries had almost entitled the Hoitse of Austria to 
 regard as a hereditary possession. 
 
 Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the Caesars 'unbroken. 
 Hungary was still hers by an unquestionable title ; and, although her ances- 
 tors had found Hungary the most mutinous of all their kingdoms, she re- 
 solved to trust herself to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed, turbulent and 
 impatient of oppression, but brave, generous and simple-hearted. In the 
 midst of distress and peril, she had given birth to a son, afterwards the Emperor 
 Joseph the Second. Scarcely had she risen from her couch when she hastened 
 to Presburg. There, in the sight of an innumerable multitud,e, she was crowned 
 with the crown and robed with the robe of St. Stephen. No spectator could 
 restrain his tears when the beautiful young mother, still weak from child-bear- 
 ing, rode, after the fashion of her fathers, up the Mount of Defiance, 
 unsheathed the ancient sword of state, shook it towards north and south, east 
 and west, and, with a glow on her pale face, challenged the four corners of tha 
 world to dispute her rights and those of her boy. At the first sitting of th« 
 Diet, she appeared clad in deep mourning for her father ; and in pathetic 
 and dignified words implored her people to support her just cause. Magnates 
 and deputies sprang up, half drew their sabres, and with eager voices vowed 
 to stand by her with their lives and fortunes. Till then, her firmness had 
 never once forsaken her before the public eye ; but at that shout she sank 
 down upon her throne and wept aloud. Still more touching was the sight 
 when, a few days later, she came again before the Estates of her realm, and 
 held up before them the Httle Archduke in her arms. Then it was that the 
 enthusiasm of Hungary broke forth into that war-cry which soon resounded 
 throughout Europe, " Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa !" 
 
 In the meantime, Frederic was meditating a change of policy. He had no 
 wish to raise France to supreme power ©n the Continent at the expense of the 
 house of Hapsburg. His first object was to rob the Queen of Hungary. His 
 second was that, if possible, nobody should rob her but himself. He had 
 entered into engagements with the powers leagued against Austria ; but these 
 engagements were in his estimation of no more force than the guarantee for- 
 merly given to the Pragmatic Sanction. His game now was to secure his 
 share of the plunder by betraying his accomplices. Maria Theresa was li-ttle 
 inclined to listen to any such compromise ; but the English government repre- 
 sented to her so strongly the necessity of buying off so formidable an enemy as 
 Frederic that she agreed to negotiate. The negotiation would not, however, 
 have ended in a treaty had 'not the arms of Frederic been crowned with a 
 second victory. Prince Charles of Loraine, brother-in-law to Maria Theresa, 
 a bold and active, though unfortunate, general, gave battle to the Prussians at 
 Chotusitz and was defeated. The King was still only a learner of the mihtary 
 art. He acknowledged, at a later period, that his success on this occasion was 
 to be attributed, not at all to his own generalship, but solely to the valour and 
 steadiness of his troops. He completely effaced, however, by his courage and 
 energy, the stain which Molwitz had left on his reputation. 
 
 A peace, concluded under the English mediation, was the fruit of this battle. 
 Maria Theresa ceded Silesia ; Frederic abandoned his allies ; Saxony followed 
 his example ; and the Queen was left at liberty to turn her whole force against 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT, 70S 
 
 fJ'rance and Bavaria. She was everywhere triumphant. The French were 
 compelled to evacuate Bohemia, and with difficulty effected their escape. The 
 whole line of their retreat might te tracked by the corpses of thousands who 
 had c^ied of cold, fatigue and hunger^ Many of those who reached their 
 country carried with them the seeds of cfeath. Bavaria was overrun by bands 
 of ferocious warriors from that bloody "debatable land" which lies on the 
 frontier between Christendom and Islam. The terrible names of the Pandoor, 
 the Croat and the Hussar, then first became familiar to western Europe. The 
 unfortunate Charles of Bavaria, vanquished by Austria, betrayed by Prussia, 
 driven from his hereditary states and neglected by his allies, was hurried by 
 shame and remorse to an untimely end. An English army appeared in the 
 heart of Germany and defeated the French at Dettingen. The Austrian 
 captains already began to talk of completing the work of Marlborough and 
 Eugene, and of compelling France to relinquish Alsace and the three Bishoprics. 
 .,' '' The Court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to Frederic for help. He had 
 feeen guilty of two great treasons — perhaps he might be induced to commit a 
 third. The Duchess of Chateauroux then held the chief influence over the 
 feeble Louis. She determined to send an agent to Berlin ; and Voltaire was 
 selected for the mission. He eageriy undertook the task ; for, while his 
 literary fame filled all Europe, he was troubled with a childish craving for 
 political distinction. He was vain, and not without reason, of his address and 
 6i( his insinuating eloquence ; and he flattered himself that he possessed bound- 
 less influence over the King of Prussia. The truth was, that he knew, as yet, 
 pply one corner of Frederic's character. He was well acquainted with all the 
 petty vanities and affectations of the poetaster, but was not aware that these 
 foibles were united with all the talents and vices which lead to success in active 
 life, and Aat the unlucky versifier who bored him with reams of middling 
 Alexandrines, was the most vigilant, suspicious and severe of politicians. 
 
 Voltaire was received with every mark of respect and friendship, was lodged 
 in the palace and had a seat daily at the royal table. The negotiation was of 
 an extraordinary description. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than 
 the conferences w:hich took place between the first literary man and the first 
 practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness had induced to exchange 
 their parts. The great poet Would talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees 
 and the great King of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion, 
 Voltaire put into his Majesty's hands a paper on the state of Europe, and 
 received it back with verses scrawled on the margin. In secret they both 
 laughed at each other. Voltaire did not spare the King's poems ; and the 
 King has left on record his opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy. *'He had no 
 credentials,'' says Frederic, " and the whole mission was a joke, a mere farce." 
 
 But what the influence of Voltaire could not effect, the rapid progress of the 
 Austrian arms effected. If it should be in the power of Maria Theresa and 
 (jeorge the Second to dictate terms of peace to France, iX'hat chance was there 
 ihat Prussia would long retain Silesia ? Frederic's conscience told him that he 
 Had acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards the Queen of Hungary. That 
 lier resentment was strong, she had given ample proof ; and of her respect for 
 Ireaties he judged by his own. Guarantees, he said, were mere filigree, pretty 
 to look at, but too brittle to. bear the slightest pressure. He thought it his 
 safest course to ally himself closely to France and again to attack the Empress 
 Qdeen; Accordingly, in the autumn of 1744, without notice, without any 
 decent pretext, he recommenced hostihties, marched through the electorate of 
 ^axony without troubling himself about the permission of the Elector, invaded 
 Bohemia, took Prague and even menaced Vienna. 
 
 It was now that, for the first time, he experienced the inconstancy of fortune. 
 
7o6 FREDERIC THE GREAT, 
 
 An Austrian arpiy under Charles of Loraine threatened his communications 
 with Silesia. Sax«ny was all in arm's behind him, ' He found it necessary to 
 save, himself by a retreat. He afterwards owned that tis failure was the 
 natui;al effect of his own blunders. No general, he said, had ever committed 
 greater faults. It must be added, that to the revetses of this campaign he 
 always ascribed his subsequent successes. It was in the midst of difficulty and 
 disgrace that he caught the first clear glimpse of the principles of the military 
 
 art. ■'.■". 
 
 The memorable year 1745 followed. The? w^t' raged by sea and land, in 
 Italy, in Germany a"nd in Flanders ; and even England, after many years of 
 profound internal quiet, saw, for the last time, hostile armies set in battle 
 array against each other. This year is memorable in the life of.Fredeiric as the 
 date at which his noviciate in the art of war may be said to have terminated. 
 There have been great captains whose precocious and self-taught military 
 skill resembled intuition — Conde, Clive and Napoleon are examples. But 
 Frederic was not one of these brilliant portents. His proficiency in military 
 science was simply the proficiency which a man of vigorous faculties makes in 
 any science to which he applies his mind with earnestess and industry. It was 
 at Hohenfriedberg that he first proved how much he had profited by his errors 
 and by their consequences. His victory on that day was chiefly due to his 
 skilful dispositions, and convinced Europe that the prince who, a few years 
 before, had stood aghast in the rout of Molwitz, had attained ih the military 
 art a mastery equalled by none of his contemporaries or equalled by Saxe alone. 
 The victory of Hohetifriedberg was speedily followed by that of Sorr. 
 
 In the meantime, the arms of France had been victorious in the Low 
 Countries. Frederic had no longer reason to fear that Maria Theresa would 
 be able to give law to Europe, and he began to meditate a fourth breach of 
 his engagements. The Court of Versailles was alarmed and mortifiea. A lettet 
 of earnest expostulation, in the handwriting of Louis, was sent to Berlin ; 
 but in vain. In the autumn of 1745, Frederick made peace with England and, 
 before the close of the year, with Austria also. The pretensions of Charles of 
 Bavaria could present no obstacle to an accommodation. That unhappy prince 
 was no more ; and Francis of Loraine, the husband of Maria Theresa, was 
 raised, with the general assent of the Germanic body, to the Imperial throne. 
 
 Prussia was again at peace ; but the European war lasted till, in the year 
 1748, it was terminated by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Of all the powers 
 that had taken part in it, the only gainer was Frederic. Not only had he 
 added to his patrimony the fine province of Silesia : he had, by his un- 
 principled dexterity, succeeded so well in alternately depressing the scale of 
 Austria arid that of Fratice, that he was generally Regarded as holding the 
 balance of Europe, a high dignity for one who ranked lowest among kings 
 and whose great-grandfather had been no more than a Margrave. By the 
 public, the king of Prussia was considered as a politician destitute alike of 
 morality and decency, insatiably rapacious and shamelessly false; nor was 
 the public much in the wrong. He was at the same time allowed to be a 
 man of parts, a rising general, a shrewd negotiator and administrator. Those 
 qualities wherein he surpassed all mankind were as yet unknown to others 
 or to himself, for they were quahties which shine out only on a dark ground. 
 His careeer had hitherto, with Httle interruption, been prosperous ; arid it 
 was only in adversity, in adversity which seemed without hope or resource, 
 in adversity which would have overwhelmed even men celebrated for strength 
 ot mind, that his real greatness could be shown; 
 
 He had, from the commencement of his reign, applied himself to public 
 business after a fashion unknown among Js,ings. jlouis XIV., indeed, had 
 
pREb^kic The GkEAT. 707 
 
 been his own prime minister and had exercised a general superintendence 
 over all the departments of the government; but this was not sufficient for 
 Frederic. He was not content with being hi^ own prime mitiister— he would 
 be his own sole i^iinister. Under hini^there was no room, not merely for 
 a Richelieu or a Mazarin, but for a Colbert, a Louvois or a Torcy. A love 
 of labour for its own sake, a restless and insatiable longing to dictate, to inter- 
 meddle, to make his power felt, a profound scorn and distrust of his ' fellow- 
 creatures, indisposed him to ask counsel, to confide important secrets, to 
 delegate ample powers. The highest functionaries under his government were 
 mere clerks, and were not so much trusted by him as valuable clerks are often 
 trusted by the heads of departments. He was his own treasurer, his own 
 commander-in-chief, his own intendant of public works, his own minister 
 for" trade and justice, for home affairs and foreign affairs, his own master 
 of the horse, steward and chamberlain. Matters of which no chief of an 
 office in any other government would ever hear were, in this singular monarchy, 
 decided by the King in person. If a traveller wished for a good place to see a 
 review, he had to write to Frederic, and received next day, from a royal 
 raessenger, Frederic's answer signed by Frederic's own hand. This was an 
 extravagant, a morbid activity. The public business would assuredly have 
 been better done if each department had been put under a man of talents and 
 integrity and if the King had contented himself with a general control. In 
 this manner, the advantages which belong to unity of design ' and ' the 
 advantages which belong to the division of labour would liave been to 
 a great extent combined. But "such a system would not have suited' the 
 peculiar temper of Frederic. He could tolerate no will, no reason, in 
 the state, save his own. He wished for no abler assistance than that of 
 penmen who had just understanding enough to translate, to transcribe, to 
 make out his scrawls and to put his concise Yes and No intb an official form. 
 Of the higher intellectual faculties, there is as much in a copying machine or a 
 
 lithographic press as he required from the secretary of the cabinet. , 
 
 'His own exertions were such as were hardly to be expected from a lliiman ' 
 body or a human mind. At Potsdam, his ordinary residence, he rose at' tHfe'fe 
 in summer and four in winter. .A page soon appeared with a large basket- 
 ful of all the letters which had arrived for the King by the last courier — 
 despatches from ambassadors, reports from officers of revenue, plans of build- 
 ings, proposals for draining marshes, complaints from persons who thought 
 t^jlemselves aggrieved, applications from persons who wanted titles, military 
 cbrhmission and civil situations. He examined the seals with a keen eye ; for 
 he was never for 'a moment free from the suspicion that some fraud might 
 be practised on him. Then he read the letters, divided them into several 
 packets, and signified His pleasure generally by a mark, often by two or three 
 words, now and then by some cutting epigram. By eight he had generally 
 finished this part of his task. The adjutant-general was then in attendance, 
 and received. instructions for the day as to all the military arrangements of the 
 kingdom. Then the King went to review his guards, not as kings ordinarily 
 review their guards, but with the minute attention and severity of an old drill- 
 sergeant. In the meantime, the four cabinet secretaries had been employed in 
 answering the letters on which the King had that morning signified his will. 
 These unhapi^y men were forced to work all the year round IiJ<e negro slaves 
 in the time of the sugar-crop. They never had a holiday. They never knew 
 what it was to dine. It Was necessary that Isefore they stirred they should 
 finish the whole of f heir work. The King, always on his guard against 
 treachery, took from the heap a handful at random, and looked into them to 
 see whether his instructions had ^ been exactly followed. This was no bad 
 
?o8 FREDERIC THE GRMAT. 
 
 security against foul play on the part of the secretaries; for if one of therri 
 were detected in a trick, he might think himself fortunate if he escaped with 
 five years of imprisonment in a dungeon. Frederic then signed the replies ; 
 and all were sent off the same evening. 
 
 The general principles on which this strange government was conducted, 
 deserve attention. The policy of Frederic was essentially the same as his 
 father's ; but Frederic, while he carried that policy to lengths to which his 
 father never thought of carrying it, cleared it at the same time from the absur- 
 dities with which his father had encumbered it. The King's first object was 
 to have a great, efficient and well-trained army. He had a kingdom 
 which in extent and population was hardly in the second rank of European 
 powers ; and yet he aspired to a place not inferior to that of the sovereigns 
 of England, France and Austria. For that end, it was necessary that 
 Prussia should be all sting. Louis XV., with five times as many subjects 
 as Frederic, and mori« than five times as large a revenue, had not a more 
 formidable army. The proportion which the soldiers in Prussia bore to the 
 people seems hardly credible. Of the males in the vigour of life, a seventh 
 part were probably under arms ; and this great force had, by drilling, by review- 
 ing and by the unsparing use of cane and scourge, been taught to perform all 
 evolutions with a rapidity and a precision which would have astonished Villars 
 or Eugene. The elevated feelings which are necessary to the best kind of army 
 were then wanting to the Prussian service. In those ranks were not found the 
 religious and political enthusiasm which inspired the pikemen of Cromwell — 
 the patriotic ardour, the thirst of glory, the devotion to a great leader, which 
 inflamed the Old Guard of Napoleon. But in all the mechanical parts of the 
 military calling, the Prussians were as superior to the English and French 
 troops of that day as the English and French troops to a rustic militia. 
 
 Though the pay of the Prussian soldier was small, though every rixdollar of 
 extraordinary charge was scrutinised by Frederic with a vigilance and suspicion 
 such as Mr. Joseph Hume never brought to the examination of an army esti- 
 mate, the expense of such an establishment was, for the means of the country, 
 enormous. In order that it might not be utterly ruinous, it was necessary that 
 every other expense should be cut down to the lowest possible point. Accord- 
 ingly, Frederic, though his dominions bordered on the sea, had no navy. He 
 neither had nor wished to have colonies. His judges, his fiscal officers, were 
 meanly paid. His ministers at foreign courts walked on foot, or drove shabby 
 old carriages till the axle-trees gave way. Even to his highest diplomatic 
 agents, who resided at London and Paris, he allowed less than a thousand 
 pounds sterling a-year. The royal household was managed with a frugality 
 unusual in the establishments of opulent subjects— unexampled in any other 
 palace. The King loved good eating and drinking, and during great part of 
 his life took pleasure in seeing his table surrounded by guests ; yet the whole 
 charge of his kitchen was brought within the sum of two thousand pounds 
 sterling a-year. He examined every extraordinary item with a care which 
 might be thought to suit the mistress of a boarding-house better than a great 
 prince. When more than four rixdollars were asked of him for a hundred 
 oysters, he stormed as if he had heard that one of his generals had sold a for- 
 tress to the Empress Queen. Not a bottle of Champagne was uncorked with- 
 out his express order. The game of the royal parks and forests, a serious head 
 of expenditure in most kingdoms, was to him a source of profit. The whole 
 was farmed out ; and though the farmers were almost ruined by their contract, 
 the King would grant them no remission. His wardrobe consisted of one fine 
 gala dress, which lasted him all his life ; of two or three old coats fit for Mon- 
 mouth Street, of yellow waistcoats soiled with snuff and of huge boots em- 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. 70$ 
 
 browned by tirtje. One taste alone sometimes allured him beyond the limits of 
 parsimony, nay, even beyond the limits of prudence, the taste for building. In 
 all other things his economy was such as we might call by a harsher name if 
 we did not reflect that his funds wepc drawn from a heavily taxed people, and 
 that it was impossible for him, without excessive tyranny, to keep up at once a 
 formidable army and a splendid court. 
 
 Considered as an administrator, Frederic had undoubtedly many titles to praise 
 Order was strictly maintained throughout his dominions. Property was secure. 
 A great liberty of speaking and of writing was allowed. Confident in the irre- 
 sistible strength derived from a great army, the King looked down on malcon- 
 tents and libellers with a wise disdain ; and gave little encouragement to spies 
 and informers. When he was told of the disaffection of one of his subjects, he 
 merely asked, *' how many thousand men can he bring into the field?" He 
 once saw a crowd staring at something on a wall. He rode up and found that 
 the object of curiosity was a scurrilous placard against himself. The placard 
 had been posted up so high that it was not easy to read it. Frederic ordered 
 his attendants to take it down and put it lower. " My people and I," he said, 
 " have come to an agreement which satisfies us both. They are to say what they 
 please and I am to do what I please." No person would have dared to pub- 
 lish in London satires on George II. approaching to the atrocity of those satires 
 on Frederic, which the booksellers at Berlin sold with impunity. One book- 
 seller sent to the palace a copy of the most stinging lampoon that perhaps was 
 ever written in the world as the " Memoirs of Voltaire," published by Beau- 
 marchais, and asked for his Majesty's orders. "Do not advertise it in an 
 offensive manner," said the King ; " but sell it by all means. I hope it will 
 pay you well." Even among statesmen accustomed to the license of a free 
 press, such steadfastness of mind as this is not very common. 
 
 It is due also to the memory of Frederic to say that he earnestly laboured to 
 secure to his people the great blessing of cheap and speedy justice. He was 
 one of the first rulers who abolished the cruel and absurd practice of torture. 
 No sentence of death, pronounced by the ordinary tribunals, was executed 
 without his sanction ; and his sanction, except in cases of murder, was rarely 
 giveji. Towards his troops he acted in a very different manner. Military 
 offences were punished with such barbarous scourging that to be shot was consid- 
 ered by the Prussian soldier as a secondary punishment. Indeed, the prin- 
 ciple which pervaded Frederic's whole policy was this — that the more severely 
 the army is governed, the safer it is to treat the rest of the community with 
 lenity. 
 
 Religious persecution was unknown under his government — unless some 
 foolish and unjust restrictions which lay upon the Jews may be regarded as 
 forming an exception. His policy with respect to the Catholics of Silesia pre- 
 sented an honourable contrast to the policy which, under very similar circum- 
 stances, England long followed with respect to the Catholics of Ireland. Every 
 form of religion and irreligion found an asylum in his states. The scoffer whom 
 the Parliaments of France had sentenced to a cruel death was consoled by a 
 commission in the Prussian service. The Jesuit who could show his face 
 nowhere else — who in Britain was still subject to penal laws, who was 
 prescribed by France, Spain, Portugal and Naples, who had been given up 
 even by the Vatican — found safety and the means of subsistence in the Prussian 
 dominions. 
 
 Most of the vices of Frederic's administration resolve themselves into one 
 ▼ice — the spirit of meddling. The indefatigable activity of his intellect, his 
 dictatorial temper, his military habits, all inclined him to this great fault. He, 
 drilled his people as he drilled his grenadiers. Capital and industry were 
 
*^io FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 diverted from their natural direction by a crowd of preposterous regulations. 
 There was a monopoly of coffee, a monopoly of tobacco, a monopoly of refined 
 sugar.. The public nioney, of which the King was generally so sparing, was 
 lavishly spent in ploughing bogs, in planting mulberry trees amidst the sand, 
 in bringing sheep from Spain to improve the Saxon wool, in bestowing prizes 
 for. fine yarn, in building manufactories of porcelain, manufactories of carpets, 
 manufactories of hardware, manufactories of lace. Neither the experience 
 of other rulers, nor his own, could ever teach him that something more than 
 an edict and a grant of pablic money was required to create a Lyons, a Brus- 
 sels or a Birmingham. ' . 
 
 For his commercial policy, however, there is some excuse. He had on 
 his side illustrious examples and popular prejudice. Grievously as he erred, 
 he erred in company with his age. In other departments, his meddling was 
 altogether without apology. He interfered with the course of justice as well 
 as with the course of trade, and set up his own crude notions of equity against 
 the law as expounded bv the unanim ous voice of the gravest magistrates. It 
 never occurred to him that a body of men whose lives were passed in adju- 
 dicating on questions of civil right were more likely to form correct opinions 
 on such questions than a prince whose attention was divided among a thousand 
 objects and who had probably never read a law book through. The resistance 
 opposed to him by the tribunals inflamed him to fury. He reviled his, Chan- 
 cellor. He kicked the shins of his Judges. He did not, it is true, intend to 
 act unjustly. He firmly believed that he was doing right and defending the 
 cause of the poor against the wealthy. Yet this well-meant meddling probably 
 did far more harm than all the explosions of his evil passions during the whole 
 of his long reign. We could make shift to live under a debauchee or a tyrant ; 
 but to be ruled by a busybody is more than human nature can bear. 
 
 The same passion for directing and regulating appeared in every part of the 
 King's policy. Every lad of a certain station in life was forced to ^o to certain 
 schools within the Prussian dominions. If a young Prussian repaired, though 
 but for a few weeks, to Leyden or Gottingen, for the purpose of study, the 
 offence was punished with civil disabilities and sometimes with the confiscation 
 of property. Nobody was to travel without the royal permission. If the 
 permission were granted, the pocket money of the tourist was fixed by royal 
 ordinance. A merchant might take with him two hundred and fifty rixdollars 
 in gold, a noble was allowed to take four hundred ; for it may be observed, in 
 passing, that Frederic studiously kept up the old distinction between the nobles 
 and the community. In speculation, he was a French philosopher ; but in 
 action, a German prince. He talked and wrote about , the privileges of blood 
 in the style of Sieyes ; but in practice no chapter in the empire lool^ed with a 
 keener eye to genealogies and quarterings., ', ; '■ . 
 
 Such was Frederic the Ruler. But there was another Frederic, the Frederic 
 of Rheinsberg, the fiddler and flute-player, the poetaster and metaphysician. 
 Amidst the cares of state, the King had retained his passion for music, for reading, 
 for writing, for literary society. ' To these amusements he devoted all the time 
 that he could snatch from the business of war and government ; and perha,ps 
 more light is thrown on his character by what passed during his hours of relaxa- 
 tion than by his battles or his laws. 
 
 It was the just boa^t of Schiller that, in his country, no AugustuSj no 
 Lorenzo had watched over the infancy of art. The rich and energetic language 
 of Luther, driven by the Latin from the schools of pedants and by the French 
 'from the palaces of kings, had taken refuge among the people. Qf the powers 
 of that language, Frederic, had no notion. He generally spoke of it, and of 
 those who used it, with the contempt of ignorance. ^ His hbrary con- 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. %\l 
 
 sisted of French books; at his table nothing was heard but. French con- 
 versation. ' " ' ' ' _ ' , :'■% 
 
 The associates of his hours of relaxation were, for the most part, foreigner's.', 
 Britain furnished to the royal circle twt) distinguished rnen', born in the highest 
 rank and driven by civil dissensions from the land f;o which, under happier 
 circumstances, their talents and virtues might have been a source of. strength 
 and glory. George Keith, Earl Marischal of Scotland, had taken arms for the 
 house of Stuart in 1715, ahd his younger brother James, then only seventeei" 
 years old, had fought gallantly by his side. When all was lost, they retiree- 
 together to the Continent, roved from country to country, served under many 
 standards, and so bore themselves as to win the respect and goodwill of many 
 who had no love for the Jacobite cause. Their long wanderings terminated at 
 Potsdam ; nor had Frederic any associates who deserved or obtained so large a 
 share of his esteem. They were not only accomplished men, but nobles and 
 warriors, capable of serving hirri in war and diplomacy as well as of amusing 
 him at supper. Alone of all his companions, they appear never to have had 
 reason to complain Of his demeanour towards them. Some of those who knew 
 the palace best pronounced that Lord Marischal was the only human being 
 whom Frederic ever really to ved. 
 
 Italy sent to the parties at Potsdam the ingenious and amiable Algarotti and 
 Bastiani, the most crafty, cautious and servile of Abbes. But the greater part 
 of the society which Frederic had assembled round him was drawn from 
 France. Maupertuis had acquired some celebrity by the journey which he had 
 made to Lapland for the purpose of ascertaining, by actual measurement, the 
 shape of our planet. He was placed in the chair of the Academy of Berlin, a 
 humble imitation of the renowned academy of Paris. Baculard D'Arnaud, a 
 young poet, who was thought to have given promise of great things, had been 
 induced to quit his country and to reside at the Prussian Court. The Marquess 
 D'Argens was among the King's favourite companions, on account, as it should 
 seem, of the strong opposition between their cliaracters. The parts of D'Argens 
 were good and his manners those of a finished French gentleman ; but his 
 whole soul was dissolved in sloth, timidity and sejf-indulgence. His. was one 
 of that abject class of minds which are superstitious without being religious^ 
 Hating Christianity with a rancour which made him incapable of rational inquiry, 
 unable to see in the harmony and beauty of the universe the traces of divine 
 power and wisdom, he was the slave of dreams and omens — would not sit down 
 to table with thirteen in company, turned pale if the salt fell towards him, 
 begged his guests not to cross their knives and forks on their plates, and would 
 not for the world commence a journey on Friday. .His health was a subject of 
 constant anxiety to him. Whenever his head ached or his pulse beat quick, his 
 dastardly fears and effeminate precautions were the jest of all Berlin. All this 
 suited the King^s purpose admirably. He wanted someb9dy by whom he 
 might be amused and whom he might despise. When he wished to pass half 
 an hour in easy, poUshed conversation, D'Argens was an excellent companion ; 
 when he wanted to vent his spleen and contempt, D'Argens was an excellent 
 butt. 
 
 With these associates an4 others of the' same class, ^Frederic loved to spend 
 the time which he could steal from public cares. He wished his supper parties, 
 to be gay and easy, and invited his guests to lay aside all restraint and to forget 
 that he was at the head of a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers and was 
 absolute master of the life and liberty of all who sat at meat with him. There 
 was, therefore, at these parties, the outward show of ease, '^he wit and learning 
 of the company were ostentatiously displayed. The discussions on history and 
 literature were often highly interesting. But the absurdity of all Uie religions. 
 
712 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 known among men was the chief topic of conversation ; and the audacity with 
 which doctrines and names venerated throughout Christendom were treated on 
 these occasions startled even persons accustomed to the society of French and 
 EngHsh freethinkers. Real liberty, however, or real affection, was in this 
 brilliant society not to be found. Absolute kings seldom have friends ; and' 
 Frederic's faults were such as, even where perfect equality exists, make friend- 
 ship exceedingly precarious. He had indeed many qualities which, on a first 
 acquaintance, were captivating. His conversation was lively ; his manners, to 
 those whom he desired to please, were even caressing. No man could flatter 
 with more delicacy. No man succeeded more completely in inspiring those 
 who approached him with vague hopes of some great advantage from his kind- 
 ness. But under this fair exterior he was a tyrant — suspicious, disdainful and 
 malevolent. Hd had one taste which may be pardoned in a boy, but which, 
 when habitually and deliberately indulged by a man of mature age and strong 
 understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a bad heart — a taste for severe 
 practical jokes. If a courtier was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest 
 suit. If he was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him disburse 
 more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, he was made to believe 
 that he had the dropsy. If he had particularly set his heart on visiting a place, 
 a letter was forged to frighten him from going thither. These things, it may be 
 said, are trifles. They are so ; but they are indications, not to be mistaken, of 
 a nature to which the sight of human suffering and human degradation is an 
 agreeable excitement. 
 
 Frederic had a keen eye for the foibles of others, and loved to communicate 
 his discoveries. He had some talent for sarcasm and considerable skill in 
 detecting the sore places where sarcasm would be most acutely felt. His 
 vanity, as well as his malignity, found gratification in the vexation and con- 
 fusion of those who smarted under his caustic jests. Yet, in truth, his success 
 on these occasions belonged quite as much to the king as to the wit. We read 
 that Commodus descended, sword in hand, into the arena against a wretched 
 gladiator, armed only with a foil of lead, and, after shedding the blood of the 
 helpless victim, struck medals to commemorate the inglorious victory. The 
 triumphs of Frederic in the war of repartee were of much the same kind. 
 How to deal with him was the most puzzling of questions. To appear con- 
 strained in his presence was to disobey his commands and to spoil his amuse- 
 ment. Yet, if his associates were enticed by his graciousness to indulge in the 
 familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was certain to make them repent of their 
 presumption by some cruel humiliation. To resent his affronts was perilous ; 
 yet not to resent them was to deserve and to invite them. In his view, those 
 who mutinied were insolent and ungrateful ; those w]io submited were curs 
 made to receive bones and kickings with the same fawning patience. It is, 
 indeed, difficult to conceive how anything short of the rage of hunger should 
 have induced men to bear the misery of being the associates of the Great King. 
 It was no lucrative post. His Majesty was as severe and economical in his 
 friendships as in the other charges of his establishment, and as unlikely to give 
 a rixdollar too much for his guests as for his dinners. The sum which' he 
 allowed to a poet or a philosopher was the very smallest sum for which such 
 poet or philosopher could be induced to sell himself into slavery ; and the 
 bondsman might think himself fortunate, if what had been so grudgingly given 
 was not, after years of suffering, rudely and arbitrarily withdrawn. 
 
 Potsdam was, in truth, what it was called by one of its most illustrious 
 inniDtes, the Palace of Alcina. At the first glance, it seemed to be a delightful 
 spot, vdiere every intellectual and physical enjoyment awaited the happy 
 adventurer. ??,very new comer was received with eager hospitality, intoxicated 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT, 5^13 
 
 with flattery, encouraged to expect prosperity and greatness. It was in vain 
 Ihat a long succession of favourites, who had entered that abode with delight 
 and hope, and who, after a short term of delusive happiness, had been doomed 
 D expiate their folly by years of wretchedness and degradation, raised their 
 voices to warn the aspirant who approached the charmed threshold. Some 
 had wisdom enough to discover the truth early and spirit enough to fly with- 
 out looking back ; others lingered on to a cheerless and unhonoured old age. 
 We have no hesitation in saying that the poorest author of that time in London, 
 sleeping on a bulk, dining in a cellar, with a cravat of paper and a skewer for 
 a shirt-pin, was a happier man than any of the literary inmates of Frederic's 
 court. 
 
 But of all who entered the enchanted garden in the inebriation of delight } V 
 and quitted it in agonies of rage and shame, the most remarkable was Voltaire. 
 Many circumstances had made him desirous of finding i home at a distance 
 from his country. His fame had raised him up enemies. His sensibility gave 
 them a formidable advantage over him. They were, indeed, contemptible 
 assailants. Of all that they wrote against him, nothing has survived except 
 what he has himself preserved. But the constitution of his mind resembled 
 the constitution of those bodies in which the slightest scratsh of a bramble, or 
 the bite of a gnat, never fails to fester. Though his reputation was rather 
 raised than lowered by the abuse of such writers as Freron and Desfontaines — • 
 though the vengeance which he took on Freron and Desfontaines was such, that 
 scourging, branding, pillorying, would have been a trifle to it — there is reason 
 to believe that they gave him far more pain than he ever gave them. Though 
 he enjoyed during his own lifetime the reputation of a classic — though he was 
 extolled by his contemporaries above all poets,' philosophers and historians, 
 though his works were read with as much delight and admiration at Moscow 
 and Westminster, at Florence and Stockholm as at Paris itself, he was yet tor- 
 mented by that restless jealousy which should seem to belong only to minds 
 burning with the desire of fame and yet conscious of impotence. To men of 
 letters, who could by no possibility be his rivals, he was, if they behaved well 
 to him, not merely just, not merely courteous, but often a hearty friend and a 
 munificent benefactor. But to every writer who rose to a celebrity approaching 
 his own, he became either a disguised or an avowed enemy. He slyly depre- 
 ciated Montesquieu and Buffbn. He publicly and with violent outrage made 
 war on Rousseau. Nor had he the art of hiding his feelings under the 
 semblance of good humour or of contempt. With all his great talents and all 
 his long experience of the world, he had no more self-command than a petted 
 child or a hysterical woman. Whenever he was mortified, he exhausted the 
 whole rhetoric of anger and sorrow to express his mortification. His torrents 
 of bitter words — his stamping and cursing — his grimaces and his tears of rage — 
 were a rich feast to those abject natures whose delight is in the agonies of 
 powerful spirits and in the abasement of immortal names. These creatures 
 had now found out a way of galling him to the very quick. In one walk, at 
 least, it had been admitted byenvy itself that he was without a living competitor. 
 Since Racine had been laid among the great men whose dust made the holy 
 precinct of Port Royal holier, no tragic poet had appeared who could contest 
 the palm with the author of "Zaire," of " Alzire " and of "Merope." At 
 length a rival was announced. Old Crebillon, who, many years before, had 
 obtained some theatrical success, and who had long been forgotten, came forth 
 from his garret in one of the meanest lanes near the Rue St. Antoine and was 
 welcomed by the acclamations of envious men of letters and of a capricious 
 populace. A thing called "Catiline," which he had written in his retirement, 
 was acted with boundless applause. Of this execrable piece it is sufficient *to 
 
tU.. FREDERIC the great. 
 
 say that the plot turns on a love affair, carried on in all the forms of Scudery, 
 between Catiline, whose confidant is the Prsetor Lentulus, and Tullia, the 
 daughter of Cicero. The theatre resounded with acclamations. The King 
 pensioned the successful poet:; and the coffee-houses pronounced that Voltaire 
 was a clever man, but that the real tragic inspiration, the celestial fire which had 
 glowed in Corneille and Racine was to be found in Crebillon alope. 
 
 The blow went to Voltaire's heart. Had his wisdom and fortitude been in 
 proportion to the fertility of his intellect and to the brilliancy of his wit, he 
 would have seen that it was out of the power of all the puffers and detractors 
 in Europe to put "Catiline" above "Zaire;" but he had none of the 
 magnanimous patience with which Milton and Bentley left their claims to the 
 unerring, judgment of time. He eagerly engaged in an undignified competition 
 with Crebillon ; and produced a series of plays on the same subjects which his 
 rival had treated. These pieces were coolly received. Angry with the court, 
 angry with the capital, Voltaire began to find pleasure in the prospect of exile. 
 His attachment for Madame de Chatelet long prevented him from executing his 
 purpose. Her death set him at liberty ; and he determined to take refuge at 
 Berlin. 
 
 To Berlin he was'invit(?d by a series of letters, couched in terms of the most 
 enthusiastic friendship and admiration. For once the rigid ^ parsimony of 
 Frederic seemed to have relaxed. Orders, honourable offices, a liberal pension, 
 a well-served table, stately apartments under a royal roof, were offered in re- 
 turn for the pleasure and honour which were expected from the society of the 
 first wit of the age. A thousand louis were remitted for the charges of the 
 journey.' No ambassador, setting out from Berlin for a court of the first 
 rank, had ever been more amply supplied. But Voltaire was not satisfied. 
 At a later period, when he possessed an ample fortune, he was one of the 
 most liberal of men ; but till his means had become equal to his wishes, his 
 greediness for lucre was unrestrained either by justice or by shame. He had 
 the effrontery to ask for a thousand louis more, in order to enable him to 
 bring his niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of coquettes, in his company. 
 The indelicate rapacity of the poet produced its natural effect on the se- 
 vere and frugal King. The answer was a dry refusal. " I did not," said 
 his Majesty, " solicit the honour of the lady's society." On this, Voltaire went 
 off into a paroxysm of childish rage. "Was there ever such avarice? . He 
 has hundreds of tubs full of dollars in his vaults and haggles with me about 
 a poor thousand louis. " It seemed that the negotiation would be broken off ; 
 but Frederic, with great dexterity, affected indifference, and seemed inclined 
 to transfer his idolatry to Baculard D'Arnaud. His Majesty even wrote 
 some bad verses, of which the sense was that Voltaire was a setting sun 
 and that D'Arnaud was risii)g. Good-natured friends soon carried the lines 
 to yoltaire. He was in his bed. He jumped out in his shirt, danced 
 about the rooip with rage, and sent for his passport and his post-horses. It 
 was not difficult to foresee the end of a connection which had such a be- 
 ginning. 
 
 It was in the year 1750 that Voltaire left the great capital, which he 
 was not to see again till, after the lapse of near thirty years, he returned 
 bowed down by extreme old age to die in the midst of a splendid and ghastly 
 triumph. His reception in Prussia was such as might well have elated a less 
 vain and excitable mind.. He wrote to his friends at Paris, that the kindness 
 and the attention with .which he had been welcomed surpassed description — 
 that the King was the most amiable of men—that Potsdam was the paradise 
 of philosophers. He was created chamberlam, and received, together with 
 his gold key, the cross of an order and a patent ensuring to him a pension of 
 
J^EP-miC THE GREA T. 715 
 
 eight hundred pounds sterling a-y ear for life. A hundred and sixty pounds a- 
 year were promised to his niece if she survived him. The royal cooks and 
 coachmen were put at his disposal. He was lodged in the same apartments 
 in which Saxe had lived when, at the height of power and glory, he visited 
 Prussia. Frederic, indeed, stooped for a time even to use the language of 
 adulation. He pressed to his lips the meagre hand of the little grinning 
 skeleton, whom he regarded as the dispenser of immortal renown. He would 
 add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his ancestors and his sword, 
 another title, derived from his last and proudest acquisition. His style should 
 run thus : Frederic, King of Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg, Sovereign 
 Duke of Silesia, Possessor of Voltaire. But even amidst the delights of the 
 honeymoon, Voltaire's sensitive vanity began to take alarm. A few days after 
 his arrival, he qouid not help telling his niece that the amiable Kang had a 
 trick of giving., a sly scratch with one hand while patting and stroking with 
 the other. Soon came hints not the less alarming because mysterious. "The 
 supper parties are delicious. The King is the life of the company. But — I 
 have operas and comedies, reviews and concerts, my studies and books. 3ut — 
 but — Berlin is fine, the princesses charming, the maids of honour handsome. 
 
 This eccentric friendship was fast cooking,. Never had there met two persons 
 so exquisitely fitted to plague each other. Each, of them had ei^actly the 
 fault of which the other was imost impatient; and they were, in different 
 ways, the most impatient of mankind. Frederic was frugal, almost niggardly. 
 When he had secured his plaything, he began to think that he had bought it 
 too dear. Voltaire, on the other hand, was greedy, even to the extent of im- 
 prudence and knavery ; and conceived that the favourite; of a monarch, who 
 had barrels'full of gold and silver laid up in cellars, ought to make a fortune 
 v/hich a receiver-general might envy. They soon discovered each other's feel- 
 ings. Both . were angry ; and a war began in which Frederic stooped to 
 the part of Harpagon and Voltair.e to that of Scapin. It is humiliating to 
 relate, that the great warrior and statesmen gave orders that his guest's allow- 
 ance of sugar and chocolate should be curtailed. It is, if possible, a still 
 more humiliating fact that Voltaire indemnified himself by pocketing the 
 wax-candles in the royal antechamber. Disputes about money, however, 
 were not the most serious disputes of these extraordinary associates. The 
 sarcasms of the King soon galled the sensitive temper of the poet. D'Arnaud 
 and D'Argens, Guichard and La Metric, might, for the sake of a morsel of 
 bread, be willing to bear the insolence of a master ; but Voltaire was of 
 another order. He knew that he was a potentate as well as Frederic, that 
 his European reputation and his incomparable power of covering whatever he 
 hated with ridicule, made him an object of dread even to the leaders of armies 
 and the rulers of nations. In truth, of all the intellectual weapons which 
 have ever been wielded by man, the most terrible was the mockery of Vol^ 
 taire. Bigots and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailing and 
 cursing of millions, turned pale at his name. Principles unassailable by 
 reason, principles which had withstood the fiercest attacks of power, the most 
 valuable truths, the most generous sentiments, the noblest and most graceful 
 images, the purest reputations, the most august institutions, began to look 
 mean and loathsome as soon as that withering smile was turned upon them. 
 To every opponeiit, however strong in his cause and his talents, in his station 
 and his character, who ventured to encounter the greater scofiier^ might be 
 addressed the caution which was given of old to the Archangel : 
 
 " I forewarn thee, shun 
 His deadly arrow; neithtr vainly hope 
 
7i6 FREDERIC THE GREAT, 
 
 To be invulnerable in those bright arms, 
 Though temper'd heavenly ; for that fatal dint, 
 Save Him who reigns above, none can resist." 
 
 We cannot pause to recount how often that rare talent was exercised 
 against rivals worthy of esteem — how often it was used to crush and torture 
 enemies worthy only of silent disdain — how often it was perverted to the more 
 noxious purpose of destroying the last solace of earthly misery and the last 
 restraint on earthly power. Neither can we pause to tell how often it was 
 used to vindicate justice, humanity and toleration — the principles of sound 
 philosophy, the principles of free government. This is not the place for a full 
 character of Voltaire. 
 
 Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, who, partly from love of 
 money and partly from love of excitement, was always fond of stockjobbing, 
 became implicated in transactions of at least a dubious character. The King 
 was delighted at having such an opportunity to humble his guest ; and 
 bitter reproaches and complaints were exchanged. Voltaire, too, was soon at 
 war with the other men of letters who surrounded the King ; and this irri- 
 tated Frederic, who, however, had himself chiefly to blame, for, from that 
 love of tormenting which was in him a ruling passion, he perpetually lav- 
 ished extravagant praises on small men and bad books, merely in order 
 that he might enjoy the mortification and rage which on such occasions Vol- 
 taire took no pains .to conceal. His Majesty, however, soon had reason to 
 regret the pains which he had taken to kindle jealousy among the members of 
 his household. The whole palace was in a ferment with literary intrigues and 
 cabals. It was to no purpose that the imperial voice, which kept a hundred 
 and sixty thousand soldiers in order, was raised to quiet the contention of 
 the exasperated wits. It was far easier to stir up such a storm than to lull it. 
 Nor was Frederic, in his capacity of wit, by any means without his own 
 share of vexations. He had sent a large quantity of verses to Voltaire and 
 requested that they might be returned with remarks and corrections. " See,'' 
 exclaimed Voltaire, " what a quantity of his dirty linen the King has sent 
 me to wash ! " Talebearers were not wanting to carry the sarcasm to the 
 royal ear ; and Frederic was as much incensed as a Grub Street writer who 
 had found his name in the " Dunciad." 
 
 This could not last. A circumstance which, when the mutual regard of the 
 friends was in its first glow, would merely have been matter for laughter, 
 produced a violent explosion. Maupertuis enjoyed as much of Frederic's 
 goodwill as any man of letters. He was President of the Academy of Berlin ; 
 and he stood second to Voltaire, though at an immense distance, in the literary 
 society which had been assembled at the Prussian court. Frederic had, by. 
 playing for his own amusement on the feelings of the two jeajous and vain- 
 glorious Frenchmen, succeeded in producing a bitter enmity between them. 
 Voltaire resolved to set his mark, a mark never to be effaced, on the forehead 
 of Maupertuis, and wrote the exquisitely ludicrous diatribe of "Doctor Akakia." 
 He showed this little piece to Frederic, who had too much taste and too much 
 malice not to relish such delicious pleasantry. In truth, even at this time of 
 day, it is not easy for any person who has the least perception of the ridiculous 
 to read the jokes on the Latin city, the Patagonians and the hole to the 
 centre of the earth, without laughing till he cries. But though Frederic was 
 diverted by this charming pasquinade, he was unwilling that it should get 
 abroad. His self-love was interested. He had selected Maupertuis to fill the 
 chair of his Academy. If all Europe were taught to laugh at Maupertuis, 
 would not the reputation of the Academy, would not even the dignity of its 
 royal patron, be in some c]egree compromised ? The King, therefore, begged 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. ^l'J 
 
 Voltaire to suppress this performance. Voltaire promised to do so, and broke 
 his .word. The diatribe was published, and received with shouts of merriment 
 and applause by all who could read the French language. 'The King stormed. 
 Voltaire, with his usual disregard of trofli, asserted his innocence, and made 
 up some lie about a printer or an amanuensis. The King was not to be so 
 imposed upon. He ordered the phamphlet to be burned by the common 
 hangman, and insisted upon having an apology from Voltaire couched in the 
 most abject terms. Voltaire sent back to the King his cross, his key and the 
 patent of his pension. After this burst of rage, the strange pair began to be 
 ashamed of their violence and went through the forms of reconciliation. But 
 the breach was irreparable ; and Voltaire took his leave of Frederic for ever. 
 They parted with cold civility ; but their hearts were big with resentment. 
 Voltaire had in his keeping a volume of the King's poetry, and forgot to return 
 it. This was, we believe, merely one of the oversights which men setting out 
 upon a journey often commit. That Voltaire could have meditated plagiarism 
 is quite incredible. He would not, we are confident, for the half of Frederic's 
 kingdom, have consented to father Frederic's verses. The king, however, who 
 rated his own writings much above their value, and who was inclined to see all 
 Voltaire'^ actions in the worst light, was enraged to think that his favourite 
 compositions were in the hands of an enemy as thievish as a daw and as mis- 
 chievous as a monkey. In the anger excited by this thought, he lost sight of 
 reason and decency and determined on committing an outrage at once odious 
 and ridiculous. 
 
 Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, Madame Denis, came thither to 
 meet him. He conceived himself secure from the power of his late master, 
 when he was arrested by order of the Prussian resident. The precious volume 
 was delivered up. But the Prussian agents had, no doubt, been instructed 
 not to let Voltaire escape without some gross indignity. He was confined 
 twelve days in a wretched hovel. Sentinels with fixed bayonets kept guard 
 over him. His niece was dragged through the mire by the soldiers. Sixteen 
 hundred dollars were extorted from him by his insolent gaolers. It is absurd 
 to say that this outrage is not to be attributed to the King. Was anybody 
 punished for it ? Was anybody called in question for it ? Was it not consistent 
 with Frederic's character ? Was it not of a piece with his conduct on other similar 
 occasions ? Is it not notorious that he repeatedly gave private directions to his 
 officers to pillage and demolish the houses of persons against whom he had a 
 grudge, charging them at the same time to take their measures in such a way 
 that his name might not be compromised? He acted thus towards Count 
 Bruhl in the vSeven Years' War. Why should we believe that he would have 
 been more scrupulous with regard to Voltaire ? 
 
 When at length the illustrious prisoner regained his liberty, the prospect 
 before him was but dreary. He was an exile both from the country of his birth 
 and from the country of his adoption. The French Government had taken 
 offence at his journey to Prussia and would not permit him to return to Paris ; 
 and in the vicinity of Prussia it was not safe for him to remain. 
 
 He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Leman. There, loosed from 
 every tie which had hitherto restrained him and having little to hope or to fear 
 from courts and churches, he began his long war against all that, whether for 
 good or evil, had authority over man ; for what Burke said of the Constituent 
 Assembly was eminently true of this, its great forerunner. He could not 
 build — he could only pull down — he was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has 
 bequeathed to us not a single doctrine to be called by his name--not'a single 
 addition to the stock of our positive knowledge. But no human teacher ever 
 left behind hiui so vast and terrible ji wreckoftiuths and falsehoods— of things 
 
7i8 FREDERIC THE GRE^T. 
 
 noble and things base — of things useful and things pernicious. From 
 the time 'when his sojourn beneath the Alps commenced, the dram&tist, 
 the wit, the historian, was merged in a more important character. He was 
 now the patriarch, the founder of a sect, the chief of a conspiracy, the prince 
 ■ of a wide intellectual commonwealth. He often enjoyed a pleasure dear to.the 
 better part of his nature, the pleasure of vindicating innocence which had no 
 other helper — of repairing cruel wrongs— of punishing tyranny in high places. 
 He had also the satisfaction, not less acceptable to his ravenous vanity, of 
 hearing terrified Capuchins call him the Antichrist. But whether employed in 
 works of benevolence or in works of mischief, he never forgot Potsdam and 
 Frankfort ; and he listened anxiously to every murmur which indicated that a 
 tempest was gathering in Europe and that his vengeance was at hand. 
 
 He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa hadjnever for a moment forgotten the 
 great wrong whiqh she had received at the hand of Frederic. Young and 
 delicate, just left an orphan, just about to be a mother, she had been compelled 
 to fly from the ancient capital of her race,, she had seen her fair inheritance 
 dismembered by robbers ; and of those robbers he had been the foremost. 
 Without a pretext, without a provocation, in defiance of the most sacred 
 engagements, he had attacked the helpless ally whom he was bound to defend. 
 The Empress Queen had the faults as well as the virtues which are connected 
 with quick sensibility anci a high spirit. There was no peril which sh^ was 
 not ready to brave, no calamity which she was not ready to bring on hef 
 subjects, or on the whole human race, if only she might once taste the 
 sweetness of a complete revenge. Revenge, too, presented itself to her 
 narrow and superstitious mind in the guise of duty. Silesia had been wrested 
 not only from the House of Austria, but from the Church of Rome. The 
 conqueror had indeed permitted his new subjects to worship God after their 
 own fashion ; but this was not enough. To bigotry it seemed an intolerable 
 hardship that the Catholic Church, having long enjoyed ascendency, should be 
 compelled to content itself with equality., Nor was this the only circumstance 
 which led Maria Theresa to regard her enemy as the enemy of God. The 
 profaneness of Frederic's writings and conversation, and the frighful rumours 
 which were circulated respecting the immorality of his private life, naturally 
 shocked a woman who beheved with the firmest faith all that her confessor told 
 her, and who, though surrounded by temptations, though young and beautiful, 
 though ardent in all her passions, though possessed of absolute power, had 
 preserved her fame unsullied even by the breath of slander. 
 
 To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohenzollern to the dust, was 
 the great object of her life. She toiled during many years for this end with 
 zeal as indefatigable as that which the poet ascribes to the stately goddess who 
 tired out her immortal .horses in the work of raising the nations against Troy, and 
 who offered to give up to destruction her darling Sparta and Mycen^ if only 
 she might once see the smoke going up from the palace of Priam. With even 
 such a, spirit did the proud Austrian Juno strive to array against her foe a 
 coalition such as Europe had never seen. Nothing would content her but that 
 the whole civilised world, from the White Sea to the Adriatic, from the Bay of 
 Biscay to the pastures of the wild horses of the Tanais, should be combined 
 in arms against one petty state. 
 
 She early succeeded by various arts in obtaining the , adhesion of Russia. 
 An ample share of spoil was promised to the King of Poland ; and that prince, 
 governed by his favourite,, Count Bruhl, readily promised the assistance of the 
 Saxon forces. The great difficulty was with France. That the Houses of 
 Bourbon and of Hapsburg should ever cordially co-operate in any great scheme 
 gf European policy had long been thought, to use the strong expression .of 
 
Pre b ERIC mk GRkAf. 
 
 Frederic, just as impossible as that fire and water should amalgamate. The 
 whole history of the Continent, during two centuries and a half, had been the 
 history of the mutual jealousies and ^raities of France and Austria. Since 
 the adminstration of Richelieu, above all, it had been considered as the plain 
 policy of the Most Christian K,ing to thwart on all occasions the Court of 
 Vienna and to protect every member of the Germanic body who stood up 
 against the dictation of the Caesars. Common sentiments of religion had been 
 unable. to mitigate this strong antipathy. The rulers of France, even while 
 clothed in the Roman purple, even while persecuting the heretics of Rochelle 
 and Auvergne, had still looked with favour on the Lutheran and Calvanistic 
 princes who. were struggling against the chief of the empire. If the French 
 ministers paid any respect to the traditional rules handed down to them 
 through many generations, they would have acted towards Frederic as the 
 greatest of their predecessors acted towards Gustavus Adolphus. That there 
 was de?idly enmity between Prussia and Austria was of itself sufficient 
 reason for close friendship between Prussia and France. "With France, 
 Frederic could never have any serious controversy. His territories were 
 so situated that his ambition, greedy and unscrupulous as it was, could 
 never impel him to attack her of his own accord. He was more than half 
 a Frenchman : he wrote, spoke, read nothing but French: lie delighted 
 in French society: the admiration of the French he proposed to himself 
 as, the best reward of all his exploits. It seemed incredible that any 
 French government, however notorious for J fevity Or stupidity, could spurn 
 a way. such an ally. .. v-j ;•:;. • ■ . ••.,/.... 
 
 The Court of Vienna, however, did not despair. The Austrian diplo- 
 matists propounded a new scheme of politics, which, it must be owned, was 
 not altogether without plausibility. The great powers, according to this 
 theory, had long been under a delusion. They had looked on each other 
 as natural enemies while in truth they were natural allies. A succession of 
 cruel wars had devastated Europe, had thinned the population, had ex- 
 hausted the public resources, had loaded governments with an immense burden 
 of debt ; and when, after two hundred years of murderous hostility or of 
 hollow truce, the illustrious Houses whose enmity had distracted the world 
 sat down to count their gains, to what did the real advantage on either side 
 amount? Simply to this, that they had kept each other from thriving. It 
 was not the King of France, it was not the Emperor, who had reaped the 
 fruits of the Thirty Years' War, of the War of the Grand Alliance, of the 
 War of the Pragmatic Sanction. Those fruits had been pilfered by states 
 of the second and third rank, which, secured against jealousy by their insig- 
 nificance, had dexterously aggrandised themselves while pretending to serve 
 the animosity of the great chiefs of Christendom. While the Hon and tiger 
 were tearing each other, the jackal had run off into the jungle with the prey. 
 The real gainer by the Thirty Years' War had been neither France nor Austria, 
 but Sweden. The real gainer by the war of the Grand Alliance had been 
 neither France nor Austria, but Savoy. The real gainer by the war of the 
 Pragmatic vSanction had been neither France nor Austria,but the upstart Branden- 
 burg. Of all these instances, the last was the most striking. France had made 
 great efforts, had added largely to her military glory and largely to her public 
 burdens; and for what end? Merely that Frederic might rule Silesia. For 
 this, and this alone,' one French army, wasted by sword and famine, had 
 perished in Bohemia ; and another had purchased, .with floods of the noblest 
 blood, the barren glory of Fontenoy. And this prince, for whom France had 
 suffered so much, was he a grateful, was he even an honest, ally? Had he not 
 been as false to the Court of Versailles as to the Court of Vienna ? Had he no 
 
5^20 PRBDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 played, on a large scale, the same part which, in private life, is played by the 
 vile agent of chicane, who sets his neighbours quarrelling, involves them in 
 costly and interminable litigation, and betrays them to each other all round, 
 certain that, whoever may be ruined, he shall be enriched ? Surely the true 
 wisdom of the great powers was to attack, not each other, but this common 
 barrator, who, by inflaming the passions of both, by pretending to serve both, 
 and by deserting both, had raised himself above the station to which he was 
 born. The great object of Austria was to regain Silesia ; the great object of 
 France was to obtain an accession of territory on the side of Flanders. If 
 they took opposite sides, the result would probably be that, after a war 
 of many years, after the slaughter of many thousands of brave men, after 
 the waste of many millions of crowns, they would lay down their arms with- 
 out having achieved either object ; but, if they came to an understanding 
 there would be no risk and no difficulty. Austria would willingly make in 
 Belgium such cessions as France could not expect to obtain by ten pitched 
 battles. Silesia would easily be annexed to the monarchy of which it had 
 long been a part. The union of two such powerful governments would at once 
 overawe the King of Prussia. If he resisted, one short campaign would settle 
 his fate. France and Austria, long accustomed to rise from the game of 
 war both loosers, would, for the first time, both be gainers. There could 
 be no room for jealousy between them. The power of both would be in- 
 creased at once ; the equilibrium between them would be preserved ; and 
 the only sufferer would be a mischievous and unprincipled buccaneer who 
 deserved no tenderness from either. 
 
 These doctrines, attractive from their novelty and ingenuity, soon be- 
 came fashionable at the supper-parties and in the coffee-houses of Paris, and 
 were espoused by every gay marquis and every facetious abbe who was ad- 
 mitted to see Madame de Pompadour's hair curled and powdered. It was 
 not, however, to any political theory that the strange coalition between 
 France and Austria owed its origin. The real motive which induced the 
 great continental powers to forget their old animosities and their old state 
 maxims was personal aversion to the King of Prussia. This feeling was 
 strongest in Maria Theresa ; but it was by no means confined to her. 
 Frederic, in some respects a good master, was emphatically a bad neigh- 
 bour. That he was hard in all dealings, and quick to take all advantages, 
 was not his most odious fault. His bitter and scoffing speech had inflicted 
 keener wounds than his ambition. In his character of wit, he was under less 
 restraint than even in his character of ruler. Satirical verses against all the 
 princes and ministers of Europe were ascribed to his pen. In his letters and 
 conservation, he alluded to the greatest potentates of the age in terms which 
 would have better suited CoUe in a war of repartee with young Crebillon at 
 Pelletier's table than a great sovereign speaking of great sovereigns. About 
 women, he was in the habit of expressing himself in a manner which it was 
 impossible for the meekest of women to forgive ; and, unfortunately for him, 
 almost the whole Continent was then governed by women who were by no 
 means conspicuous for meekness. Maria Theresa herself had not escaped his 
 scurrilous jests. The Empress Elizabeth of Russia knew that her gallantries 
 afforded him a favourite theme for ribaldry and invective. Madame de 
 Pompadour, who was really the head of the French government, had been 
 even more keenly galled. She had attempted, by the most delicate flattery, 
 to propitiate the King of Prussia ; ])ut her messages had drawn from him only 
 dry and sarcastic replies. The Empress Queen took a very different course. 
 Though the haughtiest of princesses, though the most austere of matrons, she 
 forget in her thirst for revenge both the dignity of her race and the purity of 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. 72I 
 
 her character, and condescended to flatter the low-born and lov/-minded con- 
 cubine, who, having acquired influence by prostituting herself, retained it by 
 prostituting others. Maria Theresa actually wrote with her own hand a note, 
 full of expressions of esteem and friendiship, to her dear cousin, the daughter 
 of the butcher Poisson, the wife of the publican D'Etioles, the kidnapper of 
 young girls for the Parc-aux-cerfs — a strange cousin for the descendant of so 
 many Emperors of the West ! The mistress was completely gained over, and 
 easily carried her point with Louis, who had, indeed, wrongs of his own to 
 resent. His feelings were not quick ; but contempt, says the eastern proverb, 
 pierces even through theshell of the tortoise ; and neither prudence nor de- 
 corum had ever restrained Frederic from expressing his measureless contempt 
 for the sloth, the imbecility and the baseness of Louis. France was thus 
 induced to join the coalition ; and the example of France determined the con- 
 duct of Sweden, then completely subject to' French influence. 
 
 The enemies of Frederic were surely strong enough to attack him openly ; 
 but they were desirous to add to all their other advantages the advantage of a 
 surprise. He was not, however, a man to be taken off his ouard. 'He had 
 tools in every court ; and he now received from Vienna, from Dresden and 
 from Paris accounts so circumstantial and so consistent that he could not 
 doubt of his danger. He learnt that he was to be assailed at once by France, 
 Austria, Russia, vSaxony, Sweden and the Germanic body ; that the greater 
 part of his dominions was to be portioned out among his enemies ; that France, 
 which from her geographical position could not directly share in his spoils, was 
 to receive an equivalent in the Netherlands ; that Austria was to have Silesia ; 
 and the Czarina East Prussia ; that Augustus of Saxony expected Magdeburg ; 
 and that Sweden would be rewarded with part of Pomerania. If these designs 
 succeeded, the house of Brandenburg would at once sink in the European 
 system to a place lower than that of the Duke of Wurtemburg or the Margrave 
 of Baden. 
 
 And what hope was there that these designs would fail. No such union of 
 the continental powers had been seen for ages. A less formidable confeder- 
 acy had in a week conquered all the provinces of Venice when Venice was at 
 the height of power, wealth and glory. A less formidable confederacy had 
 compelled Louis the Fourteenth to bow down his haughty head to the very 
 earth. A less formidable confederacy has, within our own memory, subjugated 
 a still mightier empire and abased a still prouder name. Such odds had never 
 been heard of in war. The people whom Frederic ruled were not five millions. 
 The population of the countries which were leagued against him amounted to a 
 hundred millions. The disproportion in wealth was at least equally great. 
 Small communities, actuated by strong sentiments of patriotism or loyalty, 
 have sometimes made head against great monarchies weakened by factions and 
 discontents. But small as was Frederic's kingdom, it probably contained a 
 greater number of disaffected subjects than were to be found in all the states 
 of his enemies. Silesia formed a fourth part of his dominions ; and from the 
 Silesians, borne under Austrian princes, the utmost that he could expect was 
 apathy. From the Silesian Catholics, he could hardly expect anything but 
 resistance. 
 
 Some states have been enabled, by their geographical position, to defend 
 themselves with advantage against immense force. The sea has repeatedly 
 protected England against the fury of the whole Continent. The Venetian 
 government, driven from its possessions on the land, could still bid defiance to 
 the confederates of Cambray from the Arsenal amidst the lagoons. More than 
 one great and well-appointed army, which regarded the shepherds of Switzer- 
 land as an easy prey, has perished in the passes of the Alps. Frederic had no 
 
722 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 ' ' ■■ - ' J ■■ • \ — • -" ' ' ■ ■^ 
 
 such advantage. The form ,of his states, their situation, the nature of the 
 groun4, all were against him. His long, scattered, straggling territory seemed to 
 have been shaped with an express view to the convenience of invaders, and was 
 protected by no sea, by no chain of hills. Scarcely any corner of it was a week's 
 march from the territory of the enemy. The capital itself, in the event of 
 war, would be. constantly exposed to insult. In truth, there was hardly a 
 politician or a soldier in Europe who doubted that the conflict would be 
 teirminated in a very few days by the prostration of the house of Brandenburg. 
 
 Nor was Frederic's own opinion very different. He anticipated nothing 
 short of his own ruin and of the ruin of his family. Yet there was still a 
 chance, a slender chance, of escape. His states had at least the advantage of 
 a central position ; his enemies were widely separated from each other and 
 could not conveniently unite their overwhelming forces on one point. They 
 inhabited different climates, and it was probable that the season of the year 
 which would be best suited to the military operations of one portion of the 
 league would be unfavourable to those of another portion. The Prussian 
 monarchy, too, was free from some infirmities which were found in empires 
 far more extensi:^£ and magnificent. Its effective 'strength for a desperate 
 struggle was soot to be measured merely lay the number of square miles or the 
 number oi people. In that spare, but well-knit and well-exercised body, there 
 was nothing but sinew, and muscle, and bone. No public creditors looked for 
 dividends. No distant colonies . recjuired defence. No court, filled with 
 flatterers and mistresses, devoured the pay of fifty battalions. The Prussian 
 army, though far inferior in number to the troops which were about to be 
 opposed to it, WAS yet strong out of all proportion to the extent of the Prussian 
 dominions. It was also admirably triained and 9,dmiraby officered, accustomed 
 to obey and accustomed to conquer. The revenue was not only unincumbered 
 by debt, but exceeded the ordinary outlay in time of peace. Alone of all the 
 European princes, Frederic had a treasure laid up for a day of difficulty. Above 
 all, he was one and his enemies were many. In their camps would certainly 
 be found the jealousy, the dissension, the slackness inseparable from coalitions ; 
 on his side was the energy, the unity, the secrecy of a strong dictatorship. To 
 a certain extent the deficiency of mihtary means might be supplied by the 
 resources of military art. Small as the King's army "was, when compared with 
 the six hundred thousand men whom the confederates could bring into the 
 field, celerity of movement, might in some degree compensate for deficiency of 
 bulk. It was thus just possible that genius, judgment, resolution and good 
 luck united might protract the struggle during a campaign or two ; and to gain 
 even, a month was of importance. It could not be long before the vices which 
 are, found in all extensive confederacies would begin to show themselves. 
 Every member of the league would think his own share of the war too large 
 and his own share of the spoils too small. Complaints and recriminations 
 would abound. The Turk might stir on the Danube ; the statesmen of France 
 might discover the error which they had committed in abandoning ther funda- 
 iBcntal principles of their national policy. Above all, death might rid Prussia 
 of its most formidable enemies. The war was the effect of the personal aver- 
 sion with which three or four sovereigns regarded Frederic; and the decease 
 of any one of those sovereigns might produce a complete revolution in the state 
 of Europe. 
 
 In the midst of a horizon generally dark and stormy, Frederic could discern 
 one bright spot. The peace, which had been concluded between England and 
 France in 1 748, had been in Europe no more than an armistice ; and had not 
 even been an armistice in the other quarters of the globe. In India, the sove- 
 reignty of the Carnatic .was disputed between two great Mussulman houses j 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT. 723 
 
 Fort Saint George had taken one side,, Pondicherry tjie other ; and in a series 
 of battles and sieges, the troops of Lawrence and Clive had been opposed to 
 those of Dupleix. A struggle less important in its consequences, but not less 
 likely to produce irritation, was carrie^Ton between those French and English 
 adventurers who kidnapped negroes and collected gold dust on the coast of 
 Guinea. But it was in North America that the emulation and mutual aversion 
 of the two;. nations were most conspicuous. The French attempted to hem in 
 the English colonists by a chain of miUtary posts extending from the Great 
 Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. The English took arms. The wild 
 aboriginal tribes appeared on each side mingled with the Pale Faces. ' Battles 
 were fought ; forts were stormed ; and hideous stories about stakes, scalpings 
 and death-songs reached Europe and inflamed that national animosity which 
 the rivalry of ages had produced. The disputes between France and England 
 came to a crisis at the very time when the tempest which had been gathering 
 was about to burst on Prussia. The tastes and interests of Frederic would have 
 led him, if he had been allowed an option, to side \yith the house of Bourbon. 
 But the folly of the Court of Versailles left him do choice. France became the 
 tool of Austria ; and Frederic was forced to become the ally of England. He 
 could not, indeed, expect that a power which covered the sea with its fleets, 
 and which had to ma.ke war at once on the Ohio and the Ganges, would be 
 able to spare a large , number of troops for operations in Germany. But 
 England, though poor compared with the England of our time, was far richer 
 than any country on the Continent. The amount of her revenue and the 
 resources which, she found in her credit, though they may be thought small 
 by a generation which has seen her rajise a hundred and thirty millions in a 
 single year, appeared miraculous to the politicians of that age. A very moder- 
 ate portion of her wealth, expended by an able, and economical prince, in a 
 country where prices were low, would be sufficient to equip and maintain a 
 formidable army. , , 
 
 Such was the situation in which Frederic found himself. He saw the whole 
 extent of his peril. He saw that there was still a faint possibility of escape ; 
 and, with prudent temerity, he determined to strike the first blow. It was in 
 the month of August, 1756, that the great war of the Seven Years commenced. 
 The King demanded of the Empress Queen a distinct explanation of her inten- 
 tions, and plainly told her that he should consider a refusal as a declaration of 
 war. ," I want," he said, "no answer in the style of an oracle." He received 
 an answer at once haughty and evasive. In an instant, the rich electorate of 
 Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand Prussian troops. Augustus with his 
 army occupied a strong position at Pirr>a. The Queen of Poland was at 
 Dresden. In a few days Pirna was blockaded and Dresden was taken. The 
 first object of Frederic was to obtain possession of the Saxon State papers ; for 
 those papers, he well knew, contained ample proofs that, though apparently 
 an aggressor, he was really acting in self-defence. The Queen of Poland, as 
 well acquainted as Frederic with the importance of those documents, had 
 packed them up, had concealed them in her bed-chamber, and was about to 
 send them off to Warsaw when a Prussian officer made his appearance. In 
 the hope that no soldier would venture to outrage a lady, a queen, the daughter 
 of an emperor, the mother-in-law of a dauphin, she placed herself before the 
 trunk, and at length sat down on it. But all resistance was vain. The papers 
 were carried to Frederic, who found in them, as he expected, abundant evidence 
 of the designs of the coalition. The most important documents were instantly 
 pubHshed, and the effect of the publication was great. It was clear that,fof 
 whatever sins the King of Prussia might formerly have been guilty, he wa^^ow 
 the injured party and had merely anticipated a blow intended to destroy him. 
 
724 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 The Saxon camp at Pima was in the meantime closely invested ; but the 
 besieged were not without hopes of succour. A great Austrian army under 
 Marshal Brown was about to pour through the passes which separate Bohemia 
 from Saxony. PVederic left at Pirna a force sufficient to deal with the Saxons, 
 hastened into Bohemia, encountered Brown at Lowositz, and defeated him. 
 This battle decided the fate of Saxony. Augustus and his favourite Bruhl fled 
 to Poland. The whole army of the electorate capitulated. From that time 
 till the end of the war, Frederic treated Saxony as a part of his dominions, or, 
 rather, he acted towards the Saxons in a manner which may serve to illustrate 
 the whole meaning of that tremendous sentence, " suhjectos tanquam suos, viles 
 tanquam alienos.^^ Saxony was as much in his power as Brandenburg ; and he 
 had no such interest in the welfare of Saxony as he had in the welfare of 
 Brandenburg. He accordingly levied troops and exacted contributions through- 
 out the enslaved province with far more rigour than in any part of his own 
 dominions. Seventeen thousand men, who had been in the camp at Pirna, 
 were half compelled, half persuaded to enlist under their conqueror. 
 Thu, within a few weeks from the commencement of hostilities, one of 
 the confederates had been disarmed and his weapons pointed against the 
 rest. 
 
 The winter put a stop to military operations. All had hitherto gone well. 
 But the real tug of war was still to come. It was easy to foresee that the year 
 1757 would be a memorable era in the history of Europe. 
 
 The scheme for the campaign was simple, bold and judicious. The Duke of 
 Cumberland, with an English and Hanoverian army, was in Western Germany, 
 and might be able to prevent the French troops from attacking Prussia.' The 
 Russians, confined by their snows, would probably not stir till the spring was 
 far advanced. Saxony was prostrated. Sweden could do nothing very impor- 
 tant. During a few months, Frederic would have to deal with Austria alone. 
 Even thus the odds were against him. But ability and courage have often 
 triumphed against odds still more formidable. 
 
 Early in 1757, the Prussian army in Saxony began to move. Through four 
 defiles in the mountains they came pouring into Bohemia. Prague was the 
 King's first mark ; but the ulterior object was probably Vienna. At Prague 
 lay Marshal Brown with one great army. Daun, the most cautious ana 
 fortunate of the Austrian captains, was advancing with another. Frederic 
 determined to overwhelm Brown before Duan should arrive. On the sixth of 
 May was fought, under those walls, which, a hundred and thirty years before, 
 had witnessed the victory of the Catholic league and the flight of the unhappy 
 Palatine, a battle more bloody than any which Europe saw during the long 
 interval between Malplaquet and Eylau. The King and Prince Ferdinand of 
 Brunswick were distinguished on that day by their valour and exertions. But 
 the chief glory was with Schwerin. When the Prussian infantry wavered, the 
 stout old marshal snatched the colours from an ensign and, waving them in 
 the air, led back his regiment to the charge. Thus, at seventy-two years of 
 age, he fell in the thickest battle, still grasping the standard which bears the 
 black eagle on the field argent. The victory remained with the King ; but it 
 had been dearly purchased. Whole columns o'f liis bravest warriors had fallen. 
 He admitted that he had lost eighteen thousand men. Of the enemy, twenty- 
 four thousand had been killed, wounded or taken. 
 
 Part of the defeated army was shut up in Prague. Part fled to join the 
 troops which, under the command of Daun, were now close at hand. Frederic 
 determined to play over the same game which had succeeded at Lowositz. He 
 left a large force to besiege Prague, and, at the head of thirty thousand nien, he 
 niarched against Dauq, The cautious Marshal, though he had a great guperi- 
 
FREDERIC I'HE GREAT. 725 
 
 ority in numbers, would risk nothing. He occupied at Kolin a position almost 
 impregnable, and awaited the attack of the King. 
 
 It was the i8th of June, a day, which, if the Greek superstition still retained 
 its influence, would be held sacred torTS:emesis ; a day on which the two 
 greatest princes of modern times were taught by a terrible experience that 
 neither skill nor valour can fix the inconstancy of fortune. The battle began 
 before noon, and part of the Prussian army maintained the contest till after 
 the midsummer sun had gone down. But at length the King found that his 
 troops, having been repeatedly driven back with frightful carnage, could no 
 longer be led to the charge. He was with difficulty persuaded to quit the field. 
 The officers of his personal staff were under the necessity of expostulating with 
 him, and one of them took the liberty to say, " Does your Majesty mean to 
 storm the batteries alone ? " Thirteen thousand of his bravest followers had 
 perished. Nothing remainejd for him but to retreat in good order, to 
 raise the siege of Prague, and to hurry his army by different routes out of 
 Bohemia. 
 
 This stroke seemed to be final. Frederic's situation had at best beeii suCh 
 that only an uninterrupted run of good luck could save him, as it seemed, from 
 ruin. And now almost in the outset of the contest, he had met with a check, 
 which, even in a war between equal powers, would have been felt as serious. 
 He had owed much to the opinion which all Europe entertained of his army. 
 Since his accession, his soldiers had in many successive battles been victorious 
 over the Austrians. But the glory had departed from his arms. All whom 
 his malevolent sarcasms had wounded made haste to avenge themselves by 
 scoffing at the scoffer. His soldiers had ceased to confide in his star. In every 
 part of his camp his dispositions were severely criticised. Even in his own 
 family he had detractors. His next brother, William, heir-presumptive, or rather, 
 in truth, heir-apparent to the throne, and great-grandfather of the present king, 
 could not refrain from lamenting his own fate and that of the house of Hohen- 
 zollern, once so great and so prosperous, but now, by the rash ambition of its 
 chief, made a by-word to all nations. These complaints, and some blunders 
 which William committed during the retreat from Bohemia, called forth the 
 bitter displeasure of the inexorable King. The prince's heart was broken by 
 the cutting reproaches of his brother ; he quitted the army, retired to a country 
 seat, and in a short time died of shame and vexation. 
 
 It seemed that the King's distress could hardly be increased. Yet at this 
 moment another blow not less terrible than that of Kolin fell upon. The 
 French under Marshal D'Estrees had invaded Germany. The Duke of Cum- 
 berland had given them battle at Hastembeck, and had been defeated. In 
 order to save the Electorate of Hanover from entire subjugation, he had made, 
 at Closter Seven, an arrangement with the French Generals, which left them 
 at liberty to turn their arms against the Prussian dominions. 
 
 That nothing might be wanting to P'rederic's distress, he lost his mother just 
 at this time, and he appears to have felt the loss more than was to be expected 
 from the hardness and severity of his character. In truth, his misfortunes 
 had now cut to the quick. The mocker, the tyrant, the most rigorous, the 
 most imperious, the most cynical of men, was very unhappy. His face was 
 so haggard and his form so thin, that, when on his return from Bohemia 
 he passed through Liepsic, the people hardly knew him again. His 
 sleep was broken ; the tears, in spite of himself, often started into his eyes ;. 
 and the grave began to present itself to his agitated mind as the best refuge 
 from misery and dishonour. His resolution was fixed never to be taken 
 alive and never to make peace on condition of descending from his 
 place among the powers of Europe. He saw no,^hing left for him except 
 
726 PREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 to die; and he deliberately chose his mode of death., He always carried 
 about with him a sure and speedy poison in a small glass case ; and to 
 the few in whom he placed confidence, he made no mystery of his resolution. 
 
 But we should very imperfectly describe the state of Frederic's mind if we 
 left out of view the laughable peculiarities which contrasted so singularly ^^ith 
 the gravity, energy and harshness of his character. .It is difficult to say 
 whether the tragic or the comic predominated in the strange scene which was 
 then acting. In the midst of all the great King's calamities, his passion for 
 writing indifferent poetry grew stronger and stronger. Enemies all round him, 
 despair in his heart, pills of corrosive sulplimate Jiidden in his clothes, he poured 
 forth hundreds upon hundreds of lines, hateful to gods and men — the insipid 
 dregs of Voltaire's " Hippocrene "— the faint echo of thq lyre of Chaulieu. It 
 is amusing to compare what he did during the last months of 1757. with what 
 he wrote during the same time. ■ It may be doubted whether any equaj. portion 
 of the life of Hannibal, of Caesar or of Napoleon, will bear a comparison with 
 thai short period, the most brilliant in the history of Prussia and of Frederic. 
 Yet, at this very time, the scanty leisure of the illustrious warrior was employed 
 in producing odes and epistles, a little better than Gibber's and a little worse 
 than Hayley's. Here and there a manly sentiment, which deserves to be in 
 prose, makes its appearance in company with Prometheus and Orpheus, Elysium 
 and Acheron, the plaintive Philomel, the poppies of Morpheus,, and all the 
 other frippery, which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty tocher waiting- 
 woman, has long been contemptuously abandoned by genius to mediocrity. 
 We hardly know any instance of the strength and weakness of human nature 
 so striking and so grotesque as the character of this haughty,; vigilant, 
 resolute, sagacious blue stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, bearing 
 up against a world in arms with an ounce of poison in one pocket and a 
 quire of bad verses in the other. 
 
 Frederic had some time before made advances tov,fard a reconciliation with 
 Voltaire ; and some civil letters had passed between them. After the battle 
 of Kolin, their epistolary intercourse became, at least in seeming, friendly and 
 confidential. We do not know any collection of Letters which throws so much 
 lighten the darkest and most intricate parta of human nature as the corres- 
 pondence of these strange beings after they had exchanged forgiveness. Both" 
 felt that the quarrel had lowered them in the public estimation. They admir'ed 
 each other. They stood in need of each other. The great King wished to be 
 handed down to posterity by the great Writer. The great Writer felt himself, 
 exhalted by the homage of the great King. Yet the wounds which they had 
 inflicted on each other were too deep to be effaced or even perfectly healed. Not 
 only did the scars remain, the sore places often festered and bled afresh. The 
 letters consisted for the most part of compliments, thanks, offers of service, assur- 
 ances of attachment. ;But if anything brought back to Frederic's recollection the 
 cunning and mischievous pranks by which Voltaire'had provoked him, some ex- 
 pression of contempt and displeasure broke forth in the midst of eulogy. It was 
 much worse when anything recalled to the mind of Voltaire the outrages which he 
 and his kinswoman had suffered at Frankfort. All at once his flowing pane- 
 gyric was turned into invective. " Remember how you behaved to me. For 
 your sake I have lost the favour of my native king. For your sake I am an 
 exile from my country. I loved you. I trusted myself to you. I had no 
 wish but to end my life in your service. And what was my reward ? 
 Stripped of all that you had bestowed on me, the key, the order, the pension, 
 I was forced to fly from your territories. I was hunted as if I had been a 
 deserter from your grenadiers. I was arrested, insulted, plundered. My niece 
 was dragged through the mud of Frankfort by your soldiers as if she had be^Q 
 
PREDEr:C THE GREAT. 727 
 
 some wretched follower of your camp. You have great talents, You have 
 good qualities. But you have one odious vice. You delight in the abasement 
 of your fellow-creatures. You have brought disgrace on the name of philo- 
 sopher. You have given some colour to the slanders of the bigots who. say 
 that no confidence can be placed in the justice or humanity of those who reject 
 the Christian faith." Then the King answers, with less heat but equal severity — 
 " You know that you behaved shamefully in Prussia^ It was well for you that 
 you had to deal with a man so indulgent to the infirmities of genius as I am. 
 You richly deserved to see the inside of a dungeon. Your talents are not piore 
 widely known than your faithlessness and your malevolence. The grave itself 
 is no asylum from your spite. JVTaupertuis is dead ; but you still go on calum- 
 niating and deriding him as if you had not made him miserable enough 
 while he was living. Let us have no more of this. And, above all, let me 
 hear no more of your niece. I am sick to death of her name. I can bear with 
 your faults for the sake of your merits,; but she has not written * Mahomet ' or 
 'Merope.'" . .^.' .^ z,./..- ■ ' '-■ '', ■ ."/ , ''^.,.^..'. 
 
 An explosion of this kind^'it^ might b,e supposed, wpul'd necessarily' put an 
 end to all amicable communication. But it was not so. After every outbreak 
 of ill-humour, this extraordinary pair became more loving than before, and 
 exchanged compliments and assurances of mutual regard with a wonderful air 
 of sincerity. 
 
 , It may well be supposed that men who wrote thus to each other were not very 
 gaarded in what they said to each other. The English ambassador, Mitchell, 
 who knew that the King of Prussia was constantly Vv-riting to Voltaire with the 
 greatest freedom on the most important subjects, was amazed to hear his 
 Majesty designate this highly-favoured correspondent as a bad-hearted fellow, 
 the greatest rascal on the face of thq earth. And the language which the poet 
 held about the King was not much more respectful. 
 
 It would probably have puzzled Voltaire himself to say what was his real 
 feeling towards Frederic. It was compounded of all sentiments, from enmity 
 to friendship, and from scorn to admiration ; and the proportions in which 
 these elements were mixed changed every moment. The old patriarch resem- 
 bled the spoiled child who screams, stamps, cuffs, laughs, kisses and cuddles 
 within one-quarter of an hour. His resentment was not extinguished j yet he 
 was not without sympathy for his old friend. As a Frenchman, he wished 
 success to the arms of his country. As a philosopher, he was anxious for the 
 stability of a throne on which a philosopher sat. He longed both to save and 
 to humble Frederic. There was one way, and only one, in which all his con- 
 flicting feelings could at once be gratified. If Frederic were preserved by the 
 interference of France, if it were known that for that interference he was 
 indebted to the mediation of Voltaire, this would indeed be delicious revenge, 
 this would indeed be to heap coals of fire on that haughty head. Nor did the 
 vain and restless poet think it impossible that he might, from his hermitage 
 near the Alps, dictate peace to Europe. D'Estrees had quitted Hanover, and 
 the command of the French army had been intrusted to the Duke of Richelieu, 
 a man whose chief distinction was derived from his success in gallantry. Riche- 
 lieu was in truth the most eminent of that race of seducers by profession who 
 furnished Crebillon the younger and La Clos with models for their heroes. In 
 his earlier days, the royal house itself had not been secure from his presump- 
 tuous love. He was believed to have carried his conquests into the family of 
 Orleans ; and some suspected that he was not unconcerned in the mysterious 
 remorse which embittered the last hours of the charming mother of Louis the 
 Fifteenth. But the Duke was now sixty years old. With a heart deeply cor- 
 ^pted by vice, a bead long accustomed to think only on trifles, an impaired 
 
72S FREDERIC THE GREAT, 
 
 constitution, an impaired fortune, and, worst of all, a very red nose, he was 
 entering on a dull, frivolous and unrespected old age. Without one qualifica- 
 tion for military command, except that personal courage which was common 
 between him and the whole nobility of France, he had been placed at the head 
 of the army of Hanover ; and in that situation he did his best to repair, by 
 extortion and corruption, the injury which he had done to his property by a life 
 of dissolute profusion. 
 
 The Duke of Richelieu to the end of his life hated the philosophers as a sect 
 — not for those parts of their system which a good and wise man would have 
 condemned — but for their virtues, for their spirit of free inquiry and for their 
 hatred of those social abuses of which he was himself the personification. But 
 he, like many of those who thought with him, excepted Voltaire from the list 
 of proscribed writers. He frequently sent flattering letters to Ferney. He 
 did the patriarch the honour to borrow money of him, and even carried this 
 condescending friendship so far as to forget to pay interest. Voltaire thought 
 that it might be in his power to bring the Duke and the King of Prussia into 
 communication with each other. He wrote earnestly to both ; and he so far 
 sacceeded that a correspondence between them was commenced. 
 
 But it was to very ditferent means that Frederic was to owe his deliverance. 
 At the beginning of November, the net seemed to have closed completely round 
 him. The Russians were in the field, and were spreading devastation through 
 his eastern provinces. Silesia was overrun by the Austrians. A great French 
 army was advancing from the west under the command of Marshall Soubise, 
 a prince of the great Armorican house of Rohan. Berlin itself had been taken 
 and plundered by the Croatians. Such was the situation from which Frederic 
 extricated himself, with dazzling glory, in the short space of thirty days. 
 
 He marched first against Soubise. On the fifth of November, the armies 
 met at Rosbach. The French were two to one ; but they were ill-disciplined, 
 and their general was a dunce. The tactics of Frederic and the well-regulated 
 valour of- the Prussian troops obtained a complete victory. Seven thousand of 
 the invaders were made prisoners. Their guns, their colours, their baggage 
 fell into the hands of the conquerors. Those who escaped fled as confusedly 
 as a mob scattered by cavalry. Victorious in the West, the King turned his 
 arms towards Silesia. In that quarter everything seemed to be lost. Breslau 
 had fallen ; and Charles of Loraine, with a mighty power, held the whole pro- 
 vince. On the fifth of December, exactly one month after the battle of Ros- 
 bach, Frederic, with forty thousand men, and Prince Charles, at the head of not 
 less than sixty thousand, met at Leuthen, hard by Breslau. The King, who 
 was, in general, perhaps too much inclined to consider the common soldier as a 
 mere machine, resorted, on this great day, to means resembling those which 
 Bonaparte afterwards employed with such signal success for the purpose of 
 stimulating military enthusiasm. The principal officers were convoked. Fred- 
 eric addressed them with great force and pathos ; and directed them to 
 speak to their men as he had spoken to them. \Vhen the armies were set 
 in battle array, the Prussian troops were in a state of fierce excitement ; but 
 their excitement showed itself after the fashion of a grave people. The col- 
 umns advanced to the attack chanting, to the sound of drums and fifes, 
 the rude hymns of the old Saxon Sternholds. They had never fought so 
 well, nor had the genius of their chief ever been so conspicuous. "That 
 battle," said Napoleon, "was a masterpiece. Of itself it is sufficient to 
 entitle Frederic to a place in the first rank among generals. " The victory was 
 complete. Twenty-seven thousand Austrians were killed, wounded or taken ; 
 fifty stand of colours, a hundred guns, four thousand waggons fell into the 
 hands of the Prussians. Breslau opened its gates ; Silesia was reconquered ; 
 
FREDERIC THE GREAT, 729 
 
 Charles of Loraine retired to hide his shame and sorrow at Brussels ; and 
 Frederic allowed his troops to take some repose in winter quarters, after a 
 campaign to the vicissitudes of which it^ill be difficult to find any parallel in 
 ancient or mode*rn history. 
 
 The King's fame filled all the world. He had, during the last year, main- 
 tained a contest, on terms of advantage, against three powers, the weakest of 
 which had more than three times his resources. He had fought four great 
 pitched battles against superior forces. Three of these battles he had gained ; 
 and the defeat of Kolin, repaired as it had been, rather raised than lowered his 
 military renown. The victory of Leuthen is, to this day, the proudest on the 
 roll of Prussian fame. Leipsic, indeed, and Waterloo produced consequences 
 more important to mankind. But the glory of Leipsic must be shared hy the 
 Prussians with the Austrians and Russians ; and at Waterloo the British infantry 
 bore the burden and heat of the day. The victory of Rosbach was, in a 
 military point of view, less honourable than that of Leuthen ; for it was gained 
 over an incapable general and a disorganised army ; but the moral effect which 
 it produced was immense. All the preceding triumphs of Frederic had been 
 triumphs over Germans, and could excite no emotions of national pride among 
 the German people. It was impossible that a Hessian or a Hanoverian could 
 feel any patriotic exultation at hearing that Pomeranians had slaughtered 
 Moravians, or that Saxon banners had been hung in the churches of Berlin. 
 Indeed, though the military character of the Germans justly stood high through- 
 out the world, they could boast of no great day which belonged to them as a. 
 people — of no Agincourt, of no Bannockburn. Most of their victories had been 
 gained over each other ; and their most splendid exploits against foreigners had. 
 been achieved under the command of Eugene, who was himself a foreigner. 
 The news of the battle of Rosbach stirred the blood of the whole of the mighty , 
 population from the Alps to the Baltic, and from the borders of Courland to 
 those of Loraine. Westphalia and Lower Saxony had been deluged by a great 
 host of strangers whose speech was unintelligible, and whose petulant and 
 licentious manners had excited the strongest feelings of disgust and hatred. 
 That great host had been put to flight by a small band of German warriors, led . 
 by a prince of German blood on the side of father and mother, and marked by 
 the fair hair and the clear blue eye of Germany. Never since the dissolution ■ 
 of the empire of Charlemagne had the Teutonic race won such a field against 
 the French. The tidings called forth a general burst of delight and pride from 
 the whole of the great family which spoke the various dialects of the ancient 
 language of Arminius. The fame of Frederic began to supply, in some degree, • 
 the place of a common government and of a common capital. It became a 
 rallying point for all true Germans — a subject of mutual congratulation to the 
 Bavarian and the Westphalian, to the citizen pf Frankfort and the citizen of 
 Nuremburg. Then first it was manifested that the Germans were truly a nation. 
 Then first was discernible that patriotic spirit which, in 1813, achieved the 
 great deliverance of central Europe, and which still guards, and long will 
 guard, against foreign ambition the old freedom of the Rhine. 
 ■ Nor were the effects produced by that celebrated day merely political. The 
 greatest masters of German poetry and eloquence have admitted that, though 
 the great King neither valued nor understood his native language, though he 
 looked on P^rance as the only seat of taste and philosophy, yet, in his own 
 despite, he did much to emancipate the genius of his countrymen from the 
 foreign yoke; and that, in the act of vanquishing Soubise, he was, unintention- 
 ally, rousing the spirit which soon began to question the literary precedence of . 
 Boileau and Voltaire. So strangely do events confound all the plans of man. A 
 prince who read only French, 'who wrote only French, who aspired to rank as 
 
730 ■ FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 a French classic, bacame, quite unconsciously, the means of liberating half the 
 Continent from the dominion of that French criticism of which he was himself, 
 to the end of his life, a slave. Yet even the enthusiasm of Germany in favour 
 of Frederic hardly equalled the enthusiasm of England. The birthday of our 
 ally was celebrated with as much enthusiasm as that of our own sovereign ; and 
 at night the streets of Lrwidbn were in a blaze with illuminations. Portraits of 
 the Hero of Rosbach, with his cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every 
 house. An attentive observer will, at this day, find in the parlours, of old- 
 fashioned inns and in the portfolios of print-sellers, twenty portraits of Frederic 
 for one: of George the Second. The sign-painters were everywhere employed 
 in touching up Admiral Vernon into the King of Prussia. Some young 
 Enghshmen of rank proposed to visit Germany as volunteers, for the purpose 
 of learning the art of war under the greatest of commanders. This last proof 
 of British attachment and admiration, Frederic politely but firmly declined. 
 His camp was no place for amateur students of military science. The Prussian 
 discipline was rigorous even to cruelty. The officers, while in the field, were 
 expected to practice an abstemiousness and self-denial such as was hardly sur- 
 passed by the jnost rigid monastic orders. However noble their birth, however 
 high their rank in the service, they were not permitted to eat from anything 
 better than pewter. It was a high crime even in a count and field-marshal to 
 have a single silver spoon among his baggage. Gay young Englishmen of 
 twenty thousand a-year, accustomed to liberty and to luxury, would not easily 
 submit to these Spartan restraints. The King could not venture to keep them 
 in order" i^s he kept his own subjects in order. Situated as he was with respect 
 to England, he could nbt well imprison or shoot refractory Howards and 
 Cavendishes. On the other hand, the example of a few fine gentlemen, 
 attended by -chariots and livery servants, eating in plate and drinking cham- 
 pagne and Tokay, was enough to corrupt his whole army. He thought it best 
 to make a stand at first, aind civilly refused to admit such dangerous com- 
 panions among his troops. 
 
 The help of England was bestowed in a manner far more useful and more 
 acceptable. An annual subsidy of near seven hundred thousand pounds',^ 
 enabled the King to add probably more than fifty thousand men to his army.- 
 Pitt, now at the height of power and popularity, undertook the task of defend- ' 
 ing Western Germany against France, and asked Frederic only for the loan of 
 a general. The general selected was Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had 
 attained high distinction in the Prussian service. He was put at the head of 
 an army, partly English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed of mercenaries 
 hired from the petty princes of the empire. He soon vindicated the choice of 
 the two allied courts, and proved himself the second general of the age. 
 
 Frederic passed the Avinter at Breslau, in reading, writing and preparing for the 
 next campaign. The havoc which the war had made among his troops was rapidly 
 repaired ; and in the spring 'of 1758 he was again ready for the conflict. Prince 
 Ferdinand kept the French in check. The King in the meantime, after at- 
 tempting against the Austrians some opei;ations which led to no very important 
 result, marched to encounter the Russians, who, slaying,! burning and Wasting 
 wherever they turned, had penetrated into the heart of his realm. He gave them 
 battle at Zorndorf, near Frankfort on the Oder. The fight was long and bloody. 
 Quarter was neither given nor taken ; for the Germans and Scythians regarded 
 each other with bitter aversion, and the sight of the ravages committed by the 
 half savage invaders had incehsed the King and his army. The Russians were 
 overthrown withgreat-slaughter ; and for a few months no further danger was 
 to be apprehended from the East. 
 
 A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed bv the King, and "was celebrated with 
 
PREDERIC ^iik'GKEA T. *}%\ 
 
 pride and delight by his people. The rejoicings in England were not less 
 enthusiastic or less sincere. This may be selected as the point of time at which 
 the military glory of Frederic reached the zenith. In the short space of three 
 quarters of a year he had won three gr€at battles over the armies of three 
 mighty and warlike monarchies — France, Austria and Russia. .i:ji 
 
 But it was decreed that the temper of that strong mind should be tried'Ti^. 
 both extremes of fortune in rapid succession. Close upon this bright series of 
 triumphs came a series of disasters such as would have blighted the fame and 
 broken the heart of almost any other commander. Yet Frederic, in the midst 
 of his calamities, was still an object of admiration to his subjects, his allies and 
 his enemies. Overwhelmed by adversity, sick of life, he still maintained the 
 contest — greater in defeat, in flight and in what seemed hopeless ruin than on 
 the fields of his proudest victories. 
 
 Having vanquished the Russians, he hastened into Saxony to oppose the 
 troops of the Empress Queen, commanded by Daun, the most cautious, and 
 Laudohii, the most inventive and enterprising of her generals. These two 
 celebrated commanders agreed on a scheme, in which the prudence of the one 
 and the vigour of the other seem to have been happily combined. At dead of 
 night they surprised the King in his camp at Hochkirchen. His presence of 
 mind saved his troops from destruction ; but nothing could save them from de- 
 feat and severe loss. Marshal Keith was among the slain. The first roar of the 
 guns roused the noble exile fropi his rest, and he was instantly in the front of 
 the battle. He received a dangerous wound, but refused to quit the field, and 
 was in the act of rallying his broken troops when an Austrian bullet terminated 
 his chequered and eventful life. 
 
 The misfortune was serious. But of all generals, Frederic understood best 
 how to repair defeat and Daun understood least how to improve victory. In 
 a few days, the Prussian army was as formidable as before the battle. The 
 prospect was, however, gloomy. An Austrian army under General Harsch 
 had invaded Silesia and invested the fortress of Neisse. Daun, after his success 
 at Hochkirchen, had written to Harsch in very confident terms: "Go on 
 with your operations against Neisse. Be quite at ease as to thq King. I will 
 give a good account of him." . In truth, the position of the Prussians was full 
 of difficulties. Between them and Silesia lay the victorious army of Daun. It 
 was not easy for them to reach Silesia at all. If they did reach it, they left 
 Saxony exposed to the Austrians. But the vigour and activity of Frederic 
 surmounted every obstacle. He made a circuitous march of extraordinary 
 rapidity, passed Daun, hastened into Silesia, .raised the siege of Neisse and 
 drove Harsch into Bohemia. Daun availed himself of thd King's absence t6' 
 attack Dresden. The Prussians defended it desperately.. The inhabitants 6jf 
 that wealthy and polished capital begged in vain for mercy from the garrison 
 within and from the besiegers without. The beautiful suburbs were burned to 
 he ground. It was clear that the town, if won at all, would be won street by 
 street by the bayonet. At this conjuncture came news that Frederic, having 
 cleared Silesia of his enemies, was returning by forced marches into Saxony. 
 Daun retired from before Dresden and fell back into the Austrian territories. 
 The King, over heaps of ruins, made his triumphant entry into the unhappy 
 metropohs, which had so cruelly expiated the weak and perfidious policy of its 
 sovereign. It was now the twentieth of November. The cold weather 
 suspended military operations ; and the King again took up his winter quarters 
 at Breslau. 
 
 The third of the seven terrible years was over ; and Frederic still stood his 
 ground. He had been recently tried by domestic as well as by military 
 disasters. On the fourteenth of October, the day on which \\^ was defeated at 
 
732 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 Hochkirchen^ the day on the anniversary of which, forty-eight years later j a 
 defeat far more tremendous laid the Prussian monarchy in the dust, died 
 Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bareuth. From the accounts which we have of 
 her, by her own hand and by the hands of the moat discerning of her con- 
 temporaries, we should pronounce her to have been coarse, indelicate and a 
 good hater, but not destitute of kind and generous feelings. Her mind, 
 n«turally strong and observant, had been highly cultivated ; and she was, and 
 deserved to be, Frederic's favourite sister. He felt the loss as much as it was 
 in his iron nature to feel the loss of anything but a province or a battle. 
 
 At Breslau, during the winter, he was indefatigable in his poetical labours. 
 The most spirited lines, perhaps, that he ever wrote, are to be found in a bitter 
 lampoon on Louis and Madame de Pompadour, which he composed at this time, 
 and sent to Voltaire. The verses were, indeed, so good, that Voltaire was afraid 
 that he might himself be suspected of having written them, or at least of having 
 corrected them ; and partly from fright — partly, we fear, from love of mischief — 
 sent them to the Duke of Choiseul, then prime minister of France. Choiseul 
 very wisely determined to encounter Frederic at Frederic's own weapoHS, and 
 applied for assistance to Palissot, who had some skill as a versifier, and who, 
 though he had not yet made himself famous by bringing Rosseau and Helvetius 
 on the stage, was known to possess Some little talent for satire. Palissot 
 produced some very stinging lines on the moral and literary character of 
 Frederic, and these lines the' Duke sent to Voltaire. This war of couplets, 
 following close on the carnage of Zorndorf and the conflagration of Dresden, 
 illustrates well the strangely compounded character of the King of Prussia. 
 
 At this moment, he was assailed by a new enemy. Benedict XIV. , the 
 best and wisest of the two hundred and fifty successors of St. Peter, was no 
 more. During the short interval between his reign and that of his disciple 
 Ganganelli, the chief seat in the Church of Rome was filled by Rezzonico, who 
 took the name of Clement XHI. This absurd priest determined to try what 
 the weight of his authority could effect in favour of the orthodox Maria 
 Theresa against a heretic king. At the high mass on Christmas day, a sword 
 with a rich belt and scabbard, a hat of crimson velvet lined with ermine, and 
 a dove of pearls, the mystic symbol of the Divine Comforter, were solemnly 
 blessed by the supreme pontiff, and were sent with great ceremony to Marshal 
 Daun, the conqueror of Kolin and Hochkirchen. This mark of favour had 
 more than once been bestowed by the Popes on the great champions of the 
 faith. Similar honours had been paid, more than six centuries earlier, by 
 Urban II. to Godfrey of Bouillon. Similar honours had been conferred 
 on Alba for destroying the liberties of the Low Countries, and on John 
 Sobiesky after the dehverance of Vienna. But the presents, which were 
 received with profound reverence by the Baron of the Holy Sepulchre in the 
 eleventh century, and which had not wholly lost their value in the seventeenth 
 century, appeared inexpressibly ridiculous to a generation which read 
 Mqntesquieu and Voltstire. Frederic wrote sarcastic verses on the gifts, the 
 giver and the receiver. But the public wanted no prompter ; and an universal 
 roar of laughter from Petersburg to Lisbon reminded the Vatican that the age 
 of crusades was over. '' 
 
 The fourth campaign, the most disastrous of all the campaigns of this fearful 
 war, had now opened. The Austrians filled Saxony and menaced Berlin. 
 The Russians defeated the King's generals on the Oder, threatened Silesia, 
 effected a junction with Laudohn, and intrenched themselves strongly at 
 Kunersdorf.- Frederic hastened to attack them. A great battle was fought. 
 During the earlier part of the day, everything yielded to the impetuosity of the 
 Prussians and to the skill of their chief. The lines were forced. Half the 
 
ffKEp^JiiC THB GREAT. .743 
 
 Russian guns were taken. The King sent off a courier to Berlin with two lines, 
 announcing a complete victory. But, in the meantime, the stubborn Russians, 
 defeated yet unbroken, had taken up their stand in an almost impregnable 
 position, on an eminence where the JeWs of Frankfort were wont to bury their 
 dead. Here the battle recommenced. The Prussian infantry, exhausted by 
 six hours of hard fighting under a sun which equalled the tropical heat, were 
 yet brought up repeatedly to the attack, but in vain. The King led three 
 charges in person. Two horses were killed under him. The officers of his 
 staff fell all round him. His coat was pierced by several bullets. All was in 
 vain. His infantry was driven back with frightful slaughter. Terror began to 
 spread fast from man to man. At that moment, the fiery cavalry of Laudohn, 
 still fresh, rushed on the wavering ranks. Then followed an universal rout. 
 Frederic himself was on the point of falling into the hands of the conquerors, 
 and was with difficulty saved by a gallant officer, who, at the head of a hand- 
 ful of Hussars, made good a diversion of a few minutes. Shattered in body, 
 shattered in mind, the King reached that night a village which the Cossacks 
 had plundered ; and there, in a ruined and deserted farm-house, flung himself 
 on a heap of straw. He had sent to Berlin a second despatch yery different 
 from the first: "Let the royal family leave Berlin. Send the archives to 
 Potsdam. The town may make terms with the enemy. " 
 
 The defeat was, in truth, overwhelming. Of fifty thousand men who had 
 that morning marched under the black eagles, not three thousand remained 
 together. The King bethought him again of his corrosive sublimate, and wrote 
 to bid adieu to his friends and to give directions as to the measures to be taken 
 in the event of his death : *' I have no resource left," such is the language of 
 one of his letters, "all is lost. I will not survive the ruin of my country. 
 Farewell for ever." 
 
 But the mutual jealousies of the confederates prevented them from following 
 up their victory. They lost a few days in loitering and squabbling ; and a few 
 days, improved by Frederic, were worth more than the years of other men. 
 On the morning after the battle, he had got together eighteen thousand of his 
 troops. Very soon his force amounted to thirty thousand. Guns were pro- 
 cured from the neighbouring fortresses ; and there was again an army. Berlin 
 was for the present safe ; but calamities came pouring on the King in unin- 
 terrupted succession. One of his generals, with a large body of troops, was 
 taken at Maxen ; another was defeated at Meissen ; and when at length the 
 campaign of 1759 closed, in .the midst of a rigorous winter, the situation of 
 Prussia appeared desperate. The only consoling circumstance was that, in 
 the West, Ferdinand of Brunswick had been more fortunate than his 
 master ; and, by a series of exploits of which the battle of Minden was the 
 most glorious, had removed all apprehension of danger on the side of 
 France. 
 
 The fifth year was now about to commence. It seemed impossible that the 
 Prussian territories, repeatedly devastated by hundreds of thousands of invaders, 
 could longer support the contest. But the King carried on war as no Euro- 
 pean power has ever carried on war, except the Committee of Public Safety 
 during the great agony of the French Revolution. He governed his kingdom 
 as he would have governed a besieged town, not caring to what extent property 
 was destroyed or the pursuits of civil life suspended, so that he did but make 
 head against the enemy. As long as there was a man left in Prussia, that man 
 might carry a musket ; as long as there was a horse left, that horse might 
 draw artillery. The coin was debj^sed, the civil functionaries were left unpaid ; 
 in some provinces civil government altogether ceased to exist. But there were 
 5till rye-bread and potatoes ; there were still lead and gunpowder ; and, while 
 
734 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 
 
 'the means of sustaining and destroyinjg life remained, Frederic was determined 
 to fight it out to the very last. 
 
 The earlier part of the campaign of i^^'J^as unfavourable to him. Berlin 
 was again occupied by the enemy. Great contributions \yere levied on the 
 inhabitants, and the royal palace was plundered, ^ut at length, after two 
 j^ears of calamity, victory came back to his arms. At Lignitz he gained a gjreat 
 battle over Laudohn ; at Torgau, after a day of horrible carnage, he triumphed 
 over Daun. The fifth year closed, and still the event was in suspense. In the 
 countries where the war had raged, the misery and exhaustion were more 
 appalling than ever ; but still there were left men and beasts, arms and food, 
 and still Frederic fought on. In truth he had now been baited into savageness. 
 His heart was ulcerated with hatred. The implacable resentment with which his 
 enemies persecuted, him, though originally provoked by his own unprincipled 
 .ambition, excited in him a thirst for vengeance which he did not even attempt 
 to conceal. "It is hard," he says in one of his letters, "for man to bear 
 what I bear. I begin to feel that, as the Italians say, revenge is a pleasure for 
 the gods. My philosophy is worn out by suffering, I km no saint like those 
 of whom we read in the legends ; and I will own that I should die content if 
 only! could first inflict a portion of the misery which I endure." 
 
 Borne up by such feelings, he struggled with various success, but constant 
 glory, through the campaign of 1761. On. the whole, the result of this cam- 
 paign Was disastrous to Prussia. No great battle was gained by the enemy ; 
 but, in spite of the desperate bounds of the hunted tiger, the circle of pursuers 
 was fast closing round him. Laudohn had surprised the important fortress of 
 Schweidnitz. With that fortress, half of Silesia and the command of the most 
 important defiles through the mountains had been transferred to the Austrians. 
 The Russians had overpowered the King's generals in . Pomerania, The 
 country was so completely desolated that he began, by his own confession, to 
 look round him with blank despair, unable to imagine where recruits, horses 
 or provisions were to be found. ' 
 
 Just at this time, two great events brought on a complete change in the rela- 
 tions of almost all the powers of Europe. One of those events was the retire- 
 ment of Mr. Pitt from ofHce ; the other v/as the death of the Empress Elizabeth 
 of Russia. 
 
 The retirement of Pitt seemed to be an omen of utter ruin to the House of 
 Brandenburg. His proud and vehement nature was incapable of anything that 
 looked like either fear or treachery. He had often declared that while he was 
 in power, England should never make a peace ^of "Utrecht ; should never, for 
 any selfish object, abandon an ally even in the last extremity of distress. The 
 Continental war was his own war. He had been bold enough — he who in 
 foi-mer times had attacked, with irresistible powers of oratory, the Hanoverian 
 policy of Carteret and the German subsidies of Newcastle— to declare that 
 Hanover ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire,, and that he would conquer 
 America in Germany. Pie had fallen ; and the power which he had exercised, 
 not always with descretion, but always with vigour and genius, had devolved 
 on a favourite who was the representative of the Tory party, of the party which 
 hfid thwarted William, which had persecuted Marlborough and which had 
 given up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip of Anjou. To make peace 
 with France, to shake off with all, or more than all, the speed compatible with 
 decency every Continental connection, these were among the chief objects of 
 the new Minister. The policy then followed inspired Frederic with an unjust, 
 but deep and bitter, aversion to the English* name, and produced effects which 
 are still felt throughout the civilised world. To that policy it was owing that, 
 some years later, England could not find on the wt>ole Continent a single ally 
 
FR^DEKI^JHR GREAT.. 735 
 
 to, stand by her, in her extreme need, against the House of Bourbon. To that 
 policy it was owing that Frederic, alienated from England,, was compelled to 
 connect himself closely during his latter years with Russia, and was induced 
 reluctantly to assist, in that great crime, the fruitful parent of other great 
 crimes, the first partition of Poland. 
 
 Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived Prussia of her only friend, when 
 the death of Elizabeth produced an entire revolution in the politics of the 
 North. The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who how ascended the Russian 
 throne, was not merely free from the prejudices which his aunt had entertained 
 against Frederic, but was a worshipper, a servile imitator of the Great King. 
 The days of the new Czar's government were few and evil, but sufficient to 
 produce a change in the whole state of Christendom. He set the Prussian 
 prisoners at liberty, fitted them out decently and sent them back to their 
 master ; he withdrew his troops from the provinces which Elizabeth had de- 
 cided on incorporating with her dominions ; and absolved all those Prussian sub- 
 jects who had been compelled to swear fealty to Russia'from their engagements. 
 
 Not content with concluding peace on terms favourable to Prussia, he 
 solicited rank in the Prussian service, dressed himself in a Prussian uniform, 
 wore the Black Eagle of Prussia on his breast, made preparations for visiting 
 Prussia, in order to have an interview with the object of his idolatry, and ac- 
 tually sent fifteen thousand excellent troops to reinforce the shattered army of 
 Frederic. Thus strengthened, the King speedily repaired the losses of the 
 preceeding year, reconquered Silesia, defeated Daun at Buckersdorf, invested 
 and retook Schweidnitz, and, at the close of the year, presented to the forces 
 of Maria Theresa a front as formidable as before the great reverses of 1759. 
 Before the ^w^ of the campaign, his friend, the Emperor Peter, having, by 
 a series of absurd insults to the institutions, manners and feelings of his peo- 
 ple, united them in hostility to his person and government, was deposed and 
 murdered. The Empress, who, under the title of Catherine the Second, now 
 assumed the supreme power, was, at the commencement of her adminis- 
 tration, by no means partial to Frederic, and refused to permit her troops to 
 remain under his command. Biit she observed the peace made by her hus- 
 band ; and Prussia was no longer threatened by danger from the East. 
 
 England and France at the same time paired off together. They condUded 
 a treaty, by which they bound themselves to observe neutrality with respect 
 to the German war. Thus the coalitions on both sides were dissolved ; and the 
 original enemies, Austria and Prussia, remained alone confronting each other. 
 
 Austria had undoubtedly far greater . meaits than Prussia and was less 
 exhausted by hostilities ; yet it seemed hardly possible that Austria could effect 
 alone what she had in vain attempted to effect when supported by France on 
 the one side and by Russia on the other. Danger also began to menace 
 the Imperial house from another quarter. The Ottoman Porte held threaten- 
 ing language, and a hundred thousand Turks were mustered on the frontiers 
 of Plungary. The proud and revengeful spirit of the Empress Queen at length 
 gave way ; and, in February 1763, the peace of Hubertsburg put an end to the- 
 conflict which had, during seven years, devastated Germany. The King ceded 
 nothing. The whole Contmeht in arras had proved unable to tear Silesia from 
 that iron grasp. . . ., , . ,, , • -, ; , ,. 
 
 The war was over! Frederic was safe; His glory was beyond the reach 
 of envy. If he had not made conquests as vast as those of Alexander, of Csesar 
 and of Napoleon, if he had not, on fields of battle, enjoyed the constant success 
 of Marlborough and Wellington — he had yet given an example unrivalled in 
 history of what capacity and resolution can effect against the greatest 
 superiority of power and the utmost spite of fortune. He entered Berlin in. 
 
730 • MADAME D'ARBLAY. 
 
 triumph, after an absence of more than six years. The streets were brilliantly 
 lighted up ; and, as he passed along in an open carriage, with Ferdinand of 
 Brunswick at his side, the multitude saluted him with loud praises and bless- 
 ings. He was moved by those marks of attachment, and repeatedly exclaimed 
 — " Long live my dear people \ — Long live my children ! Yet, even in the 
 midst of that gay spectacle, he could not but perceive everywhere the traces 
 of destruction and decay. The city had been more than once plundered. 
 The population had considerably diminished. Berlin, however, had suffered 
 little when compared with most parts of the kingdom. The ruin of private 
 fortunes, tne distress of all ranks, was such as might appal the firmest mind. 
 Almost every province had been the seat of war, and of war conducted with 
 merciless ferocity. Clouds of Crdatians had descended on Silesia. Tens of 
 thousands of Cossacks had been let loose on Pomerania and Brandenburg. 
 The mere contributions levied by the invaders amounted, it was said, to more 
 than a hundred millions .of dollars ; and the value of what they extorted was 
 probably much less than the value of what they destroyed. The fields lay 
 uncultivated. The -very seed-corn had been devoured in the madness of hun- 
 ger. Famine, and contagious maladies, the effect of famine, had swept away 
 the herbs and flocks ; and there was reason to fear that a great pestilence 
 among the human race was likely to follow in the train of that tremendous 
 war. Near fifteen thousand houses had been burned to the ground. The popu- 
 lation of the kingdom had in seven years decreased to the frightful extent 
 often percent. A sixth of the males capable of bearing arms had actually 
 perished on the field of battle. In some districts, no labourers, except 
 women, were seen in the fields at harvest-time. In others, the traveller 
 passed shuddering through a succession of silent villages in which not a single 
 inhabitant remained. The currency had been debased ; the authority of 
 laws and magistrates had been suspended ; the whole social system was 
 deranged. For, during that convulsive struggle, everything that was not mili- 
 tary violence was anarchy. Even the army was disorganised. Some great 
 generals and a crowd of excellent officers had fallen, and it had been 
 impossible to supply their place. The difficulty of finding recruits had, 
 towards the close of the war, been so great that selection, and rejection were 
 impossible. Whole battalions were composed of deserters or of prisoners. 
 It was hardly to be lioped that thirty years of repose and industry would 
 repair the ruin produced by seven years of havoc. One consolatary circum- 
 stance, indeed, there was. No debt had been incurred. The burdens of 
 the war had been terrible, almost insupportable ; but no arrear was left to 
 embarrass the finances in time of peace. 
 
 Here, for the present, we must pause. We have accompanied Frederic to the 
 close of his career as a warrior. Possibly, when these " Memoirs " are completed, 
 we may resume the consideration of his character, and give some account 
 of his domestic and foreign policy, and* of his private habits during the many 
 years of tranquillity which followed the Seven Years' War. 
 
 MADAME D'ARBLAY. (January, 1843-) 
 
 Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay. 2 vols., 8vo. London, 1842. 
 
 Though the world saw and heard little of Madame D'Arblay during the last 
 forty years of her life, and though that little did not add to her fame, there 
 were thousands, we believe, who felt a singular emotion when they learned 
 that she was no longer among us. The news of h^r death carried the minds of 
 
MADAME D 'ARBLA Y. 737 
 
 men back at one leap clear over two generations, to the time when her first liter- 
 ary triumphs were won. All those whom we had been accustomed to 
 revere as intellectual patriarchs seemed children when compared with her ; for 
 Burke had sat up all night to read her writings andjohnspn had pronounced 
 her superior to Fielding, when Rogers was still a schoolboy and Sou they still 
 in petticoats. Yet more strange did it seem that we should just have lost one 
 whose name' had been widely celebrated before anylsody had heard of some 
 illustrious men who, twenty, thirty or forty years ago, were, after a long and 
 splendid career, borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it was. \ Frances 
 Burney was at the height of fame and popularity before Cowper had ^published 
 his first volume, before Porson had gone up to college, before Pitt had taken 
 his seat in the House of G<Mnmons, before the voice of Erskine had been once 
 heard in Westminster Hall. Since the appearance of her first work, sixty-two 
 years had passed ; and this interval had been crowded, not only with political, 
 but also with intellectual revolutions. Thousands of reputations had, during 
 that period, sprung up, bloomed, withered and disappeared. New kinds of 
 composition had come into fashion, had gone out of fashion, had been de- 
 rided, had been forgotten. The fooleries of Delia Crusca and the fooleries 
 of Kotzebue had for a time bewitched the multitude, but had left no trace 
 behind them ; nor had misdirected genius been able to save from decay the 
 once flourishing schools of Godwin, of Darwin and of Radcliffe. Many 
 books, written for temporary effect, had run through six or seven editions 
 and had then been gathered to the novels of Afra Behn and the epic poems 
 of Sir Richard Blackmore. Yet the early works of Madame D'Arblay, 
 in spite of the lapse of years, in spite of the change of manners, in spite of 
 the popularity deservedly obtained by some of her rivals, continued to hold 
 a high place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time set on her 
 fame, before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except on the fame 
 of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she survived her own 
 wake and overheard the judgment of posterity. 
 
 Having always felt a warm and sincere, though not a blind, admiration for 
 her talents, we rejoi|f ed to learn that her " Diary " was about to be made public. 
 Our hopes, it is true, were not unmixed with fears. We could not forget the 
 fate of the *' Memoirs of Dr. Burney," which were published ten years ago. 
 That unfortunate book contained much that was curious and interesting. Yet 
 it was received with a cry of disgust, and was speedily consigned to oblivion. 
 The truth is that it deserved its doom. It was written in Madame D'Arblay's 
 later style, the worst style that has ever been known among men. No genius, 
 no information, could save from proscription a book so written. We, there- 
 fore, opened the " Diary " with no small anxiety, trembling lest we should light 
 upon some of that peculiar rhetoric which deforms almost every page of the 
 " Memoirs," and which it is impossible to read without a sensation made up 
 of mirth, shame and loathing. We soon, however, discovered to our great 
 delight that this " Diary " was kept before Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. 
 It is, for the most part, written in her earliest and best manner, in true woman's 
 English, clear, natural and lively. The two works are lying side by side before 
 us ; and we never turn from the '* Memoirs " to the " Diary " without a sense of 
 relief. The difference is as great as the difference between the atmosphere 
 of a perfumer's shop, fetid with lavender water and jasmine soap, and the air 
 of a heath on a fine morning in May. Both works ought to be consulted by 
 every person who wishes to be well acquainted with the history of our litera- 
 ture and our manners. But to read the *' Diary" is a pleasure ; to read the 
 *' Memoirs " will always be a task. 
 
 We may, perhaps, afford some harmlesi? amusement to our readers if we 
 
 B B 
 
73S MA DA ME D 'A KB LA Y. 
 
 attempt, with the help of these two books, to give them an account of the most 
 important years of Madame D'Arblay's life. , ,., , .,, , 
 
 She was descended from a family which bore thcname of. Macburaey, and 
 which, though probably of Irish origin, had been long settled .in Shropshire 
 and was possessed of considerable estates in that county. Unhappily, many 
 years before her birth, the Macburneys began, as if of set purpose. and^ in a 
 spirit of determined rivalry, to expose and ruin themselves. The heir apparent, 
 Mr. James Macburney, offended hig father by making a runaway match with 
 an actress from Goodman's Fields. The old gentleman could, devise no more 
 judicious mode of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying 
 the cook. The cook gave birth to a son, named Joseph, who succeeded to all 
 the lands of the family, while James was cut off with a shilling. The favourite 
 son, however, was so extravagant that he soon became as poor as his disin- 
 herited brother. Both were forced to earn their bred.d by their labour. Joseph 
 turned dancing-master and settled in Norfolk, James struck off the Mac from 
 the beginning of his name and set up as a portrait painter at Chester. Here 
 he had a son, named Charles, well known as the author of the ' ' History of 
 Music " and as the father of two remarkable children, of a son distinguished 
 by learning and of a daughter still more honourably distinguished by genius. 
 
 Charles early showed a taste for that art of which, at a later period, he be- 
 came the historian. He was apprenticed to a celebrated musician in London, 
 and applied himself to study with vigour ^.nd success. He early found a kind 
 and munificent patron in Fulk Greville, -^ highborn and highbred man, who 
 seems to have had in large measure all the accomplishments and all the follies, 
 all the virtues and all the vices, which, a hundred years ago, were considered 
 as making up the character of a fine gentleman. Under such protection, the 
 young artist had every prospect of a brilliant career in the capital. But his 
 health failed. It became necessary for him to retreat from the smoke and 
 river fog of London to the pure air of the coast. He accepted the place of 
 organist at Lynn, and settled at that town with .a young lady who had recently 
 become his wife. 
 
 At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born. , Nothing in her child- 
 hood indicated that she would, while still a young woman, have secured for 
 herself an honourable and permanent place among English writers. She was 
 shy and silent. Her brothers and sisters called her a dunce, and not altogether 
 without some show of reason j for at eight years old she did not know her 
 letters. 
 
 In 1760, Mr. Burney quitted Lynn for London, and took a house in Poland 
 Street ; a situation which had been fashionable in the reign of Queen Anne, 
 but which, since that time, had been deserted by most of its wealthy and noble 
 inhabitants. He afterwards resided in St. Martin's Street, on the south side 
 of Leicester Square. His house there is still well known, and will continue 
 to be well known as long as our island retains any trace of civilisation ; for it 
 was the dwelling of Newton, and the square turret which distinguishes it from 
 all the surrounding buildings was Newton's observatory. 
 
 Mr. Burney at ©nee obtained as many pupils of the most respectable descrip- 
 tion as he had time to attend, and was thus enabled to support his family, 
 modestly indeed, and frugally, but in comfort and independence. His profes- 
 sional merit obtained for him the degree of Doctor of Music from the University 
 of Oxford ; and his werks on subjects connected with his art gained for him 
 a place, respectable, though certainly not eminent, among men of letters. 
 
 The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her twenty- 
 fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had proceeded 
 no further than the hornl)«»k, she lost her mother, and thenceforward she 
 
Madame b 'ar^la v. 739 
 
 "educated herself. Her father appears to have been as bad a father as a very 
 'honest, affectionate arid sweet-tempered man can well be. He loved his 
 daughter dearly ; but it never seems tp have occurred to him that a parent has 
 other duties to perform to children th^ that of fondling them. It would indeed 
 have been impossible for him to superintend their education himself. His 
 professional engagements occupied him all day. At seven in the morning, he 
 began to attend his pupils, and,' when London was full, was sometimes employed 
 in teaching till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a 
 tin box of sandwiches and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in a 
 hackney coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his 
 daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris ; but he imagined that Frances would 
 run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she were educated 
 in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. No governess, no 
 teacher of any art or of any language was provided for her. But one of her 
 sisters showed her how to write ; and, before she was fourteen, she began to 
 find pleasure in reading. 
 
 It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, 
 when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very small. 
 \\1ien at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the most celebrated 
 works of Voltaire and Moliere ; and, what seems still more extraordinary, had 
 never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, when she was a girl, was the 
 most popular of living p^ets. It is particularly deserving of observation that 
 she appears to have been by no means a novel reader. Her father's library was 
 large, and he had admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists gener- 
 ally exclude that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began 
 to examine the shelves. But in the. whole collection there was only a single 
 novel, Fielding's "Amelia." 
 
 An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but 
 which suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant pro- 
 gress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book of 
 human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position was 
 very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle class. His 
 daughters seemed to have been suffered to mix freely with those whom butlers 
 and waiting-maids call vulgar. We are told that they were in the habit of 
 playing vnth the children of a wig-maker who lived in the adjoining house. 
 Yet few nobles could assemble in the most stately mansions of Grosvenor 
 Square or St. James's Square a society so various and so brilliant as was 
 sometimes to be found in I>r. Burney's cabin. His mind, though not very 
 powerful or capacious, was restlessly active ; and, in the intervals of his pro- 
 fessional pursuits, he had contrived to lay up much miscellaneous information. 
 His attainments, the suavity of his temper and the gentle simplicity of his ( 
 manners had obtained for him ready admission to the first literary circles. 
 While he was still at Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest 
 zeal the praises of the •' English Dictionary." . In London, the two friends met 
 frequently and agreed most harmoniously. - One tie, indeed, was wanting 
 to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art passionately, and Johnson 
 just knew the bell of Saint Clement's church from the organ. They had, 
 however, many topics in common ; and on winter nights their conversations 
 were sometimes prolonged till the fire liad gone out and the candles had burned 
 away to the wicks. Burney's admiration of the powers which had produced 
 "Rasselas" and '* The Rambler" bordered on idolatry. He gave a singular 
 proof of this at his first visit to Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the 
 apartment was not at home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some 
 relic which he could carry avray, but he could sec nothing lighter than the chairs 
 
Uo MAD AMR D 'ARBLA K 
 
 and the fireirens. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles from 
 the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as Louis IX. 
 when the holy nail of St. Denis was found. Johnson, on the other hand, con- 
 descended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, a man whom it was 
 impossible not to like. 
 
 Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland Street and Saint Martin's Lane. 
 That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from good nature 
 and partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth and terror, which his gestures 
 and play of countenance never failed to produce in a nursery, flattered him 
 quite as much as the applause of mature critics. He often exhibited all his 
 powers of mimicry for the amusement of the little Burneys, awed them by 
 shuddering and crouching as if he saw a ghost, scared them by raving like a 
 maniac in Saint Luke's, and then at once became an auctioneer, a chimney- 
 sweeper or an old woman, and made them laugh till the tears ran down their 
 cheeks. 
 
 But it would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters and 
 artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and hearing. Colman, 
 Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry, were among those 
 who occasionally surrounded the tea table and supper tray at her father's modest 
 dwelling. This was not all. The distinction which Dr. Burney had acquired 
 as a musician and as the historian of music, attracted to his house the most 
 eminent musical performers of that age. The greatest Italian smgers who 
 visited England regarded him as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted 
 themselves to obtain his suffrage. Pachierotti became his intimate friend. The 
 rapacious Agujari, who sang for nobody else under fifty pounds an air, sang her 
 best for Dr. Burney without a fee ; and in the company of Dr. Burney even the 
 haughty and eccentric Gabrielli constrained herself to behave with civility. It 
 was thus in his power to give, with scarcely any expense, concerts equal to 
 those of the aristocracy. On such occasions, the quiet street in which he lived 
 was blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his little drawing-room was crowded 
 with peers, peeresses, ministers and ambassadors. On one evening, of which 
 we happen to have a full account, there were present Lord Mulgrave, Lord 
 Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe, Lord Barrington from the War Office, Lord 
 Sandwich from the Admiralty, Lord Ashburnham, with his gold key dangling 
 from his pocket, and the French ambassador, M. De Guignes, renowned for 
 his fine person and for his success in gallantry. But the great show of the night 
 was the Russian ambassador, .Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a 
 blaze with jewels, and in whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scythian 
 might be discerned through a thin varnish of French pohteness. As he stalked 
 about the small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whis- 
 pered to each other, with mingled admiration and' horror, that he was the 
 favoured lover of his august mistress ; that he had borne the chief part in the 
 revolution to which she owed her throne ; and that his huge hands, now glitter- 
 ing with diamond rings, had given the last squeeze to the windpipe of her unfor- 
 tunate husband. 
 
 With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most remarkable 
 specimens of the race of lions, a kind of game which is hunted in London every 
 spring with more than Meltonian ardour and perseverance. Bruce, who had 
 washed down steaks cut from living oxen with watej: from the fountains of the 
 Nile, came to swagger and talk about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, 
 and made all the assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love- 
 songs, such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano. 
 
 With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under Dr. 
 Burney's roof. Prances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was not a 
 
MADAME D 'ARBLA K %i 
 
 musician, and could therefore bear ho part in the concerts. She was shy almost 
 to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the conversation. The slightest 
 remark from a stranger disconcertecl hp*, and even the old friends of her father 
 who tried to draw her out could seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her 
 figure was small, her face not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered 
 to withdraw quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all 
 that passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but 
 seem not to have suspected that under her demure and bashful deportment were 
 concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous. She had not, 
 it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character. But every marked peculiarity 
 instantly caught her notice and remained engraven on her imagination. Thus 
 while still a girl she had laid up such a store of materials for fiction as few of 
 those who mix much in the world are able to accumulate during a long life. 
 She had watched and listened to people of every class, from princes and great 
 officers of state down to artists living in garrets and poets familiar with sub- 
 terranean cookshops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in review 
 before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers, deans of cathe- 
 drals and managers of theatres, travellers leading about newly caught savages, 
 and singing women escorted by deputy husbands. 
 
 So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society 
 which she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to write little 
 fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen viith ease, which, as we 
 have said, was not very early. Her sisters were amused by her stories. But 
 Dr. Burney knew nothing of their existence ; and in another quarter her 
 literary propensities met with serious discouragement. When she was fifteen, 
 her father took a second wife. The new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her 
 daughter-in-law was fond of scribbling, and delivered several good-natured 
 lectures on the subject. The advice no doubt was well meant, and might have 
 been given by the most judicious friend ; for at that time, from causes to which 
 we may hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young 
 lady than to be known as a novel writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her 
 favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts. * 
 
 She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous 
 regularity. But the dinners of that time were early ; and the afternoon was 
 her own. Though she had given up novel-writing, she was still fond of using 
 her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she corresponded largely with a 
 person who seems to have had the chief share in the formation of her mind. 
 This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of her father. His name, well known, 
 near a century ago, in the most splendid circles of London, has long been for- 
 gotten. His history is, however, so interesting and instructive, that it tempts 
 us to venture on a digression. 
 
 Long before Frances Burney was born, Mr. Crisp had made his entrance 
 into the world, with every advantage. He was well connected and well edu- 
 cated. His face and figure were conspicuously handsome ; his manners were 
 polished ; his fortune was easy ; his characer was without stain ; he lived in 
 the best society ; he had read much ; he talked well ; his taste in literature, 
 music, painting, architecture, sculpture, was held in high esteem. Nothing 
 that the world can give seemed to be wanting to his happiness and respecta- 
 bility, except that he should understand the limits of his powers, and should 
 
 * There is some difficult;^ here as to the chronology. " This sacrifice,'' says the editor 
 of the Diary, " was made m the young authoress's fifteenth year." This could not be ; 
 for the sacrifice was the effect, according to the editor's own showing, of the remonstrances 
 of the second Mrs. Burney ; and Frances was in her sixteenth year when her father's 
 second marriage took place. 
 
1742 Madame d 'arbla y. 
 
 not, throw away distinctions which were within his reach in the pursuit of dis-^i^ 
 tinctions which were unattainable. ^ 
 
 *' It is an uncontrolled truth," says Swift, *' that no man ever made an ill 
 figure who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them." 
 Every day brings with it fresh illustrations of this weighty saying ; but the best 
 commentary that we remember is the history of Samuel Crisp. ; Men like him 
 have their proper place, and it is a most important one, in the Commonwealth 
 of Letters. It is by the judgment of such men that the rank of authors is finally 
 determined. It is neither to the multitude, nor to the few who are gifted with 
 great creative' genius, that we are to look for sound critical decisions. The 
 multitude, unacquainted with the best models, are captivated by whatever 
 stuns and dazzles them. They deserted Mrs. Siddons to run after Master 
 Betty ; and they now prefer, we have no doubt, Jack Sheppard to Von 
 Artevelde. A man of great original genius, on the other hand, a man who 
 has attained to mastery in some high walk of art, is by no means to be 
 implicitly trusted as a judge of the performances of others. . The erroneous 
 decisions pronounced by such men are without number. It is commonly sup- 
 posed that jealousy makes them unjust. But a more creditable explanation 
 may easily be found. The very excellence of a work shows that some of the 
 faculties of the author have been developed at the expense of the rest ; for it is 
 not given to the human intellect to expand itself widely in all directions at 
 once and to be at the same time gigantic and well-proportioned. Whoever 
 becomes pje-eminent in any art, nay, in any style of art, generally does so by 
 devoting , himself with intense and exclusive enthusiasm to the pursuit of one 
 kind of excellence. His perception of other kinds of excellence is therefore too 
 often impaired. Out of his own department, he praises and blames at random, 
 and is far less to be trusted than the mere connoisseur, who produces nothing, 
 and whose business is only to judge and enjoy. One painter is distinguished by 
 his exquisite finishing. He toils day after day to bring the veins of a cabbage 
 leaf, the folds of a lace veil, the wrinkles of an old woman's face, nearer and 
 nearer to perfection. In the time which he employs on a square foot of can- 
 vass, a master of a different order covers the walls of a palace with gods burying 
 giaiits under mountains, or makes the cupola of a church alive with seraphim 
 and martyrs. The more fervent the passion of each of these artists for his art, 
 the higher the merit of each in his own line, the more unlikely it is that they 
 will justly appreciate each other. Many persons, who never handled a pencil, 
 probably do far more justice to Michael Angelo than would have been done by 
 Gerard Douw, and far more justice to Gerard Douw than would have been 
 done by Michael Angelo. 
 
 It is the same with literature. Thousands, who have no spark of the genius 
 of Dryden or Wordsworth, do to Dryden the justice which has never been 
 done by Wordsworth, and to Wordsworth the justice which, we suspect, would 
 never have been done by Dryden. Gray, Johnson, Richardson, Fielding, are 
 all highly esteemed by the great body of intelligent and well informed men. 
 But Gray could see no merit in *' Rasselas," and Johnson could see no merit in 
 " The Bard." Fielding thought Richardson a solemn pdg, and ^^Richardson 
 perpetually expressed contempt and disgust for Fielding's lowness. 
 
 Mr. Crisp seems, as far as we can judge, to have been a man eminently 
 qualified for the useful office of a connoisseur. His talents and knowledge 
 fitted him to appreciate justly -almost every species of intellectual superiority. 
 As^ an . adviser he was inestimable. Nay, he might probably have 'held a. 
 respectable rank as a writer if he would have confined himself -to some depart- 
 ment of literature in which nothing more than sense, taste andtfeading-was 
 inquired. Unhappily, he set his heart on being a great poet, wrote a tragedy 
 
MADAME D'ARBLAY. 743 
 
 in 'five afcts'on the death df Vii'ginia, and offered it to Garrick, who was his per- 
 sonal friend. Garrick read, shook his head, and expressed a doubt whether it 
 would be wise in Mr. Crisp to stake SH^eputation, which stood high, on the 
 success of such a piece. But the author, blinded by self-love, set in motion a 
 machinery such as none could long resist. His intercessors were the most eloquent 
 man and the most lovely woman of that generation. Pitt was induced to read 
 ** Virginia-' and to pronounce it excellent. Lady Coventry, with fingers which 
 might have furnished a model to sculptors, forced the manuscript into the 
 reluctant hand of the manager; and, in the year 1754, the play was brought 
 forward. ' ' 
 
 Nothing that skill or friendship could do was omitted. Garrick wrote both 
 prologue and epilogue. The zealous friends of the author filled every box ; 
 and, by their strenuous exertions, the life of the play was prolonged during ten 
 nights. But, though there was no clamorous reprobation, it was universally 
 felt that the attempt had failed. When "Virginia" was printed, the public 
 disappointment was even greater than at the representation. The critics, the 
 Monthly Reviewers in particular, fell on plot, characters and diction without 
 mercy, but, we fear, not without justice. We have never met with a copy of 
 the play ; but if we may judge from the lines which are extracted in the Gen- 
 tlefnan's Magazine, and which (Jo not appear to have been malevolently 
 selected, we should say that nothing but the acting of Garrick and the par- 
 tiality of the audience could have saved so feeble and unnatural a drama from 
 instant damnation. • ■ - 
 
 The ambition of the poet was still unsubdued. When the London season 
 closed, he applied himself vigorously to the work of removing blemishes. He 
 does not seem to have suspected, what we are strongly inclined to suspect, 
 that the whole piece was one blemish, and that the passages which were meant • 
 to be fine were, in truth, bursts of that tame extravagance into which writers 
 fall when they set themselves to be sublime and pathetic in spite of nature. He 
 omitted, added, retouched, and flattered himself with hopes of a complete 
 success in the following year ; but, in the following year, Garrick showed no 
 disposition to bring the amended tiragedy on the stage. Solicitation and 
 remonstrance were tried in vain. Lady Coventry, drooping under that malady 
 which seems ever to select what is loveliest for its prey, could render no assist- 
 ance. The manager's language was civilly evasive ; but his resolution was 
 inflexible. 
 
 Crisp had committed a great error ; but he had escaped with a very slight 
 penance. His play had not been hooted from the boards. It had, on the 
 contrary, been better received than many very estimable performances have 
 been — than Johnson's *' Irene," for example, or Goldsmith's ** Good-natured 
 Man." Had Crisp been wise, he would have thought himself happy in having 
 purchased self-knowledge so cheap. He. would have relinquished, without 
 vain repinings, the hope of poetical distinction, and would have turned to the 
 many sources of happiness which he still possessed. Had he been, on the 
 other hand, an unfeeling and unblushing dunce, he would have gone on writing 
 scores of bad tragedies in defiance of censure and derision. But he had too 
 much sense to risk a second defeat, yet too little to bear his first defeat like 
 a man. The fatal delusion that he was a great dramatist had taken firm 
 possession of his mind. His failure he attributed to every cause except the 
 true one. He complaiiaed of the ill-will of Garrick, who appears to have done 
 everything that ability and zeal could do, and who, from selfish motives, would 
 of course, have been well pleased if "Virginia" had been as successful as 
 the '^Beggar's Opera." Nay, Crisp complained of the languor of the friends 
 whose -partiality had given him three benefit nights to which he had no claim. 
 
744 MADAME D'ARBLAY, 
 
 He complained of the injustice of the spectators, when, in truth, he ought to 
 have been grateful for their unexampled patience. He lost his temper and 
 spirits, and became a cynic and a hater of mankind. From London he retired 
 to Hampton, and from Hampton to a solitary and long-deserted mansion, 
 built on a common in one of the wildest tracts of Surrey. No road, not even 
 a sheepwalk, connected his lonely dwelling with the abodes of men. The 
 place of his retreat was strictly concealed from his old associates. In the 
 spring, he sometimes emerged, and was seen at exhibitions and concerts in 
 London. But he soon disappeared and hid himself, with no society but his 
 books, in his dreary hermitage. He survived his failure about thirty years. 
 A new generation sprang up around him. No memory of his bad verses 
 remained among men. His very name was forgotten. How completely the 
 world had lost sight of him will appear from a single circumstance. We looked 
 for his name in a copious Dictionary of Dramatic Authors published while he 
 was still alive, and we found only that Mr. Samuel Crisp, of the Custom 
 House, had written a play called " Virginia,'' acted in 1754. To the last, 
 however, the unhappy man continued to brood over the injustice of the 
 manager and the pit, and tried to convince himself and others that he had 
 missed the highest literary honours only because he had omitted some fine 
 passages in compliance with Garrick's judgment. Alas for human nature, that 
 the wounds of vanity should smart and bleed" so much longer than the wounds 
 of affection ! Few people, we believe, whose nearest friends and relations died 
 in 1754, had any acute feeling of the loss in 1782. Dear sisters, and favourite 
 daughters, and brides snatched away before the honeymoon was passed, had 
 been forgotten, or were remembered only with a tranquil regret. But Samuel 
 Crisp was still mourning for his tragedy, like Rachel weeping for her children, 
 and would not be comforted. "Never," such was his language twenty-eight 
 years after his disaster, " never give up or alter a tittle unless it perfectly co- 
 incides with your inward feelings. I can say this to my sorrow and my cost. 
 But mum ! " Soon after these words were written, his life — a life which might 
 have been eminently useful and happy — ended in the same gloom in which, 
 during more than a quarter of a century, it had been passed. We have thought 
 it worth while to rescue from oblivion this curious fragment of literary history. 
 It seems to us at once ludicrous, melancholy and full of instruction. 
 
 Crisp was an old and very intimate friend of the Burneys. To them alone 
 was confided the name of the desolate old hall in which he hid himself like a 
 v/ild beast in a den. For them were reserved such remains of his humanity as 
 had survived the failure of his play. Frances Burney he regarded as his 
 daughter. He called her his Fannikin ; and she in return called him her 
 dear Daddy. In truth, he seenjs to have done much more than her real father 
 for the development of her intellect ; for though he was a bad poet, he was a 
 scholar, a thinker and an excellent counsellor. He was particularly fond of 
 Dr. Burney's concerts. They had, indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, 
 and when he visited London he constantly attended them. But when he grew 
 old, and when gout, brought on partly by mental irritation, confined him to his 
 retreat, he was desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant world 
 from which he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts 
 Vf her father's evening parties. A few of her letters to him have been pub- 
 lished ; and it is impossible to read them without discerning in them all the 
 powers which afterwards produced " Evelina " and " Cecilia"; the quickness in 
 catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner ; the skill in grouping ; 
 the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even farcical. 
 
 Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down. It now 
 rose up stronger than ever. The heroes and heroines of the tales which had 
 
MADAME D'ARBLAV. 74^ 
 
 perished in the flames were still present to the eye of her mind. One favourite 
 story, in particular, haunted her imagination. It was about a certain Caroline 
 Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an unfortunate love match and died, 
 leaving an infant daughter. Frances^egan to image to herself the various 
 scenes, tragic and comic, through which the poor motherless girl, highly con- 
 nected on one side, meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A 
 crowd of unreal beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the 
 Dretty, timid young orphan ; a coarse sea captain ; an ugly, insolent fop, 
 blazing in a superb court dress ; another fop^ as ugly and as insolent, but 
 lodged on Snow Hill q.nd tricked out in second-hand finery for the Ilampstead 
 ball ; an old woman, all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a 
 miss of seventeen and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French and 
 vulgar English ; a poet, lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent. By 
 degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence ; the impulse 
 which urged Frances to write became irresistible j and the result was the 
 *' History of Evelina.' 
 
 Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear 
 before the public ; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and altogether 
 unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she wanted neither 
 a strong passion for distinction nor a just confidence in her own powers. 
 Her scheme was to become, if possible, " a candidate for fame without 
 running any risk of disgrace. She had not money to bear the expense of 
 printing. It was therefore necessary that some bookseller should be induced 
 to take the risk ; and such a bookseller was not readily found. Dodsley refused 
 even to look at the manuscript unless he were intrusted with the name of the 
 author. A publisher in Fleet Street, named Lowndes, was more complaisant. 
 Some correspondence took place between this person and Miss Burney, who 
 took the name of Grafton, and desired that the letters addressed to her might 
 be left at the Orange Coflee-house. But, before the bargain was finally struck, 
 Fanny thought it her duty to obtain her father's consent. She told him that 
 she had written a book, that she wished to have his permission to publish it 
 anonymously, but that she hoped that he would not insist upon seeing it. What 
 followed may serve to illustrate what we meant when we said that Dr. Burney 
 was as bad a father as so goodhearted a man could possibly be. It never seems 
 to have crossed his mind that Fanny was about to take a step on which the 
 whole happiness of her life might depend, a step which might raise her to an 
 honourable eminence or cover her with ridicule and contempt. Several people 
 had already been trusted, and strict concealment was therefore not to be 
 expected. On so grave an occasion, it was surely his duty to give his best 
 counsel to his daughter, to win her confidence, to prevent her from exposing 
 herself if her book were a bad one, and, if it were a good one, to see that the 
 terms "which she made with the publisher were likely to be beneficial to her. 
 Instead of this, he only stared, burst out a-laughing, kissed her, gave her leave 
 to do as she liked, and never even asked the name of her work. The contract 
 with Lowndes was speedily concluded. Twenty pounds were given for the 
 copyright, and were accepted by Fanny with delight. Her father's inexcus- 
 able neglect of his duty happily caused her no worse evil than the loss of twelve 
 or fifteen hundred pounds. 
 
 After many delays, " Evelina" appeared in January, 1778. Poor Fanny was 
 sick with terror, and durst hardly stir out of doors. Some days passed before 
 .anything was heard of the book. It had, indeed, nothing but its own merits 
 to push it into public favour. Its author was unknown. The house by which it 
 was published, was not, we believe, held high in estimation. No body of par- 
 tisans had been engaged to applaud. The better class of readers expected Uttlo 
 
746 MADAAdE D'ARBLAV. 
 
 from a novel abput a young lady's entrance into the world. There was, indeed, 
 at that time a disposition among the most respectable people to condemn novels 
 generally : nor was this disposition by any means without excuse ; for works of 
 that sort were then almost always silly and very frequently wicked. 
 
 Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise began to be heard. The 
 keepers of the circulating libraries reported that everybody was asking for 
 ** Evelina," and that some person had guessed Anstey to be the author. Then 
 came a favourable notice in the London Review ; then another still more 
 favourable in the Monthly. And now the book found its way to tables which 
 had seldom been polluted by marble-covered volumes. Scholars and statesmen, 
 who contemptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to Miss Lydia Lan- 
 guish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to own that they could not 
 tear themselves away from " Evelina." Fine carriages and rich liveries, not often 
 seen east of Temple Bar, were attracted to the publisher's shop in Fleet Street* 
 Lowndes was daily questioned about the author, but was himself as much in 
 the dark as any of the questioners. The mystery, however, could not remain 
 a mystery long. It was known to brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins : and 
 they were far too proud and too. happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept oveir 
 the book in rapture. Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his Fannikin in affectionate 
 anger at not having been admitted to her confidence. The truth was whispered 
 to Mrs. Thrale : and then it began to spread fast. . 
 
 The book had been admired while it had been ascribed to men of letters long 
 conversant with the world and accustomed to composition. But when it was 
 known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best work of 
 fiction thatliad appeared since the death of Smollett, the acclamations were 
 redoubled. What she had done was, indeed, extraordinary. But, as usual, 
 various reports improved the story till it became miraculous. " Evelina," it was 
 said, was the work of a girl of seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it con- 
 tinued to be repeated down to our own time. Francis was too honest to con- 
 firm it. Probably she was too much a woman to contradict it ; and it was long 
 before any of her detractors thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there 
 was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed 
 her first jappearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, 
 the asp George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, 
 occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they might 
 be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous 
 exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she had pro- 
 voked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of Boswell's 
 " Life of Johnson," some sheets of which our readers have doubtless seen round 
 parcels of better books. 
 
 But we must return to our story. The triumph was complete. The timid 
 and obscure girl found herself on the highest pinnacle of fame. Great men, on 
 whom she had gazed at a distance with humble reverence, addressed her with 
 admiration, tempered by the tenderness due to her sex and age. . Burke, 
 Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her most ardent eulogists. 
 Cumberland acknowledged her merit, after his fashion, by biting his lips and wrig- 
 ■ gling in his chair whenever her name was mentioned. But it was at Streatham 
 that she tasted, in the highest perfection, the sweets of flattery Daingled with 
 the sweets of friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height of prosperity and 
 popularity — with gay spirits, quick wit, showy, though superficial, acquirements, 
 pleasing, though not refined, manners, a singularly amiable temper and a loving 
 heart — felt towards Fanny as towards a younger sister. With the Thrales, 
 Johnson was domesticated. He was an old friend of Dr. Burney ; but he had 
 probably taken little notice of Dr, Burney 's daughters; and Fanny, we imagine, 
 
MADAME D'ARBLAY. 747 
 
 had never in her life dared to speak to him, unless to ask whether he Waiited a 
 ninqteenth or a twentieth cup of tea. He was charmed by her tale, and preferred 
 it to the novels of Fielding, to whoj», indeed, he had always* been grossly 
 unjust. He did not, indeed, carry his partiality so far as to place "Evelina ' 
 by the side of "Clarissa" and " Sir Charles Grandison" ; yet he said that 
 his little favourite had done enough to have made even Richardson feel uneasy. 
 With Johnson's cordial approbation of the book was mingled a fondness, half 
 gallant, half paternal, for the writer ; and this fondness his age and character 
 entitled him to show without restraint. He began by putting her hand to his 
 lips. But he soon clasped her in his huge arms, and immediately implored her 
 to be a good girl. She was his pet, his dear love, his dear little Burney, his 
 little character-monger. At one time, he broke forth in praise of the good 
 taste of her caps. At another time, he insisted on teaching her Latin. That, 
 with all his coarseness and irritability, he was a man of sterling benevolence, 
 has long been acknowledged. But how gentle and endearing his deportment 
 could be, was not known till the, ''Recollections of, Madame D'Arblay " were 
 
 published. ■ ' ;?: j r,.: _;; : i.;. - • •.'::;.. ■• - - , * 
 
 We have mentioned a -Yew of the most eminent' of those who paid their 
 homage to the author of " Evelina. " The crowd of inferior admirers would re- 
 quire a catalogue as long as that in the second book of the ", Iliad." In that 
 catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the sayer of odd things; and Seward^ 
 much given to yawning ; and Baretti, who slew the man in the Haymarket ; and 
 Paoli, talking broken English;. and Langton, taller by the head than any other 
 member of the club ; and Lady Millar, who kept a vase wherein fool^ were 
 wont to put bad verses ; and Jerningham, who wrote verses fit to be put into the 
 vase of Lady Millar ; and Dr. Franklin— -not, as some have dreamed, the 
 great Penhsylvanian Dr. Franklin, who could not then have paid his respects 
 to Miss Burney without much risk of being hanged, drawn and quartered, but 
 Dr. Franklin the -less. ' ' ' ■ 
 
 Ataf 
 fxeitav, oirrii roapt 76 ocro^ TiXafJiwviov Ata?, 
 d\Xa iToXii ne.i<i}v. 
 
 It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a strong heac^ 
 and corrupted 'even a generous and affectionate nature. But, in the " Diary," we 
 can find no trace of any feeling inconsistent with a truly modest and amiable 
 disposition. There is, indeed, abundant proof that Frances enjoyed witli an 
 intense, though a troubled, joy, the honours which her genius had won ; l3ut it 
 is equally clear that her happiness sprang from the happiness of her father, her 
 sister and her dear Daddy Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opulent 
 and the learned, while followed along the Steyne at Brighton and the Pantiles 
 at Tunbridge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, her heart seems to have 
 been still with the little domestic circle in Saint Martin's Street. If she 
 recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and coarse, which 
 she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them for the eyes of two or 
 three persons who had loved her from infancy, who had loved her in obscurity, 
 and to whom her fame gave the purest and most exquisite delight. • Nothing 
 can be more unjust than to confound these outpourings of a kind hearl,, sure pf 
 perfect sympathy, with the egotism of a bluestocking who prates to a,ui whfj 
 come near her about her own novel or her own volume of sonnets. '[ ' -" 
 
 It was natural that the triumphant issue of Miss Burney's first venture slioulci 
 tempt her to try a second. *' Evelina," though it had raised her fame, had adde^ 
 nothing to her fortune. Some of her friends urged her to write for the stage* 
 Johnson promised to give her his advice as to the composition. Murphy, who 
 was supposed to understand the temper of the pit as well as any man of hii 
 
748 MADAME D 'ARBLA Y. 
 
 time, undertook to instruct her as to stage effect. Sheridan declared that he 
 would accept a play from her without even reading it. Thus encouraged, she 
 wrote a coniedy named "The Witlings." Fortunately, it was never acted or 
 printed. We can, we think, easily perceive, from the little which is said on the 
 subject in the " Diary," that *' The Witlings" would have been damned, and 
 that Murphy and Sheridan thought so, though they were too polite to say so. 
 Happily Frances had a friend who was not afraid to give her pain. Crisp, 
 wiser for her than he had been for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely 
 retreat and manfully told her that she had failed, and that to remove blemishes 
 here and there would be useless ; that the piece had abundance of wit but no 
 interest, that it was bad as a whole ; that it would remind every reader of the 
 "Femmes Savant-es," which, strange to say, she had never read, and that she 
 could not sustain so close a comparison with Moliere. This opinion, in which 
 Dr. Buirney concurred, was sent to Frances in what she called "a hissing, 
 groaning, catcalling epistle. " But she had too much sense not to know that it 
 was better to be hissed and catcalled by her Daddy than by a whole sea of 
 heads in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre ; and she had too good a heart not to 
 be grateful for so rare an act of friendship. She returned an answer which 
 shows how well she deserved to have a judicious, faithful and affectionate 
 adviser. " I intend," she wrote, " to console myself for your censure by this 
 greatest proof I have received of the sincerity, candour and, let me add, 
 esteem of my dear daddy. And, as I happen to love myself more than my 
 play, this consolation is not a very trifling one. This, however, seriously I do 
 believe, that when my two daddies put their heads together to concert that 
 hissing, groaning, catcalling epistle they sent me, they felt as sorry for poor 
 little Miss Bayes as she could possibly do for herself. You see I do not 
 attempt to repay your frankness with an air of pretended carelessness. But, 
 though somewhat disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexation 
 live out another day. Adieu, my dear daddy ; I wont't be mortified and I 
 won't be downed ; but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own family, as 
 well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak plain truth to me." 
 
 Frances now turned from her dramatic schemes to an undertaking far better 
 suited to her talents. She determined to write a new tale on a plan excellently 
 contrived for the display of the powers in which her superiority to other writers 
 lay. It was, in truth, a grand and various picture gallery, which presented to 
 the eye a long series of men and women, each marked by some strong peculiar 
 feature. There were avarice and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride 
 of money, morbid restlessness and morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, super- 
 cilious silence, a Democritus to laugh at everything and a Heraclitus to lament 
 over everything. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months was com- 
 pleted. It wanted something of the simplicity which had been among the 
 most attractive charms of ' ' Evelina " ; but it furnished ample proof that the four 
 years, which had elapsed since " Evelina " appeared, had not been unprofitably 
 spent. Those who saw " Cecilia " in mantiscript pronounced it the best novel of 
 the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept over it. Crisp was even vehement in 
 applause, and offered to insure the rapid and complete success of the book for 
 half-a-crown. What Miss Burney received for the copyright is not mentioned 
 in the " Diary ; " but we have observed several expressions from which we infer 
 that the sum was considerable. That the sale would be great, nobody could 
 doubt ; and Frances now had shrewd and experienced advisers, who would not 
 suffer her to wrong herself. We have been told that the publishers gave her 
 two thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have given a still 
 larger sum without being losers. 
 
 " Cecilia " was pubHshed in the summer of 1782. The curiosity of the town 
 
MADAME D'ARBLAY. '749 
 
 was intense. We have been informed by persons who remember those days, 
 that no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently awaited or more 
 eagerly snatched from the counters of tKfe booksellers. High as public expecta- 
 tion was, it was amply satisfied ; and *' Cecilia " was placed, by general acclama- 
 tion, among the classical novels of England. 
 
 Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth had been singularly prosperous ; 
 but clouds soon began to gather over that clear and radiant dawn. Events 
 deeply painful to a heart so kind as that of Frances followed each other in 
 rapid succession. She was first called upon to attend the deathbed of her best 
 friend, Samuel Crisp. When she returned to Saint Martin's Street after per- 
 forming this melancholy duty, she was appalled by hearing that Johnson had 
 been struck with paralysis, and, not many months later, she parted from him 
 for the last time with solemn tenderness. He wished to look on her once 
 more ; and on the day before his death she long remained in tears on the stairs 
 leading to his bedroom, in the hope that she might be called in to receive his 
 blessing. But he was then sinking fast and, though he sent her an affectionate 
 message, was unable to see her. But this was not the worst. There are 
 separations far more cruel than those which are made by death. Frances might 
 weep with proud affection for Crisp and Johnson. She had to blush as well as 
 to weep for Mrs. Thrale. 
 
 Life, however, still smiled upon her. Domestic happiness, friendship, 
 independence, leisure, letters, all these things were hers ; and she flung them 
 all away. 
 
 Among the distinguished persons to whom Miss Burney had been introduced, 
 none appears to have stood higher in her regard than Mrs. Delany. This lady 
 was an interesting and venerable relic of a past age. She was the niece of 
 George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, who, in his youth, exchanged verses 
 and compliments with Edmund Waller, and who was among the first to applaud 
 the opening talents of Pope. She had married Dr. Delany, a man known to his 
 contemporaries as a profound scholar and eloquent preacher, but remembered 
 in our time chiefly as one of that small circle in which the fierce spirit of Swift, 
 tottured by disappointed ambition, by remorse and by the approaches of mad- 
 ness, sought for amusement and repose. Doctor Delany had long been dead. 
 His widow, nobly descended, eminently accomplished, and retaining, in spite 
 of the infirmities of advanced age, the vigour of her faculties and the serenity of 
 her temper, enjoyed and deserved the favour of the royal family. She had a 
 pension of three hundred a-year ; and a house at Windsor, belonging to the 
 crown, had been fitted up for her accommodation. At this house, the King' 
 and Queen sometimes called, and found a very natural pleasure in thus catch- 
 ing an occasional glimpse of the private life of English families. 
 
 In December, 1785, Miss Burney was on a visit to Mrs. Delany at Windsor. 
 The dinner was over. The old lady was taking a nap. Her grandniece, a 
 little girl of seven, was playing at some Christmas game with the visitors, 
 when the door opened, and a stout gentleman entered unannounced, with a star 
 on his breast and "What? what? what?" in his mouth. A cry of "The 
 King ! " was set up. A general scampering followed. Miss Burney owns that 
 she could not have been more terrified if she had seen a ghost. But Mrs. 
 Delany came forward to pay her duty to her royal friend, and the disturbance 
 was quieted. Frances was then presented, and underwent a long examination 
 and cross-examination about all that she had written and all that she meant 
 to write. The Queen soon made her appearance, and his Majesty repeated, for 
 the benefit of his consort, the information which he had extracted from Miss 
 Burney. The good nature of the royal pair might have softened even the autliors 
 of the " Probationary Odes," and could not but be delightful lo a young lady 
 
750 MADAME D 'ARBLA V. 
 
 who had been brought up a Tory. In a few days the visit was repeated. Miss 
 Burney was more at ease than before. His Majesty, instead of seeking for in- 
 formation, condescended to impart it, and passed sentence on many great writers, 
 English and foreign. ^ Voltaire he pronounced a monster. Rosseau he liked 
 rather better. " But was there ever," he cried, " such stuff as great part of 
 Shakspeare ? Only onfe must not say so. But what think you ? What ? Is 
 there not sad stuff? What ? What ? " 
 
 The next day Frances enjoyed the privilege of listening to some equally 
 valuable criticism uttered by the Queen touching Goethe and Klopstock, and 
 might have learned an important lesson of economy from the mode in which 
 her Majesty's library bad been formed. " I picked the "book up on a stall," 
 said the Queen. *'0h, it is amazing what good books there are on stalls ! " 
 Mrs. Delany, who seems to have understood from these words that her Majesty 
 was in the habit of exploring the booths of Moorfields and Holywell Street in 
 person, could not suppress an exclamation of surprise. "Why," said the 
 Queen, " I don't pick them up myself. But I have a servant very clever ; and 
 if they are not to be had at the booksellers, they are not for me more than for 
 another. " Miss Burney describes this conversation as delightful ; and, indeed, 
 we cannot wonder that, with her literary tastes, she should be delighted at 
 hearing in how magnificent a manner the greatest lady in the land encouraged 
 literature. 
 
 The truth is, that Frances was fascinated by the condescending kindness of 
 the two great personages to whom she had been presented. Her father was 
 even more infatuated than herself. The result was a step of which we cannot 
 think with patience, but which, recorded as it is with all its consequences in these 
 volumes, deserves at least this praise, that it has furnished a most impressive 
 warning. 
 
 A German lady of the name of Haggerdorn, one of the keepers of the Queen's 
 robes, retired about this time, and her Majesty offered the vacant post to Miss 
 Burney. When we consider that Miss Burney was decidedly the most popular 
 writer of fictitious narrative then living, that competence, if not opulence, was 
 within her reach, and that she was more than usually happy in her domestic 
 circle, and when we compare the sacrifice which she was invited to make with 
 the remuneration which was held out to her, we are divided between laughter 
 and indignation. 
 
 What was demanded of her was that she should consent to be almost as com- 
 pletely separated from her family and friends as if she had gone to Calcutta, 
 and almost as close a prisoner as if she had been sent to gaol for a libel ; that 
 with talents which had instructed and delighted the highest living minds, she 
 should now be employed only in mixing snuff and sticking pins ; that she should 
 be summoned by a waiting- woman's bell to a waiting- woman's duties ; that she 
 should pass her whole life under the restraints of a paltry etiquette, should some- 
 times fast till she was ready to swoon with hunger, should sometimes stand till 
 her knees gave way with fatigue ; that she should not dare to speak or move 
 without considering how her mistress might like her words and gestures. 
 Instead of those distinguished men and women, the flower of all political parties, 
 with whom she had been in the habit of mixing on terms of equal friendship, she 
 was to have for her perpetual companion the chief keeper of the robes, an old 
 hag from Germany, of mean understanding, of insolent manners, and of temper 
 which, naturally savage, had now been exasperated by disease. Now and then, 
 indeed, poor Frances might console herself for the loss of Burke's and Windham's 
 society by joining in the "celestial colloquy sublime" of his Majesty's Equer- 
 ries. 
 
 And what was the consideration for which she was to sell herself to this 
 
MADAME D 'ARJBLA V. 75 i 
 
 slavery ? A peerage in her own right ? A pension of two thousand a-year for 
 life ? A seventy-four for her brother in the navy ? A deanery for her brother in 
 the church ? Not so. The price at which she was valued was her board, her 
 lodging, the attendance of a man-servant and two hundred pounds a-year. 
 
 The man, who, even when hard pressed by hunger, sells his birthright for a mess 
 of pottage, is unwise. But what shall we say of him who parts with his birth- 
 right and does not get even the pottage in return ? It is not necessary to 
 inquire whether oppulence be an adequate compensation for the sacrifice of 
 bodily and mental freedom ; for Frances Burney paid for leave to be a prisoner 
 and a menial. It was evidently understood as one of the terms of her engage- 
 ment, that, while she was a member of the royal household, she was not to 
 appear before the public as an author ; and, even had there been no such un- 
 derstanding, her avocations were such as left her no leisure for any considerable 
 intellectual effort. Thdt her place was incompatible with her literary pursuits 
 was indeed frankly acknowledged by the King when she resigned. " She had 
 given up," he said, " five years of her pen." That during those five years she 
 might, without painful exertion, without any exertion that would not have been 
 a pleasure, have earned enough to buy an annuity for life much larger than 
 the precarious salary which she received at court, is quite certain. The same 
 income, too, which in Saint Martin's Street would have afforded her every 
 comfort, must have been found scanty at St. James's. We cannot venture 
 to speak confidently of the j^rice of millinery and jewellery ; but we are 
 greatly deceived if a lady, who had to attend Queen Charlotte on many public 
 occasions, could possibly save a farthing out of a sa:lary of two hundred a-year. 
 The principle of the arrangement was, in short, simply this, that Frances 
 Burney should become a slave and should be rewarded by being made a beggar. 
 
 With what object their Majesties brought her to their palace, we must own 
 ourselves unable to conceive. Their object could not be to encourage her 
 literary exertions ; for they took her from a situation in which it was almost 
 certain that she would write and put her into a situation in which it was 
 impossible for her to write. Their object could not be to promote her 
 pecuniary interest ; for they took her from a situation where she was likely to 
 become rich and put her into a situation in which she could not but continue 
 poor. Their object could not be to obtain an eminently useful waiting-maid ; 
 for it is clear that, though Miss Burney was the only woman of her time 
 who could have described the* death of Harrel, thousands might have 
 been found more expert in tying ribands and filling snuff-boxes. To grant 
 her a pension on the civil list would have been an act of judicious liberahty 
 honourable to the court. If this was impracticable the next best thing was to 
 let her alone. That the King and Queen meant her nothing but kindness, we 
 do not in the least doubt. But their kindness was the kindness of persons 
 raised high above the mass of mankind, accustomed to be addressed with 
 profound deference, accustomed to see all who approach them mortified 
 by their coldpess. and elated by their smiles. They fancied that to be 
 noticed by them, to be near them, to serve them, was in itself a kind of 
 happiness ; and that Frances Burney ought to be full of gratitude for being 
 permitted to purchase, by the surrender of health, wealth, freedom, domestic 
 affection and literary fame, the privilege of standing behind a royal chair and 
 holding a pair of royal gloves. . ' 
 
 And who can blame them ? Who cart wonder that princes should be under 
 such a delusion when they are encouraged in it by the very persons who suffer 
 from it most cruelly ? Was it to be expected that George III. and Queen 
 Charlotte should understand the interest of Frances Burney better, or promote 
 it with more zeal, than herself and her father? No deception was practised. 
 
75^ MADAME D 'ARBLA K 
 
 The conditions of the house of bondage were set forth with all simpiicity. The 
 'hook was presented without a bait ; the net was spread in sight of the bird, 
 and the naked hook was greedily swallowed and the silly bird made haste to 
 entangle herself in the net. . . ; . 
 
 It is not strange indeed that an invitation to court should have Caused a 
 fluttering in the bosom of an inexperienced woman. But it was the duty of 
 the parent to watch over the child, and to show her that on one side were only 
 infantine vanities and chimerical hopes, on the other, liberty, peace of mind, 
 affluence, social enjoyments, honourable distinctions. Strange to say, the 
 only hesitation was on the part of Frances. Dr. Burriey was transported out 
 of himself with delight. Not such are the raptures of a Circasian father who 
 has sold his pretty daughter well to a Turkish slave merchant. Yet Dr. Burney 
 was an amiable man, a man of good abilities, a man who had seen much of the 
 world. But he seems to have thought that going to court was like going to 
 heaven ; that to see princes and princesses was a kind of beatific vision ; that 
 the exquisite felicity enjoyed by royal persons was not confined to themselves, 
 but was communicated by some mysterious efflux or reflection to all who were 
 suffered to stand at their toilettes or to bear their trains. He overruled all 
 his daughter's objections, and himself escorted her to prison. The door closed. 
 The key was turned. She, looking back with tender regret on all she had left, 
 and forward with anxiety and terror to the new life on which she was entering, 
 was unable to speak or stand ; and he went oi> his way homeward rejoicing in 
 her marvellous prosperity. 
 
 And now began a slavery of five years, of five years taken from the best part 
 of life and wasted in menial drudgery or in recreations duller than even 
 menial drudgery, under galling restraints and amidst unfriendly or uninteresting 
 companions. The history of an ordinary day was this : Miss Burney had to 
 rise and dress herself early, that she might be ready to answer the royal bell, 
 which rang at half after seven. Till about eight she attended in the Queen's 
 dressing-room, and had the honour of lacing her august mistress's stays, and of* 
 putting on the hoop, gown and neckhandkerchief. The morning was chiefly 
 spent in rummaging drawers and laying fine clothes in their proper places. 
 Then the Queen was to be powdered and dressed for the day. Twice a week 
 her Majesty's hair was curled and craped ; and this operation appears to have 
 added a full hour to the business of the toilette. It was generally three before 
 Miss Burney was at liberty. Then she had two hours at her own disposal. 
 To these hours we owe great part of her " Diary." At five she had to attend her 
 colleague, Madame Schwellenberg, a hateful old toadeater, as illiterate as a 
 chambermaid, as proud as a whole German Chapter, rude, peevish, unable to 
 bear solitude, unable to conduct herself with common decency in society. 
 With this delightful associate, Frances Burney had to dine and pass the evening. 
 The pair generally remained together from five to eleven, and often had no other 
 company the whole time, except during the hour from eight to nine, when the 
 equerries came to tea. If poor Frances attempted to escape to her own apartment, 
 and to forget her wretchedness over a book, the execrable old woman railed and 
 stormed, and complained that she was neglected. Yet, when Frances stayed, 
 she was constantly assailed with insolent reproaches. Literary fame was, in 
 the eyes of the German crone, a blemish, a proof that the person who enjoyed 
 it was meanly born and out of the pale of good society. All her scanty stock 
 of broken English was employed to express the contempt with which she re- 
 garded the author of " Evelina" and *' Cecilia." Frances detested cards, and in- 
 deed knew nothing about them ; but she soon found that the least miserable way 
 of passing an evening with Madame Schwellenberg was at the card-table, and 
 consented, with patient sadness, to give hours which mi?hi: have called forth 
 
Madame d'arblay. 753 
 
 the laughter and the tears of many generations to the king of clubs and the 
 knave of spades. Between eleven and twelve, the bell rang again. Miss 
 Burney had to pass twenty minutes or half an hour in undressing the Queen, aijd 
 was then at liberty to retire and to dreatff that she was chatting with her brother 
 by the quiet hearth in Saint Martin's Street, that she was the centre of an 
 admiring assembly at Mrs. Crewe's, that Burke was calling her the first woman 
 of the age, or that Dilly was giving her a cheque for two thousand guineas. 
 
 Men, we must suppose, are less patient than women ; for we are utterly at 
 a loss to conceive how any human being could endure such a life while there 
 remained a vacant garrett in Grub Street, a crossing in want of a sweeper, a 
 parish workhouse or a parish vault. And it was for such a life that Frances 
 Burney had given up liberty and peace, a happy fireside, attached friends, a 
 wide and splendid circle of acquaintance, intellectual pursuits, in which she 
 was qualified to excel, and the sure hope of what to her would have been 
 affluence. 
 
 There is nothing new under the sun. The last great master of Attic elo- 
 quence and Attic wit has left us a forcible and touching description of the 
 misery of a man of letters, who, lulled by hopes similar to those of Frances, had 
 entered the service of one of the magnates of Rome. " Unhappy that I am," 
 cries the victim of his own childish ambition : ' ' would nothing content me 
 but that I must leave mine old pursuits and mine old companions, and the 
 life which was without care, and the sleep which had no limit save mine own 
 pleasure, and the walks which I was free to take where I listed, and fling 
 myself into the lowest pit of a dungeon like this ? And, O God ! for what ? 
 Is this the bait which enticed me ? Was there no way by which I might have 
 enjoyed in freedom comforts even greater than those which I now earn by servi- 
 tude ? Like a lion which has been made so tame that men may lead him about 
 by a thread, I am dragged up and down, with broken and humbled spirit, at 
 the heels of those to whom, in my own domain, I should have been an object 
 of awe and wonder. And, worst of all, I feel that here I gain no credit, that 
 here I give no pleasure. The talents and accomplishments, which charmed 
 a far different circle, are here out of place. I am rude in the arts of palaces, 
 and can ill bear comparison with those whose calling from their youth up has 
 been to flatter and to sue. Have I then, two lives, that, after I have wasted 
 one in the service of others, there may yet remain to me a second, which I 
 may live unto myself? " 
 
 Now and then, indeed, events occurred which disturbed the wretched 
 monotony of Frances Burney 's life. The court moved from Kew to Windsor, 
 and from Windsor back to Kew. One dull colonel went out of waiting, and 
 another dull colonel came into waiting. An impertinent servant made a 
 blunder about tea, and caused a misunderstanding between the gentlemen and 
 the ladies. A half-witted French Protestant minister talked oddly about con- 
 jugal fidelity. An unlucky member of the household mentioned a passage in 
 the Morning Herald reflecting on the Queen ; and forthwith Madame 
 Schwellenberg began to storm in bad English, and told him that he had made 
 her •* what you call perspire ! " 
 
 A more important occurrence was the royal visit to Oxford. Miss Burney 
 went in the Queen's train to Nuneham, was utterly neglected there in the 
 crowd, and could with difficulty find a servant to show the way to her bedroom 
 or a hairdresser to arrange her curls. She had the honour of entering Oxford 
 in the last of a long string of carriages which formed the royal procession, of 
 walking after the Queen all day through refectories and chapels, and of stand- 
 ing, half dead with fatigue and hunger, while her august mistress was seated 
 at an excellent cold collation. At Magdafene College, Frances was left for a 
 
754 MADAME D \AkBLA K 
 
 moment in a parlour, where she sank down on a chair. A good-natured equerry 
 saw that she was exhausted, and shared with her some apricots and bread 
 which he had wisely put into his pockets. At that moment, the door opened ; 
 the Queen entered ; the wearied attendants sprang up ; the bread and fruit 
 were hastily concealed. " I found," says poor Miss Burney, " that our 
 appetites were to be supposed annihilated at the same moment that our 
 strength was to be invincible. " 
 
 Yet Oxford, seen even under such disadvantages, " revived in her," to use her 
 own words, a "consciousness to pleasure which had long lain nearly dormant. " 
 She forgot, during one moment, that she was a waiting-maid, and felt as a 
 woman of true genius might be expected to feel amidst venerable remains of 
 antiquity, beautiful works of art, vast repositories of knowledge, and memorials 
 of the illustrious dead. Had she still been what she was before her father 
 induced her to take the most fatal step of her life, we can easily imagine what 
 pleasure she would have derived from a visit to the noblest of English cities. 
 She might, indeed, have been forced to travel in a hack chaise, and might not 
 have worn so fine a gown of Chambery gauze as that in which she tottered 
 after the royal party ; but with what delight would she have then paced the 
 cloisters of Magdalene, compared the antique gloom of Merton with the 
 splendour of Christ Church, and looked down from the dome of the Radclifife 
 Library on the magnificent sea of turrets and battlements below ! How 
 gladly would learned men have laid aside for a few hours Pindar's " Odes" and 
 Aristotle's *' Ethics," to escort the author of " Cecilia " from college to college ! 
 What neat little banquets would she have found set out in their monastic cells ! 
 With what eagerness would pictures, medals and illuminated missals have 
 been' brought forth from the most mysterious cabinets for her amusement ! 
 How much she would have had to hear and to tell about Johnson, as she 
 walked over Pembroke, and about Reynolds, in the antechapel of New 
 College. But these indulgences were not for one who had sold herself int^ 
 bondage. 
 
 About eighteen, months after the visit to Oxford, another event diversified 
 the wearisome life which Frances led at Court. Warren Hastings was brought 
 to the bar of the House of Peers. The Queen and Princesses were present 
 when the trial commenced, and Miss Burney was permitted to attend. During 
 the subsequent proceedings, a day rule for the same purpose was occasionally 
 granted to her ; for the Queen took the strongest interest in the trial, and, 
 when she could not go herself to Westminster Hall, liked to receive a report 
 of what passed from a person who had singular powers of observation, and 
 who was, moreover, personally acquainted with some of the most distinguished 
 managers. The portion of the *' Diary "which relates to this celebrated proceed- 
 ing is lively and picturesque. Yet we read it, we own, with pain ; for it seems 
 to us to prove that the fine understanding of Frances Burney was beginning to 
 feel the pernicious influence of a mode of life which is as incompatible with 
 health of mind as the air of the Pomptine marshes with health of body. From 
 the first day, she espouses the cause of Hastings with a presumptuous 
 vehemence and acrimony quite inconsistent with the modesty and suavity of 
 her ordinary deportment. She shudders when Burke enters the Hall at the 
 head of the Commons. She pronounces him the cruel oppressor of an innocent 
 man. She is at a loss to conceive how the managers can look at the defendant 
 and not blush. Windham comes to her from the manager's box, to offer her 
 refreshment. " But," says she, " I could not break bread with him." Then 
 again, she exclaims, " Ah, Mr. Windham, how come you ever engaged in so 
 cruel, so unjust a cause?" " Mr. Burke saw me," she says, " and he bowed 
 with the most marked civility of mtinner. '* This, be it observed, was just after 
 
MADAME D 'ARBLA V. 755 
 
 his opening speech, a speech which had produced a mighty effect, and which, 
 certainly, no other orator that ever Uved could have made. ^' My curtsy," 
 she continues, "was the most ungratefai, distant and cold; I could not do 
 otherwise ; so hurt I felt to see him the head of such a cause."' Nowj not 
 only had Burke treated her with constant kindness, but the very last act which 
 he performed on the day on which he was turned out of the Pay Office, about 
 four years before this trial, was to make Dr. Burney organist of Chelsea 
 Hospital. When, at the Westminster election, Dr. Burney was divided be- 
 tween his gratitude for this favour and his Tory opinions, Burke in the noblest 
 manner disclaimed all right to exact a sacrifice of principle. " You have 
 Uttle or no obligations to me," he wrote ; " but if you had as many as I really 
 wish it were in my power, as it is certainly in my desire, to lay on you, I hope 
 you do not think me capable of conferring them in order to subject your mind 
 or your affairs to a painful and mischievous servitude." Was this a man to be 
 uncivilly treated by a daughter of Dr. Burney because she choose to differ 
 from him respecting a vast and most complicated question which he had 
 studied deeply during many years and which she had never studied at all? It 
 is clear, from Miss Burney's own statement, that when she behaved so unkindly 
 to Mr. Burke, she did not even know of what Hastings was accused. One 
 thing, however, she must have known, that Burke had been able to convince a 
 House of Commons, bitterly prejudiced against him, that the charges were 
 well founded, and that Pitt and Dundas had concurred with Fox and Sheridan 
 in supporting the impeachment. Surely a woman of far inferior abilities to 
 Miss Burney might have been expected to see that this never could have 
 happened unless there had been a strong case against the late Governor 
 General. And there was, as all reasonable men now admit, a strong case 
 against him. That there were great public services to bie set off against his 
 great crimes is perfectly true. But his services and his crimes were equally 
 unknown to the lady who so confidently asserted his perfect innocence, and 
 imputed to his accusers— that is to say, to all the greatest men of all parties m 
 the state — not merely error, but gross injustice and barbarity. 
 
 She had, it is true, occasionally seen Mr. Hastings, and had found his man- 
 ners and conversation agreeable. But surely she could not be so weak as to 
 infer from the gentleness of his deportment in a drawing-room that he was in- 
 gapable of committing a great state crime under the influence of ambition and 
 revenge. A silly Miss, fresh from a boarding school, might fall into such a 
 mistake; but the woman who had drawn the character of Mr. Monckton 
 should have known better. 
 
 The truth is that she had been too long at Court. She was sinking into 
 a slavery worse than that of the body. The iron was beginning to enter 
 into the soul. Accustomed during many months to watch the eye of a mistress, 
 to receive with boundless gratitude the slightest mark of royal condescension, 
 to feel wretched at every symptom of royal displeasure, to associate only with 
 spirits long tamed and broken in, she was degenerating into something fit for 
 her place. Queen Charlotte was a violent partisan of Hastings, had received 
 presents from him, and had so far departed from the severity of her virtue 
 as to lend her countenance to his wife, whose conduct had certainly been as 
 reprehensible as that of any of the frail beauties who were then rigidly 
 excluded from the English Court. The King, it was well known, took the same 
 side. To the King and Queen, all the members of the household looked 
 submissively for guidance. The impeachment, therefore, was an atrocious 
 persecution ; the managers were rascals ; the defendant was the most 
 deserving and the worst used man in the kingdom. This was the cant of the 
 yvhole palace, from Gold Stick in Waiting down to the Table-Deckers anc\ 
 
756 ' MADAME D 'ARBLA K 
 
 Yeoman of the Silver Scullery ; and Miss Burney canted like the rest, though 
 in livelier tones and with less bitter feelings. 
 
 The account which she has given of the King's illness contains much excel- 
 lent narrative and description, and will, we think, be more valued by the 
 historians of a future age than any equal portion of Pepys' or Evelyn's "Diaries." 
 That account shows also how affectionate and compassionate her nature was. 
 But it shows also, we must say, that her way of life was rapidly impairing 
 her powers of reasoning and her sense of justice. We do not mean to discuss, 
 ia this place, the question, whether the views of Mr. Pitt or those of Mr. Fox 
 respecting the regency were the more correct. It is, indeed, quite needless 
 to discuss that question ; for the censure of Miss Burney falls alike on Pitt 
 and Fox, on majority and minority. She is angry with the House of Commons 
 for presuming to inquire whether the King was mad or not, and whether 
 there was a chance of his recovering his senses. " A melancholy day," she 
 writes; "news bad both at home and abroad. At home the dear unhappy 
 king still worse : abroad new examinations voted of the physicians. Good 
 heavens ! what an insult does this seem from Parliamentary power, to investigate 
 and bring forth to the" world every circumstance of such a malady as is ever 
 held sacred to secresy in the most private families ! How indignant we all 
 feel here, no words can say." It is proper to observe that the motion which 
 roused ibe iodignation at Kew was made by Mr. Pitt himself, and that if with- 
 stood by Mr Pitt, it would certainly have been rejected. We see, therefore, that 
 the loyalty of the minister, who was then generally regarded as the most heroic 
 champion of his Prince, was lukewarm indeed when compared with the boiling 
 zeal which filled the pages of the backstairs and the women of the bedchamber. 
 Of the Regency Bill, Pitt's own bill, Miss Burney speaks with horror. " I shud- 
 dered," she says "tojiear it named." And agam, "Oh, how dreadful will be the 
 day when that unhappy bill takes place ! I cannot approve the plan of it." 
 The truth is that Mr. Pitt, whether a wise and upright statesman or not, 
 was a statesman, and, whatever motives he might have for imposing 
 restrictions on the regent, felt that in some way or other there must be some 
 provision made for the execution of some part of the kingly office or that 
 no government would be left in the country. But this was a matter of 
 which the household never thought. It never occurred, as far as we can see, 
 to the Exons and Keepers of the Robes, that it was necessary that there should 
 be somewhere or other a power in the state to pass laws, to observe order, 
 to pardon criminals, to fill up offices, to negotiate with foreign governments, 
 to command the army and navy. Nay, these enlightened politicians, and Miss 
 Burney among the rest, seem to have thought that any person who considered, 
 the subject with reference to the public interest showed himself to be a bad- 
 hearted man. Nobody wonders at this in a gentleman usher, but it is melancholy 
 to see genius sinking into such debasement. 
 
 During more than two years after the King's recovery, Frances dragged 
 on a miserable existence at the palace. The consolations which had for a tim2 
 mitigated the wretchedness of servitude were one by one withdrawn. 
 Mrs. Delany, whose society had been a great resource when the Court was 
 at Windsor, was now dead. One of the gentlemen of the royal establishment. 
 Colonel Digby, appears to have been a man of sense, of taste, of some 
 reading, and of prepossessing manners. Agreeable associates were scarce in the 
 prison house, and he and Miss Burney therefore naturally were attached to 
 each other. She owns that she valued him as a friend, and it would not have 
 been strange if his attentions had led her to entertain for him a sentiment 
 warmer than friendship. He quitted the Court, and married in a way which 
 Astonished Miss Burney greatly^ and which evidently wounded her feeilings 
 
J\fADAME D'ARBLAY. 757 
 
 and lowered him in her esteem. The palace grew duller and duller ; Madame 
 Schwellenberg became more and more savage and insolent ; and now the 
 health of poor Frances began to give-^ay ; and all who saw her pale face, 
 her emaciated figure and her feeble walk predicted that her sufferings would 
 soon be over. 
 
 Frances uniformly speaks of her royal mistress and of the princesses with 
 respect and affection. The princesses seem to have well deserved all the 
 praise which is bestowed on them in the " Diary." They were, we doubt not, 
 most amiable women. But " the sweet Queen," as she is ccnstantly called in 
 these volumes, is not by any means an object of admiration to us. She had, 
 undoubtedly, sense enough to know what kind of deportment suited her high 
 station and self-command enough to maintain that deportment invariably. She 
 was, in her intercourse with Miss Burney, generally gracious and affable, 
 sometimes, when displeased, cold and reserved, but never, under any circum- 
 stances, rude, peevish or violent. She knew how to dispense, gracefully and 
 skilfully, those little civilities which, when paid by a sovereign, are prized at 
 many times their intrinsic value ; how to pay a compliment ; how to lend a 
 book ; how to ask after a relation. But she seems to have been utterly regard- 
 less of the comfort, the health, the life of her attendants, when her own con- 
 venience was concerned. Weak, feverish, hardly able to stand, Frances had' 
 still to rise before seven, in order to dress " the sweet Queen," and to sit up till 
 midnight, in order to undress " the sweet Queen. " The indisposition of the 
 handmaid could not, and did not, escape the notice of her royal mistress. But 
 the established doctrine of the Court was that all sickness was to be con- 
 sidered as a pretence until it proved fatal. The only way in which the in- 
 valid could clear herself from the suspicion of malingering, as it is called in 
 the army, was to go on lacing and unlacing, till she fell down dead at the 
 royal feet. *' This," Miss Burney wrote, when she was suffering cruelly from 
 sickness, watching and labour, " is by no means from hardness of heart ; far 
 otherwise. There is no hardness of heart in any one of them ; but it is pre- 
 judice and want of personal experience." 
 
 Many strangers sympathised with the bodily and mental sufferings of this 
 distinguished woman. All who saw her saw that her frame was sinking, that her 
 heart was breaking. The last, it should seem, to observe the change was her 
 father. At length, in spite of himself, his eyes were opened. In May, 1790, 
 his daughter had an interview of three hours with him, the only long inter- 
 view which they had had since he took her to Windsor in 1786. She tok} 
 him that she was miserable, that she was worn with attendance and want oi 
 sleep, that she had no comfort in life, nothing to love, nothing to hope, that 
 her family and friends were to her as though they were not, and were re- 
 membered by her as men remember the dead. From daybreak to midnight 
 the same killing labour, the same recreations, more hateful than labour itself, 
 followed each other without variety, without any interval of liberty and repose. 
 
 The Doctor was greatly dejected by this news ; but was too goodnatured a 
 man not to say that, if she wished to resign, his house and arms were open 
 to her. Still, however, he could not bear to remove her from the Court, 
 His veneration for royalty amounted in truth to idolatry. It can be compared 
 only to the grovelling superstition of those Syrian devotees who made their 
 children pass through the fire to Moloch. When he induced his daughter to 
 accept the place of Keeper of the Robes, he entertained, as she tells us, a 
 hope that some worldly advantage or other, not set down in the contract of 
 service, would be the result of her connection with the Court. What advantage 
 he expected we do not know, nor did he probably know himself. But, what- 
 ever he expected, he certainly got nothing. Miss Burney had been hired fer 
 
758 MADAME D'ARBLAY, 
 
 bojard, lodging atiid tw<y Kundrfed a-year. Board, lodging and two hundred a- 
 year she had duly received. We have looked carefully through the "Diary " in 
 the hope of finding some trace of those extraordinary benefactions on which 
 thfe Doctor reckoned. But we can discover only a promise, never performed, 
 of a gown : and for this promise Miss Burney was expected to return thanks, 
 such as might have suited the beggar with whom Saint Martin, in the legend, 
 divided his cloak. The "experience of four years was, however, insufficient to 
 dispel the illusion which had taken possession of the Doctor's mind; and 
 between the dear father and " the sweet Queen " there seemed to be little doubt 
 that some day or other Frances would drop down a corpse. Six months had 
 elapsed since the interview between the parent and the daughter. The resig- 
 nation was not sent in. The sufferer grew worse and worse. She took bark ; 
 but it soon ceased to produce a beneficial effect. She was stimulated with 
 wine ; she was soothed with opium ; but in vain. Her breath began to fail. 
 The whisper that she was in a decline spread through the Court. The pains 
 in her side became so severe that she was forced to crawl from the card -table 
 of the old Fury to whom she was tethered three or four times in an evening 
 for the purpose of taking hartshorn. Had she been a negro slave, a humane 
 planter would have excused her from work. But her Majesty showed no 
 mercy. Thrice a day the accursed bell still rang; the Queen was still to be 
 dressed for the morning at seven, and tobe dressed for the day at noon, and 
 to be undressed at eleven at night. • ^ . ' ," 
 
 But there had arisen, in literary and fashionable ^society, a general feeling of 
 compassion for Miss Burney, and of indignation against both her father and 
 the Queen. " Is it possible," said a great French lady to the Doctor, "that 
 your daughter is in a situation where she is never allowed a holiday ? " Horace 
 Walpole wrote to Frances to express his sympathy. Boswell, boiling over 
 with good-natured rage, almost forced an entrance into the palace to see her. 
 " My dear ma'am, why do you stay? It won't do, ma'am ; you must resign. 
 We can put up with it no longer. Some very violent measures, I assure you, 
 will be taken. We shall address Dr. Burney in a body." Burke and Rey- 
 nolds, though less noisy, were zealous in the same cause. Windham spoke to 
 Dr. Burney ; but found him still irresolute. "I will set the club upon him," 
 cried Windham ; " Miss Burney has some very true admirers there, and I am 
 sure they will eagerly assist." Indeed, the Burney family seem to have been 
 apprehensive that some public affront, such as the Doctor's unpardonable folly, 
 to use the mildest term, had richly deserved, Would be put upon him. The 
 medical men Spoke out, and plainly told him that his daughter must resign 
 or die. '-' ' ' ';, - :i ^i : . 
 
 At last paternal affection, medical authority, and the voice of all London 
 crying shame, triumphed over Dr. Burney's love of courts. He determined 
 that Frances should write a letter of resignatioti. It was with difficulty that, 
 though her life was at stake, she mustered spirit to put the paper into the 
 Queen's hands. " I could not," so runs the *' Diary," "summon courage to 
 present my memorial — my heart always failed ine from seeing the Queen's 
 entire freedom from such an expectation. For though I was frequently so ill 
 in her presence that I could hardly stand, I saw she concluded me, while life 
 remained, inevitably hers." 
 
 At last, with a trembling hand, the paper was delivered. Then came the 
 storm. Juno, as in the ^neid, delegated the work of vengeance to Alecto. 
 The Queen was calm and gentle; but Madame Schwellenberg raved like a 
 maniac in the incurable ward of Bedlam ! Such insolence ! Such ingratitude ! 
 Such folly ! Would Miss Burney bring utter destruction on herself and her 
 family ? Would she throw away the inestimable advantages of royal proteq- 
 
Madame d 'arbla v. 759 
 
 tion ? Would she part with privileges which, once relinquished, could never 
 be regained 7 It was idle to talk of health and life. If people could not live 
 in the palace, the best thing that could befall them was to die in- it. The 
 resignation was not accepted. The ^nguage of the medical men became 
 stronger and stronger. Dr. Burney's parental fears were fully roused ; and he 
 explicitly declared, in a lettet meant to be shown to the Queen, that his 
 daughter must retire. The Schwellenberg raged like a wild cat. '*A scene 
 almost horrible ensued," says Miss Burney. " She was too much enraged for 
 disguise, and uttered the most furious expressions of indignant contempt at our 
 proceedings. I am sure she would gladly have confined us both in the 
 Bastille, had England such a misery, as a fit place to bring us to ourselves, 
 from a daring so outrageous against imperial wishes." This passage deserves 
 notice, as being the- only one in the "Diary," as far as we have observed, which 
 shows Miss Burney to have been aware that she was a native of a free country, 
 that she couldnofbe pressed for a waiting-maid against her will, and that she 
 had just as good a right to live, if she chose, in Saint Mattin's Street as Queen 
 Charlotte had to live at St. James's. 
 
 The Queen promised that, after the next birthday, Miss Burney should be 
 set at liberty. But the promise was ill kept; and her Majesty showed dis- 
 pleasure at being reminded of it. At length Frances was informed that in a 
 fortnight her attendance should cease. " I heard this," she says, ** with a 
 fearflil presentiment I should surely never go through another fortnight in 
 so weak and l-anguishlng and painful a state of health. . . . As the time 
 of separation a.pproached, the Queen's cordiahty rather diminished, and traces 
 of internal displeasure appeared sometimes, arising from •an opinion I ought 
 rather to have struggled on, live or die, than to quit her. Yet I am sure she 
 saw haw poor was my own chance, except by a change in the mode of life, 
 and at least ceased to wonder, though she could not approve. " Sweet Queen ! 
 AVhat noble candour, to admit that the undutifulness of people who did not 
 think the honour of adjusting her tuckers worth the sacrifice 6f-theit'f<5^n 
 lives, was, though highly criminal, not altogether unnatural !' ■"•' ' ^ 'W /- r 
 
 We perfectly understand her Majesty's contempt for the lives of others 
 where her own pleasure was concerned. But what pleasure she can have found 
 in having Miss Burney about her, it is not so easy to comprehend. That Miss 
 Burney was an eminently skilful keeper of the robes is not very probable. Few 
 women, indeed, had paid less attention to dress. Now and then, in the course 
 of five years, she had been asked to read aloud or to write a copy of verses. 
 But better readers might easily have been found : and her verses were worse 
 than even the Poet Laureate's Birthday Odes. Perhaps that economy, which 
 was among her Majesty's most conspicuous virtues, had something to do with 
 her conduct on this occasion. Miss Burney had never hinted that she expected 
 a retiring pension •; and, indeed, would gladly have given the little that she 
 had for freedom. But her Majesty knew what the public thought, and what 
 became her own dignity. She could not for very shame suffer a woman of 
 distinguished genius, who had quitted a lucrative career to wait on her, who 
 had served her faithfully for a pittance during five years, and whose constitu- 
 tion had been impaired by labour and watching, to leave the Court without 
 some mark of royal liberality. George the Third, who, on all occasions where 
 Miss Burney was concerned, seems to have behaved like an honest, good- 
 natured gentleman, felt this, and said plainly that she was entitled to a provision. 
 At length, in return for all the misery which she had undergone, and for the 
 health which she had sacrificed, an annuity of one hundred pounds was granted 
 to her, dependent on the Queen's pleasure. '• •;;:-• - ;. .\;- ;:j.. 
 
 Then the prison was opened, and Frances \vas^ free onc^irKM*. - "Johnson, 
 
76o MADAME D 'ARBLA Y. 
 
 as Burke observed, might have added a striking page to his poem on the 
 Vanity of Human Wishes, if he had Hved to see his httle Burney as she went 
 into the palace and as she came out of it. - 
 
 The pleasures, solonguntasted, of liberty, of friendship, of domestic affection, 
 were almost too acute for her shattered frame. • But happy days and tranquil 
 nights soon restored the health which the Queen's toilette and Madame 
 Schwellenberg's card-table had impaired. Kind and anxious faces surrounded 
 the invalid. Conversation the most polished and brilliant revived her 
 spirits. Travelling was recommended to her ; and she rambled by easy 
 journeys from cathedral to cathedral, and from watering place to watering 
 jDlace. She crossed the New Forest, and visited Stonehenge and Wilton, the 
 cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed by 
 Powderham Castle, and by the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey to Bath, and from 
 Bath, when the winter was approaching, returned well and cheerful to, London. 
 There she visited her old dungeon, and found her successor already far on the 
 way to the grave, and kept to strict duty, from morning till midnight, with 
 a sprained ankle and a nervous fever. 
 
 At this time England swarmed with French exiles, driven from their 
 country by the Revolution. A colony of these refugees settled at Juniper Hall, 
 in Surrey, not far from Norbury Park, where Mr. Lock, an intimate friend of 
 the Burney family, resided. Frances visited Norbury, and was introduced 
 to the strangers. She had strong prejudices against them ; for her Toryism 
 was far beyond, we do not say that of Mr. Pitt, but that of Mr. Reeves ; and 
 the inmates of Juniper Hall were all attached to the constitution of 1791, 
 and were, therefore^ more detested by the royalists of the first emigration than 
 Petion or Marat. But such a woman as Miss Burney could not long resist 
 the fascination of that remarkable society. She had lived with Johnson 
 and Windham, with Mrs. Montague and Mrs. Thrale. Yet she was forced 
 to own that she had never heard conversation before. The most animated 
 eloquence, the keenest observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly 
 grace, were united to charm her. For Madame de Stael was there, and M. de 
 Talleyrand. There, too, was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of 
 French aristoracy ; and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and. follower 
 General D'Arblay, an honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, 
 frank soldierlike manners, and some taste for letters. 
 
 The prejudices which Frances had conceived against the constitutional 
 royalists of France rapidly vanished. She listened with rapture to Talleyrand 
 and Madame de Stael, joined with M. D'Arblay in execrating the Jacobins 
 and in weeping for the unhappy Bourbons, took French lessons from him, 
 fell in love with him, and married him on no better provision than a pre- 
 carious annuity of one hundred pounds. 
 
 Here the ' ' Diary " stops for the present. We will, therefore, bring our narrative 
 to a speedy close, by rapidly recounting the most important events which 
 we know to have befallen Madame D'Arblay during the latter part of her 
 life. . 
 
 M. D'Arblay's fortune had perished in the general wreck of the French 
 Revolution ; and in a foreign country his talents, whatever they may have 
 been, could scarcely make him rich. The task of providing for the family 
 devolved on his wife. In the year 1796, she published by subscription her 
 third novel, "Camila." It was impatiently expected by the public; and the 
 sum which she obtained for it was, we believe, greater than had ever at 
 that time been received for a novel. We have heard that she had cleared more 
 than three thousand guineas. But we give this merely as a rumour. " Camilla," 
 however, never attained popularity like that which " Evelina" and *' Cecilia" 
 
MADAME D' A RELAY. 761 
 
 had enjoyed ; and it must be allowed that there was a perceptible falling off^ 
 not, indeed, in humour or in power or portraying character, but in grace and 
 in purity of style. y^ 
 
 We have heard that, about this time, a ti'agedy by Madame D'Arblay was 
 performed without success. We do not know whether it was ever printed ; 
 nor, indeed, have we had time to make any researches into its history or merits. 
 
 During the short truce which followed the treaty of Amiens, M. D'Arblay 
 visited France. Lauriston and La Fayette represented his claims to the 
 French government, and obtained a promise that he should be reinstated 
 in his military rank. M. D'Arblay, however, insisted that he should never 
 be required to serve against the countrymen of his wife. The First Consul, 
 of course, would not hear of such a condition, and ordered the general's com- 
 mission to be instantly revoked. 
 
 Madame D'Arblay joined her husband at Paris, a short time before the 
 war of 1803 broke out, and remained in France ten y^ars, cut off from almost 
 all intercourse with the land of her birth. At length, when Napoleon was 
 on his march to INIoscow, she with great difficulty obtained from his 
 ministers permission to visit her own country, in company with her son, who 
 was a native of England. She returned in time to receive the last blessing 
 of her father, who died in his eighty-seventh year. In 18 14 she published her 
 last novel, '* The Wanderer," a book which no judicious friend to her memory 
 will attempt to draw from the oblivion into which it has justly fallen. 
 In the same year her son Alexander was sent to Cambridge. He obtained 
 an honourable place among the wranglers of his year, and was elected a 
 fellow of Christ's College. But his reputation at the University was higher 
 than might be inferred from his success in academical contests. His French 
 education had not fitted him for the examinations of the Senate House ; 
 but, in pure mathematics, we have been assured by some of his competitors 
 that he had very few equals. He went into the Church, and it was thought 
 likely that he would attain high eminence as a preacher ; but he died 
 before his mother. All that we have heard of him leads us to believe that 
 he was such a som as such a mother deserved to have. In 1832, Madame 
 D'Arblay published the ' ' Memoirs of her Father ; " and on the sixth of 
 January, 1840, she died in her eighty-eighth year. 
 
 We now turn from the life of Madame D'Arblay to her writings. There 
 can, we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her merit, 
 whatevei differences may exist as to its degree. She was emphatically what 
 Johnson called her, a character-monger. It was in the exhibition of human 
 passions and whims that her strength lay ; and in this department of art she 
 had, we think, very distinguished skill. 
 
 But, in order that we may, according to our duty as kings at arms, versed 
 in the laws of literary precedence, marshal her to the exact seat to which 
 she is entitled, we must carry our examination somewhat further. 
 
 There is, in one respect, a remarkable analogy between the faces and 
 the minds of men. No two faces are alike ; and yet very few faces deviate 
 very widely from the common standard. Among the eighteen hundred thou- 
 sand human beings who inhabit London, there is not one who could be 
 taken by his acquaintance for another ; yet we may walk from Paddington to 
 Mile End without seeing one person in whom any feature is so overcharged 
 that we turn round to stare at it. An infinite number of varieties lies between 
 limits which are not very far asunder. The specimens which pass those limits 
 on either side, form a very small minority. 
 
 It is the same with the characters of men. Here, too, the variety passes all 
 enumeration. But the cases in which the dey?.?,^cr>>j from the common standarfl 
 
7d2 : MADAME. D 'ARBLA Y, 
 
 is striking and grotesque, >a,i:<; very few. In one iiiind. avarice predominates ; 
 in another pride; in a third, lOve of pleasure — ^just as in one countenance, 
 the nose is the most marked feature, while in others the chief expression lies in 
 the brow, or in the lines of the mouth. But there are very few countenances 
 in which nose, brow and mouth do not contribute, though in unequal degrees, 
 to the general effect ; and so there are very few characters in which one over- 
 grown propensity makes all others utterly insignificant. 
 
 It is evident that a portrait painter, who was able only to represent faces and 
 figures such as those which we pay money to see at fairs, would not, however 
 spirited his execution might be, take rank among the highest artists. He 
 must always be placed below those who have skill to seize peculiarities which 
 do not amount to deformity. The slighter those peculiarities, the greater is 
 the merit of the limner who can catch them and transfer them to his canvass. 
 To paint Daniel Lambert or the living skeleton, the pig-faced lady or the 
 Siamese twins, so that nobody can mistake them, is an exploit within the reach 
 of a sign painter. A third-rate artist might give us the squint of Wilkes, and 
 the depressed nose and protuberent cheeks of Gibbon. It would require a 
 much higher degree of skill to paint two such men as Mr. Canning and Sir 
 Thomas Lawrence, so that nobody who had ever seen them could for a mo- 
 ment hesitate to assign each picture to its original. Here the mere caricaturist 
 would be quite at fault. He would find in neither face anything on which he 
 could lay hold for the purpose of making a distinction. Two ample bald fore- 
 heads, two regular profiles, two full faces of the same oval form, would baffle 
 his art ; and he would be reduced to the miserable shift of writing their names 
 at the foot of his picture. Yet there was a great difference ; and a person 
 who had seen~ them once would no i^ore have mistaken one of them for the 
 other than he would have mistaken Mr. Pitt for Mr. Fox. But the difference 
 lay in delicate lineaments and shades, reserved for pencils of a rare order. 
 
 This distinction runs through all the imitative arts. Foote's mimicry was 
 exquisitely ludicrous, but it was all caricature. He could take off only some 
 strange peculiarity, a stammer or a lisp, a ^Northumbrian burr or an Irish brogue, 
 a stoop or a shuffle. " If a man," said Johnson, *' hops on one leg, Foote can 
 hop on one leg. " Garrick, on the other hand, could seize those differences of 
 manner and pronunciation, which, though highly characteristic, are yet too 
 slight to be described. Foote, we have no doubt, could have made the Hay- 
 market theatre shake with laughter by imitating a conversation between a 
 Scotchman and a Somersetshire man. But Garrick could have imitated a 
 dialogue between two fashionable men, both models of the best breeding. Lord 
 Chesterfield, for example, and Lord Albemarle, so that no person could doubt 
 which was which, although no person could say that, in any point, either Lord 
 Chesterfield or Lord Albemarle spoke or moved otherwise than, in, conformity 
 with the usages of the best society. \^ . . ,.,',' 
 
 The same distinction is found in the drama and in fictitious narrative. 
 Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of dialogue, 
 stands Shfikspeare. His variety is like the variety of nature, endless diversity, 
 scarcely any monstrosity. The characters of which he has given us an impres- 
 sion as vivid as that which we receive from the characters of our own associates, 
 are tp be reckoned by scores. Yet in all these scores hardly one character is 
 to be found which deviates widely from the common standard, and which we 
 should call very eccentric if we met it in real life. The silly notion that every 
 man has one ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the 
 mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of Shakspeare. 
 There, man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions, which contend 
 for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn. What is Hamlet's ruling 
 
Madame d 'aubla y. 763 
 
 passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry the Fifth's? OrWolsey's? Or Lear's? 
 Or Shylock's? Or Benedick's ? Or Macbeth's? Or, that of Cassius ? Or 
 that of Falconbridge ? But we might go on for ever. Take a single example— 
 Shylock. Is he so eager for money jfT to be indifferent to revenge ? Or so 
 eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money ? Or so bent on both together 
 as to be indiflferent to the honour of his nation and the law of Moses^ All his 
 propensities are mingled with each other, so that, in trying to apportion. to each 
 its proper part, we find the same difficulty which constantly meets us in real 
 life. A superficial critic may say that hatred is Shylock's ruling passion. But 
 how many passions have amalgamated to form that hatred ? It is partly the 
 result of wounded pride : Antonio has called him dog. It is partly the result 
 of covetousness : Antonio has hindered him of half a million ; and, when An- 
 tonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It is partly the result 
 of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on the Jewish gaberdine ; 
 and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the Jewish Sabbath. We might 
 go through all the characters which we have mentioned, and through fifty more 
 in the same way ; for it is the constant manner of Shakspeare to represent the 
 human mind as lying, not under the absolute dominion of one despotic pro- 
 pensity, but under a mixed government, in which a hundred powers Ipalance 
 each other. Admirable as he was in all parts of his art, we most admire him 
 for this, that while he has left us a greater number of striking portraits than, all 
 other dramatists put together, he has scarcely left us a single caricature. 
 
 Shakspeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who, 
 in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the manner of 
 the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane Austen, a woman of 
 whom England is justly proud. She has given us a multitude of characters, 
 all, in a certain sense, common place, all such as we meet every day. Yet they 
 are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most 
 eccentric of human beings. There are, for example, four clergymen, none of 
 whom we should be surprised to find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr. 
 Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram and Mr. Elton. 
 They are all specimens of the upper part of the middle class. They have all been 
 liberally educated. They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profes- 
 sion. They are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any 
 hobbyhorse, to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such 
 as we read of in Pope. "Who would not have expected them to be insipid like- 
 nesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to Jour- 
 dain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every 
 one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost 
 all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy 
 the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general 
 effect to which they have contributed. , . 
 
 A line must be drawn, we conceive, between artists of this class and those 
 poets and novelists whose sldJl lies in the exhibiting of what Ben Jonson 
 called humours. The words of Ben are so much to the purpose that wq will 
 quote them : — 
 
 " When some one peculiar quality 
 Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw 
 All his affects, his spirits and his powers^ 
 In their confluxions all to run one way, 
 This may be truly said to be a humour." - 
 
 There are undoubtedly persons in whom humours such as Beii descri^D^s have 
 attained a complete ascendency. The avarice of Elwes, the insane desire of Sir 
 Egerton Brydges for a barony, to whic^ he had no more right than to the 
 crown of Spain, the malevolence which long meditation on imaginary wrongs 
 
)64 MaMmE D'AR^LAY. 
 
 generated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are instances. The feehng which 
 animated Clarkson and other virtuous men against the slave trade and slavery, 
 is an instance of a more honourable kind. 
 
 Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny that they are proper subjects 
 for the imitations of art. But we conceive that the imitation of such humours, 
 however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of the highest order ; and, 
 as Such humours are rare in real life, they ought, we conceive, to be sparingly 
 introduced into works which profess to be pictures of real life. Nevertheless, 
 a writer may show so much genius in the exhibition of these humours as to be 
 fairly entitled to a distinguished and permanent rank among classics. The 
 chief seats of all, however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are 
 reserved for the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying charac- 
 ters in which no single feature is extravagantly over-charged. 
 
 If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have no difficulty in applying 
 it to the particular case before us. Madame D'Arblay has left us scarcely any- 
 thing but humours. Almost every one of her men and women has some one 
 propensity developed to a morbid degree. In "Cecilia," for example, Mr. 
 Delville never open his lips without some allusion to his own birth and station ; 
 or Mr. Briggs, without some allusion to the hoarding of money ; or Mr. 
 Hobson, without betraying the self-indulgence and self-importance of a purse- 
 proud upstart ; or Mr. Simkins, without uttering some sneaking remark for the 
 purpose of currying favour with his customers ; or Mr. Meadows, without ex- 
 pressing apathy and weariness of life ; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming 
 about the vices of the rich and the misery of the poor ; or Mrs. Eelfield, with- 
 out some indelicate eulogy on her son ; or Lady Margaret, without indicating 
 jealousy of her husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. 
 Gosport all sarcasm. Lady Honoria all lively prattle. Miss Larolles all silly 
 prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of 
 Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well. 
 
 We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay a place in the 
 highest rank of art ; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to v/hich she 
 belonged, she had few equals and scarcely any superior. The variety of 
 humours which is to be found in her novels is immense ; and though the talk 
 of each person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not monotony, 
 but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her plots are rudely constructed 
 and improbable, if we consider them in themselves. But they are admirably 
 framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking groups of eccentric characters, 
 each governed by his own peculiar whim, each talking his own peculiar jargon, 
 and each bringing out by opposition the oddities of all the rest. We will give 
 one example out of many which occur to us. All probability is violated in 
 order to bring Mr. Delville, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Hobson and Mr. Albany into a 
 room together. But v/hen we have them there, we soon forget probability in 
 the exquisitely ludicrous effect which is produced by the conflict of four old 
 fools, each raging with a monomania of his own, each talking a dialect of his 
 own, and each inflaming all the others anew every time he opens his mouth. 
 
 Madame D'Arblay was most successful in comedy, and, indeed, in comedy 
 which bordered on farce. But we are inclined to infer from some passages, 
 both in "Cecilia" and *' Camilla," that she might have attained equal dis- 
 tinction in the pathetic. We have formed this judgment, less from those 
 ambitious scenes of distress which lie near the catastrophe of each of those 
 novels, than from some exquisite strokes of natural tenderness which take us,, 
 here and there, by surprise. We would mention as examples, Mrs. Hill's 
 account of her little boy's death in "Cecilia," and the parting of Sir Hugh 
 Tyrold and Camilla, when the honest* baronet thinks himself dying. 
 
 It is melancholy to think that the whole fame of Madame D'Arblay rest* on 
 
MadaMM d 'Arbla.v. ^ti 
 
 what she did during the earlier part of her life, and that everything which she 
 published during the forty-three years which preceded her death, lowered her 
 reputation. Yet we have no reason to thi^k that at the time when her faculties 
 ought to have been in their maturity, they were smitten with any blight. In 
 " The Wanderer," we catch now and then a gleam of her genius. Even in the 
 Memoirs of her father, there is no trace of dotage. They are very bad ; but 
 they are so, as it seems to us, not from a decay of power, but from a total 
 perversion of power. 
 
 The truth is, that Madame D'Arblay's style underwent a gradual and most 
 pernicious change — a change which, in degree at least, we believe to be unex- 
 ampled in literary history, and of which it may be useful to trace the progress. 
 
 When she wrote her letters to Mr. Crisp, her early journals and her first 
 novel, her style was not, indeed, brilliant or energetic ; but it was easy, clear 
 and free from all offensive faults. When she wrote *' Cecilia " she aimed higher. 
 She had then lived much in a circle of which Johnson was the centre j and she 
 was herself one of his most submissive worshippers. It seems never to have 
 crossed her mind that the style even of his best writings was by no means fault- 
 less, and that even had it been faultless, it might not be wise in her to imitate it. 
 Phraseology which is proper in a disquisition on the Unities or in a preface to 
 a dictionary, may be quite out of place in a tale of fashionable life. Old 
 gentlemen do not criticise the reigning modes, nor do young gentlemen make 
 love, with the balanced epithets and sonorous cadences which, on occasions of 
 great dignity, a skilful writer may use with happy effect. 
 
 In an evil hour the author of " Evelina " took the " Rambler " for her model. 
 This would not have been wise even if she could have imitated her pattern as 
 well as Hawkesworth did. But such imitation was beyond her power. She had 
 her own style. It was a tolerably good one ; and might, without any violent 
 change, have been improved into a very good one. She determined to throw 
 it away, and to adopt a style in which she could attain excellence only by 
 achieving an almost miraculous victory over nature and over habit. She could 
 cease to be Fanny Burney ; it was not so easy to become Samuel Johnson. 
 
 In " Cecilia " the change of manner began to appear. But in " Cecilia " the 
 imitation of Johnson, though not always in the best taste, is sometimes eminently 
 happy ; and the passages which are so verbose as to be positively, offensive, are 
 few. There were people who whispered that Johnson had assisted his young 
 friend, and that the novel owed all its finest passages to his hand. This was 
 merely the fabrication of envy. Miss Burney's real excellences were as much 
 beyond the reach of Johnson as his real excellences were beyond her reach. 
 He could no more have written the Masquerade scene or the Vauxhall scene, 
 than she could have written the life of Cowley or the Review of Soamejenyns. 
 But we have not the smallest doubt that he revised *' Ceciha," and that he 
 re-touched the style of many passages. We know that he was in the habit of 
 giving assistance of this kind most freely. Goldsmith, Hawkesworth, Boswell, 
 Lord Hailes, Mrs. Williams, were among those who obtained his help. Nay, 
 he even corrected the poetry of Mr. Crabbe, whom, we believe, he had never 
 seen. When Miss Burney thought of writing a comedy, he promised to give 
 her his best counsel, though he owned that he was not particularly well qualified 
 to advise on matters relating to the stage. We therefore think it in the highest 
 degree improbable that his little Fanny, when living in habits of the most 
 affectionate intercourse with him, would have brought out an important work 
 without consulting him ; and, when we look into " Cecilia," we see such traces 
 of his hand in the grave and elevated passages as it is impossible to mistake. 
 Before we conclude this article, we will give two or three examples. 
 
 When next Madame D'Arblay appeared before the world as a writer, she 
 was in a very different situation. She would not content herself with the 
 
, ^66 MADAME t) 'ARBLA K 
 
 simple English in which "Evelina " had been written. She had no longer the 
 friend who, we are confident, had polished and strengthened the style of 
 " Ceciha." She had to write in Johnson's manner without Johnson's aid. The 
 consequence was, that in " Camilla " every passage which she meant to be fine is 
 detestable ; and that the book has been saved from condemuation only by the 
 admirable spirit and. force of those scenes in which , she ; was content to be 
 familiar. . v, ,l ... , _ ; - : ' 
 
 But there ^^as to "be a still deeper descent. After the publication of 
 "Camilla" Madame D'Arblay resided ten years at Paris. During those years 
 there was scarcely any intercourse between France and England. It was with 
 difficulty that a short letter could occasionally be transmitted. All Madame 
 D'Arblay's companions were French. She must have written, spoken, thought 
 in French. Ovid expressed his fear that a shorter exile might have affected the 
 purity of his Latin. During a shorter exile Gibbon unlearned his native 
 English. Madame D'Arblay had carried a bad style to France. She brought 
 back a style which we are really at a loss to describe. Itis a sort of broken 
 Johnsonese, a barbarous patois, bearing the same relation to the language of 
 " Rasselas " which the gibberish of the Negroes of Jamaica bears to the EngHsh 
 of the House of Lords. Sometimes it reminds us of the finest, that is to say 
 the vilest, parts of Mr. Gait's novels ; sometimes of the perorations of Exeter 
 Hall; sometimes of the leading articles of the Morning Post. But it most 
 resembles the puffs of Mr. Rowland and Dr. Goss. It matters not. what ideas 
 are clothed in such a style. The genius of Shakspeare and Bacoo united would 
 not save a work so written from general derision. • 
 
 It is only by means of specimens that we can enable our readers to judge how 
 widely Madame D'Arblay's three styles differed from each other. 
 
 The following passage was written before she became intimate with Johnson. 
 It is from " Evelina." 
 
 " His son seems weaker in his understanding and more gay in his temper ; but his 
 gaiety is that of a foolish, overgrown schoolboy, whose mirth consists in noise and dis- 
 turbance. He disdains his father for his close attention to business and love of money, 
 though he seems himself to have no talents, spirit or generosity to make him superior 
 to either. His chief delight appears to be in tormenting and ridiculing his sisters, who 
 in return most cordially despise him. Miss Braughton, the eldest daughter, is by no 
 means ugly; but looks proud, ill-tempered and conceited. She hates the city, though 
 without knowing why ; for it is easy to discover she has lived nowhere else. Miss Polly 
 Braughton is rather pretty, very foolish, very ignorant, very giddy and, I believe, very 
 goodnatured." 
 
 This i? not a fine style, but simple, perspicuous .and agreeable. We now 
 come to " Cecilia," written during Miss Burney's intimacy with Johnson ; and 
 we leave it to our readers to judge whether the following passage was not at 
 least corrected by his hand. j : j; ; 
 
 "It is rdther an imaginary fhan an actual evil anff, thotigh a deep wound to pride, no 
 oflfence to morality. Thus have I laid open to you my whole heart, confessed my per- 
 plexities, acknowledged my vain glory and exposed^ with equal sincerity, the sources of 
 my doubts and the motives of my decision. But now, indeed, how to proceed I know 
 not. The difl&culties which are yet to encounter I fear to enumerate, and the petition 
 I have to urge I have scarce courage to mention. My family, mistaking ambition for 
 honour and rapk for dignity, have long planned a splendid connection for me, to which, 
 though my invariable repugnance has stopped any advances, their wishes and their views 
 immoveably adhere. I am but too certain they will now listen to no other. I dread, 
 therefore, to make a trial where I despair of success. I know not how to risk a prayer 
 with those who may silence me by a command." 
 
 Take now a specimen of Madame D'Arblay's later style. This is the way 
 in which she tells us that her father, on his 'journey back from the Continent, 
 caught the rheumatism. ' ' \ ./^ \' 
 
 " He was assaulted, during bis precijntated return, by the rudest fierceness of wintry 
 
MADAME D'ARBLAY. 767; 
 
 elemental strife ; through which, with bad accommodations and innnmerable accidents, 
 he became a prey to the iiperciless pangs of the acutest spasmodic rheumatism, which 
 barely suffered him to reach his home ere, long and piteously, it confined him, a tortured 
 prisoner, to his bed. Such was the check that^lmost instantly curbed, though it could 
 not subdue, the rising pleasure of his hopes of entering upon a new species of existence— 
 that of an approved man of letters ; for it was on the bed of sickness, exchanging the 
 light wines of France, Italy and Germany, for the black and loathsome potions 01 the 
 Apothecaries' Hall, writhed by darting stitches and burning with fiery fever, that he felt 
 the full force of that sublunary eauipoise that seems evermore to hang suspended over 
 the attainment of long-sought and uneommon felicity, just as it is riperung to burst forth 
 with enjoyment 1 " , , ' r . r . ' 
 
 XT • 1 r \,^ \' !» oaxoo ki/. ,^aiJ/Xi£^i 
 
 Here is a second passage irom . ' Evdma. , j ^f^Q^-j g^y, »^^^ ^^,^1 
 
 " Mrs. Selwyn is very kind and attentive to me. She is extrcmely^lever.- Her ufeder- 
 standing, indeed, may be called masculine ; but unfortunately her manners deserve the 
 same epithet ; for, in studying to acquire the knowledge of the other sex, she has lost all 
 the softness of her own. In regard to myself, however, as I have neither courage nor 
 inclination to argue with her, -I have never been personally hurt at her want of gentle- 
 ness—a virtue. which nevertheless seems so essential apart of the female charactei-, that 
 I find myself more awkyrafd and less at ease with a woman .who waats it than I. do with a. 
 man." ; ^ ,, ' , .- . .■ S ■"•/■■ ' '' " *^ ' 
 
 This is a good style' of its kind, and the following passage from " Gecilia" Jpf 
 also in a good style, though not in a faultless one. We say with conficlenG^jrrr. 
 either Sam Johnson or the Devil. - . i. 
 
 " Even the imperious Mr. Delvile was more supportable here than in London. Secure 
 in his own castle, he looked round him with a pride of power and possession which 
 softened while it swelled him. His superiority was undisputed ; his will was without 
 control. He was not, as in the great capital of the kingdom, surrounded by competitors. 
 No rivalry disturbed his peace ; no equality mortified his greatness. All he saw were 
 either vassals of his power, or guests bending to his pleasure. He abated, therefore, 
 considerably the stem gloom of his haughtiness and soothed his proud mind by the 
 courtesy of condesaension." 
 
 We will stake our reputation for critical sagacity on this, that no such para- 
 graph as that which we have last quoted can be found in any of Madatne 
 D'Arblay's works except '* Cecilia," Compare with it the'following sample of 
 her later style. "'-'■' 
 
 "If beneficence be judged by the happinpss which it diffuses, whose claim, by that 
 proof, shall stand higher than that of Mrs. Montagu, from the munificence with which 
 she celebrated her annual festival for those hapless artificers who perform the most 
 abject offices of any authorised calling in being the active guardians of our blazing 
 hearths ? Not to vain glory, then, but to kindness of heart, should be adjudged the pub- 
 licity of that superb charity which made its jetty objects, for one bright morning, ceas^ to 
 consider themselves as degraded outcasts from all society." -Ji'' 
 
 We add one or two shorter samples. Sheridan refused to permit his lovely 
 wife to sing in public, and was warmly praised on this account by Johnson. 
 
 " The last of men," says Madame D'Arblay, " was Doctor Johnson to have 
 abetted squandering the delicacy of integrity by nullifying the labours o\ 
 talents." . 
 
 The Club, Johnson's Clu*l), did itself no honour by rejecting, on political 
 grounds, two distmguished men— one a Tory, the other a Whig. Madame 
 D'Arblay tells the story thus : — "A similar ebuUition of political rancour with 
 that which so difficultly had been conquered for Mr. Canning foamed over the 
 ballot box to the exclusion of Mr. Rogers." • 
 
 An offence punishable with imprisonment is, in this language, an offence 
 ''which produces incarceration." To be starved to death is "to sink from 
 manition into nonentity." Sir Isaac Newton is " the developer of the skies in 
 their embodied movements ; " and Mrs. Thrale, when a party of clever people 
 sat silent, is said to have been " provoked by the diilnass of a taciturnity that 
 in the midst of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as 
 could have been caused by a dearth the most Ixirren of all human faculties." 
 
762, MADAME D 'ARBLA V. 
 
 In truth, it is impossible to look at any page of Madame D'Arblay's later works. 
 without finding flowers of rhetoric like these. Nothing in the language of 
 those jargonists at whom Mr. Gosport laughed, nothing in the language of Sir 
 vSedley Clarendel approaches this new Euphuism. 
 
 It is from no unfriendly feeling to Madame D'Arblay's memory that we 
 have expressed ourselves so strongly on the subject of her style. On the con- 
 trary, we conceive that we have really rendered a service to her reputation. 
 That her later works were complete failures is a fact too notorious to be dis- 
 sembled, and some persons, we believe, have consequently taken up a notion 
 that she was from the first an overrated writer, and that she had not the powers 
 which were necessary to maintain her on the eminence on which good luck and 
 fashion had placed her. We believe, on the contrary, that her early popularity 
 was no more than the just reward of distinguished merit, and would never have 
 undergone an eclipse if she had only been content to go on writing in her 
 mother tongue. If she failed when she quitted her own province and attempted 
 to occupy one in which she had neither part nor lot, this reproach is common 
 to her with a crowd of distinguished men. Newton failed when he turned from 
 the courses of the stars and the ebb and flow of the ocean to apocalyptic seals 
 and vials. Bentley failed when he turned from Homer and Aristophanes to edit 
 the "Paradise Lost." Inigo failed when he attempted to rival the Gothic 
 churches of the fourteenth century. Wilkie failed when he took it into his 
 head that the "Blind Fiddler" and the "Rent Day" were unworthy of his 
 powers, and challenged competition with Lawrence as a portrait painter. Such 
 failures should be noted for the instruction of posterity, but they detract little 
 from the permanent reputation of those who have really done great things. 
 
 Yet oHe word more. It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of 
 Madame D'Arblay's early works that she is entitled to honourable mention. 
 Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. " Evelina " was 
 the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a picture of life and 
 manners, that lived or deserved to live. The female Quixote is no exception. 
 That work has undoubtedly great merit, when considered as a wild, satirical 
 harlequinade ; but if we consider it as a picture of life and manners, we must 
 pronounce it more absurd than any of the romances which it was designed to 
 ridicule. 
 
 Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded "Evelina" were such 
 as no lady would have written ; and many of them were such as no lady could 
 without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held 
 in horror among religious people. In decent families, which did not profess 
 extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all such works. Sir 
 Antheny Absolute, two or three years before " Evelina " appeared, spoke the 
 sense of the great body of fathers and husbands, when he pronounced the 
 circulating library an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge. This feeling on 
 the part of the grave and reflecting increased the evil from which it had sprung. 
 The novehst having little character to lose, and having few readers among 
 serious people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem 
 almost incredilsle. 
 
 Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the 
 English drama ; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a tale 
 might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar, life of London 
 might be exhibited with great force and with broad comic humour, and which 
 yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid morality or even 
 with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach which lay on a most useful 
 and delightful species of composition. She vindicated the right of her sex to 
 an equal share in a fair and noble province of letters. Several accomplished 
 women have followed in her track. At present, the novels which we owe to 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 769 
 
 English ladies form no small part of the literary glory of our country. No 
 class of works is more honourably distinguished by fine observation, by grace, 
 by delicate wit, by pure moral feeling. Several among the successors of 
 Madame D'Arblay have equalled her pT'wo, we think, have surpassed her. 
 But the fact that she has been surpassed gives her an additional claim to our 
 respect and gratitude; for, in truth, we owe to her not only "Evelina," 
 •' Cecilia " and " Camilla," but also " Mansfield Park " and the " Absentee." 
 
 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. (July, 1843.) 
 
 The Life of Joseph Addison. By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols., 8vo. London, 1843. 
 
 Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares to publish a book 
 renounces by that act the franchises appertaining to her sex and can claim 
 no exemption from the utmost rigour of critical procedure. From that opinion 
 we dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country which boasts of many female 
 writers, eminently qualified by their talents and acquirements to influence the 
 public mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence that inaccurate history 
 or unsound philosophy should be suffered to pass uncensured, merely because 
 the offender chanced to be a lady. But we conceive that, on such occasions, 
 a critic would do well to imitate that courteous knight who found himself com- 
 pelled by duty to keep the lists against Bradamante. He, we are told, defended 
 successfully the cause of which he was the champion ; but, before tbe fight 
 began, exchanged Balisarda for a less deadly sword, of which he carefully 
 blunted the point and edge.* 
 
 Nor are the immunities of sex the only, immunities which Miss Aikin may 
 rightfully plead. Sevei-al of her works, and especially the very pleasing 
 *' Memoirs of the Reign of James the First," have fully entitled her to the 
 privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of those privileges we hold to be this, 
 that such writers, when, either from the unlucky choice of a subject, or from 
 the indolence too often produced by success, they happen to fail, shall not be 
 subjected to the severe discipline which it is sometimes necessary to inflict upon 
 dunces and impostors, but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like 
 that with which the Laputan flapper roused his dreaming lord, that it is high 
 time to wake. 
 
 Our readers will probably infer from what we have said that Miss Aikin's 
 book has disappointed us. The truth is, that she is not well acquainted with 
 her subject. No person who is not familiar with the political and literary 
 history of England during the reigns of William the Third, of Anne and of 
 George the First, can possibly write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean 
 no reproach to Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay her a compliment, 
 when we say that her studies have taken a different direction. She is better 
 acquainted with Shakspeare and Raleigh than with Congreve and Prior ; and 
 is far more at home among the ruffs and peaked beards of Theobald's than 
 among the Steenkirks and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's 
 tea-table at Hampton. She seems to have written about the Elizabethan age 
 because she had read much about it ; she seems, on the other hand, to have 
 read a little about the age of Addison because she had determined to write 
 about it. The consequence is that she has had to describe men and things 
 without having cither a correct or a vivid idea of them, and that she has often 
 fallen into errors of a very serious kind. The reputation which Miss Aikin has 
 
 Orlando Furioso, xlv. 68. 
 
 c c 
 
770 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF AD DISON. 
 
 justly, earned standi so high and the charm of Addison's letters is so great, 
 that a second edition of this work may probably be required. If so, we hope 
 that every paragraph will be revised and that every date and fact about which 
 there can be the smallest doubt will be carefully verified. 
 
 To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as much like affection as 
 any sentiment can be which is inspired by one who has been sleeping a 
 hundred and twenty years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, that 
 this feeling will not betray us into that abject idolatry which we have often had 
 occasion to reprehend in others, and which seldom fails to make both the 
 idolater and the idol ridiculous. A man of genius and virtue is but a man. 
 All his powers cannot be equally developed ; nor can we expect from him 
 perfect self-knowledge. We need not, therefore, hesitate to admit that Addi- 
 son has left us some compositions which do not rise above mediocrity, some 
 heroic poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as superficial as Dr. 
 Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better than Dr. Johnson's. It is praise 
 enough to say of a writer that, in a high department of literature, in whtcil 
 many eminent writers have distinguished themselves, he has had no eqitail'ij,'; 
 and this may, with strict justice, be said of Addison. ' ; 
 
 As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration which he received from 
 those who, bewitched by his fascinating society, and indebted for all the 
 comforts of life to his generous and delicate friendship, worshipped him nightly 
 in his favourite temple at Buttons's. But, after full inquiry and impartial 
 reflection, we have long been convinced that he deserved as much love and 
 esteem as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring race. Some 
 blemishes may undoubtedly be detected in his character ; but the more care- 
 fully it is examined, the more will it appear, to use the phrase of the old 
 anatomists, sound in the noble parts — free from all taint of perfidy, of cowardice, 
 of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. Men may easily be named, in whom some 
 particular good disposition has been more conspicuous than in Addison. But the 
 just harmony of qualities, the exact temper between the stern and the humane 
 virtues, the habitual observance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, but 
 of moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all men who have been tried 
 by equally strong temptations, and about whose conduct we possess equally full 
 information. 
 
 His father was the Reverend Lancelot Addison, who, though eclipsed by his 
 more celebrated son, made some figure in the world, and occupies with credit 
 two folio pages in the ' " Biographia Britannica. " Lancelot was sent up, as a 
 poor scholar, from Westmoreland to Queen's College, Oxford, in the time of 
 the Commonwealth, made some progress in learning, became, like most of his 
 fellow students, a violent Royalist ; lampooned the heads of the University, 
 and was forced to ask pardon on his bended knees. When he had left college, 
 lie earned a humble subsistence by reading the liturgy of the fallen Church to 
 the families of those sturdy squires whose manor houses were scattered over the 
 Wild of Sussex. After the Restoration, his loyalty was rewarded with the post 
 of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. When Dunkirk was sold to France 
 he lost his employment. But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to England as 
 part of the marriage portion of the Infanta Catharine, and to Tangier Lancelot 
 Addison was sent. A more miserable situation can hardly be conceived. It 
 was difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers were more torftieftted by 
 the heats or by the rains, by the soldiers within the wall or by the Moors with- 
 out it. One advantage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent opportunity 
 of studying the history and manners of Jews and Mahometans ; and of this 
 opportunity he appears to have made excellent use. On his return to England, 
 after some years of banishinent, he published an interesting volume on the 
 Polity and Religion of Barbary, and another on the Hebrew Customs and the 
 
UPB AND WRlftNGS OF ADDISOM. nk 
 
 State of Rabbinical Learning. He rose to eminence in his profession, and 
 became one of the royal chaplains, a Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salis- 
 bury and Dean of Lichfield. It is said that he would have been made a 
 bishop after the Revolution if he had nrff given offence to the government by 
 strenuously opposing, in the Convocation of 1689, the liberal policy of William 
 and Tillotson. 
 
 In. 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from Tangier, his son Joseph 
 was born. Of Joseph's childhood we know little. He learned his rudiments 
 at schools in his father's neighbourhood, and was then sent to the Charter 
 House. The anecdotes which are popularly related about his boyish tricks do 
 not harmonize very well with what we know of his riper years. There remains 
 a tradition that he was the ringleader in a barring-out ; and another tj'adition 
 that he ran away from school and hid himself in a wood, where he fed on: 
 berries and slept in a hollow tree, till, after a long search, he was discovered and 
 brought home. If these stories be true, it would be curious to know by what 
 moral discijsline so mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed into th© 
 gentlest and most modest of men. ■ ; •: , 
 
 We have abundant proof that, whatever Joseph's pranks may have been, he 
 pursued his studies vigorously and successfully. At fifteen he was not only fit 
 for the university, but carried thither a classical taste and a stock of learning- 
 \yhich would have done honour to a Master of Arts. He was entered at 
 Queen's College, Oxford ; but he had not been many months there, when some 
 of his Latin verses fell by accident into the hands of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of 
 Magdalene College. The young scholar's diction and versification were already 
 such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. Lancaster was desirous to serve a 
 boy of such promise ; nor was an opportunity long wanting. The Revolution 
 had just taken place-; and nowhere had it been hailed with more delight than 
 at Magdalene College. That great and opulent corporation had been 'treated 
 by James and by his Chancellor with an insolence and injustice which, even in 
 such a Prince and in such a Minister, may justly excite amazement, and which 
 had done more than even the prosecution of the Bishops to alienate the Church 
 of England from the throne. A president, duly elected, had been violently 
 expelled from his dwelling ; a Papist had been set over the society by a royal 
 mandate ; the Fellows who, in conformity with their oaths, had refused to subr 
 mit to this usurper, had been driven forth from their quiet cloisters and gardens 
 to die of want or to live on charity. But the day of redress and retribution 
 speedily came. The intruders were ejected ; the venerable House was again 
 inhabited by its old inmates ; learning flourished under the rule of the wise and 
 virtuous Hough ; and with learning was united a mild and liberal spirit too 
 often wanting in the princely colleges of Oxford. In consequence of the 
 troubles through which the society had passed, there had been no valid election 
 of new members during the year 1688. In 1689, -therefore, there was twice the 
 ordinary number of vacancies ; and thus Dr. Lancaster found it easy to procure 
 for his young friend admittance to the advantages of a. foundation then generally 
 esteemed the wealthiest in Europe. ■ ; > 
 
 At Magdalene Addison resided during ten years. He was, at first, one of 
 those scholars who are called Demies, but was subsequently elected a Fellow. 
 His college is still proud of his name ; his portrait still hangs in the hall ; and 
 strangers are still told that his favourite walk was under the elms which fringe 
 the meadow on the banks of the Cherwell. It is said, and is highly probable, 
 that he was distinguished among his fellow students by the delicacy of his 
 feeUngs, by the shyness of his manners and by the assiduity with which he 
 often prolonged his studies far into the night. It is certain that his reputation 
 for ability and learning stood high. Many years later, the anrient doctors of 
 Magdalene continued to talk in their common room of his boyish com|X)sitions, 
 
'J'ji LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON". 
 
 and expressed their sorrow that tio copy of exercises so remarkable had been 
 preserved. •(.>'< 
 
 It is proper, however^ to remark that Miss Aikin has committed the eivcxr; 
 very pardonable in a lady, of overrating Addison's classical attainments. ''^Ih 
 one department of learning, indeed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly 
 possible to overrate. His knowledge of the Latin poets, from Lucretius and 
 Catullus down to Claudian and Prudentius, was singularly exact and profound. 
 He understood them thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and had the finest 
 and most discriminating perception of all their peculiarities of style and melody'; 
 nay, he copied their manner with admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, all 
 their British imitators who had preceded him, Buchanan and Milton alone 
 excepted. This is high praise ; and beyond this we cannot with justice go. It 
 is clear that Addison's serious attention during his residence at the university w^ 
 almost entirely concentrated on Latin poetry, and that, if he did not wholly 
 neglect other provinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to them onlyfft 
 cursory glance. He does not appear to have attained more than an ordinary 
 acquaintance with the political and moral writers of Rome ; nor was his own 
 Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin verse. His knowledge of Greek, 
 though doubtless such as was, in his time, thought respectable at Oxford, wa$ 
 evidently less than that which many lads now carry away every year from Eton 
 and Rugby. A minute examination of his works, if we had time to make sudt. 
 an examination, would fully bear out these remarks. We will briefly advert to 
 a few of the facts on which our judgment is grounded. ? rwi.rf 
 
 Great praise is due to the notes which Addison appended to his vefsioiiriiftf 
 the second and third books of the Metamorphoses. Yet those notes, while 
 they show him to have been, in his own domain, an accomplished scholar, sho^ 
 also how confined that domain was. They are rich in apposite references fo 
 Virgil, Statius and Claudian ; but they contain not a single illustration drawn 
 from the Greek poets. Now, if in the whole compass of Latin literature, there 
 be a passage which stands in need of illustration drawn from the Greek poets; 
 it is the story of Pentheus in the third book of the Metamorphoses. Ovid waS 
 indebted for that story to Euripides and Theocritus, both of whom he has some- 
 times followed minutely. But neither to Euripides nor to Theocritus doefe 
 Addison make the faintest allusion ; and we, therefore, believe that we do n^ 
 wrong him by supposing that he had little or no knowledge of their works. ' -^ 
 
 His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quotations happily intrd^ 
 duced ; but scarcely one of those quotations is in prose. He draws more illu's^ 
 trations from Ausonius and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his notions of 
 the political and military affairs of the Romans seem to be derived from poets 
 and poetasters. Spots made memorable by events which have changed the 
 destinies of the world, and which have been worthily recorded by great histo- 
 rians, bring to his mind only scraps of some ancient Pye or Hayley. In the 
 gorge of the Apennines he naturally remembers the hardships which Planni- 
 bal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of Pdly- 
 bius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of 
 Silius Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's 
 lively description; or of the stern conciseness of the Commentaries; or(9f 
 those letters to Atticus which so forcibly express the alternations of hope attd 
 fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His only authority for the events <tf 
 the civil war is Lucan. 
 
 All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Florence are Greek. Addi- 
 son saw them, however, without recalling one single verse of Pindar, of Calli- 
 machus, or of the Attic dramatists; but they brought to his recollection 
 innumerable passages of Horace, Juvenal, Statius and Ovid. 
 
 The same may be said of the "Treatise on Medals." In that pleasihgwork 
 
UFE AND IVklTINGS OP ADDtSOM. ^^ 
 
 Vve find about three hundred passages extracted with great judgment from the 
 Roman Poets ; but we do not recollect a single passage taken from any Roman 
 orator or historian ; and we are confident that not a line is quoted from any- 
 Greek writer. No person, who had derfved all his information on the subject 
 of medals from Addison, would suspect that the Greek coins were in historical 
 interest equal, and in beauty of execution far superior, to those of Rome. •- 
 
 If it were necessary to find any further proof that Addison's classical know- 
 ledge was confined within narrow limits, that proof would be furnished by his 
 Essay on the " Evidences of Christianity." The Roman poets throw little or 
 no light on the literary and historical questions which he is under the necessity 
 of examining in that Essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the dark ; and 
 it is melancholy to see how helplessly he gropes his way from blunder to 
 blunder. He assigns, as grounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as 
 that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank as Ireland's "Vortigern," puts 
 faith in the lie about the "Thundering Legion," is convinced that Tiberius 
 moved the senate to admit Jesus among the gods and pronounces the letter of 
 Agbarus, King of Edessa, to be a record of great authority. Nor were these 
 errors the effects of superstition ; for to superstition Addison was by no means 
 prone. The truth is that he was writing about what he did not understand. 
 
 Miss Aikin has discovered a letter, from which it appears that, while Addi- 
 son resided at Oxford, he was one of several writers whom the booksellers 
 engaged to make an English version of Herodotus ; and she infers that he must 
 have been a good Greek scholar. We can allow very little weight to this argument 
 when we consider that his fellow-labourers were to have been Boyle and Black- 
 more. Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nominal author of the worst book 
 on Greek history and phylology that ever was printed ; and this book, bad as 
 it is, Boyle was unable to produce without help. Of Blackmore's attainments 
 in the ancient tongues, it may be sufficient to say that, in his prose, he has con- 
 founded an aphorism with an apophthegm, and that when, in his verse, he 
 treats of classical subjects, his habit is to regale his readers with four false 
 quantities to a page. . ,. 
 
 It is probable that the classical acquirements of Addison -Cvere of as much 
 service to him as if they had been more extensive. The world generally gives 
 its admiration, not to the man who does what nobody else even attempts to do, 
 but to the man who does best what multitudes do well. Bentley was so 
 immeasurable superior to all the other scholars of his time, that very few among 
 them could discover his superiority. But the accomplishment in which Addi- 
 son excelled his contemporaries was then, as it is now, highly valued and 
 assiduously cultivated at all English seats of learning. Everybody who had 
 been at a public school haJ written Latin verses ; many had written such verses 
 with tolerable success, and were quite able to appreciate, though by no means 
 able to rival the skill with which Addison imitated Virgil. His lines on the 
 Barometer and the Bowling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom the 
 "Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris " was as unintelligible as the hieror 
 glyphics on an obelisk. 
 
 Purity of style, and an easy flow of numliers, are common to all Addison's 
 Latin poems. Our favourite piece is the " Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies ; " 
 for in that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humour which many 
 years later enlivened thousands of breakfast tables. Swift boasted that he was 
 never known to steaj a hint ; and he certainly owed as little to his predecessors 
 as any modern writer. Yet we cannot help suspecting that he borrowed, 
 perhaps unconsciously, one of the happiest touches in his " Voyage to Lilliput" / 
 from Addison's verses. Let our readers judge. \f 
 
 " The Emperor," says Ciulliver, " is taller by about the breadth of my nail than 
 any of bis court, which alone is enough to strike an awe into the beholders."" 
 
774 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 About thirty years before "Gulliver's Travels" appeared, Addison wrote 
 these lines : 
 
 " Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 
 Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, 
 Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnea 
 Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." 
 
 The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly admired, both at Oxford 
 and Cambridge, before his name had ever been heard by the wits who thronged 
 the coffee-houses round Drury Lane Theatre. In his twenty-second year, he 
 ventured to appear before the public as a writer of EngUsh verse. He 
 addressed some complimentary hnes to Dryden, who, after many triumphs and 
 many reverses, had at length reached a secure and lonely eminence among the 
 literary men of that age. Dryden appears to have been much gratified by the 
 young scholar's praise ; and an interchange of civilities and good offices 
 followed. Addison was probably introduced by Dryden to Congreve, and was 
 certainly presented by Congreve to Charles Montagu, who was then Chancellor 
 ©f the Exchequer and leader of the Whig party in the House of Commons. 
 
 At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote himself to poetry. He pub- 
 lished a translation of part of the fourth " Georgic," " Lines to King William," 
 and other performances of equal value, that is to say, of no value at all. But 
 in those days, the public was in the habit of receiving with applause pieces 
 which would now have little chance of obtaining the Newdigate prize or the 
 Seatonian prize. And the reason is obvious. The heroic couplet was then the 
 favourite measure. The art of arranging words in that measure, so that the lines 
 may flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that the rhymes may 
 strike the ear strongly, and that there may be a pause at the end of every 
 distich, is an art as mechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a horse, 
 and may be learned by any human being who has sense enough to learn 
 anything. But like other mechanical arts, it was gradually improved by 
 means of many experiments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope to 
 discover the trick, to make himself complete master of it, and to teach it 
 to everybody else. From the time when his " Pastorals " appeared, herioc 
 versification became matter of rule and compass ; and, before long, all artists 
 were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who never blundered on one happy 
 thought or expression were able to write reams of couplets which, as far as 
 euphony was concerned, could not be distinguished from those of Pope himself, 
 and which very clever writers of the reign of Charles the Second — Rochester, 
 for example, or Marvel, or Oldham — would have contemplated with admiring 
 despair. 
 
 Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. But Hoole, coming 
 after Pope, had learned how to manufacture decasyllabic verses, and poured 
 them forth by thousands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as smooth 
 and as like each other as the blocks which have passed through Mr. Brunei's, 
 mill in the dockyard at Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks 
 rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand, with a blunt hatchet. Take as a 
 specimen his translation of a celebrated passage in the " /Eneid " : 
 
 " This child our parent earth, stirr'd up with spite 
 Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, 
 She was last sister of that giant race 
 That sought to scale Jove's court, ripht swift of pace, 
 And swifter fsir of wing, a monster vast 
 And dreadful. Look, how many phunes are placed 
 On her huge corpse, so mnny Vvakin^' eyes 
 Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise 
 In the report, as many tongues she wears." 
 
 Compare with these j<ig2-d misshapen distichs the neat fabric which Hoole'a 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 775 
 
 machine produces in unlimited abundance. We take the first lines on which 
 we open in his version of Tasso. They are neitlier better no worse than 
 the rest : ^ 
 
 " O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led* 
 
 B7 choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 
 
 No greater wonders east or west cari boast 
 
 Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. 
 
 If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 
 
 The current pass, and seek the furtiier shore." 
 
 Ever sinc6 the time of Pope there had been a glut' of lines of this sort ; and 
 we are now as little disposed to admire a man for being able to write them, , as 
 forbeing able to write his name. But in the days of Wilham the Third such 
 versification was rare ; and a rhymer who had any skill in it passed for a 
 great poet, just as in the dark ages a person who could write his name passed 
 for a great clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, Walsh, and others 
 whose only title to fame was that they said in tolerable metre what might have 
 been as well said in prose, or what was not worth saying ai all, were honoui"ed 
 with marks of distinction which ought to be reserved for genius. With these 
 Addison must have ranked, if he had not earned true and lasting glory by 
 performances which very Httle resembled his juvenile poems. 
 
 . Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from Addison a critical 
 pt'6faC'e to the "Georgics." In return for this service, and for other services of 
 the same kind, the veteran poet, in the postscript to the translation of the 
 '*^neid," complimented his young friend with great hberality, and indeed with 
 more liberality than sincerity. He affected to be afraid that his own perform- 
 ance would not sustain a.qomparison with the version of the fourth " Georgic," 
 by" the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." " After his bees," added 
 Biyden, '* my Utter swarm is scarcely worth the hiving."* 
 
 The time had now arrived when it was necessary for Addison to choose a 
 calling. Everything seemed to point his course towards the clerical profes- 
 sion. His habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college had large 
 ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts that it has given at least one 
 bishop to almost every see in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honour- 
 able place in the Church and had set his heart on seeing his son a clergyman. 
 It is cleJtr, from some expressions in the young man's rhymes, that his inten- 
 tion was to take orders. But Charles Montagu interfered. Montagu had 
 first brought himself into notice by verses, well timed and not contemptibly 
 written, but never, we think, rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for him- 
 self and for his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he could never have 
 attained a rank as high as that of Dorset or Rochester, and turned his 
 mind to official and parliamentary business. It is written that the ingenious 
 person who undertook to instruct Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, in the art of 
 flying, ascended an eminence, waved his wings, sprang into the air, and 
 instantly dropped into the lake. But it is added that the wings, which were 
 unable to support him through the sky, bore .him u]3 effectually as soon as he 
 was in the water. This is no bad type of the fate of Charles Montagu and of' 
 men like him. When he attempted to sore into the regions of poetical inven- 
 tion, he altogether failed ; but, as soon as he had descended from that ethereal 
 elevation into a lower and grosser element, hi^ talents instantly raised him 
 above the mass. He became a distinguished financier, debater, courtier and 
 party leader. He still retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days ; 
 but he showed that fondness not by wearying the public with his own feeble 
 performances, but by discovering and encouraging literary excellence in others. 
 
 * Miss Aikin makes this compliment altogether unmeaning, by saying that it was paid 
 4o a translation of the second Georgic (i. 30). 
 
776 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 A crowd of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished him as a coi^r 
 petitor, revered him as a judge and a patron. In his plans for the encourag^-f 
 ment of learning, he was cordially supported by the ablest and most virtuoij's 
 of his colleagues, the Lord Keeper Somers. Though both these great statesmen 
 had a sincere love of letters,, it was not solely from a love of letters that 
 they were desirous to enlist youths of high intellectual qualifications in th? 
 pubHc service. The Revolution had altered the whole system of government. 
 Before that evenb the press had been controlled by censors and the Parhament 
 had sat only two months in eight years. Now the press was free and had 
 begun to exercise unprecedented intluehce on the public mind. Parliament 
 met annually and sat long. The chief power in the state had passed to the 
 House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, it was natural that literary and, 
 oratorical talents should rise in value. There was danger that a Governmeiit 
 which neglected such talents might be subverted by them. It was, therefore, 
 a profound and enlightened policy which led Montagu and Somers to atta(^ 
 such talents to the Whig party by the strongest ties both of interest ^^ 
 
 of gratitude. , , 
 
 It is remarkable that in a neighbouring country, we have recently seen 
 .similar effects follow from similar causes. The revolution of July, 1830, 
 established representative government in France. The men of letters instantly 
 rose to the highest importance in the state. At the present moment most of the 
 persons whom we see at the head both of the Administration and of the 
 Opposition have been Professors, Historians, Journalists, Poets. The 
 iniluence of the literary class in England, during the generation which followecj. 
 the Revolution, was great, but by no means so great as it has lately been 
 in France. For, in England, the aristocracy of intellect had to contend with 
 a powerful and deeply rooted aristocracy of a very different kind. France had 
 no Somersets and Shrewsburys to keep down her Addisons and Priors. 
 
 It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just completed his twenty- 
 seventh year, that the course of his Hfe was finally determined. Both the 
 great chiefs of the Ministry were kindly disposed towards him. In political 
 opinions he already was what he continued to be through life, a firm, though 
 a moderate Whig. He had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his 
 early English lines to Somers, and had dedicated to Montagu a Latin poem,, 
 truly Virgilian, both in style and fhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. Tl^ 
 wish of the young poet's great friends was, it should seem, to employ him 
 in the service of the Crown abi-oad. But an intimate knowledge of the 
 French language was a qualification indispensable to a diplomatist; and this 
 qualification Addison had not acquired. It was, therefore, thought desirable 
 that he should pass some time on the continent in preparing himself for official 
 employment. His own means were not such as would enable him to travel :. 
 but a pension of ^^300 a-year was procured for him by the interest of the 
 Lord Keeper. It seems to have been apprehended that some difficulty might 
 be started by the rulers of Magdalene College. But the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer wrote in the strongest terms to "Hough. The State — such was. 
 the purport of Montagu's letter — could not, at that time, spare to the Churclv 
 such a man as Addison. Too many high civil posts were already occupied by 
 adventurers, who, destitute of every Hberal art and sentiment, at once pillaged 
 and disgraced the country which they pretended to serve. It had becom^^ 
 necessary to recruit for the public service from a very different class : from thaj:. 
 class of which Addison was the representative. The close of the Ministerj^' 
 letter wa sremarkable. "I am called," he said, " an enemy of the Churchi;,^ 
 but I will never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addison out of _itj,',-,j 
 -This interference was successful ;. and, in the summer of 1699, Addispi;^, 
 
LIFE AND WR17INGS OF ADDI^OiW 777 • 
 
 beloved Oxford and set out on his travels. Me crossed from 'Dover to Calais^ 
 proceeded to Paris, and was received there with great kindness and pohtenes!? 
 by a kinsman of his friend Montague-Charles, Earl of Manchester, who had 
 jiist'been appointed Ambassador to the^ourt of P'rance. The Countess, a 
 Whig and a toast, was probably as gracious as her lord, for Addison long 
 i'^ainedan agreeable recollection of the impression which she at this time made 
 oti him, and m some Hvely lines written on the glasses of the Kit Cat Club, 
 described the envy which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine blodni djf 
 England, had excited among the painted beauties of Versailles. ■ 
 •"'Louis XIV. was at this time expiating the vices of his youth by a devotion 
 which had no root in reason and bore no fruit of charity. The servile litera- 
 tiire of France had changed its character to suit the changed character of the' 
 j^ince. No book appeared that had not an air of sanctity. Racine, who'wa? 
 just dead, had passed the close of his life in writing sacred dramas ; and 
 Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian mysteries in Plato. Addison described 
 this state of things in a short but lively and graceful letter to Montagu. 
 Anbther letter, written about the same time to the Lord Keeper, conveyed the* 
 strongest assurances of gratitude and attachment. " The only return I can' 
 make to your Lordship," said Addison, " will be to apply myself entirely to 
 my business." With this view he quitted Paris and repaired to Blois, a place 
 Where it was supposed that the French language was spoken in its highest 
 j)Virity and where not a single Englishman could be found. Plere he passed 
 s61ne months pleasantly and profitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of his' 
 associates, an Abbe named Philippeaux, gave an account to Joseph Spence.' 
 If this account is to be trusted, Addison studied much, mused much, talked 
 Ktlle, had fits of absence, and either had no love affairs, or was too discreet to 
 cBritide them to the Abbe. A man who, even when surrounded by fellow 
 countrymen and fellow students, had always been remarkably shy and silent, 
 was not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue and among foreign com- 
 panions. But it is clear from Addison's letters, some of which were long after 
 published in the Gtiardian^ that, while he appeared to be absorbed in his own 
 meditations, he was really observing French' society with that keen and sly,' 
 yet not illnatured side-glance, which was peculiarly his own. 
 
 From Blois he returned to Paris ; and having now mastered the French lan- 
 gxiage, found great pleasure in the society of French philosophers and poets. 
 He gave an account, in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly interesting 
 (itinversations, one with Malbranche, the other with Boileau. Malbranche 
 expressed great partiality for the English, and extolled the genius of Newton, 
 but shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned, and was indeed so unjust as 
 to call the author of the "Leviathan" a poor silly creature. Addison's 
 modesty restrained him from fully relating in his letter the circumstances of 
 his introduction to Boileau. Boileau, having survived the friends atid rivals 
 of his youth, old, deaf and melancholy, lived in retirement, seldom went 
 either tb Court or to the Academy, and was alrhost inaccessible to strangers. 
 Of the Enghsh and of English literature he knew nothing. He had hardly 
 heard the name of Dryden. Some of our countrymen in the warmth of their 
 patriotism have asserted that this ignorance must have been affected. Wc 
 own that we see no ground for snch a supposition. English literature was to 
 the French of the age of Louis XIV. what German literature was to Our* own 
 grandfathers. Very few, we suspect, of the accomplished men who, sixty or 
 seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester Square with Sir Joshua, or at 
 Streatham with Mrs. Thrale, had the slightest notion that Wicland was one 
 of the first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dispute, the first critic 
 in Europe. Boileau knew just as little about the " Paradise Lost," and 
 about " Absolom and Ahitophel ; " but he had rend A'l(li=nn's Latin poem? 
 
•778 ■ LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 and admired them greatly. They had given him, he said, quite a new 
 notion of the state of learning and taste amonc^ the English. Johnson will 
 have it that these praises were insincere. "Nothing," says he, "is better 
 known of Boileau than that he had an injudicious and peevish contempt of 
 modern Latin ; and, therefore, his profession of regard was proiiahly the effect 
 of his civility rather than approbation." Now, nothing is better known of 
 Boileau than that he was singularly sparing of compliments. We do not re- 
 member that either friendship or fear ever induced him to bestow praise on any 
 composition which he did not approve. On literary questions, his caustic, 
 disdainful and self-confident spirit rebelled against that authority to which every- 
 thing else in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Louis XIV., 
 firmly and even rudely, that his Majesty knew nothing about poetry, and ad- 
 mired verses which were detestable. What was there in Addison s position 
 that could induce the satirist, whose stern and fastidious temper had been the 
 dread of two generations, to turn sycophant for the first and last time ? Nor 
 was Boileau's contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. Pie 
 thought, indeed, that no poem of the first order would ever be written in a 
 dead language. And did he think amiss ? Has not the. experience of centu- 
 ries confirmed his opinion ? Boileau also thought it probable that in the 
 best modern Latin, a writer in the Augustan age would have detected 
 ludicrous improprieties. And who can think otherwise ? What modern 
 scholar can honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the style 
 of Livy? Yet is it not certain that, in the style of Livy, Pollio, whose 
 taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the inelegant idiom 
 of the Po ? Has any modern scholar understood Latin better than Frederic 
 the Great understood French? Yet it is not notorious that Frederic the 
 Great after reading, speaking, writing P'rench, and nothing but P'rench, 
 during more than half a century, after unlearning his mother tongue in order 
 to learn French, after living familiarly during many years with P'rench asso- 
 ciates, could not, to the last, compose in French, without imminent risk of 
 committing soms mistake which would have moved a smile in the literary 
 circles of Paris ? Do we believe that Erasmus and P'racastorius wrote Latin 
 as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English ? And are there 
 not in the "Dissertation on India " (the last of Dr. Robertson's works), in 
 " Waverley," in " Marmion," Scotticisms at which a London apprentice would 
 laugh ? But does it follow, because we think thus, that we can find nothing 
 to admire in the noble alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs of Vincent 
 Bourne ? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant or tasteless as to be inca- 
 pable of appreciating good modern Latin. In the Tery letter to which John- 
 son alludes, Boileau says: " Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille par la 
 bl^mer les vers Latins que vous m'avez envoyes d'un de vos illustres academi- 
 ciens. Je les ai trouves fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non 
 pas d'Horace et de Virgile." Several poems, in modern Latin, have been 
 praised by Boileau quite as liberally as it was his habit to praise anything. 
 He says, for example, of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus seems to 
 have come to life again. But the best proof that Be i-eau did not feel the 
 undiscerning contempt for modern Latin verses which has been impivted-.to 
 him, is that he wrote and published Latin verses in several metres. Indeed, it 
 happens, curiously enough, that the most severe censure ever pronounced by 
 him on modern Latin is conveyed in Latin hexameters. We allude to the frag- 
 ment which begins — 
 
 " Quid Humerus iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
 Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, 
 Musa, jubes?'' 
 
 For these reasons we feel assured that the praise which Boileau bestowed 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 779 
 
 on the Machhia Gestictilantes and the Gerano-Pygmctontachia was sincere. 
 He certainly opened himself to Addison with a freedom which was a sure indi- 
 cation of esteem. Literature was the chief subject of conversation. The old 
 man talked on his favourite theme mudaTand well, indeed, as his young hearer 
 thought, incomparably well. Boileau had undoubtedly some of the qualities 
 of a great critic. He wanted imagination ; but he had strong sense. His 
 literary code was formed on narrow principles ; but in applying it, he showed 
 great judgment and penetration. In mere style, abstracted from the ideas of 
 which style is the garb, his taste was excellent. He was well acquainted 
 with the great Greek writers ; and, though unable fully to appreciate their 
 creative genius, admired the majestic simplicity of their manner, and had 
 learned from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we think, to dis- 
 cover in the Spectator and the Guardian^ traces of the influence, in part-salu- 
 tary and in part pernicious, which the mind of Boileau had on the mind of 
 Addison. 
 
 While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which made that capital a 
 disagreeable residence for an Englishman and a Whig. Charles, second of 
 the name, King of Spain, died, and bequeathed his dominions to PhiHp, 
 Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. The King of France, in direct 
 violation of his engagements both with Great Britain and with the States 
 General, accepted the bequest on behalf of his grandson. The House of 
 Bourbon was at the summit of human grandeur. England had been outwitted, 
 and found herself in a situation at once degrading and perilous. The people 
 of France, not presaging the calamities by which they were destined to expiate 
 tiie perfidy of their sovereign, went mad with pride and delight. Every 
 man looked as if a great estate had just been left him. "The French con- 
 versation," said Addison, "begins to grow insupportable; that which was 
 before the vainest nation in the world is now worse than ever." Sick of the 
 <trrogant exultation of the Parisians, and probably foreseeing that the peace 
 between France and England could not be of long duration he set off for Italy. 
 
 In December, 1700,* he embarked at Marseilles. Ashe glided along the 
 Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the sight of myrtles and olive trees, which 
 retained their verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he encountered 
 one of the black storms of the Mediterranean. The captain of the ship gave 
 up all for lost, and confessed himself to a capuchin who happened to be on 
 board. The English heretic, in the meantime, fortified himself against the 
 terrors of death with devotions of a very difterent kind. How strong an 
 impression this perilous voyage made on him appears from the ode, "How 
 are Thy servants blest, O Lord ! " which was long after published in the Spec- 
 tator. After some days of discomfort and danger, Addison was glad to land 
 at Savona, and to make his way, over mountains where no road had yet been 
 hewn out by art, to the city of Genoa. 
 
 At Genoa, still ruled by her own Doge, and by the nobles whose names 
 were inscribed on her " Book of Gold," Addison made a short stay. He ad- 
 mired the narrow streets overhung by long lines of towering palaces, the 
 walls rich with frescoes, the gorgeous temple of the Annunciation, and the 
 tapestries whereon were recorded the long glories of the house of Doria. 
 Thence he hastened to Milan, where he contemplated the Gothic magnificence 
 of the cathedral with more wonder than pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus 
 while a gale was blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when Virgil 
 looked upon them. At Ve^lice, then the gayest spot in Europe, the traveller 
 
 * It is strange that Addison should, in the first line of his travels, have misdated his 
 departure from Marseilles by a whole year, and still more strange that this slip of the 
 pen, which throws the whole narrative into inextricable confusion, should have oeen re- 
 peated in a succession of editions, and never detected by Tickel! or by Hurd. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 
 
 spent the Carnival, the gayest season of the year, in the midst of masques, 
 dances and serenades. Here he was at once diverted and provoked by the 
 absurd dramatic pieces which then disgraced the Itahan stage. To one of 
 those pieces, however, he was indebted for a valuable hint. He was present 
 when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato was performed. Cato, it seems, 
 '\vas in love with a daughter of Scipio. The lady had given her heart to 
 Gsesar. The rejected lover determined to destroy himself. He appeared 
 seated in his library, a dagger in his hand, a Plutarch and a Tasso before 
 him ; and, in this positi(;^n, he pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the 
 blow. We are surprised that .so remarkable a circumstance as this should 
 have escaped the notice of all Addison's biographers. There cannot, we 
 conceive, be the smallest doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and 
 anachronisms, struck the traveller's imagination and suggested to him the 
 thought of bringing Cato on the English stage. It is well known that about 
 this time he began his tragedy, and that he finished the first four acts before 
 he returned to England. 
 
 On his way from Venice to Rome he was drawn some miles out of the 
 beatea road by a wish to see the smallest independent state in Europe. 
 .On a rock where the snow still lay, though the Italian spring was now far 
 advanced, was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads which led 
 ')to the secluded town were so bad that few travellers had ever visited it, and 
 none had ever published an account of it. Addison could not suppress a good- 
 natured smile, at the simple manners and institutions of this singular com- 
 munity. But he observed, with the exultation of a Whig, that the rude 
 mountain tract which formed the territory of the republic swarmed with an 
 honest, healthy and contented peasantry, while the rich plain which sur- 
 rounded the metropolis of civil and spiritual tyranny was scarcely less deso* 
 late than the uncleared wilds of America. ;.:^ 
 
 At Rome Addison remained on his first visit only long enough to catch ^ 
 glimpse of St. Peter's and of the Pantheon. His haste is the more extra- 
 ordinary because the Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no hint 
 which can enable us to pronounce why he chose to fly from a spectacle which 
 every year allure's from distant regions persons of far less taste and sensibility 
 than his. Possibly, travelling, as he did, at the charge of a Government 
 distinguished by its enmity to the Church of Rome, he may have thought 
 that it would be imprudent in him to assist at the most magnificent rite of 
 that Church. Many eyes would be upon him; and he might find it dif- 
 ficult to behave in such a manner as to give offence neither to his patrons 
 in England nor to those among whom he resided. Whatever his motives may 
 have been, he turned his back on the most august and affecting ceremony 
 which is known among men and posted along the Appian way to Naples. 
 
 Naples was then destitute of what are now, pei'haps, its chief attractions. 
 The lovely bay and the awful mountain were indeed there. But a farmhouse 
 stood on the theatre of Herculaneum, and rows of vines grew over the streets 
 of Pompeii. The temples of Poestum had not, indeed, been hidden from the eye 
 of man by any great convulsion of nature ; but, strange to say, their existence 
 was a secret even to artists and antiquaries. Though situated within a few 
 hours' journey of a great capital, where Salvator had not long before painted" 
 and where Vico was then lecturing, those noble remains were as little known 
 to Europe as the ruined cities overgrown by the forests of Yucatan. What was 
 to be seen at Naples, Addison saw. He chmbed Vesuvius, explored the 
 tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered among the vines and almond trees of Caprese. 
 But neither the wonders of nature nor those of art could so occupy his attention 
 as to prevent him from noticing, though cursorily, the abuses of the govern- 
 ment and the misery of the people, The great kingdoni which had ju§t 
 
f tr>TIVER»il-^ 
 
 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 descended to Philip the Fifth, was in a state of paralytic dotage. Even Castile 
 and Aragon were sunk in wretchedness. Yet, compared with the Italian 
 dependengies of the Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon might be called 
 prosperous. It is clear that all the obsefvations which Addison made in Italy 
 .tended to confirm him in the political opinions which he had adopted at 
 ^■bome. To the last he always spoke of foreign travel as the best cure for 
 J'Acobitism. In his *' P'reeholder," the Tory Foxhunter asks what travelling 
 is good for, except to teach a man to jabber French and to talk against 
 tnkssive obedience. 
 
 ^''From Naples Addison returned to Rome by sea, along the coast which his 
 ■;&Vourite Virgil had celebrated. The felucca passed- the headland where the 
 i^rand trumpet were placed by the Trojan adventurers on the tombof Misenus, 
 aiid anchored at night under the shelter of the fabled promontory of Circe. 
 The voyage ended in the Tiber, still overhung with dark verdure, and still 
 turbid with yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of ^Eneas. From the ruined 
 port of Ostia the stranger hurried to Rome ; and at Rome he remained during 
 those hot :xA sickly months when, eveft in the Augustan age, all who could 
 make their escape fled from mad dogs, and from streets black with funerals, to 
 gather the first figs of the season in the country. It is probable that when he, 
 long after, poured forth in verse his gratitude to the Providence which had 
 enabled' him to breathe unhurt in tainted air, he was thinking of the August 
 and September which he passed at Rome. 
 
 It was not till the latter end of October that he tore himself away from the 
 iViasterpieces of ancient and modern art which are collected in the city so long 
 the mistress of the world. lie then journeyed northward, passed through 
 Sienna, and for a moment forgot his prejudices in favour of classic architec- 
 ture as he looked on the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent some 
 days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with the pleasures of ambition 
 and impatient of its pains, fearing both parties and loving neither, had deter- 
 mined to hide in an Italian retreat talents and accomplishments which, if they 
 had been united with fixed principles and civil courage, might have made him 
 the foremost man of his age. These days, we are told, passed pleasantly ; and 
 we can easily believe it. For Addison was a delightful companion when he 
 was at his ease ; and the Duke, though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, 
 had the invaluable art of putting at ease all who came near him. 
 ^;:' Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to the sculptures in 
 tile museum, which he preferred even to those of the Vatican. lie then pur- 
 sued his journey tlirough a country in which the ravages of the last war were 
 still discernible, and in which all men were looking forward with dread to a 
 still fiercer conflict. Eugene had already descended from the Rhsetian Alps to 
 dispute with Catinat the rich plain of Lorabardy. The faithless ruler of Savoy 
 was still reckoned among the allies of Louis. England had not yet actually 
 declared war against France, but Manchester had left Paris ; and the nego- 
 tiations which produced the Grand Alliance against the House of Bourbon 
 were in progress. Under such circumstances it was desirable for an English 
 traveller to reach neutral ground without delay. Addison resolved to cross 
 Mont Cenis. It was December, and the road was very different from that which 
 now reminds the stranger of the power and genius of Napoleon. The winter, 
 however, was mild, and the passage was, for those times, easy. To this 
 jouirney Addison alluded when, in the < de which we have already quoted, he 
 said that for him the Divine goodness had * ' warmed the hoary Alpine hills. " 
 
 It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he composed his Epistle to his 
 friend Montagu, now Lord Halifax. That Epistle, once widely renowned, is 
 now knpvvn only to curious readei-s, and will hardly be considered by those tp 
 whom it is known as 'n any perceptible degree heightening Addison's fam^ 
 
iM LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 It'js, However, decidedly superior to any English compositjon which he had 
 previously published. Nay, v/e think it quite as good as any poem in heroic 
 metre' which appeared during the interval between the death of Dryden and 
 the publication of the -'Essay on Criticism." It contains passages as good as 
 the second-rate passages of Pope, and would have added to the reputation of 
 Parnell or Prior. 
 
 But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the "Epistle," it un- 
 doubtedly does honour to the principles and spirit of the author. Halifax had 
 now nothing to give. He had fallen from power, had been held up to obloquy, 
 had been impeached by the House of Commons, and, though his Peers had 
 dismissed the impeachment,* had, as it seemed, little chance of ever again 
 filling high office. The *' Epistle," written at such a time, is one among many 
 proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice or meanness in the suavity and 
 moderation which distinguished Addison from all the other public men of those 
 stormy times. 
 
 At Geneva the traveller learned that a partial change of ministry had taken 
 place in England, and that the Earl of" Manchester had become Secretary of 
 State, t Manchester exerted himself to serve his young friend. It was thought 
 advisable that an English agent should be near the person of Eugene in Italy ; 
 and Addison, whose diplomatic education was now finished, was tlje man 
 selected. He was preparing to enter on his honourable functions when all 
 his prospects were for a time darkened by the death of William III. 
 
 Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, political and religious, to 
 the Whig party. That aversion appeared in the first measures of her reign. 
 Manchester was deprived of the seals, after he had held them only a fev/ weeks. 
 Neither Somers nor Plalifax was sworn of the Privy Council. Addison shared 
 the fate of his three patrons. His hopes of employment in the public service 
 were at an end ; his pension was stopped, and it was necessary for him to sup- 
 port himself by his own exertions. He became tutor to a young English 
 traveller, and appears to have rambled with his pupil over great part of Swit- 
 zerland and Germany. At this time he wrote his pleasing treatise on *' Medals." 
 It was not pubhshed till after his death ; but several distinguished scholars saw 
 the manuscript and gave just praise to the grace of the style and to the learn- 
 ing and ingenuity evinced by the quotations. 
 
 From Germany Addison repaired to Holland, where he learned the melan- 
 choly news of his father's death. After passing some months in the United 
 Provinces, he returned about the close of the year 1703 to England. He was 
 there cordially received ■ by his friends, and introduced by them into the Kit- 
 Cat Club — a society in which were collected all the various talents and accom- 
 plishments which then gave lustre to the Whig party. 
 
 Addison was, during some months after his return from the Continent, hard 
 pressed by pecuniary difficulties. But it was soon in the power of his noble 
 patrons to serve him effectually. A political change, silent and gradual, but of 
 the highest importance, was in daily progress. J The accession of Anne had 
 
 * Miss Aikin says (i. 121) that the epistle was v/ritVen long before Halifax was 
 justified by the Lords. This is a mistake. The epist'e was written iu December, 1701 ; 
 the impeachment had been dismissed in the preceding June. 
 
 t Miss Aikin misdates this event by a year (i. 93). 
 
 t We are sorry to say that, in the account which Miss Aikin gives of the politics of 
 this period there are more errors than sentences. Rochester was the Queen's uncle ; 
 Miss Aikin calls him tht,- Queen's cousin. The battle of Blenheim was tought in Marl- 
 borough's third campaign ; Miss Aikin says that it was fought in ivlarlborough's second 
 campaign. She confounds the dispute which arose in 1703, beiweeu the two Houses, 
 about Lord Halifax, with the dispute about the Aylesbury men, which was determined 
 by the dissolution of 1703. These mistakes and four or live others will be foaqd ^Yittli'^^ 
 the space of about two pages (i, 165, iG5, 167). 
 
UPR AND WJ^ITINCS OF ADDISON. 1%^ 
 
 beeft hailed by the Tories with transports of joy and hope ; and, for a time, it 
 seemed that the Whigs had fallen never to rise again. The throne was sur- 
 rounded by men supposed to be attachecJ^ to the prerogative and to the Church ; 
 and among these none stood so high ijrf^the favour of the sovereign as the 
 Lord Treasurer Godolphin and the Captain General Marlborough. 
 
 The country gentlemen and country clergymen fully expected that the 
 policy of these ministers would be directly opposed to that which had been 
 almost constantly followed by William ; that the landed interest would be 
 favoured at the expense of trade; that no addition would be made to the 
 funded debt ; that the privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late King 
 would be curtailed, if not withdrawn ; that the war with France, if there must 
 be such a war, would, on our part, be almost entirely naval ; and that the 
 Government with avoid close connection with foreign powers, and, above all, 
 with Holland. 
 
 But the countrj' gentlemen and coimtry clergymen were fated to be deceived, 
 not for the last time. The prejudices and passions which raged without con- 
 trol in vicarages, in cathedral closes, and i.i the manor-houses of fox-hunting 
 squires, were not shared by the chiefs of the ministry. Those statesmen saw 
 that it was both for the public interest, and for their own interest, to adopt a 
 "i'hig policy, at least as respected the alliances of the country and the conduct 
 of the war. But, if the foreign policy of the Whigs were adopted, it was 
 impossible to abctain from adopting also their financial policy. The natural 
 consequences folio v»'ed. The rigid Tories were alienated from the Govern- 
 ment. The votes of the Whigs became necessary to it. The votes of the 
 Whigs could be secured only by further concessions ; and further concessions 
 the Queen was induced to make. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties bore a close analogy 
 to the state of parties in 1826. In 1826, as in 1704, there was a Tory m.inistry 
 divided into two hostile sections. The position of Air. Canning and his friends 
 in 1826 corresponded to that which Marlborough and Godolj^hin occupied in cJ(— l^ 
 1704. Nottingham and Jersey were, in 1704, what Lord Eldon and Lord ^ ^ ^^ 
 Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 were in a situation resembling 
 that in which the Whigs of 1S26 stood. In 1704, Scmers, Hahfax, Sunder- 
 land, Cowper were not in office. There was no avowed coalition between 
 them and the moderate Tories. It is probable that no direct communication 
 tending to such a coalition had yet taken place ; yet all men saw that such a 
 coalition was inevitable, nay, that it was already half formed. Such, or nearly 
 such, was the state of tnings when tidings arrived of the great battle fought at 
 Blenheim on the 13th August, 1704. By the Whigs the news was hailed with 
 transports of joy and pride. No fault, no cause of quarrel, could be remembered 
 by them against the Commander whose genius had, in one day, changed thetace 
 of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, humbled the House of Bourbon^ and 
 secured the Act of Settlement against foreign hostility. The feeling of the 
 Tories was very different. They could not, indeed, without imprudence, 
 openly express regret at an event so glorious to their country ; but their con- 
 gratulations were so cold and sullen as to give deep disgust to the victorious 
 general and his friends. Vr 
 
 Godolphin was not a reading man. W^hatever time he could spare ffotn 
 business he was in the habit of spending at Newmarket or at the card-taole. 
 But he was not absolutely indifferent to poetry ; and he was too intelHgent in 
 observer not to perceive that literature was a formidable engine of political 
 warfare, and that the great Whig leaders had strengthened their party and raised 
 their character by rrtending a liberal and judicious patronage to good writers. 
 He was mortified, and not without reason, by the exceeding badness of the 
 poems which appeared in honour of the battle of Blenheim. One of these 
 
 •^ 
 
784 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON, 
 
 poems has been rescued from oblivion by the exquisite absurdity of three 
 hnes. 
 
 •' Think of two thousand gentlemen at least, 
 And each man mounted on his capering beast ; 
 
 . Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." 
 
 .yr lilVhere to procure better verses the Treasurer did not know. He understood 
 how to negotiate a loan or remit a subsidy : he was also well versed in the 
 history of running horses and fighting cocks ; but his acquaintance among the 
 poets was very small. He consulted Halifax, but Halifax affected to decline 
 the office of adviser. He had, he said, done his best, when he had pov/er,. to 
 encourage men whose abilities and acquirements might do honour to their 
 country. Those times were over. Other maxims had prevailed. Merit wasi 
 suffered to pine in obscurity ; and the public money was squandered on the un- 
 deserving. " I do know," he added, "a gentleman who would .celebrate the 
 battle in a manner worthy of the subject; but I will not name him." Godol- 
 phin, who was expert at the soft answer which turneth away wrath, and who 
 was under the necessity of paying court to the Whigs, gently replied that there 
 was too much ground for Halifax's complaints, but that what was amiss should 
 in time be rectified ; and that in the meantime the services of a man such as 
 Halifax had described should be liberally rewarded. Hahfax then mentioned 
 Addison, but, .mindful of the dignity as well as of the pecuniary interest of his 
 friend, insisted that the Minister should apply in the most courteous manner to 
 Addison himself ; and this Godolphin promised to do. 
 
 Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of stairs, over a small shop in 
 the Haymarket. In this humble lodging he was surprised, on the morning 
 which followed the conversation between Godolphin and Halifax, by a visit 
 from no less a person than the Right Honourable Henry Boyle, then Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards Lord Carleton.* This high-born 
 minister had been sent by the Lord Treasurer as ambassador to the needy poet. 
 Addison readily undertook the proposed task, a task which, to so good a Whig, 
 was probably a pleasure. When the poem was little more than half finished, 
 he showed it to Godolphin, who was delighted with it, and particularly with 
 the famous similitude of the Angel. Addison was instantly appointed to a 
 Commissionership, with about two hundred pounds a-year, and was assured 
 that this appointment was only an earnest of greater favours. 
 
 The "Campaign" came forth, and was as much admired by the public as 
 by the Minister. It pleases us less on the whole than the " Epistle to Halifax." 
 Yet it undoubtedly ranks high among the poems which appeared during the 
 interval between the death of Dryden and the dawn of Pope's genius. The 
 chief merit of the " Campaign," we think, is that which was noticed by John- 
 son—the manly and rational rejection of fiction. The first great poet whosa 
 works have come down to us sang of war long before war became a science or 
 a trade. If, in his time, there was enmity between two little Greek towns, 
 each poured forth its crowd of citizens, ignorant of discipline, and armed with 
 implements of labour rudely turned into weapons. On each side appeared 
 conspicuous a few chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them to procure good armour, 
 horses and chariots, and whose leisure had enabled them to practice military exer- 
 cises. One such chief, if he were a man of great strength, agility and courage, 
 would probably be more formidable than twenty common men ; and the force and 
 dexterity with which he flung his spear might have no inconsiderable share in de- 
 ciding the event of the day. Such were probably the battles with which Homer 
 was familiar. But Homer related the actions of men of a former generation — ■ 
 of men who sprang from the gods, and communed with the gods face to face— 
 
 * Miss Aikin says that he was afterwards Lord Orrery. This is a mistake (i. 170). 
 
Life and writi vcs of addison: 785 
 
 of men, one of whom could with ease hurl rocks which two sturdy hinds of a 
 later period would be unable even to lift. He, therefore, naturally represented 
 their martial exploits as resembling in kind, but far surpassing in magnitude, 
 those of the stoutest and most expert coHit)atants of his own age. Achilles, clad 
 in celestial armour, drawn by celestial coursers, grasping the spear which none 
 but himself could raise, driving all Troy and Lycia belpre him, and choking 
 Scamander with dead, was only a magnificent exaggeration of the real hero, 
 who, strong, fearless, accustomed to the use of weapons, guarded by a shield 
 and helmet of the best Sidonian fabric and whirled along by horses of Thessalian 
 breed, struck down with his own right arm foe after foe. In all rude societies 
 similar notions are found. There are at this day countries where the Lifeguards- 
 man Shaw would be considered as a much greater warrior than the Duke of 
 Wellington. Buonaparte loved to describe the astonishment with which the 
 Mamelukes looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad Bey, distinguished above 
 all his fellows by his bodily strength and by the skill with which he managed 
 his horse and his sabre, could not believe that a man who was scarcely five feet 
 high and rode like a butcher could be the greatest soldier in Europe. 
 
 Homer's descriptions of war had, therefore, as much truth as poetry requires. 
 But truth was altogether wanting to the performances of those who, writing 
 about battles which had scarcely anything in common with the battles of his 
 times, servilely imitated his manner. The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, 
 is positively nauseous. He undertook to record in verse the vicissitudes of a 
 great struggle between generals of the first order, and his narrative is made up 
 of the hideous wounds which these generals inflicted with their own hands. 
 Asdrubal flings a spear which grazes the shoulder of the consul Nero ; but Nero 
 sends his spear into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris, and Butes, and Maris, 
 and Arses, and the long-haired Adherbes, and the gigantic Thylis, and Sapharus, 
 and Monsesus, and the trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through 
 the groin with a stake and breaks the backbone of Teleshius with a huge 
 stone. This detestable fashion M^as copied in modern times, and continued to 
 prevail down to the age of Addison. Several versifiers had described William 
 turning thousands to flight by his single prowess and dyeing (he Boyne with 
 Irish blood. Nay, so estimable a writer as John Philips, the author of the 
 " Splendid Shilling," represented Marlborough as having won the battle of 
 Blenheim merely by strength of muscle and skill in fence. The following lines 
 may serve as an example : — 
 
 " Churchill viewing where 
 The violence of Tallard most prevailed, 
 Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 
 Precipitate he rode, urging his way 
 O'er hills of gasping heroes and fallen steeds 
 Roiling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 
 Attends his furious course. Around his head 
 The glowing balls play innocent, while he 
 With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 
 Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 
 He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground 
 Withheadless ranks. What can they do ? Or how 
 Withstand his wide-destroying sword? " 
 
 Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed from this ridiculous fashion. 
 He reserved his praise for the qualities whidh made Marlborough truly great-r 
 energy, sagacity, military science. But, above all, the poet extolled the 
 firmness of that mind which, in the midst of confusion, uproar and slaughter, 
 examined and disposed everything with the serene wisdom of a higher intelli- 
 gence. 
 
 Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison of Marlborough to an 
 angel guiding the whirlwind. We will not dispute the general justice of John- 
 
7S6 Llim AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 
 
 son's remarks on this passage. But we must point out onie circumstance which 
 appears to have escaped ail tlie critics. The extraordinary effect which the 
 simile produced when it first appeared, and which to the following generations 
 seemed inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly attriinited to a line which most 
 readers now regard as a feeble parenthesis — 
 
 " Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia passed." 
 
 Addison spoke, not of a storm, but oithe storm. The great tempest of November, 
 1703, the only tempest which m oar latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical 
 'hurricane, had left a dreadful recollection in the minds of all men. No other 
 tempest was ever in this country the occasion of a parliamentary address or of 
 a public fast. Whole fl.eets had been cast away. Large mansions had been 
 blown down. One prelate had been buried beneath the ruins of his palace. 
 London and Bristol had presented the appearance of cities just sacked. 
 Hundreds of families were still in mourning. The prostrate trunks of large 
 trees and the ruins of houses still attested, in all the southern counties, the fury 
 of the blast. The popularity which the simile of the angel enjoyed among 
 Addison's contemporaries has always seemed to us to be a remarkable instance 
 of the advantage which, in rhetoric and poetry, the particular has over the 
 general. 
 
 Soon after the "Campaign " was published Addison's '' Narrative of hisTravels 
 in Italy." The first effect produced by this " Narrative" was disappointment. 
 The crowd of readers who expected politics and scandal, speculations on the pro- 
 jects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes about the jollities of convents and the 
 amours of cardinals and nuns, were confounded by finding that the writer's 
 mind was much more occupied by the war between the Trojans and Rutulians 
 than by the war between France and Austria, and that he seemed to have heard 
 no scandal of later elate than the gallantries of the Empress Faustina. In time, 
 however, the judgment of the many was overruled by that of the few ; and, 
 before the book was reprinted, it was so eagerly sought that it sold for five times 
 "the original price. It is still read with pleasure : the style is pure and flowing, 
 the classical quotations and allusions are numerous and happy, and we are now 
 and then charmed by that singularly humane and delicate humour in which 
 Addison excelled all men. Yet this agreeable work, even when considered 
 merely as the history of a literary tour, may justly be censured on account of its 
 faults of omission. We have already said that, though rich in extracts from 
 the Latin poets, it contains scarcely any references to the Latin orators and 
 historians. We must add that it contains little or rather no information respect- 
 ing the history and literature of modern Italy. To the best of our remembrance 
 Addison does not mention Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Berni, 
 Lorenzo de Medici or Machiavelli. He coldly tells us that at Ferrara he saw 
 the tomb of Ariosto, and that at Venice he heard the gondoliers sing verses of 
 Tasso. But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far less than for Valerius Flaccus 
 and Sidonius ApoUinaris. The gentle flow of the Ticin brings a line of Silius 
 to his mind. The sulphurous steam of Albula suggests to him several passages 
 of Martial. But he has not a word to say of the illustrious dead of Santa 
 Croce, he crosses the wood of Ravenna without recollecting the Spectre Hunts- 
 man, and wanders up and down Rimini without one thought of Francesca. At 
 Paris he had eagerly sought an introduction to Boileau ; but he seems not to 
 have been at all aware that at Florence he was in the vicinity of a poet with 
 whom Boileau could not sustain a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of 
 modern times, Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more remarkable because 
 Filicaja was the favourite poet of the all-accomplished Somers, under whose 
 protection Addison travelled, and to whom the ' account of the Travels is 
 dedicated. The truth is that Addison knew little and cared less about the 
 
*LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. ' 787 
 
 literature of modern Italy. Jlis iavourite models were Latin ; his favourite 
 critics were French. Half the Tuscan poetry that he had read seemed to him 
 monstrous and the other half tawdry, 
 
 1 lis ' ' Travels " were followed by the Hvely Opera of ' ' Rosamond. " This piece 
 jiyas ill set to music, and therefore failed on the stage, but it completely succeeded 
 in print, and is, indeed, "excellent in its kind. The smoothness with which the 
 verses glide, and the elasticity with which they bound, is to our ears, at least, 
 very pleasing. We are inclined to think that if Addison had left heroic 
 couplets to Pope and blank verse to Rowe, and had employed himself in 
 writing airy and spirited songs, his reputation as a poet would have stood far 
 higher than it now does. Some years after his death, " Rosamond " was set to 
 new music by Dr. Arne ; and was performed with complete success. Several 
 passages long retained their popularity, and were daily sung, during the latter 
 part of George the Second's reign, at all the harpischords in England. 
 
 While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, and the prospects of his 
 party, wave constantly becoming brighter and brighter. In the spring of 1705 
 the ministers were freed from the restraint imposed by a House of Commons 
 in which Tories of the most perverse class had the ascendency. The elections 
 were favourable to the Whigs. The coalition which had been tacitly and 
 gradually formed was now openly avowed. The Great Seal was given to 
 Gowper. Somers and Hahfax were sworn of the Council. Halifax was sent 
 in the following year to carry the decorations of the order of the garter to the 
 Electoral Prince of Hanover, and was accompanied on this honourable mission 
 by Addison, who had just been made Under Secretary of State. The 
 Secretary of State under whom Addison first served was Sir Charles Pledges, 
 a Tory. But Hedges was soon dismissed, to make room for the most vehement 
 of Whigs, Charles, Earl of Sunderland. In every department of the state, 
 indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled to give place to their opponents. 
 At ihe close of 1707, the Tories who still remained in office strove to rally, 
 with Harley at their head. But the attempt, though favoured by the Queen, 
 who had always been a Tory at heart, and who had now quarrelled with the 
 Duchess of Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The time was not yet. The 
 Captain General was at the height of popularity and glory. The Low 
 Church party had a majority in Parliament. The country squires and rectors, 
 though occasionally uttering a savage growl, were for the most part in a state 
 of torpor, which lasted till they were roused into activity, and, indeed, into 
 ixadness, by the prosecution of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents were 
 compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was complete. At the 
 general election of 1708, their strength in the House of Commons became 
 irresistible ; and, before the end of that year, Somers was made Lord President 
 of the Council and Wharton Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.* 
 , Addison sat for Malmesbury in the House of Commons which was elected 
 in 1708. But the Ilouse of Commons was not the field for him. The bashful- 
 
 . * Miss.Aikin has not ioformed herself accurately as to the politics of that time, Wei 
 glvea. single specimen. We could easily give many. "The Earl of Sunderland" she si}"S, 
 "was not suflered long to retain his hard-won secretaryship. In the last month ot 1708 he 
 was dismissed to make room for F.ord Dartmouth, who ranked with the Tories. Just at 
 this time the Earl of Wharton, being appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, named Mr. 
 Addison his chief secretary," (1235), Sunderland was not dismissed to make room for 
 Dartmouth till June, 1710; and must certainly Wharton would never have hern appointed 
 Lord Li(-utenant at all if tie had not been appointed long before Sunderland's dismissal. 
 Miss Aikin's mistake exactly resembles that of a person who should relate the history of 
 cur times as follows ; " Lord John RiiiJseU was dismissed in 1839 from the Home office, to 
 make room for Sir James Graham, who ranked with the Tories, but just at this time, Earl 
 Fortescne w^as appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with Lord Morpeth for his secre- 
 tary," Such a narrative would give to posterity rather a strapge notion of the ministerial 
 reyoiutiopsofQucqa Victoria's days, 
 
788 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON f 
 
 ness of his nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. He once rosfe, 
 but could not overcome his diffidence, and ever after remained silent. Nobody 
 can think it strange that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many, 
 probably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as a speaker should have had 
 no unfavourable effect on his success as a politician. In our time, a man of high 
 rank and great fortune might, though speaking very little and very ill, hold 
 a considerable post. But it would now be inconceivable that a mere adventurer, 
 a man who, when out of office, must live by his pen, should in a few years be- 
 come successively Under Secretary of State, Chief Secretary for Ireland, and 
 Secretary of State, without some oratorical talent. Addison, without high birth, 
 and with little property, rose to a post which Dukes, the heads of the great 
 houses of Talbot, Russell and Bentick, have thought it an honour to fill. 
 Without opening his lips in debate, he rose to a post, the highest that Chatham 
 or Fox ever reached. And this he did before he had been nine years in 
 Parliament. We must look for the explanation of this seeming miracle to the 
 peculiar circumstances in which that generation was placed. During the 
 interval which elapsed between the time when the censorship of the Press 
 ceased and the time when parliamentary proceedings began to be freely 
 reported, literary talents were, to a public man, of much more importance, 
 and oratorical talents of much less importance, than in our time. At present 
 the best way of giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or an argument is to 
 introduce that fact or argument into a speech made in Parliament. If a 
 political tract were to appear superior to the " Conduct of the Allies," or to the 
 best numbers of the Fyeeholde7; the circulation of such a tract would be 
 languid indeed when compared with the circulation of every remarkable 
 word uttered in the deliberations of the legislature. A speech made in the 
 House of Commons at four in the morning is on thirty thousand tables before 
 ten. A speech made on the Monday is read on the Wednesday by multitudes 
 in Antrim and Aberdeenshire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand 
 writer, has to a great extent superseded the pamphleteer. Tt was not so in the 
 reign of Anne. The best speech could then produce no effect except on those 
 who heard it. It was only by means of the Press that the opinion of the 
 public without doors could be influenced ; and the opinion of the public with- 
 without doors could not but be of the highest importance in a country 
 governed by parliaments ; and, indeed, at that time governed by triennial par- 
 liaments. The pen was, therefore, a more formidable political engine than the 
 tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox contended only in Parliament. But Walpole 
 and Pulteney, the Pitt and Fox of an earlier period, had not done half of what 
 was necessary when they sat down aniidst the acclamations of the House of 
 Commons. They had still to plead their cause before the country, and this 
 they could do only by means of the press. Their works are now forgotten. 
 But it is certain that there were in Grub Street few more assidious scribblers of 
 thoughts, letters, answers, remarks, than these two great chiefs of parties. 
 Pulteney, when leader of the Opposition, and possessed of ;!^30,ooo a year, 
 edited the Craftsman. Walpole, though not a man of literary habits, was 
 the author of at least ten pamphlets, and retouched and corrected many more. 
 These facts sufficiently show of how great importance literary assistance then 
 was to the contending parties, v St. John was, certainly, in Anne's reign, the best 
 Tory speaker ; Cowper was probably the best Whig speaker. But it may well 
 be doubted whether St. John did so much for the Tories as Swift, and whether 
 Cowper did so much for the Whigs as Addison. When these things are duly 
 considered, it will not be thought strange that Addison should have climbed 
 higher in the state than any other Englishman has ever, by means merely of 
 literary talents, beep able to climb, Swift would, in all probability, have 
 cbmbed as high, if he bad \\o\ bgen encumbered by his cassoqk ajid his 
 
LIFE 4^P Wl<Ij:hNGS^:C;iF ADDISON. 789 
 
 pudding sleeves. As far as the homage of the,gj;eajl;jWi;fft^i§l^,if|. had as much 
 of it as if h'^ had been Lord Treasurer. ,' ,,, , . 
 
 To the influence which Addison derived from his literary talents was added 
 all the influence which arises from clfilractcr. The world, always ready to 
 think the worst of needy political adventurers, was forced to make one 
 exception. Restlessness, violence, audacity, laxity of principle, are the vices 
 ordinarily attributed to that class of men. But faction itself could not deny 
 that Addison had, through all changes of fortune, been strictly faithful to his 
 early opinions and to his early friends ; that his integrity was without stain ; 
 that his whole deportment indicated a fine sense of the becoming ; that, in tl\e 
 utmost heat of controversy, his zeal was tempered by a regard for truth, 
 humanity and social decorum ; that no outrage could ever provoke him to 
 retaliation unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman ; and that his only faults 
 were a too sensitive delicacy and a modesty which amounted to bashfulness. 
 
 lie was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of hix time ; and mucli 
 of his popularity he owed, we believe, to that very timidity which his friends 
 lamented. That timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his talents to 
 the best advantage. But it propitiated Nemesis. It averted that envy 
 which would otherwise have been excited by fame so splendid, and by so 
 rapid an elevation. No man is so great a favourite with the public as he 'who is 
 at once an object of admiration, of respect and of pity ; and such were 
 the feelings which Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed the privilege of 
 hearing his familiar conversation, declared with one voice that it was superior 
 even to his writings. The brilliant Mary jNIonlagu said, that she had known 
 all the wits, and that Addison was the best company in the world. The 
 malignant Pope was forced to own that there was a charm in Addison's talk 
 which could be found nowhere else. Swift, when burning with animosity 
 against the WTiigs, could not but confess to Stella that, after all, he had never 
 known any associate so agreeable as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of 
 lively conversation, said, that the conversation of Addison was at once the 
 most polite and the most mirthful that could be imagined — that it was Terence 
 and Catullus in one, heightened by an exquisite something which was neither 
 Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. Young, an excellent judge of 
 serious conversation, said, that when Addison was at his ease, he went on 
 in a noble strain of thought and language, so as to chain the attention of 
 every hearer. Nor were his great colloquial powers more admirable than the 
 courtesy and softness of heart , which appeared in his -conversation. At the 
 same time, it would be too much to say that he was wliolly devoid of the 
 malice which is, perhaps, inseparable from a keen sense of the ludicrous. lie 
 had one habit which both Swift and Stella applauded, and which we hardly 
 know how to blame. If his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right 
 vvere ill received, he changed his tone, " assented with civil leer," and lured 
 the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper into absurdity. That such was his 
 practice, we should, we think, have guessed from his works. The laller^s^ 
 criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, and the Spectator's dialogue with the politi- 
 cian who is so zealous for the honour of Lady Q — p — t — s, are excellent 
 specimens of this innocent mischief. 
 
 Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But his rare gifts were not 
 exhibited to crowds or to strangers. ^Vs soon as he entered a large company, 
 as soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were sealed and his manners 
 became constrained. None who met him only in great assemblies would have 
 bieen able to believe that he was the same man who had often kept a few 
 friends listening and laughing round a table, from the time when the play 
 ended, till the clock of St. Paul's in Covent Garden struck four. Vet, even 
 %\ such a table, he was not seen IQ the best advantage. Jo enjoy his conv^r- 
 
790 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 sation in the highest perfection, it was necessary to be alone with him, and to 
 hear him, in his own phrase, tliink aloud. " There is no such thing," he 
 used to say, *' as real conversation, but between two persons." 
 
 This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful nor unamiable, led Addi- 
 son into the two most serious faults which can with justice be imputed to 
 him. He found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine intellect, 
 and was, therefore, too easily seduced into convivial excess. Such excess was 
 in that age regarded, even by grave men, as the most venial of all pecca- 
 dilloes ; and was so far from being a mark of ill-breeding, that it was almost 
 essential to the character of a fine gentleman. But the smallest speck is 
 seen on a white ground ; and almost all the biographers of Addison have 
 said something about this failing. Of any other statesman or writer of Queen 
 Anne's reign, we should no more think, of saying that he sometimes took too 
 mach wine, thanthat he wore a long wig and a sword. 
 
 To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature, we must ascribe another 
 fault which generally arises from a very different cause. He became a little 
 'too fond of seeing himself surrounded by a small circle of admirers, to whom he 
 vvas as a King or rather as a God, All these men were far inferior to him in 
 ability, and some of them had very serious faults. Nor did those faults escape 
 his observation ; for, if ever there was an eye which saw through and through 
 men, it was the eye of Addison. But, with the keenest observation, and the 
 iinest sense of the ridiculous, he had a large charity. The feeling with which 
 he looked on most of his humble companions was one of benevolence, slightly 
 tinctured with contempt. He was at perfect ease in their company ; he was 
 grateful for their devoted attachment ; and he loaded them with benefits. 
 Their veneration for him appears to have exceeded that with which Johnson 
 was regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd. It was not in the power of 
 adulation to turn such a head or deprave such a heart as Addison's. But 
 it must in candour be admitted that he contracted some of the faults which can 
 scarcely be avoided by any person who is so unfortunate as to be the oracle of 
 a small literary coterie. 
 
 One member of this little society was Eustace Budgell, a young Templar of 
 some literature, and a distant relation of Addison. There was at this time no 
 stain on the character o» Budgell, and it is not improbable that his career 
 would have been prosperous and honourable if the life of his cousin had 
 been prolonged. But when the master was laid in the grave, the disciple broke 
 loose from all restraint, descended rapidly from one degree of vice and misery 
 to. another, ruined his fortune by follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, 
 and at length closed a wicked and unhappy life by self-murder. Yet, to the 
 last, the wretched man, gambler, lampooner, cheat, forger, as he was, retained 
 his affection and veneration for Addison, and recorded those feelings in the 
 last lines which he traced before he hid himself from infamy under London 
 Bridge. 
 
 Another of Addison's favourite companions was Ambrose Phillipps, a good 
 Whig and a middling poet, who had the honour of bringing into fashion a 
 species of composition which has been called, after his name, Namby-Pantby. 
 But the most remarkable members of the little senate, as Pope long afterwards 
 called it, were Richard Steele -and Thomas Tickell. 
 
 Steele had known Addison from childhood. They had been together at 
 the Charter House and at Oxford ; but circumstances had then, for a time, 
 separated them widely. Steele had left college without taking a degree, had 
 been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a vagrant life, had served in 
 the army, had tried to find the philosopher's stone and had written a reli- 
 gious treatise and several comedies. He was one of those people whom it is 
 impossible either to hfit^ or to respQct, His temper was svyeet, his affections 
 
UPE AND WRITINGS OF ADDtSON. 79i 
 
 warm, his spirits lively, his passions strong, and his principles weak. His life 
 was spent in sinning and repenting ; in inculcating what was right and doing 
 what was wrong. In speculation, he was a man of piety and honour ; in 
 practice, he was much of the rake antfa little of the swindler. He was, how- 
 ever, so goodnatured that it was not easy to be seriously angry with him, 
 and that even rigid moralists felt more inclined to pity than to blame him, 
 when he diced himself into a spunging house or drank himself into a fever. 
 Addison regarded Steele with kindness not unmingled with scorn — tried, with 
 little success, to keep him out of scrapes, introduced him to the great, procured 
 a good place for him, corrected his plays and, though by no means rich, 
 lent him large sufns of money. One of these loans appears, from a letter dated 
 in August, 1708, to have amounted to a thousand pounds. These pecuniary 
 transactions probably led to frequent bickerings. It is said that, on one 
 occasion, Steele's negligence, or dishonesty, provoked Addison to repay 
 himself by the help of a bailiff. We cannot join with Miss Aikin in reject- 
 ing this story. Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it from Steele. Few 
 private transactions which took place a hundred and twenty years ago are 
 proved by stronger evidence than this. But we can by no means agree with 
 those who condemn Addison's severity. The most amiable of mankind may 
 well be moved to indignation, when what he has earned hardly, and lent with 
 ^reat inconvenience to himself, for the purpose of relieving a friend in distress, 
 JS squandered with insane profusion. We will illustrate our meaning by an 
 example, which is not the less striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr. 
 Harrison, in Fielding's "Amelia," is represented as the most benevolent of 
 human beings ; yet he takes in execution, not only the goods, but the person of 
 his friend Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure because he has 
 been informed that Booth, while pleading poverty as an excuse for not paying 
 just debts, has been buying fine jewellery and setting up a coach. No person 
 who is well acquainted with Steele's life and correspondence can doubt that he 
 behaved quite as ill to Addison as Booth was accused of behaving to Dr. 
 Harrison. The real history, we have little doubt, was something like this : — 
 A letter comes to Addison, imploring help in pathetic terms, and promising 
 reformation and speedy repayment. Poor Dick declares that he has not an 
 inch of candle, or a bushel of coals, or credit with the butcher for a shoulder of 
 mutton. Addison is moved. He determines to deny himself some medals 
 which are wanting to his series of the twelve " Caesars ;" to put off buying the 
 new edition of " Bayle's Dictionary ;" and to wear his old sword and buckles 
 another year. In this way he manages to send a hundred pounds to his friend. 
 The next day he calls on Steele and finds scores of gentlemen and ladies 
 assembled. The fiddles are playing. The table is groaning under Champagne, 
 Burgundy and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange that a man whose kind- 
 ness is thus abused, should send sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due to him ? 
 Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had introduced himself to 
 public notice by writing a most ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of 
 the opera of "Rosamond." He deserved, and at length attained, the first 
 place in Addison's friendship. For a time Steele and Tickell were on good 
 terms. But they loved Addison too much to love each other, and at length 
 becavne.as bitter enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil. 
 
 • At the close of 1708 Wharton l>ecame Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, atid 
 appointed Addison Chief Secretary. Addison was consequently under the 
 necessity of quitting London for Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, which' 
 \vas then worth about two thousand pounds a year, he obtained a patent 
 appointing him keeper of the Irish Records for life, with a salary of three of 
 four hundred a year. Budgell accompanied his cousin in the capacity of 
 private Secretary, 
 
792 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADD/SON 
 
 .. \Yharton and Addison had nothing in common but Whiggism. The Lord 
 Lieutenant was not only licentious and corrupt, but was distinguished from 
 other, libertines and jobbers by a callous impudence which presented the 
 strongest contrast to the Secretary's gentleness and delicacy. Many parts of 
 the Irish administration at this time appear to have deserved serious blame. 
 But against Addison there was not a murmur. He long afterwards asserted — 
 what all the evidence which we have ever seen tends to prove — that his dili- 
 gence and integrity gained the friendship of all the most considerable persons 
 in Ireland. 
 
 The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, we think, wholly 
 escaped the notice of all his biographei"s. He was elected member for the 
 borough of Cavan in the summer of 1709 ; and in the journals of two sessions 
 his name frequently occurs. Some of the entries appear to indicate that he so 
 far overcame his timidity as to make speeches. , Nor is this by any means im- 
 probable ; for the Irish House of Commons was a far less formidable audience 
 than the English House ; and many tongues which were tied by fear in the 
 greater assembly became fluent in the smaller. Gerard Hamilton, for exam- 
 ple, who, from fear of losing the fame gained by his " single speech," sat mute, 
 at Westminster during forty years, spoke with great effect at Dublin when he 
 was Secretary to Lord Halifax. 
 
 While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to which he owes his high 
 and permanent rank among British writers. As yet his fame rested on per- 
 formances which, though highly respectable, were not built for duration, and 
 which would, if he had produced nothing else, have now been almost forgotten : 
 on some excellent Latin verses, on some English verses which occasionally rose 
 above mediocrity, and on a book of travels, agreeably written, but not indicating 
 any extraordinary powers of mind. These works showed him to be a man of 
 taste, sense and learning. The time had come when he was to prove himself 
 a man of genius, and to enrich our literature with compositions which will live 
 as long as the English language. 
 
 In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary project, of which he was far 
 indeed from forseeing the consequences. Periodical papers had during many 
 years been pubHshed in London. Most of these were poUtical ; but in some of 
 them questions of morality, taste and love-casuistry had been discussed. The 
 literary merit of these works was small indeed ; and even their names are now 
 known only to the curious. 
 
 vSteele had been appointed Gazetteer by Sunderland, at the request, it is 
 said, of Addison, and thus had access to foreign intelligence earlier and more 
 authentic than was in those times within the reach of an ordinary news-writer. 
 This circumstance seems to have suggested to him the scheme of publishing a 
 periodical paper on a new plan. It was to appear on the days on which the 
 post left London for the country, which were, in that generation, the Tuesdays, 
 Thursdays and Saturdays. It was to contain the foreign news, accounts of 
 theatrical representations, and the literary gossip of Will's and of the Grecian. 
 It was also to contain remarks on the fashionable topics of the day, compliments 
 to beauties, pasquinades on noted sharpers, and criticisms on popular preachers. 
 The aim of Steele does not appear to have been at first higher than this. He 
 was not ill qualified to conduct the work which he had planned. His public 
 intelligence he drew from the best sources. He knew the town, and had paid 
 dear for his knowledge. He had read much more than the dissipated men of 
 that time were in the habit of reading. He was a rake among scholars and a 
 scholar among rakes. His style was easy and not incorrect ; and, though his 
 wit and humour were of no high order, his gay animal spirits imparted to 
 his compositions an air of vivacity which ordinary readers could hardly dis- 
 tinguish from comic genius. His writings have been well compared to those 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 793 
 
 light wines which, though deficient in body and flavour, are yet a pleasant 
 small drink, if not kept too long or carried too far. . 
 
 Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrology was an imaginary person, almost as 
 well known in that age as Mr. PauF Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. 
 Swift had assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet against 
 Partridge, the almanack-maker. Partridge had been fool enough to publish d' 
 furious reply. Bickerstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more divert-' 
 ing than the first. All the wits had combined to keep up the joke, and tilid 
 town was long in convulsions of laughter. Steele determined to employ tHe 
 name which this controversy had made popular ; and^ in 1709, it was announced 
 that Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was about to publish a paper calkd 
 the Tatler. 
 
 Addison had not been consulted about this scheme ; but as soon as he heard 
 of it, he determined to give it his assistance. The effect of that assistance cah- 
 not be better described than in Steele's own words. "I fared," he said, " likfel 
 a distressed prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid. I was undone 
 by my auxiliary. When I had once called him in, I could not subsist without 
 dependence on him." "The paper," he says elsewhere, *'was advanced 
 indeed. It was raised to a greater thing than I intended it." 
 
 It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. George's Channel his 
 first contribution to the Tatler^ had no notion of the extent and variety of 
 his own powers. He was the possessor of a vast mine, rich with a hundred 
 ores. But he had been acquainted only with the least precious part of his 
 treasures, and had hitherto contented himself with producing sometim.es copper 
 and sometimes lead, intermingled with a little silver. All at once, and by 
 i6ere accident, he had lighted on an inexhaustible vein of the finest, 
 gold: 
 
 The mere choice and arrangement of his words would have sufficed to make 
 his essays classical. For never, not even by Dryden, not even by Temple, 
 had the English language been written with such sweetness, grace and facility. 
 But this was the smallest part of Addison's praise. Had he clothed his 
 thoughts in the half French style of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin 
 style of Dr. Johnson, or in the half German jargon of the present day, his 
 genius would have triumphed over all faults of manner. As a moral satirist 
 he stands unrivalled. If ever the best Tatlers 2Si^ 6'/<?<'/^/£»rj were equalled 
 in their own kind, we should be inclined to guess that it must have been by 
 the lost comedies of Menander. 
 
 In wit, properly so called, Addison was not inferior to Cowley or Butler. 
 No single ode of Cowley contains so many happy analogies as are crowded 
 into the lines to Sir Godfrey Kneller ; and we would undertake to collect from 
 the Spectaior as great a number of ingenious illustrations as can be found in 
 ** Hudibras." The still higher faculty of invention Addison possessed in still 
 larger measure. The numerous fictions, generally original, often wild and gro- 
 tesque, but always singularly graceful and happy, which are found in his 
 essays, fully entitle him to the rank of a great poet — a rank to which his me- 
 trical compositions give him no claim. As an observer of life, of manners, of 
 all the shades, of human character, he stands in the first class. And what he 
 observed he had the art of communicating in two widely different ways. He 
 could describe virtues, vices, habits, whims, as well as Clarendon. But he 
 could do something better. He could call human beings into existence and 
 make them exhibit themselves. If we wish to find anything more vi\-id than 
 Addison's best portraits, we must go either to Shakspeare or to Cervantes. 
 
 But what shall we say of Addison's humour, of his sense of the ludicrous,, 
 of his power of awakening that sense in others, and of drawing mirth froih- 
 incidents which occur every day, and from little peculiarities of temper affd 
 
794 ^'^^'^' ^^'^ WRITINGS OF ADDISON, 
 
 manner, such as may be found in every man ? We feel the charm : we give 
 
 ourselves up to it : but we strive in vain to analyse it. 
 
 Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's peculiar pleasantry is to com- 
 pare it with the pleasantry of some other great satirists. The three most 
 eminent masters of the art of ridicule, during the eighteenth century, wer«, 
 we conceive, Addison, Swift and Voltaire. Which of the three had the greatest 
 power of moving laughter may be questioned. But each of them, within his 
 own domain, was supreme. Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment 
 is without disguise or restraint. He gambols ; he grins ; he shakes his sides ; 
 he points the finger ; he turns up the nose ; he shoots out the tongue. The 
 manner of Sv/ift is the very opposite to this. He moves laughter, but never 
 joins in it. He appears in his works such as he appeared in society. All the 
 company are convulsed with merriment, while the Dean, the author of all the 
 mirth, preserves an invincible gravity and even sourness of aspect, and gives 
 utterance to the most eccentric and ludicrous fancies, with the air of a man 
 reading the commination-service. 
 
 The manner of Addison is as remote, from that of vSwift as from that of Vol- 
 taire. He neither laughs out like the French wit nor, like the Irish wit, 
 throws a double portion of severity into his countenance while laughing inly ; 
 bul preserves a look pecuHarly his own, a lookof demure serenity, disturbed 
 only by an arch sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation of the 
 brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the Hp. His tone is never that either 
 of a Jack Pudding or of a Cynic. It is that of a gentleman, in whom the 
 quickest sense of the ridiculous is constantly tempered by good nature and 
 good breeding. . _ 
 
 We own that the humour of Addison is, in our opinion, of a more deli* 
 cious flavour than the humour of either Swift or Voltaire. Thus much, at 
 least, is certain, that both Swift and Voltaire have been successfully 
 mimicked, and that no man has yet been able to mimic Addison. The letter 
 of the Abbe Coyer to Pansophe is Voltaire all over, and imposed, during a 
 long time, on the Academicians of Paris. There are passages in Arbuth- 
 jiot's satirical works which we, at least, cannot distinguish from Swift's best 
 writing. But of the many eminent men who have made Addison their 
 model, though several have copied his mere diction with happy effect, none 
 has been able to catch the tone of his pleasantry. In the World, in the Con- 
 noisseur, in .the Mirror, in the Lounger, there are numerous papers written in 
 obvious imitation of his Tatiers and Spectators. Most of those papers have 
 ^ome merit ; many are very lively and amusing ; but there is not a single one 
 which could be passed off as Addison's on a critic of the smallest perspicacity^ 
 ^ But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from Swift, from Voltaire, 
 from almost all the other great masters of ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, 
 the moral purity, which we find even in his merriment. Severity, gradually 
 hardening and darkening into misanthropy, characterises the works of Swift. 
 The nature of Voltaire was, indeed, not inhuman ; but he venerated nothingi 
 Neither in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest examples of virtue, neither 
 in the Great First Cause nor in the awful enigma of the grave, could he see 
 anything but subjects for drollery. The more solemn and august the theme, 
 the more monkey-like was his grimacing and chattering. The mirth of Swift 
 i, the mirth of Mephistophiles ; the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. 
 If, as Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion of the happiness of Seraphim 
 and just men made perfect be derived from an exquisite perception of the ludic- 
 rous, their mirth must surely be none other than the mirth of Addison ; a mirth 
 consistent with tender compassion for all that is frail, and with profound 
 reverence for all that is sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral 
 duty, no doctrine «f natural or revealed religion, has ever been associated by 
 
LIFE AND Wkl TINGS OF ADDISON. 795 
 
 Addison with any degrading idea. His humanity is without a parallel in literary 
 hi:story. The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without 
 <ibusing it. No kind of power is mor^ormidable than the power of making 
 •men ruliculous ; and that power Addison possessed in boundless measure. 
 ■How grossly that power was abused by Swift and by Voltaire is well known. 
 JBut of Addison it may be confidently affirmed that he has blackened no 
 man's character, nay, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find in 
 all the volumes which he has left us a single taunt which can be called un- 
 generous or unkind. Yet he had detractors, whose malignity might have 
 seemed to justify as terrible a revenge as that which men, not superior to him 
 in genius, wreaked on Bettesworth and on Franc de Pompignan. He was a 
 politician ; he was the best writer of his party ; he lived in times of fierce 
 excitement — in times when persons of high character and station stooped to 
 scurrility such as is now practised only by the basest of mankind. Yet no 
 provocation and no example could induce him to return raiHng for railing. 
 
 Of the service which his Essays rendered to morality it is difficult to speak 
 too highly. It is true that, when the Za^/fr appeared, that age of outrageous 
 profaneness and licentiousness which followed the Restoration had passed 
 away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres into something which, com^ 
 pared with the excesses of Etherege and Wycherley, might be called de- 
 cency. Yet there still lingered in the public mind a pernicious notion that 
 there was some connection between genius and profligacy — between the do- 
 mestic virtues and the sullen formality of the Puritans. That error it is the 
 glory of Addison to have dispelled. He taught the nation that the faith and 
 the morality of Hale and Tillotson might be found in company with wit 
 more sparkling than the wit of Congreve and with humour richer than the 
 humour of Vanbrugh. So effectually, indeed, did he retort on vice the 
 mockery which had recently been directed against virtue, that, since his 
 time, the open violation of decency has always been considered among us as 
 the mark of a fool. And this revolution, the greatest and most salutary ever 
 effected by any satirist, he aceompUshed, be it remembered, without writing 
 one personal lampoon. 
 
 In the early contributions of Addison to the Tatler his peculiar powers 
 were not fully exhibited. Yet from the first, his superiority to all his coadju- 
 tors was evident. Some of his later Tatlers are fully equal to anything 
 that he ever wrote. Among the portraits we most admire Tom Folio, Ned 
 Softly and the Political Upholsterer. The proceedings of the Court of Honour, 
 the Thermoineter of Zeal, the story of the Frozen Words, the Memoirs 
 of the Shilling, are excellent specimens of that ingeniou% and lively species of 
 fiction in which Addison excelled all men. There is one still better paper of 
 the same class. But though that paper, a hundred and thirty-three years ago, 
 was probably thought as edifying as one of Smalridge's sermons, we dare not 
 indicate to the squeamish readers of the nineteenth century. 
 
 During the session of Parliament which commenced in November, 1709, and 
 which theinjpeachment of Sacheverell has made memorable, Addison appears 
 to have resided in London. The Tatler was now more popular than any peri- 
 odical paper had ever been ; and his connection with it was generally known. 
 It was not known, however, that almost everything good in the Tutle*- was his. 
 The truth is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which we owe to him were not 
 merely the best, but so decidedly the best that any five of them are more valur 
 able than all the two hundred numbers in which he had no share. . 
 
 He required, at this time, all the solace which he could derive from literary 
 success. The Queen had always disliked the Whigs, bhe had during some 
 years disliked the Marlborough family. But, reigning by a disputed title, she 
 could not venture directly to oooose herself to a majority of both Houses of 
 
79^ llPM AATD rVRlTlNGS OF ADDISO]^. 
 
 Parliament ; and, engaged as she was in a war on the event of which her own 
 Crown was staked, she could not venture to disgrace a great and successful 
 general. But at length, in the year 1710, the causes which had restrained \i^t 
 from showing her aversion to the Low Church party ceased to operate. The 
 trial of Sacheverell produced an outbreak of public feeling scarcely less violent 
 than the outbreaks which we can ourselves remember in 1820 and in i S3 r. 
 The country gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rabble of the towns, were 
 all, for once, on the same side. It was clear that, if a general election took 
 place before the excitement abated, the Tories would have a majority. The 
 services of Marlborough had been so splendid that they were no longer neces- 
 sary. The Queen's throne was secure from all attack on the part of Louis. 
 Indeed, it seemed much more likely that the English and German armies 
 would divide the spoils of Versailles and Marli than that a Marshal of Franrce 
 would bring back the Pretender to St. James's. The Queen, acting by the 
 advice of Harley, determined to dismiss her servants. In June the change 
 commenced. Sunderland was the first who fell. The Tories exulted over his 
 fall. The Whigs tried, during a few weeks, to persuade themselves that her 
 Majesty had acted only from personal dislike to the Secretary, and that she 
 meditated no further alteration. But early in August, Godolphin was sur- 
 prised by a letter from Anne, which directed him to break his white staff. 
 Even after this event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Harley kept up the 
 hopes of the Whigs during another month ; and then the ruin became rapid 
 and violent. The Parliament was dissolved. The Ministers were turned out. 
 The Tories were called to office. The tide of popularity ran violently in favour 
 of the High Church party. That party, feeble in the the late House of Com- 
 mons, was now irresistible. The power which the Tories had thus suddenly 
 acquired, they used with blind and stupid ferocity. The howl which the whole 
 pack set up for prey and for blood appalled even him who had roused and un- 
 chained them. When, at this distance of time, we calmly review the conduct 
 of the discarded ministers, v/e cannot but feel a movement of indignation at 
 the injustice with which they were treated. No body of men had ever admin- 
 istered the government with more energy, abihty and moderation ; and their 
 success had beeji proportioned to their wisdom. They had saved Holland and 
 Germany. They had humbled France. They had, as it seemed, all but torn 
 Spain from the House of Bourbon. They had made England the first power 
 in Europe. At home they had united England and Scotland. They had 
 respected the rights of conscience and the liberty of the subject. They retired, 
 leaving their country at the height of prosperity and glory.* And yet they 
 were pursued to their retreat by such a roar of obloquy as was never raised 
 against the government which threw "away thirteen colonies, or against the 
 government which sent a gallant army to perish in the ditches of Walcheren, 
 
 None of the Whigs suffered more in the general wreck than Addison. He 
 had just sustained some heavy pecuniary losses, of the nature of which we are 
 imperfectly informed, when his Secretaryship was taken from him. He had 
 reason to believe that he should also be deprived of the small Irish office which 
 he held by patent. He had just resigned his Fellowship. It seems probable 
 that he had already ventured to rrtise his eyes to a great lady, and that, while 
 his political friends were in power, and while his own fortunes were rising, he 
 had been, in the phrase of the romances which were then fashionable, per- 
 mitted to hope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious writer, and Mr. Addison the 
 chief Secretary, were, in her ladyship's opinion, two veiy different persons. 
 
 * Miss Aikin attributes the unpopularity of the Whigs and the change of governmfnt to 
 the surrender of Stanhope's army (ii. 13). The fr=ct is, that the Ministry was changcd'and 
 the new House of Cemmons elected, beiore that surrender too!.' p'ace. 
 
Life AND WRitiNGs Of addisoi^. n^ 
 
 All these calamities united, however, could not disturb the serene cheerfulness 
 of a mind conscious of innocence, and rich in its own wealth. He told hii, 
 friends, with smiling resignation, that tjjey ought to admire his philosophy, that 
 he had lost at once his fortune, his place, his Fellowship and his mistress, that 
 he must think of turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits were as good as 
 ever. 
 
 Pie had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which his friends had incurred, 
 he had no share. Such was the esteem with which he was regarded that, while 
 the most violent measures were taken for the purpose of forcing Tory members 
 on Whig corporations, he was returned to Parliament without even a contest. 
 Swift, who was now in London, and who had already determined on quitting 
 the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these remarkable words: " The Tories carry it 
 among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has passed easy 
 and undisputed ; and I believe if he had a mind to be king he would hardly 
 be refused." 
 
 The good will with which the Tories regarded Addison is the more honour- 
 able to him, because it had not been purchased by any concession on his part. 
 During the general election he published a political Journal, entitled the Wki}^ 
 Examiner. Of that Journal it may be sufficient to say that Johnson, in spite 
 ,pf his strong poUtical prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in wit to any of 
 Swift's writings on the other side. When it ceased to appear. Swift, in a letter 
 Jto Stella, expressed his exultation at the death of so formidable an antagonist. 
 " He might well rejoice." says Johnson, " at the death of that which he could 
 not have killed." " On no occasion," he adds, " was the genius of Addispn 
 more vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of his powers more 
 evidently appear." 
 
 The only use which Addison appears to have made of the favour with which 
 he was regarded by the Tories was to save some of his friends from the general 
 ruin of the Whig party. He felt himself to be in a situation which made it his 
 duty to take a decided part in politics. But the case of Steele and of Ambrose 
 Phillipps was different. For Thillipps, Addison even condescended to solicit, 
 with what success we have not ascertained.* Steele held two places. He was 
 Gazetteer, and he was also a Commissioner of Stamps. The Gazette was 
 taken from him. But he was suffered to retain his place in the Stamp Office, 
 on an implied understanding that he should not be active against the new 
 government ; and he was, during more than two years, induced by Addison to 
 ol>serve this armistice with tolerable fidelity. 
 
 Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon politics, and the article of 
 News, which had once formed about one-third of his paper, altogether -dis- 
 appeared. The Tatelr had completely changed its character. It was now 
 nothing but a series of essays on books, morals and manners. Steele, therefore, 
 resolved to bring it to a close and commence a new work on an improved 
 plan. It was announced that this new work would be published daily. The 
 undertaking was generally regarded as bold, or rather rash ; but the event 
 amply justified the confidence with which Steele relied on the fertility of 
 Addison's genius. On the second of January, 1711, appeared the last Tatler. 
 At the begin of March following appeared the first of an incomparable series 
 of papers, containing observations on life and literature by an imaginary 
 Spectator. 
 
 * Miss Aikin mentions the exertions which AdHison made in 1710, before the change of 
 Ministry, to serve Phillipps, and adds that" Phillipns s ime time afterwards appears to 
 have obtained a mission to Copenha;,'en, which enabled him to gratify the world with his 
 poetical description of a frozen shower." (ii. T4). This is a'l wrong. The poem was 
 written in March, 1709, and ;'rjnted in the Tatler of the 6th of May, following. , ., < 
 
798 LIP2 AMD WRITINGS OF ADDISON, 
 
 The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by Addison ; and it is not 
 easy to doubt that the portrait was meant to be in some features a Hkeness of 
 the painter. The Spectator is a gentleman who, after passing a studious youth 
 at the university, has travelled on classic ground and has bestowed much 
 attention on curious points of antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed his 
 residence, in London, and has observed all the forms of life which are to be 
 found in that great city ; has daily listened to the wits of Will's, has smoked 
 with the philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at 
 Child's and with the politicians at the St. James's. In the morning he often 
 listens to the hum of the Exchange ; in the evening his face is constantly to be 
 seen in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness 
 prevents him from opening his mouth, except in a small circle of intimate 
 friends. 
 
 These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four of the club, the templar, 
 the clergyman, the soldier and the merchant were uninteresting figures, fit only 
 for a background. But the other two, an old country baronet and an old 
 town rake, though not delineated with a very delicate pencil, had some good 
 strokes. Addison took the rude outlines into his own hands, retouched them, 
 coloured them, and is in truth the creator of the" Sir Roger <le Coverley and the 
 Will Honeycomb with whom we are all familiar. , 
 
 The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be both original and eminently 
 happy. Every valuable essay in the series may be read with pleasure sepa- 
 rately ; yet the five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole which has 
 the interest of a novel. It must be remembered, too, that at that time no novel, 
 giving a lively and powerful picture of the common life and manners of 
 England, had appeared. Richardson was working as a compositor. Fielding 
 was robbing birds' nests. Smollett was not yet born. The narrative, there- 
 fore, which connects together the Spectator's Essays, gave to our ancestors 
 their first taste of an exquisite and untried pleasure. That narrative was 
 indeed constructed with no art or labour. The events were such events as 
 occur every day. Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, as the worthy 
 baronet always calls Prince Eugene, goes with the Spectator on the water to 
 Spring Gardens, walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened by 
 the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension so far as to go to the theatre 
 when the " Distressed Mother " is acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the 
 summer to Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old house, the old butler and, 
 the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will Wimble, rides to the assizes and 
 hears a point of law discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the 
 honest butler brings to the club the news that Sir Roger is dead. Will Honey 
 comb marries and reforms at sixty. The club breaks up ; and the Spectator 
 resigns his functions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot ; yet they 
 are related with such truth, such grace, such wit, such humour, such pathos, 
 such knowledge of the human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, 
 that they charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have not the least doubt 
 that if Addison had written a novel on an extensive plan, it would have been 
 superior to any that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered, not 
 only as the greatest of the English essayists, but as the forerunner of the great 
 English novelists. 
 
 We say this of Addison alone : for Addison is 'the Spectator. About three- 
 sevenths of the work are his ; and it is no exaggeration to say that his worst 
 essay is as good as the best essay of any of his coadjutors. His best essays 
 a])proach near to absolute perfection ; nor is their excellence more wonderful 
 than their variety. His invention never seems to flag ; nor is he ever under 
 the necessity of repeating himself, or of wearing out a subject. There are no 
 dregs in his wine. He regales us after the fashion of xh^i. modigal nabob who 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 799 
 
 held that there was only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as we have tasted 
 the first sparkling foam of a jest it is withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar 
 is at our lips. On the Monday we have^an allegory as lively and ingenious as 
 Lucian's "Auction" of Lives"; on the Tuesday an Eastern apologue, as richly 
 coloured as the "Tales of Scherexade "; on the Wednesday, a character 
 described with the skill of La Bruyere ; on the Thursday, a scene from common 
 life, equal to the best chapters in the "Vicar of Waketield "; on the Friday, 
 "sbme sly Horatian pleasantry on fashionable follies — on hoops, patches or 
 puppet shovv^s ; and on the Saturday a religious meditation, which will bear a 
 compariscm with the finest passages in Massillon. / -i < ,-.•'1. • ;';•, 
 
 It is dangerous to select where there is so much that deserves: Ae highest 
 praise. We will venture, however, to say that any person who wishes to form 
 a just notion of the extent and variety of Addison's powers, will do well to read 
 at one sitting the following papers : — the two Visits to the Abbey, the Visit to 
 the Exchange, the Journal of the Retired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, the 
 Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey, and the death of Sir Roger de Coverley. * 
 The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the Spectator are, in the 
 judgment of our age, his critical papers. Yet his critical papers are always 
 luminous and often ingenious. The very worst of them must be regarded as 
 creditable to him. when the character of the school in which he had been 
 trained is fairly considered. The best of them were much too good for his 
 readers. In truth, he was not so far behind our generation as he was before 
 his own. No essays in the Spectator were more censured and derided than 
 those in which he raised his voice against the contempt with which our fine old 
 ballads were regarded, and showed the scoffers that the same gold which, 
 'burnished and polished, gives lustre to the "^neid " and the " Odes of Horace," 
 'is mingled with the rude dross of "Chevy Chace." . ^ ; . 
 
 ■' It is not strange that the success of the Spectator should have been such as 
 no similar work has ever obtained. The number of copies daily distributed 
 was at first three thousand. It subsequently increased, and had risen to near 
 four thousand when the stamp tax was imposed. That tax was fatal to a 
 crowd of journals. The Spectator, however, stood its ground, doubled its 
 price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a large revenue both to 
 the stale and to the authors. For particular papers the demand was immense; 
 of some, it is said, twenty thousand copies were required. But this vras not 
 all. To have the Spectator served up every morning with the bohea and 
 rolls was a luxury for the few. The majority were content to wait till essays 
 enough had appeared to form a volume. Ten thousand copies of each volume 
 were immediately taken off, and new editions were called for. "* It must be 
 remembered that the population of England was then hardly a third of what it 
 now is. The number of Englishmen who were in the habit of reading, was 
 probably not a sixth of what it now is. A shopkeeper or a farmer who 
 found any pleasure in literature was a rarity. Nay, there was doubtless 
 more than one knight of the shire whos6 country seat did not x;ontain ten 
 books — receipt books and books on farriery included. In these circumstances, 
 the sale of the Spectator mM%\. be considered as indicating a popularity quite as 
 great as that of the most successful works of Sir Walter Scott and Mr- Dickens 
 in our own time. 
 
 At the close of 17 12 the Spectator ceased to appear. It was probably 
 felt that the short-faced gentleman and his club had been long enough before 
 the town, and that it was time to withdraw them, and to replace them by a 
 new set of characters. In a few weeks the first number of the Guardian 
 
 * Nos. 26, 329, 69,317, 159. 3431^517. These papers are all in the first seven volumes. 
 The eighth must be considered as a separate work. 
 
8oo LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 was published.* But the Guardian was unfortunate both in its birth and in 
 its death. It began in dulness and disappeared in a tempest of faction. , The 
 original plan was bad. Addison contributed nothing till sixty-six numbers had 
 appeared, and it was then impossible even for him to make the Guardian 
 what the Spectator had been. Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards were 
 people to whom eve'n he could impart no interest. He could only fur^isli 
 some excellent little essays, both serious and comic, and this he did. 
 
 Why Addison gave no assistance to the Guardian during the first two 
 months of its existence, is a question which has puzzled the editors and bio- 
 graphers, but which seems to us to admit of a very easy solutioru He was 
 then engaged in bringing his " Cato " on the stage. 
 
 The first four acts of this drama had been lying in his desk since his return 
 from Italy. His modest and sensitive nature shrank from the risk of a public 
 and shameful failure ; and, though all who saw the manuscript were loud in 
 praise, some thought it possible that an audience might become impatient even 
 of very good rhetoric, and advised Addison to print the play without hazarding 
 a representation. At length, after many fits of apprehension, the poet yielded 
 to the urgency of his political friends, who hoped that the public would dis- 
 cover some analogy between the followers of Ccesar and the Tories, between 
 Sempronius and the apostate Whigs, between Cato, struggling to the last for 
 the liberties of Rome, and the band of patriots who still stood firm round Halifax 
 and W^harton. 
 
 Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury Lane Theatre, witholit stipu- 
 lating for any advantage to himself. They, therefore, thought themselves bound 
 to spare no cost in scenery and dresses. The decorations, it is true, would not 
 have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. Macready. Juba's waistcoat blazed with 
 gold lace ; Marcia's hoop was worthy of a duchess on the birthday, and Cato 
 wore a wig worth fifty guineas. The prologue was written by Pope, and is 
 undoubtedly a dignified and spirited composition. The part of the hero was 
 excellently played by Booth. Steele undertook to pack a house. The boxes 
 were in a blaze with the stars of the Peers in opposition. The pit was crowded 
 with attentive and friendly listeners from the Inns of Court and the literary 
 coffee houses. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Governor of the Bank of England, was 
 at the head of a powerful body of auxiliaries from the City — warm men and 
 true Whigs, but better known at Jonathan's and Garraway's than in the haunts 
 of wits and critics. , , v ' ' " 
 
 These precautions were quite superfluous. The Tories, as a body, regarded 
 Addison with no unkind feelings. Nor was it for their interest — professing,"as 
 they did, pfofound reverence for law and prescription, and abhorrence both of 
 popular insurrections and of standing armies — to appropriate to themselves 
 reflections thrown on the great military chief and demagogue, who, wi^Kthe 
 support of the legions and of the common people, subverted all the ancient 
 institutions of his country. Accordingly, every shout that was raised by the 
 members of the Kit-Cat was echoed by the High Churchmen of the October, 
 and the curtain at length fell amidst thunders of unanimous applause. - 
 
 The delight and admiration of the town were described by the <7Mi^rfl^/a» 
 in terms which we niight attribute to partiality, were it not that \}aQ Examiner y 
 the organ of the ministry, held similar language. The' ToYies", indeed, "found 
 much to sneer at in the conduct of their opponents. Steele had on this, as on 
 other occasions, shown more zeal than taste or judgment. The honest citizens 
 who marched under the orders of Sir Gibby, as he was facetiously called, 
 probably knew better when to buy and when to sell stock than when to clap 
 
 * Miss Aikin says that the Guardian was launched in November, 1713 (ii. 106), 1^ 
 was launched in March, 1713, and was given over in the following September, 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 8dl 
 
 and when to hiss at a play, and incurred some ridicule by making the hypo- 
 critical Sempronius their favourite, and by giving to his insincere rants louder 
 plaudits than they bestowed on the temperate eloquence of Cato. Wharton, 
 too, who had the incredible effrontery to^applaud the lines about flying from 
 prosperous vice and from the power of impious men to a private station, did 
 not escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought that he could fly from 
 nothing more vicious or impious than himself. The epilogue, which was 
 written by Garth, a zealous Whig, was severely and not unreasonably censured 
 as ignoble and out of place.' But Addison was described, even by the bitterest 
 Tory writers, as a gentleman of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many 
 persons of both parties were happy, and whose name ought not to be mixed 
 up with factious squabbles. 
 
 Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party was disturbed, the most 
 severe and happy was Bolingbroke's. Between two acts he sent for Booth 
 to his box, and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a purse of fifty 
 guineas, for defending the cause of liberty so well against the perpetual Dictator. * 
 
 It was April ; and in April, a hundred and thirty years ago, the London season 
 was thought to be far advanced. During a whole month, however, " Cato " was 
 performed to overflowing houses, and brought into the* treasury of the theatre 
 ^wice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the summer the Drury Lane Company 
 Went down to the Act at Oxford, and there, before an audience which retained 
 an affectionate remembrance of Addison's accomplishments and virtues, his 
 tragedy was acted during several days. The gownsmen began to besiege the 
 theatre in the forenoon, and by one in the afternoon all the seats were filled. 
 
 About the merits of the piece which had so extraordinary an effect, the public, 
 we suppose, has made up its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of 
 the Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the time of Elizabeth, or even 
 with the productions of Schiller's manhood, would be absurd indeed. Yet it 
 contains excellent dialogue and declamation, and among plays fashioned on 
 the French model, must be allowed to rank high ; not, indeed, with " Athahe," 
 " Zaire," or "Saul ;" but, we think, not below "Cinna,"and certainly above any 
 other English tragedy of the same school, above many of the plays of Corneille, 
 above many of the plays of Voltaire and Alfieri, and above some plays of 
 Racine. Be this as it may, we have little doubt that " Cato " did as much as the 
 Tatlers^ Spectators and Freeholders united, to raise Addison's fame among his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 The modesty and good nature of the successful dramatist had tamed even the 
 malignity of faction. But literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion 
 than party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest attack en the 
 Whig tragedy was made. John Dennis published remarks on "Cato," which 
 were written with some acuteness and with much coarseness and asperity. 
 Addison neither defended himself nor retaliated. On many points he had an 
 excellent defence, and nothing would have been easier than to retaliate ; for 
 Dennis had written bad odes, bad tragedies, bad comedies ; he had, moreover, 
 a larger share than most men of those infirmities and eccentricities which excite 
 laughter ; and Addison's power of turning either an absurd book or an absurd 
 man into ridicule was unrivalled. Addison, however, serenely conscious of his 
 superiority, looked with pity on his assailant, whose temper, naturally irritable 
 and gloomy, had been soured by want, by controversy, and by literary failures. 
 
 But among the .young candidates for Addison's favour there was one dis- 
 tinguished by talents from the rest, and distinguished, we fear, not less by 
 
 * " The long sway of the Duke of Marlborough," says Miss Aikin, " was here glanced 
 at," Under favour, if Bolingbroke had meant no more than this, his sarcasm would have 
 been pointless. The allusion was to the attempt which Marlborough had made to con- 
 vert the Captain-Generalship into a patent office, to be held by himself lor life. Ths patent 
 was stopped by Lord Cowper. 
 
 O D 
 
8o2 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON, 
 
 malignity and insincerity. Pope was only twenty-five. But his powers had 
 expanded to their full maturity ; and his best poem, the " Rape of the Lock," 
 had recently been published. Of his genius, Addison had always expressed 
 high admiratian. But Addison had early discerned, what might indeed have 
 been discerned by an eye less penetrating than his, that the diminutive, 
 crooked, sickly boy was eager to revenge himself on society for the unkindness 
 of nature. In the Spectator, the " Essay on Criticism " had been praised with 
 cordial warmth; but a gentle hint had been added, that the writer of so 
 excellent a poem would have done well to avoid ill-natured personalities. Pope, 
 though evidently more galled by the censure than gratified by the praise, 
 returned thanks for the admonition and promised to profit by it. The two 
 writers continued to exchange civilities, counsel and small good offices. 
 Addison publicly extolled Pope's miscellaneous pieces ; and Pope furnished 
 Addison with a prologue. This did not last long. Pope hated Dennis, whom 
 he had injured without provocation. The appearance of the " Remarks on 
 Cato '' gave the irritable poet an opportunity of venting his malice under the 
 show of friendsliip ; and such an opportunity could noi but be welcome to a 
 nature which was implacable in enmity, and which always preferred the 
 tortuous to the straight path. He published, accordingly, the " Narrative of 
 the Frenzy of John Dennis." But Pope had mistaken his powers. He was a 
 great master of invective and sarcasm : he could dissect a character in terse 
 and sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis : but of dramatic talent he was 
 altogether destitute. If he had written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on 
 Atticus, or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been crushed. But 
 Pope writing dialogue resembled — to borrow Horace's imagery and his own 
 — a wolf, which, instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey 
 which should try to sting. The "Narrative " is utterly contemptible. Of argu- 
 ment there is not even the show ; and the jests are such as, if they were in- 
 troduced into a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling gallery. 
 Dennis raves about the drama ; and the nurse thinks that he is calling for a 
 dram. "There is," he cries, "no peripetia in the tragedy, no change of 
 fortune, no change at all." "Pray, good sir, be not angry," says the old wonmn, 
 " I'll fetch change." This is not exactly the pleasantry of Addison. 
 
 There can be no doubt that Addison saw through this officious zeal, and felt 
 himself deeply aggrieved by it. So foohsh and spiteful a pamphlet could do 
 him no good, and if he were thought to have any hand in it, m.ust do him 
 harm. Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, he had never, even in 
 self-defence, used those powers inhumamly or uncourteously ; and he was not 
 disposed to let others make his fame and his interests a pretext under which 
 they might commit outrages from which he had himself constantly abstained. 
 He accordingly declared that he had no concern in the "Narrative,'^ that 
 he disapproved of it, and that if he answered the "Remarks," he would 
 answer them like a gentleman ; and he took care to communicate this to 
 Dennis. Pope was bitterly mortified ; and to this transaction we are inclined 
 to ascribe the hatred with which he ever after regarded Addison. 
 
 In September, I7I3j the Guardian ceased to appear. Steele had gone mad 
 about politics. A general election had just taken place : he had been chosen 
 member for Stockbridge ; and fully expected to play a first part in Parliament. 
 The immense success of the Tatler and Spectator Sxz-di Xxxxxitdi his head. He 
 ■had been the editor of both those papers and was not aware how entirely they 
 owed their influence and popularity to the genius of his friend. His spirits, 
 always violent, were now excited by vanity, ambition and faction, to such a 
 pitch that he every day committed some offence against good sense and good 
 taste. All the discreet and moderate members of his own party regretted and 
 condemned his folly.- " I am in athousand troubles," Addison wrote, "about 
 poor Dick) and wish that his zeal for the public may not; be ruinous to himself,^ 
 
LIFE AND WHITINGS OF ADDISON. 803 
 
 But' K^ Haife sent me word that he is determined to go on, and that any 
 advice I may give him in this particular will have no weight with him." 
 
 Steel set up a political paper called the Jb.n:{iishfKan, which, as it was not 
 sujpported by contribntions from Addison^ompletely failed. By this work, by 
 some other writings of the same kind, and by the airs which he gave himself 
 at the first meeting of the new Parliament, he made the Tories so angry that 
 they determined to expel him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but 
 were unable to save him. The vote of expulsion wqs regarded by all dis 
 passionate men as a tyrannical exercise of the power of the majority. But 
 Steele's violence and folly, though they by no means justified the steps which 
 Ri's enemies took, had completelely disgusted his friends ; nor did he ever 
 regain the place which he had held in the public estimation. 
 
 Addison, -about this time, conceived the design of adding an eighth volume 
 to the Spectator. In June, 1714, the first number of the new series appeared, 
 and during about six months three papers were published weekly. Nothing 
 -C'ari be more striking than the contrast between the Englishman and the 
 eighth volume of the Spectator — between Steele without Addison, and 
 Addison without Steele. The Englishman is forgotten ; the eighth volume 
 of the Spectator contains, perhaps, the finest essays, both serious and playful, 
 in the English language. 
 
 Before this volume was completed, the death of Anne produced an entire 
 change in the administration of public affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It 
 found the Tory party distracted by internal feuds and unprepared for any 
 great effort. Harley had just been disgraced. Bolingbroke, it was supposed, 
 would be the chief minister. But the Queen was on her death-bed before the 
 white staff had been given, and her last public act was to deliver it with a 
 feeble hand to the Duke of Shrewsbury. The emergency produced a coalition 
 betvveen all sections of public men who were attached to the Protestant succession. 
 George I. was proclaimed without opposition. A Council, in which the leading 
 Whigs had sea.ts, took the direction of affairs till the new King should arrive. 
 *rhe first act of the Lords Justices Was to appoint Addison their secretary. 
 '■''There is- an idle tradition that he was directed to prepare a letter to the 
 'King'i that he could not satisfy himself as to the style of this composition, 
 and that the 'Lords Justices called in a clerk who at once did what was wanted. 
 It is not strange that a story so flattering to mediocrity should be popular ; and 
 we are sorry to deprive dunces of their consolation. But the truth must be 
 told; It was well observed by Sir James Mackintosh, whose knowledge of 
 these times was unequalled, that Addison never, in any official document, 
 afiected wit or eloquence, and that his despatches are, without exception, 
 remarkable for unpretending simplicity. Everybody who knows with what 
 ease Addison's finest essays were produced must be convinced that, if well 
 turned phrases had been wanted, he would have had no difficulty in finding 
 them. We aire, however, inclined to believe, that the story is not absolutely 
 'V^thoiit' a foundation. It may well be that Addison did not know, till he 
 ♦had consulted experienced clerks who remembered thetimes when William III. 
 kvas absent on the Continent, in what form a letter from the Council 
 of. Regency to the King ought to be drawn. W^e think it very likely that 
 the ablest statesmien of our time, Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord 
 Palmerston, for example, would, in similar circumstances, be found quite 
 as ignorant. Every office has some little mysteries which the dullest man 
 rnay learn with a little attention, and which the greatest man cannot possibly 
 know by intuition. One paper must be signed by the chief of the depart* 
 ment, another by his depiUy. To a third the royal sign -manual is necessarj'. 
 One communication is to be registered and another is not. One sentence 
 "■ttiust be in blick ink and another in red ink. If the ablest Secretary for Ire- 
 '-"Find were moved to tlie India Board, if the ablest President of the India Board 
 
8o4 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 
 
 , . . : ^ 
 
 were moved to the War Office, he would require instruction on points like 
 these ; and we do not doubt that Addison required such instruction when hd 
 became, for the first time, Secretary to the Lords Justices. 
 ^ George I. took possession of his kingdom without opposition. A new ministry. . 
 was formed and a new Parliament, favourable to the Whigs, chosen. Sunder- 
 land was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Addison again went to 
 Dubhn as Chief Secretary. 
 
 At Dublin Swift resided, and there was much speculation about the way In 
 which the Dean and tlie Secretary would behave towards each other. The 
 relaaons which existed between these remarkable men form an interesting and 
 pleasing portion of literary history. They had early attached themselves to 
 the same poHtical party and to the same patrons. While Anne's Whig ministry 
 was in power, the visits of Swift to London and the official residence of Addison 
 in Ireland had given them opportunities of knowing each other. They were 
 the two shrewdest observers of their age. But their observations on each other 
 had led them to favourable conclusions. Swift did full justice to the rare 
 powers of conversation which were latent under the bashful deportment of 
 Addison. Addison, on the other hand, discerned much good nature under the 
 severe look and manner of Swift ; and, indeed, the Swift of«i7o8 and the Swift 
 of 1738 were two very different men. 
 
 But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. The Whig statesmen 
 loaded Addison with solid benefits. They praised Swift, asked him to dinner, 
 and did nothing more for him His profession laid them under a difficulty. In 
 the State they could not promote him ; and they had reason to fear thatj, by 
 bestowing preferment in the Church on the author of the "Tale of a Tub,' 
 they might give scandal to the public, which had no high opinion of their 
 orthodoxy. He did not make fair allowance for the difficulties which prevented 
 Halifax and Somers from serving him, thought himself an ill-used man, sacrificed 
 honour and consistency to revenge, joined the Tories, and became their most 
 formidable champion. He soon found, however, that his old friends were less 
 to blame than he had supposed. The disHke with which the Queen and the 
 heads of the Church regarded him was insurmountable, and it was with the 
 greatest difficulty that he obtained 'an ecclesiastical dignity of no great value, 
 on condition of fixing his residence in a country which he detested. .,^g 
 
 Difference of political opinion had produced, not indeed a quarrel, but.4^5 
 coolness between Swift and Addison. They at length ceased altogether to see 
 each other. Yet there was between them a tacit compact like that between the 
 hereditary guests in the " IHad." 
 
 'E7X«« ^' uXX'/Awi/ itXcoofieOa Kal d(' ofiiXov. 
 rioXAol fiev faf) k/soi Tpwe? K\etroi r' kniKovpotf 
 Kreiveiv, ov (ce feof "ye vopr] Kai iroa-ai Ktxeto), 
 no Wot 3' av ao'i Axa»oi, ivatpeixev, ov kc dvvt)ai. 
 
 ^ It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and insulted nobody, should 
 not have calumniated or insulted Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to 
 whom neither genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally seemed to find, 
 like most other renegades, a peculiar pleasure in attacking old friends, should 
 have shown so much respect and tenderness to Addison. 
 
 Fortune had now changed. The accession of the House of Hanover had 
 secured in England the liberties of the people and in Ireland the dominion of 
 the Protestant caste. To that caste Swift was more odious than any other man. 
 He was hooted and even pelted in the streets of Dublin, and could not venture 
 to ride along the strand for his health without the attendance of armed servants. 
 Many whom he had formerly served now libelled and insulted him. At this 
 time Addison arrived. - He had been advised not to show the smallest civility 
 to the Dean of St. Patrick's. He had answei-ed, with admirable spirit, that it 
 might be necessary for men whose fidelity to their party was suspected, to hokl 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 805 
 
 tib intercourse with politital opponents ; but that one who had been a steady 
 Whig in the worst times might venture, when the good cause was triumphant,'^ 
 to shake hands with an old friend who wes one of the vanquished Tories^ His 
 kindness was soothing to the proud and cruelly wounded spirit of Swift, and the 
 two great satirists resumed their habits of friendly intercourse. 
 
 Those associates of Addison whose political opinions agreed with hi? shared 
 his good fortune. He took Tickell with him to Ireland. He procured for 
 Budgell a lucrative place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phillipps was provided 
 for in England. Steele had injured himself so much by his eccentricity and 
 perverseness that he obtained but a very small part of what he thought his due. 
 He was, however, knighted, he had a place in the housekold, and he subse 
 quently received other marks of favour from the Court. 
 
 Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 17 15 he quitted his secretaryship 
 for a seat at the Board of Trade. In the same year his comedy of " The 
 Dnimmer" was brought on the stage. The name of the author was not 
 announced, the piece was coldly received, and some critics have expressed a 
 doubt whether it were really Addison's. To us the evidence, both external and 
 internal, seems decisive. It is not in Addison's best manner, but it contains 
 numerous passages which no other writer known to us could have produced. It 
 was again performed after Addison's death, and, being known to be his, was 
 loudly applauded. 
 
 Towards the close of the year 17 15, wliile the Rebellion was still raging in 
 Scotland,* Addison published the first number of a paper called the Freeholder. 
 Among his political works the Fneholder is entitled to the first place. Even 
 in the Spectator there are few serious papers nobler than the character of his 
 friend Lord Somers, and certainly no satirical papers superior to those in which 
 the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. This character is the original of Squire 
 Western, and is drawn with all Fielding's force and with a delicacy of which 
 Fielding was altogether destitute. As none of Addison's works exhibit stronger 
 marks of his genius than the Freeholder, so none does more honour to his moral 
 character. It is difficult to extol too highly the candour and humanity of a 
 political writer whom even the excitement of civil war cannot hurry into un- 
 seemly violence. Oxford, it is well known, was then the stronghold of Tory- 
 ism. The High Street had been repeatedly lined with bayonets in order to 
 keep down the disaffected gownsmen, and traitors pursued by the messengers 
 of the Government had been concealed in the garrets of several colleges. Yet. 
 the admonition which, even under such circumstances, Addison addressed to 
 the University is singularly gentle, respectful and even affectionate. Indeed, 
 he could not find it in his heart to deal harshly even with imaginary persons. 
 His fox-hunter, though ignorant, stupid and violent, is at heart a good fellow, 
 and is at last reclaimed by the clemency of the King. Steele was dissatisfied with 
 his friend's moderation, and, though he acknowledged that the Freeholdir^ 
 was excellently written, complained that the ministry played on a lute when it 
 was necessary to blow the trumpet. He accordingly determined to execute a 1 
 flourish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the public spirit of the nation ) 
 by means of a paper called the To%vn Talk, which is now as utterly forgotten 
 as his Englishman, ?& his " Crisis," as his "Letter to the Bailiff of Stock- 
 bridge," as his " Reader," in short, as everything that he wrote without the 
 help of Addison. 
 
 In the same year in which the "Drummer" was acted, and in which the 
 first numbers of the Freeholder appeared, the estrangement of Pope and 
 Addison became complete. Addison had from the first seen that Pope was 
 
 * Miss Aikin has been most unfortunate in her account of this Rebellion. We will 
 notice only two errors wbich occur in one page. She says that the Rebellion was under ' 
 taken in favour of James II., who had been fourteen years dead, and that it was headt 
 by Charles Edward, who was not born (ii. 172). . . 
 
Bq6 LIPE AND WriTWgs OP a3DIS0N. 
 
 false and malevolent. Pope had discovered that Addison, was jealous. Th€ 
 discovery was made in a strange manner. Pope had written the " Rape of 
 the Lock," in two cantos, without supernatural machinery. These two cantos 
 had been loudly applauded, a;id by none more loudly than by Addison. Then 
 Pope thought of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, Crispassa and 
 UmbriSl ; and resolved to interweave the Rosicrucian mythology with the 
 original fabric. He asked Addison's advice. Addison said that the poem as it 
 stood was a delicious little thing, and entreated Pope not to run the risk of mar- 
 ring what was so excellent in trying to mend it. Pope afterwards declared that 
 this insidious counsel first opened his eyes to the baseness of him who gave it. 
 
 Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most ingenious, and that he 
 afterwards executed it with great skill and success. But does it necessarily 
 follow that Addison's advice was bad ? And if Addison's advice was bad, does 
 it necessarily follow that it was given from bad motives ? If a friend were to ask 
 us whether we would advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which the chances 
 were ten to one against him, we should do our best to dissuade him from run- 
 ning such a risk. Even if he were so lucky as to get the ;,^30,ooo prize, 
 we should not admit that we had counselled him ill ; and we should cer- 
 tainly think it the height of injustice in him to accuse us of having been 
 actuated by malice. We think Addison's advice good advice. It rested on a 
 sound principle, the result of long and wide experience. The general rule 
 undoubtedly is that, when a successful work of imagination has been produced, 
 it should not be recast. We cannot at this moment call to mind a single 
 instance in which this rule has been transgressed with happy effect, except the 
 instance of the "Rape of the Lock." Tasso recast his "Jerusalem;" 
 Akenside recast his " Pleasure of the Imagination," and his " Epistle to 
 Curio." Pope himself, emboldened no doubt by the success with which he 
 had expanded and remodelled the " Rape of the Lock," made the same 
 experiment on the " Dunciad." All these attempts failed. Who was to forsee 
 that Pope would, once in his life, be able to do \vhat he could not himself do: 
 twice, and what nobody else has ever done? . - .^ihi.J 
 
 Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, why should we pronounce 
 it dishonest? Scott tells us that one of his best friends predicted the failure of 
 ■' Waverley." Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising a subject as 
 "Faust." Hume tried to dissuade Robertson from writing thc' " History of 
 Charles the Fifth." Nay, Pope, himself was one of those who prophesied that 
 "Cato" would never succeed on the stage, and advised Addison to print it 
 without risking a representation. But Scott, Geothe, Robertson, Addison, 
 had the good sense and generosity to give their advisers credit for the best 
 intentions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind with theirs. 
 
 In 1 7 15, while he was engaged in translating the " Iliad," he- met Addison 
 at a coffee-house. Phillips and Budgell were there ; but their sovereign got rid 
 of them, and asked Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner, Addison said 
 that he lay under a difficulty which he wished to explain. " Tickell," he said, 
 " translated some time ago the first book of the llliad.' I have promised to 
 look it over and correct it. I cannot therefore ask to see yours ; for that would 
 would be double dealing." Pope made a civil reply, and begged that his second 
 book might have the advantage of Addison's revision. Addison readily agreed, 
 looked over the second book, and sent it back with warm commendations. 
 
 Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon after this conversation. In 
 the preface, all rivalry was earnestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he 
 should not go on with the "Iliad." That enterprise, he should leave to 
 powers which he admitted to be superior to his own. His only view, he said, 
 in publishing this specimen was to bespeak the favour of the public to a trans- 
 lation of the " Odyssey," in which he had made some progress. 
 
 Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pronounced both the versions 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 807 
 
 good, but maintained that Tickell's had more of the original. The town gave 
 a decided preference to Pope's. We do not think it worth while to settle such 
 a question of precedence. Neither of the rivals can be said to have translated 
 the " Iliad," unless, indeed, the word tranMation be used in the sense which it 
 bears in the " IMidsummer Night's Dream." When Bottom makes his appear- 
 ance with an ass's head instead of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, '* Bless 
 thee ! Bottom, bless thee ! thou art translated." In this sense, undoubtedly, 
 the readers of either Pope or Tickell may very properly exclaim, " Bless thee ! 
 Plomer ; thou art translated indeed." 
 
 Our readers will, we hope agree with us in thinking that no man in Addison's 
 situation could have acted more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope, and 
 towards Tickell, than he appears to have done. But an odious suspicion had 
 sprung up in the mind of Pope. He fancied, and he soon firmly believed, 
 that there was a deep conspiracy against his fame and his fortunes. The work 
 on which he had sty.ked his reputation was to be depreciated. The subscrip- 
 tion, on which rested his hopes of a competence, was to be defeated. With 
 this view Addison had made a rival translation ; Tickell had consented to 
 father it ; and the wits of Button's had united to puff it. 
 
 Is there any external evidence to support this grave accusation? The 
 answer is short. There is absolutely none. 
 
 Was there any internal evidence which proved Addison to be the author of 
 this version ? Was it a work which Tickell was incapable of producing ? 
 Surely not. Tickell was a fellow of a College at Oxford, and must be sup- 
 posed to have been able to construe the " Iliad ;" and he was a better versifier 
 than his friend. We are not aware that Pope pretended to have discovered 
 any turns of expression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of expression 
 been discovered, they would be sufficiently accounted for by supposing Addison 
 to have corrected his friend's lines, as he owned that he had done. 
 
 Is there anything in the character of the accused persons which makes the 
 accusation probable ? We answer confidently — nothing. Tickell was long 
 after this time described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy man. 
 Addison had been, during many years, before the public. Literary rivals, 
 political opponents, had kept their eyes on him. But neither envy nor faction 
 in their utmost rage, had ever imputed to him a single deviation from the laws 
 of honourand of social morality. Had he been indeed a man meanly jealous of 
 fame and capable of stooping to base and wicked arts for the purpose of in- 
 juring his competitors, would his vices have remained latent so long ? He was 
 a writer of tragedy ; had he ever injured Rowe ? Ke was a writer of 
 comedy ; had he not done ample justice to Congreve and given valuable help 
 to Steele? He was a pamphleteer ; have not bis good nature and generosity 
 been acknowledged by Swift, his rival in fame and his adversary in politics ? 
 
 That Tickell should have been guilty of a villainy seems to us highlv 
 improbable. That Addison should have been guilty of villainy seems to us 
 highly improbable. But that these two men should have conspired together to 
 commit a villainy seems to us improbable in. a tenfold degree. All that is 
 known to us of their intercourse tends to prove, that it was not the inter- 
 course of two accompHces in crime. These are some of the lines in which 
 Tickell poured forth his sorrow over the cofiin of Addison : 
 
 " Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 
 A task well suited to thy gentle mind ? 
 Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, 
 To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. 
 When rase misguides me, or when le.-iv ainrms, 
 When pain distresses, or when pleasure charms. 
 In silent wliii^erings purer thoughts iuipart, 
 And turn from ill a frail and feeble hf^art, 
 Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before, 
 7"ill bliss shall oin, nor death can part us more." 
 
8o8 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 In what words, we should like to know, did this guardian genius invite his 
 pupil to join in a plan such as the Editor of the Satirist would hardly dare 
 tCMJropose to the Editor of the Ai'c. 
 
 .. ivVe do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation which he knew to be 
 false. We have not the smallest doubt that he believed it to be true ; and the 
 evidence on which he believed it he found in his own bad heart. His own 
 life was one long series of tricks, as mean and as malicious as that of which he 
 suspected Addison and Tickell. He was all stiletto and mask. To injure, to 
 insult, and to save himself from the consequences of injury and insult by 
 lying and equivocating, was the habit of his life. He published a lampoon 
 on the Duke of Chandos ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied and equivocated. 
 He published a lampoon on Aaron Hill ; he was taxed with it ; and he 
 lied and equivocated. He pubHshed a still fouler lampoon on Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied with more than usual 
 effrontery and vehemence. He puffed himself and abused his enemies under 
 feigned names. He robbed himself of his own letters and then raised the 
 hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds of malignity, of fear, of interest 
 and of vanity, there were frauds which he seems to have committed from love 
 of fvaud alone. He had a habit of stratagem — a pleasure in outwitting all 
 who came near him. Whatever his object might be, the indirect road to it 
 was that which he preferred. For Bolingbroke, Pope undoubtedly felt as 
 much love and veneration as it was in his nature to feel for any human being. 
 Yet Pope was scarcely dead when it was discovered that, from no motive 
 except the mere love of artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross perfidy 
 to Bolingbroke. 
 
 Nothing was more natural than that such a man as this should attribute to 
 others that which he felt within himself. A plain, probable, coherent ex- 
 planation is frankly given to him. He is certain that it is all a romance. 
 A line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even friendly, is pursued towards 
 him. He is convinced that it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue by 
 which he is to be disgraced and ruined. It is vain to ask him for proofs. 
 He has none and wants none, except those which he carries in his own 
 bosom. 
 
 Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison to retaliate for the 
 first and last time, cannot now be known with certainty. We have only 
 Pope's story, which runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some 
 reflections which stung Pope to the quick. What those reflections were, and 
 whether they were reflections of which he had a right to complain, we have 
 now no means of deciding. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish and vicious lad, 
 who regarded Addison with th^ feelings with which such lads generally regard 
 their best friends, told Pope, truly ©r falsely, that this pamphlet had been 
 written by Addison's direction. When we consider what a tendency stories 
 have to grow, in passing even from one honest man to another honest man, 
 and when we consider that to the name of'honest man neither Pope nor the 
 Earl of Warwick had a claim, we are not disposed to attach much importance 
 to this anecdote. 
 
 It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. He had already sketched the 
 character of Atticus in prose. In his anger he turned this prose into the bril- 
 liant and energetic Imes which everybody knows by heart, or ought to know 
 by heart, and sent them to Addison. One charge which Pope has enforced 
 with great skill is probably not without foundation. Addison was, we are 
 indined to believe, too fond of presiding over a circle of humble friends. Of 
 the other imputations which these famous lines are intended to convey, 
 scarcely one has ever Ijeen proved to be just, and some are certainly false. That 
 Addison was not in the habit of "damning with faint praise" appears from 
 innumerable passages in his writings, and from none more than from thosQ i\\ 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 809 
 
 \vhich he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but ridiculous, to- 
 describe a man who made the fortune of almost every one of his intimate 
 friends, as "so obliging that he ne'er obliged." # 
 
 That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly, we cannot doubt. That 
 he was conscious of one of the weaknesses with which he was reproached, 
 is highly probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted him of the 
 gravest part of the accusation. He acted like himself. Asa satirist he was, 
 at his own weapons, more than Pope's match ; and he would have been 
 at no loss for topics. A distorted and diseased body, tenanted by a yet more 
 distorted and diseased mind — spite and envy thinly disguised by sentiments as 
 benevolent and noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle admired in Mr. Joseph 
 Surface ; a feeble sickly licentiousness — an odious love of filthy and noisome 
 images — these were things which a genius less powerful than that to which 
 we owe the Spectator could easily have held up to the mirth and hatred of 
 mankind. Addison had, moreover, at his command, other means of vengeance 
 which a bad man would not have scrupled to use. He was powerful in the 
 state. Pope was a Catholic ; and, in those times, a minister would have 
 found is easy to harass the most i nnocent Catholic by innumerable petty 
 vexations. Pope, near twenty years later, said that " through the lenity of 
 the govenment alone he could live with comfort." " Consider," he exclaimed, 
 "the injury that a man of high rank and credit may do to a private person, 
 under penal laws and many other disadvantages." It is pleasing to reflect 
 that the only revenge which Addison took was to insert in the Freeholder a 
 warm encomium on the translation of the " Iliad," and to exhort all lovers of 
 learning to put down their names as subscribers. There could be no doubt, 
 he said, from the specimens already published, that the masterly hand of Pope 
 ^ould do as much for Homer as Dryden had done for Virgil. From that time 
 to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, by Pope's own acknowledge- 
 ment, with justice. Friendship was, of course, at an end. 
 
 One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick to play the ignominious 
 part of talebearer on this occasion, may have been his dislike of the marriage 
 which was about to take place between his mother and Addison. The Coun- 
 tess Dowager, a daughter of the old and honourable family of the Middletons 
 of Chirk, a family which, in any country but ours, would be called noble, 
 resided at Holland House. Addison had, during some years, occupied at 
 Chelsea a small dwelling, once the abode of Nell Gwynn. Chelsea is now 
 tf district of London, and Holland House may be called a town residence. But, 
 .'iii the days of Anne and George the First, milkmaids and sportsmen wandered 
 'fcbtween green hedges and over fields bright with daisies, from Kensington al- 
 most to the shore of the Thames. Addison and Lady Warwick were country 
 neighbours and became intimate friends. The great wit and scholar tried to 
 allure the young Lord from the fashionable amusements of beating watchmen, 
 breaking windows and rolling women in hogsheads down Holborn Hil], 
 to the study of letters and the practice of virtue. These well-meant exertions 
 did little good, however, either to the disciple or to the master. Lord 
 Warwick grew up a rake ; and Addison fell in love. The mature beauty of 
 the Countess has been celebrated by poets in language which, after a very 
 large allowance has been made for flatter)'', would lead us to believe that she 
 was a fine woman ; and her rank doubtless heightened her attractions. The 
 courtship was long. The hope? of the lover appear to have risen and fallen 
 with the fortunes of his party. His attachment was at length a matter of such 
 notoriety that, when he visited Ireland for the last time, Rowe addressed rome 
 consolatory verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a little 
 strange that, in these verses, Addison should be called Lycidas ; a name of 
 singularly evil omen for a swain just about to cross St, George's Channel. 
 At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was, indeed, able to treat with her on 
 
810 LIFE AND VVRITWGS OF ADDISON". 
 
 equal terms. He had reason to expect preferment even higher than that v.'hich 
 he had attained. He had inherited the fortune of a brother who died Governor 
 of Madras. He had purchased an estate in Warwickshire, and had been wel- 
 comed to his domain in very tolerable verse by one of the neighbouring 
 squires, the poetical fox-hunter, William Somerville. In August 1716, the 
 newspapers announced that Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many 
 excellent works both in verse and prose, had espoused the Countess Dowager 
 of Warwick. 
 
 He now fixed his abode at Holland House — a house which can boast of a 
 greater number of inmates distinguished in political and literary history than 
 any other private dwelling in England. His portrait now hangs there. The 
 features are pleasing ; the complexion is remarkably fair ; but in the expression 
 we trace rather the gentleness of his disposition than the force and keenness of 
 his intellect. 
 
 Not long after his marriage he reached the height of civil greatness. The 
 Whig Government had, during some time, been torn by internal dissensions. 
 Lord Townshend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunderland the other. 
 At length, in the spring of 1717, Sunderland triumphed. Townshend retired 
 from office, and was accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. Sunderland pro- 
 ceeded to reconstruct the Ministry, and Addison was appointed Secretary of 
 State. It is certain that the Seals were pressed upon him, and were at first 
 declined by him. Men equally versed in official business might easily have 
 been found, and his colleagues knew that they could not expect assistance 
 from him in debate. He owed his elevation to his popularity, to his stainless 
 probity and to his literary fame. 
 
 But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when his health began to 
 fail. From one serious attack he recovered in the autumn, and his recovery 
 was celebrated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vincent Bourne, 
 who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. A relapse soon took place, and 
 in the following spring Addison was prevented by a severe asthma from discharg- 
 ing the duties of his post. He resigned it, and was succeeded by his friend 
 Craggs, a young man whose natural parts, though little improved by cultiva- 
 tion, were quick and showy, whose graceful person and winning manners had 
 made him generally acceptable in society, and who, if he had lived,, would 
 probably have been the most formidable of all the rivals of Walpole. 
 
 As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The Ministers therefore were able to 
 bestow on Addison a retiring pension ^^ 1,500 a year. In what form this pen- 
 sion was given we are not told by the biographers, and have not time to 
 inquire. But it is certain that Addison did not vacate his seat in the House of 
 Commons. * 
 
 Rest of mind and body seem to have re-established his health, and he thanked 
 God with cheerful piety for having set him free both from his ofiict! and fy^m 
 his asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, and he meditated many 
 works — a tragedy on the death of Socrates, a translation of the Psalms, a treatise 
 on the evidences of Christianity. - Of this last performance a part, which we 
 could well spare, has come down to us. 
 
 But the fatal complaint soon returned and gradually prevailed against all 
 the resources of medicine. It is melancholy to think that the last moments of 
 such a life should have been overclouded both by domestic and by political 
 vexations. A tradition which began early, which has been generally received, 
 and to which we have nothing to oppose, has represented his wife as an arrogant 
 and imperious woman. It is said that, till his health failed him, he was glad 
 to escape from the Countess-Dowager and her magnificent dining room, blazing 
 with the gilded devices of the House of Rich, to some tavern where he could 
 enjoy a laugh, a talk about Virgil and Boileau, and a bottle of claret, with the 
 friends of his liappier da}\6. All those friends, however, were not left to him. 
 
LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 8ii 
 
 Sir Richard Steele had been gradually estranged by various causes. He con- 
 sidered himself as one who, in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his political 
 principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was triumphant, a large com- 
 pensation for what he had suffered when it was militant. The Whig leaders 
 took a very different view of his claim^T They thought that he had, by his 
 own petulance and folly, brought* them as well as well as himself into trouble, 
 and though they did not absolutely neglect him, doled out favours to him with 
 a sparing hand. It was natural that he should be angry with them, and 
 especially angry with Addison. But what above all seems to have disturbed 
 Sir Richard was the elevation of Tickell, who, -at thirty, was made by Addison 
 Under-Secretary of State, while the editor of the I'atler and Sptctaior^ the 
 author of the "Crisis," the member for Stockbridge, who had been perse 
 cuted for firm adherence to the House of Hanover, was, at near fifty, forced, 
 after many solicitations and complaints, to content himself with a share m the 
 patent of Drury Lane Theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated letter to 
 Congreve, that Addison, by his preference of Tickell, "incurred the warmest 
 resentment of other gentlemen," and everything seems to indicate that, of 
 those resentful gentlemen, Steele was himself one. 
 
 While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he considered as Addison's 
 unkindness, a new cause of quarrel arose. The Whig party, already divided 
 against itself, was rent by a new schism. The celebrated Bill for limiting the 
 number of Peers had been brought in. The proud Duke of Somerset, first 
 in rank of all the nobles whose religion permitted them to sit in Parliament, 
 was the ostensible author of the measure. But it was supported, and in truth 
 devised by the Prime Minister. 
 
 We are satisfied that the Bill was most pernicious, and we fear that the mo- 
 tives which induced Sunderland to frame it were not honourable to him. But 
 we cannot deny that it was supported by many of the best and wisest men ot 
 that age. Nor was this strange. The royal prerogative had, within the memory 
 of the generation then in the vigour of life, been so grossly abused that it was 
 still regarded with a jealousy which, when the peculiar situation of the House 
 of Bruuswick is considered, may perhaps be called immoderate. The preroga- 
 tive of creating Peers had, in the opinion of the Whigs, been grossly abused by 
 Queen Anne's last ministry, and even the Tories admitted that her Majesty, 
 in swamping, as it has since been called, the Upper House, had done what 
 only an extreme case could justify. The theory of the English constitution, 
 according to many high authorities, was that three independent powers, the 
 sovereign, the nobility and the commons, ought constantly to act as checks 
 on each other. If this theory were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one 
 of these powers under the absolute control of the other two, was absurd. 
 But if the number of peers were unlimited, it could not be denied that the 
 Upper House was under the absolute control of the Crown and the Commons, 
 and was indebted only to their moderation for any power which it might be 
 suffered to retain. 
 
 Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with the Ministers. Steele, 
 in a paper called the PUbian, vehemently attacked the Bill. Sunderland 
 called for help on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a paper called the 
 Old Whig, he answered, and indeed refuted, Steele's arguments. It seems to 
 us that the premises of both the controversialists were unsound, that on those 
 premises Addison reasoned well and Steele ill ; and that consequently Addison 
 brought out a false conclusion while Steele blundered upon the truth. In 
 style, in wit and in politeness, Addison maintained his superiority, though 
 the Old Whig is by nd means pne of his happiest performances. * 
 
 * Miss Aikin says that these pieces, never having been reprinted are now of extrema 
 rarity. This is a mistake. They have been reprinted, and may be obtained witbeut 
 the smallest difficulty. The copy now lying before us bears the d»te of 1789. 
 
Si2 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 
 
 At first both the anonymous opponents observed the laws of propriety ; 
 but at length Steele so far forgot himself as to throw an odious imputation 
 on the morals of the chiefs of the administration. Addison replied with 
 severity, but, in our opinion, with less severity than was due to so grave an 
 offence against morality and decorum ; nor did he, in his just anger, forget for a 
 moment the laws of good taste and good breeding. One calumny which has 
 been often repeated, and never yet contradicted, it is our duty to expose. It 
 is asserted in the " Biographia Briiiannica," that Addison designated Steele as 
 "little Dicky," This assertion was repeated by Johnson, who had never seen 
 the Old Wliig^ and was therefore excusable. It has also been repeated by Miss 
 Aikin, who has seen the Old Whi^^ and for whom therefore there is less 
 excuse. Now it is true that the words " little Dicky " occur in the Old Whigy 
 and that Steele's name was Richard. It is equally true that the words " little 
 Isaac" occur in the "Duenna," and that Newton's name was Isaac. But we 
 confidently affirm that Addison's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele, 
 than Sheridan's little Isaac with Newton. If we apply the words "little 
 Dicky " to Steele, we deprive a very lively and ingenious passage, not only 
 of all its wit but of all its meaning. Little Dicky was the nickname of Henry 
 Norris, an actor of remarkably small stature, but of great humour, who played 
 the usurer Gomez, then a most popular part, in Dryden's " Spanish Friar."* j? 
 
 The merited reproof which Steele had received, though softened by some 
 kind and courteous expressions, galled him bitterly. He replied with little 
 force and great acrimony; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast 
 hastening to his grave ; and had, we may well suppose, little disposition to 
 prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. His complaint had terminated ja.. 
 dropsy. He bore up long and manfully. But at length he abandoned all hope^o 
 dismissed his physicians and calmly prepared himself to die. , -h 
 
 His works he entrusted to the care of Tickell, and dedicated them a very few. 
 days before his death to Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet and graceful 
 eloquence of a Saturday's Spectator. In this, his last composition, he alluded 
 to his approaching end in words so manly, so cheerful and so tender, that it is 
 difficult to read them without tears. At the same time he earnestly recom- 
 mended the interest of Tickell to the care of Craggs. 
 
 Within a few hours of the time at which this dedication was written, Addison 
 sent to beg Gay, who was then living by his wits about town, to come to 
 Holland House. Gay went, and was received with great kindness. To his 
 amazement his forgiveness was implored by the dying man. Poor Gay, the 
 the most good-natured and simple of mankind^ could not imagine what he had 
 to forgive. There was, however, some wrong, the remembrance of which 
 weighed on Addison's mind, and which he declared himself anxious to repair. 
 He was in a state of extreme exhaustion ; and the parting was doubtless a 
 friendly one on both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to serve him had 
 been in agitation at Court, and had been frustrated by Addison's influence. 
 Nor is this improbable. Gay had paid assiduous court to the royal family. But 
 
 * We will transcribe the whole paragraph. How it can ever have been misunderstood 
 is unintelligible to us : 
 
 " But our author's chief concern is for the poor House of Commons, whom he repre- 
 sents as naked and defenceless, when the Crown, by losing this prerogative, would 
 be less able to protect them against the power of a House ol Lords. Who forbears 
 laughing when the Spanish Friar represents little Dicky, under the person of 
 Gomez, insulting the Colonel that was able to fright him out of his wits with a 
 single frown? This Gomez, says he, flew upon him like a dragon, got him down, 
 the Devil being strong in him, and gave him bastinado on bastinado, and bufifet 
 on bufifet, which the poor Colonel, being prostrate^ suffered with a most Christian 
 patience. The improbability of the fact nevers fails to raise mirth in the audience ; 
 and one may venture to answer for a British House of Commons, if we may guess 
 from its conduct hitherto, that it will scarc^ \)q either $o tame pr go weak ?is qur atithw 
 supposes," 
 
LIFE AND WRITING^ OF ADDISON": 813 
 
 in the Queen's days he had been the eulogist of Eolingbroke, and was still con- 
 nected with many Tories. It is not strange that Addison, while heated by 
 conflict, should have thought himself justified in obstructing the preferment of 
 one whom he might regard as a political enemy. Neither is it strange that, 
 when reviewing his whole life, and earnestly scrutinising all his motives, he 
 should think that he had acted an unkind an ungenerous part, in using his 
 power against a distressed man of letters, who was as harmless and as helpless 
 as a child. 
 
 One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. It appears that Addison, 
 on his death-bed, called himself to a strict account, and was not at ease till he 
 had asked pardon for an injury which it was not even suspected that he had 
 committed — for an injury which would have caused disquiet only to a very 
 tender conscience. Is it not then reasonable to infer that, if he had really been 
 guilty of forming a base conspiracy against the fame and fortunes of a rival, he 
 would have expressed some remorse for so serious a crime ? But it is unneces- 
 sary to multiply arguments and evidence for the Defence, when there is neither 
 argument nor evidence for the Accusation. 
 
 The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. His interview with his 
 step-son is universally known. "See," he said, "how a Christian can die.*' 
 The piety of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful character. The 
 feeling which predominates in all his devotional writings, is gr?titude. God 
 was to him the allwise and allpowerful friend who had watched over his cradle 
 with more than maternal tenderness ; who had listened to his cries before they 
 could form themselves in prayer ; who had preserved his youth from the snares 
 of vice ; who had made his cup, run over with worldly blessings ; who had 
 doubled the value of those blessings by bestowing a thankful heart to enjoy 
 ihem, and dear friends to partake them ; who had rebuked the waves of the 
 Ligurian gulf, who had purified the autumnal air of the Campagna, and had 
 restrained the avalanches of Mont Cenis. Of the Psalms, his favourite was 
 that which represents the Ruler of all things under the endearing image of a 
 shepherd, whose crook guides the flock safe, through gloomy and desolate glens, 
 to meadows well- watered and rich with herbage. On that goodness to which 
 he ascribed all the happiness of his life, he relied in the hour of death with the 
 love which casteth out fear. He died on the seventeenth of June, 17 19. He 
 had just entered on his forty-eighth year. 
 
 His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and was borne thence to 
 the Abbey at dead of night. The choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atter- 
 bury, one of those Tories who had loved and honoured the most accomplished 
 of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led the procession by torchlight, round the 
 shrine of Saint Edward and the graves of the Plantagenets, to the Chapel of 
 Henry the Seventh. On the north side of that Chapel, in the vault of the 
 House of Albemarle, the coffin of Addison lies next to the coffin of Montagu. 
 Yet a few months ; and the same mourners passed again along the same aisle. 
 The same sad anthem was again chanted. The same vault was again opened ; 
 and the coffin of Craggs was placed close to the coffin of Addison. 
 
 Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison ; but one alone is 
 now remembered. Tickell bewailed his friend in an elegy which would do 
 honour to the greatest name in our literature, and which unites the energy and 
 magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of Cowper. This fine 
 poem was prefixed to a superb edition of Addison's works, which was published 
 in 172 1, by subscription. The names of the subscribers proved how widely his 
 fame had been spread. That his countrymen should be eager to possess his 
 writings, even in a costly form, is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that, 
 though English literature was then little studied on the continent, Spanish 
 Grandees, Italian Prelates, Marshals of France, should be found in the list. 
 Among the most remarkable names are those of the Queen of Sweden, of 
 
8i4 THE EARL OF CHATHAM, 
 
 Prince Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of the Dukes of Parma, 
 Modena and Guastalla, of the Doge of Genoa, of the Regent Orleans and of 
 Cardinal Dubois. We ought to add that this edition, though eminently beau- 
 tiful, is in some important points defective; nor, indeed, do we yet possess a 
 complete collection of Addison's writings. 
 
 It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, nor any of his 
 powerful and attached friends should have thought of placing even a simple 
 tablet, inscribed with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till 
 three generations had laughed and wept over his pages that the omission was 
 supplied by the public veneration. At length, in Our own time, his image, skil- 
 fully graven, appeared in Poet's Corner. It represents him, as we can, conceive 
 him, clad in his dressing-gown and freed from his Wig, stepping from his 
 parlour at Chelsea into his trim little garden, with the account of the 
 *' Everlasting Club," or the " Loves of Hilpa and Shalum," just finished for 
 the next day's Speclator, in his hand. Such a mark of national respect was 
 due to the unsullied statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of 
 pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of life and manners. It 
 was due, above all, to the great satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule 
 without abusing it, who, without inflicting a wound, effected a great social 
 reform, and who reconciled wit and virtue, after a l6ng and disastrous separa* 
 lion, during which wit had been led astray by profligacy and virtue by 
 fanaticism. ' 
 
 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. (October, 1844.) 
 
 1. Cofve^pondcnce of William Pitt, Earl of Chathatii. 4 vols., 8vo. London, 1840. 
 
 2. Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, to Horace Mann. 4 vols., 8vo. London, 
 
 1843-44- 
 More than ten years ago we commenced a sketch of the political life of the 
 great Lord Chatham. * We then stopped at the death of George the Second 
 with the intention of speedily resuming our task. Circumstances, which it would 
 be tedious to explain, long prevented us from carrying this intention into effect. 
 Nor can we regret the delay. For the materials which were within our reach 
 in 1834 were scanty and. unsatisfactory when compared with those which we 
 at present possess. Even now, though we have had access to some valuable 
 sources of information which have not yet been opened to the public, who can- 
 not but feel that the history of the first ten years- of the reign of George III. is 
 but imperfectly known to us. Nevertheless, we are inclined to think that 
 we are in a condition to lay before our readers a narrative neither uninstructive 
 nor uninteresting. We therefore return with pleasure to our long interrupted 
 labour. 
 
 - We left Pitt in the zenith of prosperity and glory, the idol of England, the 
 terror of France, the admiration of the whole civilized world. The wind, 
 from whatever quarter it blew, carried to England tidings of battles won, for- 
 tresses taken, provinces added to the empire. At home factions had sunk into 
 a lethargy such has had never been known since the great religious schism of 
 the sixteenth century had roused the public mind from repose. 
 
 In order that the events which we have to relate may be clearly understood, 
 it may be desirable that we should advert to the causes which had for a time 
 suspended the animation of both the great EngHsh parties. 
 
 If, rejecting all that is merely accidental, we look at the essential charac- 
 teristics of the Whig and the Tory, we may consider each of them as the 
 representative of a great principle, essential to the welfare of nations. One is, 
 in an especial manner, the guardian of liberty, and the other of order. One is 
 the moving power and the other the steadying power of the state. One is the 
 
 * No. cxviii. 
 
THE EARL OE CHATHAM, 815 
 
 sail, without which society would make no progress ; the other the ballast, 
 without which there would be small safety in a tempest. But, during the 
 forty-six years which followed the accession of the House of Hanover, these 
 distinctive peculiarities seemed to be efTaced. The Whig conceived that, he 
 could not better serve the cause of civil and religious freedom than by strenu- 
 ously supporting the Protestant dynasty. The Tory conceived that he could 
 not better prove his hatred of revolutions than by attacking a government to 
 which a revolution had given birth. Both came by degrees to attach more 
 importance to the means than to the. end. Both were thrown into unnatural 
 situations ; and both, like, animals transported to an uncongenial climate, 
 languished and degenerated. The Tory, removed from the sunshine of the 
 Court, was as a camel in the snows of Lapland. The Whig, basking in the 
 rays of royal favour, was as a reindeer in the sands of Arabia. 
 
 Dante tells us that he saw, in Malebolge, a strange encounter between a 
 human form and a serpent. The enemies, after cruel wounds inflicted, stood 
 for a time glaring on each other. A great cloud surrounded them, and then a 
 wonderful metamorphosis began. Each creatui-e was transfigured into the 
 likeness of its antagonist. The serpent's tail divided itself into two legs ; the 
 man's legs' intertwined themselves into a tail. The body of the serpent put 
 forth arms ; the arms of the man shrank into his body. At length the serpent 
 stood up a man, and spake ; the man sank down a serpent, and glided hissing 
 away. Something like this was the transformation which, during the reign of 
 George the First befel the two English parlies. Each gradually took the shape 
 and colour of its foe, till at length the Tory rose up erect, the zealot of freedom, 
 and the Wliig crawled and licked the dust at the feet of power. 
 
 It is true that when these degenerate politicians discussed questions merely 
 speculative, and, above all, when they discussed questions relating to the con- 
 duct of their own grandfathers, they still seemed to differ as their grandfathers 
 had differed. The Wliig, who, during three Parliaments, had never given one 
 vote against the court, and who was ready to sell his soul for the Comptroller's 
 Staff or for the Great Wardrobe, still professed to draw his political doctrines 
 from Locke and Milton, still worshipped the memory of Pym and Hampden, 
 and would still, on the thirtieth of January, take his glass, first to the man in 
 the mask and then tp the man who would do it without a mask. The Tory, on 
 the other hand, while he reviled the mild and temperate Walpole as a deadly 
 enemy of liberty, could see nothing to reprobrate in the iron tyranny of Strafford 
 and Laud. But whatever judgment the Whig or the Tory of that age might pro- 
 nounce on transactions long past, there can be no doubt that, as respected the 
 practical questions then pending, the Tory was a reformer, and Indeed an in- 
 . temperate and indiscreet reformer, while the Whig was conservative even to 
 bigotry. We have ouselvcs seen similar effects produced in a neighbouring 
 country by similar causes. W'ho would have believed, fifteen years ago, that 
 M. Guizot and M. Villemain would have to defend property and social order 
 against the Jacobinical attacks of such enemies as I\L Genoude and M. de La 
 Roche Jaquelin ? 
 
 Thus the successors of the old Cavaliers had turned demagogues ; the suc- 
 cessors of the old Roundheads had turned courtiers. \''et was it long_ before 
 their mutual animosity began to abate ; for it is the nature of parties to retain 
 their original enmities far more f.rmly than their original principles. During 
 rnany years, a generation of Whigs, whom Sidney would have spurned as 
 slaves, continued to wage deadly war with a generatioa of Tories whom 
 Jeffreys would have hanged for republicans. 
 
 Through the whole reign of George the First, and through nearly half of the 
 reign of George the Second, a Tory was regarded as an enemy of the reigning 
 house, and was excluded from all the favours of the crown. Though most 
 of the country gentlemen were Tories, none but Whigs were created peers 
 
Si6 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 and baronets. Though most of the clergy were Tories, none but Whigs 
 were appointed deans and bishops. In every county, opulent and wefi- 
 descended Tory squires complained that their names were left out of the com- 
 mission of the peace, while men of small estate and mean birth, who were for 
 toleration and excise, septennial parliaments and standing armies, presided 
 at quarter sessions, and became deputy lieutenants. 
 
 By degrees some approaches were made towards a reconciliation. While 
 ; Walpole was at the head of affairs, enmity to his power induced a large and 
 powerful body of Whigs, headed by the heir apparent of the throne, to make 
 an alliance with the Tories and a truce even with the Jacobites. After Sir 
 Robert's fall, the ban which lay on the Tory party was taken off. The chi-ef 
 places in the administration continued to be filled by Whigs, and, indeed, could 
 scarcely have been filled otherwise ; for the Tory nobility and gentry, though 
 strong in numbers and in property, had among them scarcely a single man 
 distinguished by talents, either for business or for debate. A few of them, 
 however, were admitted to subordinate offices ; and this indulgence produced a 
 softening effect on the temper of the whole body. The first levee of George 
 the Second after Walpole's resignation was a remarkable spectacle. Mingled 
 with the constant supporters of the House of Brunswick, with the Russells, the 
 Cavendishes and the Pelhams, appeared a crowd of faces utterly unknown to 
 the pages and gentlemen ushers, lords of rural manors, whose ale and fox- 
 hounds were renowned in the neighbourhood of the Mendip hills, or round 
 the Wrekin, but who had never crossed the threshold of the palace since the 
 :4ays when Oxford, with the white staff in his hand, stood behind Queen Anne. 
 ' During the eighteen years which followed this day, both factions were 
 gradually sinking deeper and deeper into repose. The apathy of the public 
 mind is partly to be ascribed to the unjust violence with which the administra- 
 tion of Walpole had been assailed. In the body politic, as in the natural 
 body, morbid languor generally succeeds to morbid excitement. The people 
 had been maddened by sophistry, by calumny, by rhetoric, by stimulants 
 applied to the national pride. In the fulness of bread, they had raved as 
 if famine had been in the land. While enjoying such a measure of civil and 
 religious freedom as, till then, no great society had ever known, they had cried 
 out for a Timoleon or a Brutus to stab their oppressor to the heart. They were 
 in this frame of mind when the change of administration took place ; and 
 they soon found that there was to be no change whatever in the system of 
 government. The natural consequences followed. To frantic zeal succeeded 
 sullen indifference. The cant of patriotism had not merely ceased to charm 
 the public ear, but had become as nauseous as the cant of Puritanism after the 
 downfall of the Rump. The hot fit was over, the cold fit had begun ; and it 
 was long before seditious arts, or even real grievances, could bring back the 
 .fiery paroxyism which had run its course and reached its termination. 
 
 . Two attempts were made to disturb this tranquility. The banished heir of 
 the House of Stuart headed a rebellion ; the discontented heir of the House of 
 Brunswick headed an opposition. Both the rebellion and the opposition came 
 to nothing. The battle of Culloden annihilated the Jacobite party. The death 
 ot Prince Frederic dissolved the faction which, under his guidance, had feebly 
 striven to annoy his father's government. His chief followers hastened to make 
 their peace with the ministry ; and the political torpor became complete. 
 
 Five years after the death of Prince Frederic, the public mind was for a time 
 violently excited. But this excitement had nothing to do with the old disputes 
 between Whigs and Tories. England was at war with France The war had 
 been feebly conducted. Minorca had been torn from us. Our fleet had retired 
 before the white flag of the House of Bourbon. A bitter sense of humiliation, 
 new to the proudest and bravest of nations, superseded every other feeling. 
 The cry of all the counties and great towns of the realm was for a government 
 
THk EARL OF CHATHAM. 817 
 
 which would retrieve the honour of the English arms. The two most power* 
 ful men in the country were the Duke of Newcastle and Pitt. Alternate 
 victories and defeats had made them sensible that neither of them could stand 
 alone. The interest of the state, aijd the interest of their own ambition, 
 impelled them to coalesce. By their coalition was formed the ministry which 
 was in power when George the Third ascended the throne. 
 
 The more carefully the structure of this celebrated ministry is examined, the 
 more shall we see reason to marvel at the skill or the luck which had combined 
 in one harmonious whole such various and, as it seemed, incompatible elements 
 of force. The influence which is derived from stainless integrity, the influence 
 •-vhich is derived from the vilest arts of corruption, the strength of aristocratical 
 connection, the strength of deniocratical enthusiasm, all these things were for 
 the first time found together. Newcastle brought to the coalition a vast mass 
 of power, which had descended to him from Walpole and Pelham. The public 
 offices, the church, the courts, of law, the army, the nav)', the diplomatic 
 service, swarmed with his creatures. The boroughs, which long afterwards 
 made up the memorable schedules A and B, were represented by his nominees. 
 The great Whig families, which, during several generations, had been trained 
 in the discipline of party warfare, and were accustomed to stand together in a 
 firm phalanx, acknowledged him as their captain. Pitt, on the other hand, had 
 what Newcastle wanted, an eloquence which stirred the passions and charmed 
 the imagination, a high reputation for purity, and the confidence and ardent love 
 of millions. 
 
 The partition which the two ministers made of the powers of government 
 was singularly happy. Each occupied a province for which he was well 
 qualified ; and neither had any inclination to.intrude himself into the province 
 of the other. Newcastle took the treasury, the civil and ecclesiastical 
 patronage, and the disposal of that part of the secret service money which was 
 then employed in bribing members of Parliament. Pitt was Secretary of State, 
 with the direction of the war and of foreign affairs. Thus the filth of all the 
 noisome and pestilential sewers of goveirnment was poured into one channel. 
 Through the other passed only what was bright and stainless. Mean and 
 selfish politicians, pining for commissionerships, gold sticks and ribands, 
 flocked to the great house at the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields. There at every 
 levee, appeared eighteen or twenty pair of lawn sleeves ; for there was not, it 
 was said, a single prelate who had not owed either his first elevation or some 
 subsequent translation to Newcastle. There appeared those members of the 
 House of Commons in whose silent votes the main strength of the government 
 lay. • One wanted a place in the excise for his butler. Another came about a 
 prebend for his son. A third whispered that he had always stood by his Grace 
 and the Protestant succession ; that his last election had been very expensive ; 
 that potwallopers had now no conscience ; and that he had been forced to take 
 up money on mortgage ; and that he hardly knew where to turn for five 
 hundred pounds. The Duke pressed all their hands, passed his arms round all 
 their shoulders, patted all their backs, and sent away, some with wages and 
 some with promises. From this traffic Pitt stood haughtily aloof. Not only 
 was he himself incorruptible, but he shrank from the loathsome drudgery of 
 corrupting others. He had not, however, been twenty years in Parliament, and 
 ten in office, without discovering how the government was carried on. He was 
 perfectly aware that bribery was practised on a large scale by his colleagues. 
 Hating the practice, yet despairing of putting it down, and doubtmg, whether 
 in those times, any ministr)' could stand without it, he dctermmed to be blind 
 to it. He would see nothing, know nothing, believe nothing. People who 
 came to talk to him about shares in lucrative coritracts or abont the means of 
 securing a Cornish corporation, were soon put out of countenance by his 
 arrogant humility. They did him too much honour. Such matters were 
 
^iB THE EARL OP CtlATlTAM. 
 
 • . — _ ■■ ■ 1' » ir^« »M^ 
 
 beyond his capacity. It was true that his poor advice about expeditioiis and 
 lrea;ties was ' listened to with indulgence by a gracious sovereign. If the 
 question were, who should command in North America, or who should be 
 ambassador at Berlin, his colleagues would probably condescend to take his 
 opinion. But he had not the smallest influence with the Secretary of the 
 Treasury, and could not venture to ask even for a tidewaiter's place. 
 
 It may be doubted whether he did not owe as much of his popularity to his 
 ostentatious purity as to his eloquence, or to his talents for the administration 
 of war. It was everywhere said with delight and admiration that the great 
 Commoner, without any advantages of birth or fortune, had, in spite of the 
 dislike of the Court and of the aristocracy, made him.self the first m'an in Eng- 
 land, and made England the first country in the world ; that his name was 
 mentioned with awe in every palace from Lisbon to Moscow ; that his trophies 
 were in all the four quarters of the globe ; yet that he was still plain William 
 Pitt, without title or riband, without pension or sinecure place. Whenever he 
 should retire, after saving the state, he must sell his coach horses and his 
 silver candlesticks. Widely as the taint of corruption had spread, his hands 
 were clean. They had never received, they had never given, the price of in- 
 farny. Thus the. coalition gathered to itself support from all the high and all 
 the low parts of human nature, and was strong with the whole united strength 
 of virtue and of IMammon. 
 
 Pitt and Newcastle were co-ordinate chief ministers. The subordinate places 
 had been filled on the principle of including in the government every party 
 and shade of party, the avowed Jacobites alone excepted, nay, every public 
 man who, from his abilities or from his situation, seemed likely to be either 
 useful in office or formidable in opposition. 
 
 The Whigs, according to what was then considered as their prescriptive 
 right, held by far the largest share of power. The main support of the ad- 
 ministration was what may be called the great Whig connection — a connec- 
 tion which, during near half a century, had generally had the chief sway in the 
 country, and which derived an immense authority from rank, wealth, borough 
 interest and firm union. To this connection, of which Newcastle was the 
 head, belonged the houses of Cavendish, Lennox, Fitzroy, Bentinck, Mann.ers, 
 Conway, Wentworth, and many others of high note. 
 
 There were two other powerful Whig connections, either of which might have 
 been a nucleus for a strong opposition. But room had been found in the 
 government for both. They were known as the Grenvilles and the Bedfords. 
 
 The head of the Grenvilles was Richard, Earl Temple. His talents for ad- 
 ministration and debate were of no high order. But his great possessions, 
 his turbulent and unscrupulous character, his restless activity and his skill 
 in I the most ignoble tactics of faction, made him one of the most formidable 
 enemies that a ministry could have. He was keeper of the privy seal. His 
 brother George was treasurer of the navy. They were supposed to be on 
 terms of close friendship with Pitt, who had married their sister, and was the 
 most uxorious of husbands. 
 
 The Bedfords, or, as they were called by their enemies, the Bloomsbuiy gang, 
 professed to be led by John, Duke of Bedford, but in truth led him wherever . 
 they chose, and very often led him where he never would have gone of his 
 own accord. He had many good qualities of head and heart, and would have 
 been certainly a respectable, and possibly a distinguished, man, if he had been 
 1-ess under the influence of his friends, or more fortunate in choosing them.. 
 .Some of them were indeed, to do them justice, men of parts. But here, we 
 .are afraid, eulogy must end. Sandwich and Rigby were able debaters, plea- 
 sant boon companions, dexterous intriguers, masters of all the arts of jobbing 
 and electioneering, and both in public and private life, shamelessly immoral. 
 Weymouth had a natural eloquence, which sometimes astonished those who 
 
THE, EARL OF CHATHAM. 819 
 
 knew how little he owed to study. But he was indolent and dissolute, and 
 had early impaired a fine estate with the dice-box and a fine constitution with 
 the bottle. The wealth and power of the Duke, and the talents and audacity 
 of some of his retainers, might have . seriously annoyed the strongest ministry* 
 But his assistance had been secured. He was Lord Lieutenant, of Ireland ; 
 Rigby was his secretary, and the whole party dutifully supported the measure^ 
 of the Government. 
 
 Two men had, a short time before, been thought likely to contest with Pitt 
 the lead of the House of Commons, William Murray and Henry Fox. But 
 Murray had been removed to the Lords, and was Chief Justice of the King's 
 Bench. Fox was, indeed, still in the Commons ; but means had been found 
 to secure, if not his strenuous support, at least his silent acquiescence. He 
 was a poor man ; he was a doting father. The office of Paymaster-General 
 during an expensive war was, in that age, perhaps the most lucrative situation 
 in the gift of the government. This office was bestowed on Fox. The prospect 
 of making a noble fortune in a few years, and of providing amply for his darling 
 boy Charles, was irresistibly tempting. To hold a subordinate place, however 
 profitable, after having led the House of Commons, and having been intrusted 
 vvith the business of forming a ministry, was indeed a great descent. But a 
 punctilious sense of personal dignity was no part of the character of Henry Fojc. 
 
 We have not time to enumerate all the other men of weight who were, by 
 some tie or other, attached to the government. We may mention Hardwicke, 
 reputed the first lawyer of the age ; Legge, reputed the first financier of the 
 age ; the acute and ready Oswald ; the bold and humorous Nugent ;■ Charles 
 Townshend, the most brilliant and versatile of mankind ; Elliot, Barrington, 
 North, Pratt. Indeed, as far as we recollect, there were in the whole House 
 of Commons only two men of distinguished abilities who were not connected 
 with the government ; and those two men stood so lo\y in public estimation, 
 that the only service which they could have rendered to any government would 
 have been to oppose it. We speak of Lord George Sackville and Bubb Dod- 
 ington. 
 
 . Though most of the official men, and all the members of the cabinet, were 
 reputed Whigs, the Tories were by no means excluded from employment. 
 Pitt had gratified many of them with commands in the militia, which increased 
 both their income and their importance in their own counties ; and they were 
 therefore in better humour than at any time since the death of Anne. Some 
 of the party still continued to grumble over their punch at the " Cocoa Tree ; " 
 but in the House of Commons not a single one of the malcontents durst lift 
 his eyes above the buckle of Pitt's shoe. 
 
 Thus there was absolutely no opposition. I^y, there was no sign from 
 which it could be guessed in what quarter opposition was likely to arise. 
 Several years passed during which Parliament seemed to have abdicated its 
 chief functions. The Journals of the Plouge of Commons, during four ses- 
 'sions, contain no trace of a division on a party question. The sup"plies, though 
 beyond precedent great, were voted without discussion. The most animated 
 debates of that period were on road bills and inclosure bills. 
 
 The old King was content ; and it mattered little whether he were contept 
 or not. It would have been impossible for him to emancipate himself from 
 a ministry so powerful, even if he had been inclined to do so. But he had no 
 such inclination. He had once, indeed, been strongly prejudiced against Pitt, 
 and had repeatedly been ill-used by Newcastle ; but the vigour and success 
 with which the war had been waged in Germany, and the smoothness with 
 which all pubHc business was carried on, had produced a favourable change in 
 J the royal mind. 
 
 Such was the posture of affairs when, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1760, 
 George the Second suddenly died, and George the Third, then twenty-two 
 
^ THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 years old, became King. The situation of George the Third differed widely 
 from that of his grandfather and that of his great-grandfather. Many years 
 had elapsed since a sovereign of England had been an object of affection 
 to any part of his people. The first two Kings of the House of Hanover 
 had neither those hereditary rights which have often supplied the defect 
 of merit, nor those personal qualities which have often supplied the defect of 
 tide. A prince may be popular with little virtue or capacity, if he reigns 
 by birthright derived from a long line of illustrious predecessors. An usurper 
 may be popular, if his genius has saved or aggrandised the nation which he 
 governs. Perhaps no rulers have in our time had a stronger hold on the 
 affection of subjects than the Emperor Francis, and his son-in law the Emperor 
 Napoleon. But imagine a ruler with no better title than Napoleon, and 
 no better understanding than Francis. Richard Cromwell was such a ruler ; 
 and, as soon as an arm was lifted up against him, he fell without a struggle, 
 amidst universal derision. George the First and George the Second were in 
 a situation which bore some resemblance to that of Richard Cromwell. 
 They were saved from the fate of Richard Cromwell by the strenuous and 
 able exertions of the Whig party, and by the general conviction that the 
 nation had no choice but between the House of Brunswick and popery. But 
 by no class were the Guelphs regarded with that devoted affection, of which 
 Charles the First, Charles the ^Second and James the Second, in spite of the 
 greatest faults, and in the midst of the greatest misfortunes, received innume- 
 rable proofs. Those Whigs who stood by the new dynasty so manfully with 
 purse and sword did so on principles independent of, and, indeed, almost incom* 
 patible with, the sentiment of devoted loyalty. The moderate Tories 
 regarded the foreign dynasty as a great evil, which must be endured for fear 
 of a greater evil. In the eyes of the high Tories, the Elector was the most 
 hateful of robbers and tyrants. The crown of another was on his head ; 
 the blood of the brave and loyal was on his hands. Thus, during many years, 
 the Kings of England were objects of strong personal aversion to many of 
 their subjects, and of strong personal attachment to none. They found, 
 indeed, firm and cordial support against the pretender to their throne*; but 
 this support was given, not at all for their sake, but for the sake of a religious 
 and political system which would have been endangered by their fall. This 
 support, too, they were compelled to purchase by perpetually sacrificing 
 their private inclinations to the party which had set them on the throne, and 
 which maintained them there. 
 
 At the close of the reign of George the Second, the feeling of aversion with 
 which the House of Brunswick had long been regarded by half the nation 
 had died away ; but no ffeeling of affection to that house had yet sprung up. 
 There was little, indeed, in the old King's character in inspire esteem or 
 tenderness. He was rot our countryman. He never set foot on our soil 
 till he wao more than thirty years old. His speech betrayed his foreign origin 
 and breeding. His love for his native land, though the most amiable part of 
 his character, was not likely to endear him to his British subjects. He was 
 never so happy as when he could exchange St. James's for Hernhausen ; that 
 year after year, our fleets were employed to convoy him to the Continent ; 
 that the interests of his kingdom were as nothing to him when compared with 
 the interests of his Electorate, could scarcely be denied. As to the rest, 
 he had neither the qualities which make dulsess respectable, nor the qualities 
 which make libertinism attractive. He had been a bad son and a worse 
 father, an unfaithful husband and an ungraceful lover. Not one magnanimous 
 or humane action is recorded of him ; but many instances of meanness, and 
 of a harshness which, but for the strong constitutional restraints under which 
 he was placed, might have made the misery of his people. 
 
 He died j and at once a hqw world opened. TJie young King v.'as a bom 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM, 821 
 
 Englishman. All his tastes and habits, good or bad, were English. No 
 portion of his subjects had anything to reproach him with. Even the remain- 
 ing adherents of the House of Stuart could scarcely impute to him the guilt 
 of usurpation. He was not responsibjjg for the Revolution, for the Act of 
 Settlement, for the suppression of the risings of 1715 and of 1745. He was 
 innocent of the blood of Derwentwater and of Kilmarnock, of Balmerino and 
 Cameron. Born fifty years after the old line had been expelled, fourth in 
 descent and third in succession of the Hanoverian dynasty, he might plead 
 some show of hereditary right. His age, his appearance, and all that was 
 known of his character, conciliated public favour. He was in the bloom 
 of youth ; his person and address were pleasing. Scandal imputed to him no 
 vice ; and flattery might, without any glaring absurdity, ascribe to him many 
 princely virtues. 
 
 It is not strange, therefore, that the sentiment of loyalty, a sentiment 
 which had lately seemed to be as much out of date as the belief in 
 bitches or the practice of pilgrimage, should, from the day of his accession, 
 have begun to revive. The Tories in particular, who had always been 
 inclined to King-worship, and who had long felt with pain the want of an idol 
 tefpre whom they could bow themselves down, were as joyful as the priests of 
 Apis, when, after along interval, they had found a new calf to adore. It was 
 soon clear that George the Third was regarded by a portion of the nation 
 with a very different feeling from that which his two predecessors had inspired, 
 ^hey had been merely First Magistrates, Doges, Stadtholders ; he was 
 emphatically a King, the anointed of heaven, the breath of his people's 
 nostrils. The years of the widowhood and mourning of the Tory party were 
 over. Dido had kept faith long enough to the cold ashes of a former lord ; she 
 had at last found a comforter, and recognised the vestiges of the old flame. 
 /The golden days of Harley would return. The Somersets, the Lees and 
 the Wyndhams would again surround the throne. The latitudinarian Prelates, 
 who had not been ashamed to correspond with Doddridge and to shake 
 hands with Whiston, would be succeeded by divines of the temper of South 
 and Atterbury. The devotion which had been so signally shown to the 
 House of Stuart — which had been proof against defeats, confiscations and 
 proscriptions, which perfidy, oppression, ingratitude could not weary out, was 
 now transferred entire to the House of Brunswick. If George the Third would 
 but accept the homage of the Cavaliers and High Churchmen, he should be to 
 them all that Charles the First and Charles the Second had been. 
 
 The Prince, whose accession was thus hailed by a great party long estranged 
 from his house, had received from nature a strong will, a firmness of 
 temper to which a harsher name might perhaps be given, and an under- 
 standing not, indeed, acute or enlarged, but such as qualified him to be a good 
 man of business. But his character had not yet fully developed itself. He 
 had been brought up in strict seclusion. The detractors of the Princess 
 Dowager of Wales affirmed that she had kept her children from commerce 
 with society, in order that she might hold an undivided empire over their 
 minds. She gave a very different explanation of her conduct. She would 
 gladly, she said, see her sons and daughters mix in the world, if they could 
 do so without risk to their morals. But the profligacy of the people of quality 
 alarmed her. The young men were all rakes ; the young women made love, 
 instead of waiting till it was made to them. She cou'd not bear to expose 
 those whom she loved best to the contaminating influence of such society. The 
 moral advantages of the system of education which formed the Duke of York, 
 the Duke of Cumberland and the Queen of Denmark, may perhaps be ques- 
 tioned. George the Third was indeed no libertine ; but he brought to the 
 throne a mind only half opened, and was for some time entirely under the 
 influence of his mother and of his groom of th? Stole, John Stuart, Earl gf BvUe, 
 
822 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 The Earl of Bute was scarcely known, even by name, to the country which 
 he was soon to govern. He had, indeed, a short time after he came of age, 
 been chosen to fill a vacancy, which, in the middle of a parliament, had taken 
 place among the Scotch representative peers. He had disobliged the Whig 
 ministers by giving some silent votes with the Tories, had consequently lost 
 his seat at the next dissolution, and had never been re-elected. Near twenty 
 years had elapsed since 'he had borne any part in politics. He had passed 
 some of those years at his seat in one'of the Hebrides, and from that retirement 
 he had emerged as one of the household of Prince Frederic. Lord Bute, ex- 
 cluded from public life, had found out 'many ways of amusing his leisure. He 
 was a tolerable actor in private theatricals, and was particularly successful in 
 the part of Lothario. A handsome leg, to which both painters and satirists 
 took care to give prominence, was among his chief qualifications for the stage. 
 He devised quaint dresses for masquerades. He dabbled in geometry, 
 mechanics and botany. He paid some attention to antiquities and works of 
 art, and was considered in his own circle as a judge of painting, architecture 
 and poetry. It is said that his spelling was incorrect. But though, in our 
 time, incorrect spelling is justly considered as a proof of sordid ignorance, it 
 would be unjust to apply the same rule to people who lived a century ago. 
 The novel of Sir Charles Grandison was published about the time at which 
 Lord Bute made his appearance at Leicester House. Our readers may, perhaps, 
 remember the account which Charlotte Grandison gives of her two lovers. 
 One of them, a fashionable baronet who talks French and Itahan fluently, 
 cannot write a line in his own language without some sin against orthography ; 
 the other, who is represented as a most respectable specimen of the young 
 aristocracy, and something of a virtuoso, is described as spelling pretty well for 
 a lord. On the whole, the Earl of Bute might fairly be called a man of culti- 
 vated mind. He was also a man of undoubted honour. But his understanding 
 was narrow, and his manners cold and haughty. His qualifications for the part 
 of a statesman were best described by Frederic, who often indulged in the un- 
 princely luxury of sneering at his dependents. *' Bute," said his Royal High- 
 ness, "you are the very man to be envoy at some small, proud German.court 
 where there is nothing to do." 
 
 Scandal represented the Groom of the Stole as the favoured lover of the 
 Princess Dowager. He was undoubtedly her confidential friend. The influence 
 which the two united exercised over the mind of the King was for a time un- 
 bounded. The Princess, a woman and a foreigner, was not likely to be a 
 judicious adviser about affairs of state. The Earl could scarcely be said to have 
 served even a noviciate in politics. His notions of government had been 
 acquired in the society which had been in the habit of assembling round 
 Frederic at Kew and Leicester House. That society consisted principally of 
 Tories, who had been reconciled to the House of Flanover by the civility with 
 which the Prince had treated them, and by the hope of obtaining high prefer- 
 ment when he should come to the throne. Their political creed was a peculiar 
 modification of Toryism. It was the creed neither of the Tories of the seven- 
 teenth nor of the Tories of the nineteenth century. It was the creed, not of 
 Filmer and Sacheverell, not of Perceval and Eldon, but of the sect of which 
 Bolingbroke may be considered as the chief doctor. This sect deserves com- 
 mendation for having pointed out and justly reprobated some great abuses 
 Avhich sprang up during the long domination of the Whigs. But it is far easier 
 to point out and reprobate abuses than to propose reforms ; and the reforms 
 which Bolingbroke proposed would either have been utterly inefficient,- or 
 would have produced much more mischief than they would have removed. 
 
 The Revolution had saved the nation from one class of evils, but had at the 
 same time — such is the imperfection of all things human — engendered or 
 xiggravated another class of evils which required new remedies, Liberty and 
 
THE EARL OF cnATtfAM. 823 
 
 property were secure from the attacks of prerogative. Conscience was respected. 
 No government ventured to infringe any of the rights solemnly recognised by 
 the instrument which had called VVilliam and Mary to the throne. But it can- 
 not be denied that, under the new sy^m, the public interests and the public 
 morals were seriously endangered by corruption and faction. During the long 
 struggle against the Stuarts, the chief object of the most enlightened statesmen 
 had been to strengthen the House of Commons. The struggle was over ; the 
 victory was won ; the House of Commons was supreme in the state ; and all 
 the vices which had till then been latent in the representative system were • 
 rapidly developed by prosperity and power. Scarcely had the executive 
 government become ideally responsible to the House of Commons, when it 
 began to appear that the House of Commons was not really i;esponsible to the 
 nation. Many of the constituent bodies were under the absolute control of 
 individuals ; many were notoriously at the command of the highest biddef. 
 The debates were not published. It was very seldom known out of doors how 
 a gentleman had voted. Thus, while the ministry was accountable to the Par- 
 liament, the majority of the Parliament was accountable to nobody. Under 
 such circumstances, nothing could be more natural than that the members 
 should insist on being paid for their votes, should form themselves into combin- 
 ations for the purpose of raising th eprice of their votes, and should, at critical 
 conjunctures, extort large wages by threatening a strike. Thus the ^Vhig 
 Ministers of George the First and George the Second were compelled to reduce 
 corruption to a system, and to practise it on a gigantic scale. 
 
 If we are right as to the cause of these abuses, we can scarcely be wrong as 
 to the remedy. The remedy was surely not to deprive the House of Commons 
 of its weight in the state. Such a course would undoubtedly have put an end 
 to parliamentary corruption and to parliamentary factions ; for, when votes 
 cease to be of importance, they will cease to be bought ; and, when knaves can 
 get nothing by combining, they will cease to combine. But to destroy corruption 
 and faction by introducing despotism would have been to cure bad by worse. 
 The proper remedy evidently was, to make the House of Commons responsible 
 to the nation ; and this was to be effected in two ways — first, by giving publicity 
 to parliamentary proceedings, and thus placing every member on his trial before 
 the tribunal of public opinion ; and secondly, by so reforming the constitution 
 of the House that no' man should be able to sit in it who had not been returned 
 by a respectable and independent body of constituents. 
 
 Bohngbroke and Bolingbroke's disciples recommended a .veiy different 
 mod^ of treating the diseases of the state. Their doctrine was that a vigorous 
 use of the prerogative by a patriot Kin^ would at once break all factious com 
 binations and supersede the pretended necessity of bribing members of Parlia- 
 ment. The King had only to resolve that he would be master, that he would 
 not be held in thraldom by any set of men, that he would take for ministers 
 any persons in whom he had confidence, without distinction of party, and that 
 he would restrain his servants from inflxiencing by immoral means either the 
 constituent bodies or the representative body. This childish scheme proved 
 that those who proposed it knew nothing of the nature of the evil with which 
 they pretended to deal. The real cause of the prevalence of corruption and 
 faction was that a House of Commons, not accountable to the people, was 
 more powerful than the King. Bolingbrokc's remedy could be applied only by 
 a King more powerful than the House of Commons. How was the patriot 
 Prince to govern in defiance of the body without whose consent he could not 
 equip a sloop, keep a battalion under arms, send an embassy, or defray even 
 the charges of his own household ? Was he to dissolve the Parliament ? And 
 what was he likely to gain by appealing to Sudbury and Old Sarum against the 
 venality of their representatives ? Was he to send out privy seals ? Was he to 
 levy ship-money ? If so, this boasted reform must commence in all probability 
 
824 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 by civil war, and, if consummated, must be consummated by the establishment 
 . of absolute monarchy. Or was the patriot King to carry the House of Com- 
 mons with him in his upright designs ? By what means? Interdicting himself 
 from the use of corrupt influence, what motive was he to address to the Doding- 
 tons and Winningtons ? Was cupidity, strengthened by habit, to be laid asleep 
 by a few fine sentences about virtue and union. 
 
 Absurd as this theory was, it had many admirers, particularly among men of 
 letters. It was now to be reduced to practice ; and the result was, as any 
 man of sagacity must have foreseen, the most piteous and ridiculous of failures. 
 : 3>; On the very day of the young King's accession, appeared some signs which 
 -.indicated the approach of a great change. The speech which he made to his 
 council was not submitted to the cabinet. It was drawn up by Bute, and con- 
 tained some expressions which might be construed into reflections on the 
 conduct of affairs during the late reign. Pitt remonstrated, and begged that 
 these expressions might be softened down in the printed copy ; but it was not 
 till after some hours of altercation that Bute yielded ; and, even after Bute had 
 yielded, the King affected to hold out till the following afternoon. On the 
 same day on which this singular contest took place, Bute was not only sworn 
 -cio£the privy council, but introduced into the cabinet. 
 
 rfKfr^Soon after this Lord Holdernesse, one of the Secretaries of State, in pur- 
 suance of a plan concerted with the court, resigned the seals. Bute was 
 instantly appointed to the vacant place. A general election speedily followed, 
 and the new Secretary entered parliament in the only way in which he then 
 could enter it, as one of the sixteen representative peers of Scotland.* 
 
 Had the ministers been firmly united, it can scarcely be doubted that they 
 would have been able to withstand the Court. The parliamentary influence of 
 the Whig aristocracy, combined with the genius, the virtue and the fame of Pitt, 
 would have been irresistible. But there had been in the Cabinet of George the 
 Second latent jealousies and enmities, which now began to show themselves, 
 Pitt had been estranged from his old ally Legge, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 Some of the ministers were envious of Pitt's popularity ; others were, not alto- 
 gether without cause, disgusted by his imperious and haughty demeanour : 
 others, again, were honestly opposed to some parts of his policy. They 
 admitted that he had found the country in the depths of humiliation and had 
 raised it to the height of glory ; they admitted he had conducted the war with 
 energy, ability and splendid success. But they began to hint that the drain on 
 the resources of the state was unexampled, and that the public debt was in- 
 creasing with a speed at which Montagu or Godolphin would have stood aghast. 
 Some of the acquisitions made by our fleets and armies were, it was acknow- 
 ledged, profitable as well as honourable ; but, now that George ihe Second was 
 dead, a courtier might venture to ask why England was to become a party in a 
 (Jispute between two German powers. What was it to her whether the House 
 of Plapsburg or the House of Brandenburg ruled in Silesia? Why were the 
 best English regiments fighting on the Main? Why were the Prussian battal- 
 ions paid with English gold? The great minister seemed' to think it beneath 
 him to calculate the price of victory. As long as the Tower guns were fired, 
 as, the streets were illuminated, as French banners were carried in triumph 
 through the streets of London, it was to him malter of indifference to what 
 extent the public burdens were augmented. Nay, he seemed to glory in the 
 magnitude of those sacrifices which the people, fascinated by his eloquence and 
 success, had too readily made and would long and bitterly regret. There was 
 no check on waste or embezzlement. Our commissaries returned from the 
 eamp of Prince Ferdinand to buy boroughs, to rear palaces, to rival the magni- 
 
 * In the reign of Anne, the House of Lords had resolved that, under the 23rd article 
 of Union, no Scotch peer could be created a peer of Great Britain. This resolution was 
 not annulled till the year 1782. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 825 
 
 ficence of the old aristocracy of the realm. Already had we borrowed, in four 
 years of war, more than the most skilful and economical government would pay 
 in forty years of peace. But the prospect of peace was as remote as ever. It 
 could not be doubted that France, sm^Hrting and prostrate, would consent to fair 
 terms of accommodation ; but this was not what Pitt wanted. War had made 
 him powerful and popular ; with war, all that vras brijjhtest in his life was asso- 
 ciated ; for war his talents were peculiarly fitted. He had at length begun t(3 
 love war for its own sake, and was more disposed to quarrel with neutrals than 
 to make peace with enemies. 
 
 vSuch were the views of the Duke of Bedford and of the Earl of Hardwicke ; 
 but no member of the government held these opinions so strongly as George 
 Grenville, the Treasurer of the Navy. George Grenville was brother-in-law of 
 Pitt, and had always been reckoned one of Pitt's personal and political friends. 
 But it is difficult to conceive two men of talents and integrity more utterly unlike 
 each other. Pitt, as his sister often said, knew nothing accurately except Spenser's 
 "Fairy Queen." He had never applied himself steadily to any branch of know- 
 ledge. He was a wretched financier. He never became familiar even with the 
 niles of that House of which he was the brightest ornament. He had never 
 studied public law as a system ; and was, indeed, so ignorant of the whole sub- 
 ject, that George the Second, on one occasion, complained bitterly that a man 
 who had never read Vattel should presume to undertake the direction of Foreign 
 affairs. But these defects were more than redeemed by high and rare gifts ; by 
 a strange power of inspiring great masses of men with confidence and affection ; 
 by an eloquence which not only delighted the ear, but stirred the blood, and 
 brought tears into the eyes; by originality in devising plans; by vigour in 
 executing them. Grenville, on the other hand, was by nature and habit a man 
 of details. He had been bred a lawyer ; and he had brought the industry and 
 acuteness of the Temple into official and parliamentary life. He was supposed 
 to be intimately acquainted with the whole fiscal s}'stem of the country. He 
 had paid special attention to the law of Parliament, and was so learned in all 
 things relating to the privileges and orders of the House of Commons, that 
 those who loved him least pronounced him the only person competent to suc- 
 ceed Onslow in the Chair. His speeches were generally instructive, and some- 
 times, from the gravity and earnestness with which he spoke, even impressive, 
 but never brilliant, and generally tedious. Indeed, even when he was at the head 
 of affairs, he sometimes found it difiicult to obtain the ear of the House. In dis 
 position as well as in intellect, he differed widely from his brother-in-law. Pitt 
 was utterly regardless of money. Pie would scarcely stretch out his hand to 
 take it ; and, when it came, he threw it away with childish profusion. Gren- 
 ville, though strictly upright, was grasping and parsimonious. Pitt was a man 
 of excitable nerves, sanguine in hope, easily elated by success and popularity, 
 keenly sensible of injury, but prompt to forgive ; Grenville's character was 
 stern, melancholy and pertinacious. Nothing was more remarkable in him 
 than his inclination always to look on the dark side of things. He was the 
 raven of the House of Commons, always croaking defeat in the midst of 
 triumphs, and bankruptcy with an overflowing exchequer. Burke, with 
 general applause, compared Grenville, in a time of quiet and plenty, to the evi"! 
 spirit whom Ovid described looking down on the stately temples and wealthy 
 haven of Athens, and scarce able to refrain ftom weeping because she could 
 find nothing at which to weep. Such a man was not likely to be popular. But 
 to unpopularity Grenville opposed a dogged determination, which Sometimes 
 forced even those who hated him to respect him. 
 
 It was natural that Pitt and Grenville, being such as they were, should take 
 very different views of the situation of affairs. Pitt could see nothing but the tro- 
 phies \ Grenville could see nothing but the bill. Pitt boasted that England was 
 victorious at once in America, in India and in Germany — the umpire of the 
 
S26 THE EARL OF CHA THAM. 
 
 Continent, the mistress of the sea. Grenville cast up the subsidies, sighed 
 over the army extraordinaries, and groaned in spirit to think that the nation 
 had borrowed eight milhons in one year. 
 
 With a ministry thus divided it was not difficult for Bute to deal. Legge 
 was the first who fell. He had given offence to the young King in the late 
 reign, by refusing to support a creature of Bute at a Hampshire election. He 
 was now not only turned out, but in the closet, when he delivered up his seal 
 of office, was treated with gross incivility. 
 
 Pitt, who did not love Legge, saw this event with indifference. But the 
 danger was now fast approaching himself. Charles the Third of Spain had 
 early conceived a deadly hatred of England. Twenty years before, when he 
 was King of the Two Sicilies, he had been eager to join the coalition against 
 Maria Theresa. But an English fleet had suddenly appeared in the Bay of 
 Naples. An English Captain had landed, had proceeded to the palace, had 
 laid a watch on the table, and had told his majesty that, within an hour, a 
 treaty of neutrality must be signed, or a bombardment would commence. 
 The treaty was signed ; the squadron sailed out of the bay twenty-four hours 
 after it had sailed in ; and from that day the ruling passion of the humbled 
 Prince was aversion to the English name. He was at length in a situation in 
 which he might hope to gratify that passion. He had recently become King 
 of Spain and the Indies. He saw, with envy and apprehension, the triumphs 
 of our. navy and the rapid extension of our colonial Empire. He was a 
 Bourbon, and sympathised with the distress of the house from which he 
 sprang. He was a Spaniard ; and no Spaniard could bear to see Gibraltar 
 and Minorca in the possession of a foreign power. Impelled by such feelings, 
 Charles concluded a secret treaty with France. By this treaty, known as the 
 Family Compact, the two powers bound them.selves, not in express words, but 
 by the clearest implication, to make war on England in common. Spain 
 postponed the declaration of hostilities only till her fleet, laden with the trea- 
 sures of America, should have arrived. 
 
 The existence of the treaty could not be kept a secret from Pitt. He acted as a 
 man of his capacity and energy might be expected to act. He at once proposed 
 to. declare war against Spain and to intercept the American fleet. He had de- 
 termined, it is said, to attack without delay both Havanna and the PhiHppines. 
 
 His wise and resolute counsel was rejected. Bute v/as foremost in opposing 
 it, and was supported by almost the whole cabinet. Some . of the ministers 
 doubted, or affected to doubt, the correctness of Pitt's intelligence ; some 
 shrank from the responsibility of advising a course so bold and decided as 
 that which he proposed ; some were weary of his ascendancy, and were glad to 
 be rid of him on any pretext. One only of his colleagues agreed with him, his 
 brother-in-law, Earl Temple. 
 
 Pitt and Temple resigned their offices. To Pitt the young King behaved at 
 parting in the most gracious manner. Pitt, who, proud and fiery everywhere 
 else, was always meek and humble in the closet, was moved even to tears. 
 The King and the favourite urged him to accept some substantial mark of 
 royal gratitude, Would he like to be appointed governor of Canada? A 
 salary of ^5,000 a-year should be annexed to the office. Residence would not 
 be required. It was true that the governor of Canada, as the law then stood, 
 could not be a member of the House of Commons. But a bill should be 
 brought in, authorising Pitt to hold his government together- with a seat in 
 Parliament, and in the preamble should be set forth his claims to the gratitude 
 of his country. Pitt answered, with all delicacy, that his anxieties were 
 rather for his wife and family than for himself, and that nothing would be so 
 acceptable to him as a mark of royal goodness which might be beneficial to 
 those who were dearest to him. The hint was taken. The same Gazftte- 
 which announced the retirement of the Secretary of State- announced also that. 
 
THk EARL OF CHATHAM. S27 
 
 in consideration of his great public services, his wife had been created a peer- 
 ess in her own right, and that a pension of three thousand pounds a-year, for 
 three Uves, had been bestowed on himself. It was doubtless thought that the 
 rewards and honours conferred Qn the ^eat minister would have a conciliatory 
 effect on the public mind. Perhaps, too, it was thought that his popularity, 
 which had partly arisen from the contempt which l>e had always shown for 
 money, would be damaged by a pension ; and, indeed, a crowd of. libels in- 
 stantly appeared, in which he was accused of having sold his country. Many 
 of his true friends thought that he would have best consulted the dignity of his 
 character by refusing to accept any pecuniary reward from the Court. J^fever- 
 theless, the general opinion of his talents, virtues and services remained 
 unaltered. Addresses were presented to him from several large towns. Lon- 
 don showed its admiration and affection in a still more marked manner. 
 Soon after his resignation came the Lord Mayor's day. The King and the 
 royal family dined at Guildhall. Pitt was one of the guests. The young 
 Sovereign, seated by his bride in his state coach, received a remarkable lesson, 
 He was scarcely noticed. AH eyes were fixed on the fallen minister; all 
 acclamations directed to him. The streets, the balconies, the chimney tops, 
 burst into a roar of delight as his chariot passed by. The ladies waved their 
 handkerchiefs from the windows. The common people clung to the wheels, 
 shook hands with the footmen, and even kissed the horses. Cries of " No 
 Bute ! " " No Newcastle salmon ! " were mingled with the shouts of " Pitt for 
 ever ! " when Pitt entered Guildhall, he was welcomed by loud huzzas and 
 clapping of hands, in which the very magistrates of the city joined. Lord 
 Bute, in the meantime, was hooted and pelted through Cheapside, and 
 would, it was thought, have been in some danger, if he had not taken the pre- 
 caution of surrounding his carriage with a strong body guard of boxers. 
 Many persons blamed the conduct of Pitt on this occasion as disrespectful to 
 the King. Indeed, Pitt himself afterwards owned that he had done wrong. 
 He was led into this error, as he was afterwards led into more serious errors, 
 by the influence of his turbulent and mischievious brother-in-law, Temple. 
 
 The events which immediately followed Pitt's retirement raised his fame 
 higher than ever. War with Spain proved to be, as he had predicted, inevi- 
 table. News came from the West Indies that Martinique had been taken by 
 an expedition which he had sent forth. Havanna fell ; and it was known 
 that he had planned an attack on Havanna. Manilla capitulated ; and it was 
 believed that he had meditated a blow against Manilla. The American fleet, 
 which he had proposed to intercept, had unloaded an immense cargo of bullion 
 in the haven of Cadiz, before Bute could be convinced that the Court of Madrid 
 really entertained hostile intentions. , , 
 
 The session of Parliament which followed Pitt's retirement passed over 
 without any violent storm. Lord Bute took on himself the most prominent 
 part in the House of Lords. He had become Secretary of State, and, indeed, 
 Prime Minister, without having once opened his lips in public except as an 
 actor. There was, therefore, no small curiosity to know how he would 
 acquit himself. Members of the House of Commons crowded the bar of the 
 Lords and covered the steps of the throne. It was generally expected that 
 the orator would break down ; but his most malicious hearers were forced to. 
 own that he had made i^ better figure than they expected. They, indeed, 
 ridiculed his action as theatrical and his style as tumid. They were es- 
 pecially amused by the long pauses which, not from hesitation, but from 
 affectation, he made at all the emphatic words, and Charles Townshend cried 
 out, "Minute guns !" The general opinion however was, that, if Bute had 
 been early practised in debate, he might have become an impressive speaker,. 
 
 In the Commons, George (irenville had been intrusted with the lead. , The 
 task was not, as yet, a very difficult one ; for Pitt did not think fit to raise the 
 
828 TH^ ^AHL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 standard of opposition. His speeches at this time were distinguished, not only 
 by that eloquence in which he excelled all his rivals, but also by a temperance 
 and a modesty which had too often been wanting to his character. When war 
 was declared against Spain, he justly laid claim to the merit of having foreseen 
 what had at length become manifest to all, but he carefully abstained from 
 arrogant and acrimoniotis expressions ; and this abstainence was the more 
 honourable to him, because his temper, never very placid, was now severely 
 tried, both by gout and by calumny. The courtiers had adopted a mode of 
 warfare which was soon turned with far more formidable effect against theiii' 
 selves. Half the inhabitants of the Grub Street garrets paid their milk scores 
 and got their shirts out of pawn by abusing Pitt. His German war, his sub- 
 sidies, his pension, his wife's peerage, were shin of beef and gin, blankets and 
 baskets of small coal, to the starving poetasters of the Fleet. Even in the 
 House of Commons he was, on one occasion during this session, assailed with 
 an insolence and malice which called forth the indignation of men of^ all 
 parties ; but he endured the outrage with majestic patience. In his youngei? 
 days he had been but too prompt to retaliate on those who attacked him ; but 
 now, conscious of his great services, and of the space which he filled in the 
 eyes of all mankind, he would not stoop to personal squabbles. "This is no 
 season," he said, in the debate on the Spanish war, "for altercation and 
 recrimination. A day has arrived when every Englishman should stand forth 
 for his country. Arm the whole ; be one people ; forgot everything but the 
 public. I set you the example. Harrassed by slanderers, sinking under pain 
 and disease, for the public I forget both my wrongs and my infirmities ! " On 
 a general review of his life, we are inclined to think that his genius and virtue 
 never shone with so pure an effulgence as during the session of 1762. '^"^ 
 
 The session drew towards the close ; and Bute, emboldened by the acquies-i 
 cence of the Houses, resolved to strike another great blow, and to become firsts 
 minister in name as well as in reality. That coalition, which a few months 
 before had seemed all powerful, had been dissolved. The retreat of Pitt hadK 
 deprived the government of popularity. Nev/castle had exulted in the fall off 
 the illustrious colleague whom he envied and dreaded, and had not foreseen^ 
 that his own doom was at hand. He still tried to flatter himself that h« wafift' 
 at the head of the government ; but insults heaped on insults at length unde- 
 ceived him. Places which had always been considered as in his gift, were btf>3 
 stowed without any reference to him. His expostulations only called forth sig>3 
 nificant hints that it was time for him to retire. One day he pressed on Bute th^e^ 
 claims of a Whig Prelate to the archbishopric of York. " If your grace thinks^* 
 so highly of him," answered Bute, " I wonder that you did not promote hiiftfi 
 when you had the power." Still the old man clung with a desperate grasp-t^^ 
 the wreck. Seldom, indeed, have Christian meekness and Christian humilit^"> 
 equalled the meekness and humiHty of his patient and abject ambition. .At^ 
 length he was forced to understand that all was over. He quitted that Gotlf§2' 
 where he had held high office during forty-five years, and hid his shame anitt-' 
 regret among the cedars of Claremont. Bute became First Lord of the Treasury-.]'^ 
 
 The favourite had undoubtedly committed a great error. It is impossible 16'- . 
 imagine a tool better suited to his purposes than that which he thus threw 
 away, or rather put into the hands of his enemies. If Newcastle had beeft^* 
 suffered to play at being first minister, Bute might securely and quietly haV^'^ 
 enjoj'ed the substance of power. The gradual introduction of Tories into all'C' 
 the departments of the government might have been effected without any^^ 
 violent clamour, if the chief of the great Whig connection had been ostensibl/^^ 
 at the head of affairs. This was strongly represented to Bute by Lord Mans-'-' 
 field, a man who may justly be called the father of modern Toryism, of 
 Toryism modified to suit an order of things under which the House of Com- 
 mons is the most powerful body in the state. The theories which had dazzled 
 
THE EARL OP CHATHAM. Sap 
 
 feute could not impose on the fine intellect of Mansfield. The temerity with 
 Which Bute provoked the hostility of powerful and deeply rooted interests, wa'$ 
 displeasing to Mansfield's cold and timid nature. Expostulation, however, 
 was vain. Bute was impatient of advice, drunk with success, eager to be, ifi 
 show as well as in reality, the head of the government. He had engaged in an 
 undertaking in which a screen was absolutely necessary to his success, and even^ 
 to his safety. He foiind an excellent screen ready in the very place where it 
 Was most needed ; and he rudely pushed it away. 
 
 And now the new system of government came into full operation. For the 
 first time since the accession of the House of Hanover, the Tory party was in 
 the ascendant. The Prime Minister himself was a Tory. Lord Egremont, 
 who had succeeded Pitt as Secretary of State, was a Tory and the son oi i. 
 Tory. Sir Francis Dashwood, a man of slender parts, of small experience, 
 and of notoriously immoral character, was made Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 for no reason that could be imagined, except that he was a Tory and had been 
 a Jacobite. The royal household was filled with men whose favourite toast,' a 
 few years before, had been the " King over the water." The relative position 
 of the two great national seats of learning was suddenly changed. The Univer- 
 sity of Oxford had long been the chief seat of disaffection. In troubled times; 
 the High Street had been lined with bayonets ; the colleges had been searched 
 by the King's messengers. Grave doctors were in the habit of talking very 
 Ciceronian treason in the theatre ; and the undergraduates drank bumpers to 
 Jacobite toasts cmd chanted Jacobite airs. Of four successive Chancellors of 
 the University, one had notoriously been in the Pretender's service ; the other 
 three were fully believed to be in secret correspondence with the exiled 
 family. Cambridge had, therefore, been especially favoured by the Hanoverian 
 Princes, and had shown herself grateful for their patronage. George the First 
 had enriched her library ; George the Second had contributed munificently to 
 her Senate House. Bishoprics and deaneries were showered on her children. 
 Her Chancellor was Newcastle, the chief of the Whig aristocracy ; her High 
 Steward was Hardwicke, the Whig head of the law. Both her burgesses had 
 held office under the Whig ministr}'. Times had now changed. The Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge was received at St. James's with comparative coldness. The 
 answers to the addresses of Oxford were all graciousness and warmth. 
 
 The watchwords of the new government were prerogative and purity. The 
 sovereign was no longer to be a puppet in the hands of any subject, or of any 
 combination of subjects. George the Third would not be forced to take 
 ministers whorn he disliked, as his grandfather had been forced to take Pitt. 
 George the Third would not be forced to part with any whom he delighted t o 
 honour, as his grandfather had been forced to part with Carteret. At the same 
 time, the system of bribery which had grown up during the late reigns was to 
 cease. It was ostentatiously proclaimed that, since the accession of the young 
 King, neither constituents nor representatives had been bought with the secret 
 service money. To free Britain from corruption and oligarchical cabals, to dc- ' 
 tach her from continental connections, to bring the bloody and expensive 
 war with F" ranee and Spain to a close, such were the specious objects which 
 Bute professed to procure. 
 
 Some of these objects he attained. England withdrew, at the cost of a deep 
 stain on her faith, from her German connections. The war with France and 
 Spain was terminated by a peace, honourable, indeed, and advantageous to 
 our country, yet less honourable and less advantageous than might have been 
 expected from a long and almost unbroken series of victories, by land and sea, 
 in very part of the world. But the only efTect of Bute's domestic administra- \ 
 tion was to make faction wilder and comiption fouler than eveft 
 
 The mutual animosity of the Whig and Tory parties had begun to lan^'j', 
 guish after the fall of Walpole and had seemed to be almost extinct at the 
 
§30 TtiE EARL OF CHATHAM, 
 
 close of the reign of George the Second. It now l-evived in all its force. 
 Many \Vhig3, it is true, were still in ofike. The Duke of Bedford had signed 
 the treaty with France. The Duke of Devonshire, though much out of 
 humour, , still continued to be Lord Chamberlain. Grenville, who led the 
 House of Commons, and Fox, who still enjoyed in silence the immense gains 
 ' of the Pay Office, had always been regarded as strong Whigs. But the bulk 
 of the party throughout the country regarded the new minister with abhor- 
 rence. There was, indeed, no want of popular themes for invective against 
 his character. He was a favourite ; and favourites have always been odious in 
 this country. No mere favourite had been at the head of the government 
 since the dagger of Fellon had reached the heart of the Duke of Buckingham. 
 After that event the most arbitrary and the most frivolous of the Stuarts had 
 felt the necessity of confiding the chief direction of affairs to men who had 
 given some proof of parliamentary or official talent. Strafford, Falkland, 
 Clarendon, Clifford, Shaftesbury, Lauderdale, Danby, Temple, Hahfax, 
 Rochester, Sunderland, whatever their faults mights be, were all men of ac- 
 knowledged ability. They did not owe their eminence merely to the favour of 
 the sovereign. On the contrary, they owed the favour of the sovereign to their 
 eminence. Most of them, indeed, had first attracted the notice of the court 
 by the capacity and vigour which they had shown in opposition. The Revolu- 
 tion seemed to have for ever secured the state against the domination of a Carr 
 or a Villiers. Now, however, the personal regard of the King had at once 
 raised a man who had seen nothing of public business, who had never opened 
 his lips in Parliament, over the heads of a crowd of eminent orators, financiers, 
 diplomatists. From a private gentleman, this fortunate minion had at once 
 been turned into a Secretary of State. He had made his maiden speech when 
 at the head of the administration. The vulgar resorted to a simple explanar 
 tion of the phenomenon, and the coarsest ribaldry against the Princess Mothejf 
 was scrawled on every wall and sung in every alley. r-t ■ 
 
 This was not all. The spirit of party, roused by impolitic provocation from 
 its long sleep, roused in turn a still fiercer and more malignant Fury, the 
 spirit oY national animosity. The grudge of Whig against Tory was mingled 
 with Ihc grudge of Englishman against Scot. The two sections of the great 
 British people had not yet been indissolubly blended together. The events of 
 17.15. and of 1745 had left painful and enduring traces. Tlie tradesmen of 
 Cornhill had been in dread of seeing their tills and warehouses plundered by 
 Ixire-legged mountaineers from the Grampians. They still recollected that 
 Black Friday, when the newrs came that the rebels were at Derby, when aU. the 
 shops in the city were closed, and. when the Bank of England began to pay in 
 sixpences. The Scots, on the otlier hand, remembered, with natural resent- 
 ment, the severity with which the insurgents had been chastised, the mihtary 
 outrages, the humiliating laws, the heads fixed on Temple Bar, the fires and 
 quartering blocks on Kennington Common. The favourite did not suffer the 
 English to forget from what part of the island he came. The cry of all the 
 south was that the public offices, the army, the navy, were filled with high- 
 cheeked Drummonds and Erskines, Macdonalds and Macgillivrays, who,coul<jl 
 not talk a Christian tongue, and some of' whom had but lately begun to wear 
 Christian breeches. All the old jokes on hills without trees, girls without 
 stockings, men eating the food of horses, pails emptied from the fourteenth 
 storey, were pointed against these lucky adventurers. To the honour of the 
 Scots it must be said, that their prudence and their pride restrained them from 
 retaliation. Like the princess in the Arabian tale, they stopped^ their ears 
 tight, and, unmg)ved by the shrillest notes of abuse, walked on, without once 
 looking round, straight towards the Golden Fountain. 
 
 Bute, who had always been considered as a man of taste and reading, 
 affected, from the moment of his elevation, the character of a Msecenas. If 
 
7'HJL EARL OF CHATHAM. 83* 
 
 he expected to conciliate the public by encouraging literature and art, he was 
 grieviously mistaken. Indeed, none of the objects of his munificence, with 
 the single exception of Johnson,, can be said to have been well selected ; and 
 the public, not unnaturally, ascribed the selection of Johnson rather to the 
 Doctor's political prejudices than to his literary merits. For a wretched scrib- 
 bler named Shebbeare, who had nothing in common with Johnson except 
 violent Jacobitism, and who had stood in the pillory for a libel on the Revolu- 
 tion, was honoured with a mark of royal approbation, similar to that which 
 was bestowed on the author of the " English Dictionary," and of the "Vanity 
 of Human Wishes." It was remarked that Adam, a Scotchman, was the 
 court architect, and that Ramsay, a Scotchman, was the court, painter, and 
 was preferred to Reynolds. Mallet, a Scotchman, of no high literary fame, 
 and of infamous character, partook largely of the liberality of the government, 
 John Home, a Scotchman, was rewarded for the tragedy of " Douglas," both 
 with a pension and with a sinecure place. But, when the author of the 
 *^ Bard," and of the " Elegy in a Country Churchyard," ventured to ask lor a 
 Professorship, the emoluments of which he much needed, and for the duties of 
 which he was, in many respects, better qualified than any man living, he was 
 refused ; and the post was bestowed on the pedagogue ui^der whose care the 
 favourite's son-in-law, Sir James Lowther, had made such signal proficiency m 
 the graces and in the humane virtues. 
 
 •^''Thus, the First Lord of the Treasury was detested by many as a Tory, by 
 ttiany as a favourite and by many as a Scot. All the hatred which flowed 
 from these various sources soon mingled, and was directed in one torrent -of 
 obloquy against the treaty of peace. The Duke of Bedford, who had negoti- 
 ated that treaty, was hooted through the streets. Bute was attacked in his 
 chair, and was with difficulty rescued by a troop of the guards. He could 
 hardly walk the streets in safety without disguising himself. A gentleman 
 who died not many years ago used to say that he once recognised the favourite 
 Earl in the piazza of Covent Garden, muffled in a large coat and with a hat 
 and wig drawn down over his brows. His lordship's established type with the 
 mob was a jack boot,^ wretched pun on his Christian name and title. A jack 
 boot, generally accompanied by a petticoat, was sometimes fastened on a gal- 
 lows and sometimes committed to the flames. Libels on the court, exceeding 
 in audacity and rancour any that had been published for many years, now ap- 
 peared daily in prose and verse. Wilkes, with lively insolence, compared the 
 mother of George the Third to the mother of Edward the Third, and the 
 Scotch minister to the gentle Mortimer. Churchill, v/ith all the energy of 
 hatred, deplored the fate of his country, invaded by a new race of savages, 
 more cruel and ravenous than the Picts or the Danes, the poor, proud children 
 of Leprosy and Hunger. It is a sliglit circumstance, but deserves to be re- 
 /corded, that in this year pamphleteers first ventured to print at length the 
 names of the great men whom they lampooned. George the Second had al- 
 ways been the-K . His ministers had. been Sir R — -. — W^ — ; — , Mr. P- ~ 
 
 'ahd the Duke of N . But the Hbellecs of George the Third, of the 
 
 Princess Mother and of Lord Bute did not give quarter to a single vowel. 
 '•'■ It was supposed that Lord Temple secretly encouraged the most scurrilous 
 ^assailants of the government. In truth, those who knew, his habits tracked 
 ■him as men track a mole. It was his nature to grub underground. Whenever 
 a heap of dirt was flung up it might well be suspected that he wa.s at work in 
 some foul, crooked labyrinth below. Pitt turned away from the filthy work of 
 opposition with the same scorn with which he had turned away from the 
 filthy work of government. He had the magnanimity to proclaim every- 
 where the disgust which he felt at the insults offered by his own adherents to 
 the Scottish nation, and missed no opportunity of extolling the courage and 
 fidelity which the Highland reginrients Ivi-d displayed through the whole wa-r. 
 
832 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 But, though he disdained to use any but lawful and honourable weapons, it 
 was well known that his fair blows were likely to be far more formidable than 
 the privy thrusts of his brother-in-law's stiletto. 
 
 Bute's heart began to fail him. The Houses were about to meet. The treaty 
 would -instantly be the subject of discussion. It was probable that Pitt, the 
 g:r<;at Whig connection and the multitude would all be on the same side. The 
 favourite had professed to hold in abhorrence those means by which preceding 
 ministers had kept the House of Commons in good humour. He now began 
 to think that he had been too scrupulous. His Utopian visions were at an end. 
 It was necessary, not only to bribe, but to bribe more shamelessly and flagitiously 
 than his predecessors, in order to make up for lost time. A majority must be 
 secured, no matter by what means. Could Grenville do this ? Would he do it ? 
 His firmness and ability had not yet been tried in any perilous crisis. He had 
 been generally regarded as a humble follower of his brother Temple and of his 
 brother-in-law Pitt, and was supposed, though with little reason, to be still 
 favourably inclined towards them. Other aid must be called in. And where 
 was other aid to be found ? 
 
 There was one man, whose sharp and manly logic had often in debate been 
 found a match for the lofty and impassioned rhetoric of Pitt, whose talents for 
 jobbing were not inferior to his talents for debate, whose dauntless spirit shrank 
 from no difficulty or danger, and who was as little troubled with scruples as with 
 fears. Henry Fox, or nobody, could weather the storm which was about to 
 burst. Yet was he a person to whom the Court, even in that extremity, was 
 unwilling to have recourse. He had always been regarded as a Whig of the 
 Whigs. He had been the friend and disciple of Walpole. He had long been 
 connected by close ties with William, Duke of Cumberland. By the Tories he 
 was more hated than any man living. So strong was their aversion to him that 
 when, in the late reign, he had attempted to form a party against the Duke of 
 Newcastle, they had thrown all their weight into Newcastle's scale. By the 
 Scots, Fox was abhorred as the confidential friend of the conqueror of Culloden. 
 He was, on personal grounds, most obnoxious to the Princess Mother. For he 
 had, immediately after her husband's death, advised the late King to lake the 
 education of her son, the heir apparent, entirely out of her hands. He had 
 recently given, if possible, still deeper offence ; for he had indulged, not with- 
 out some ground, the ambitious hope that his beautiful sister-in-law, the Lady 
 Sarah Lennox, might be queen of England. It had been observed that the 
 King at one time rode every morning by the grounds of Holland House, and 
 that on such occasions. Lady Sarah, dressed like a shepherdess at a masquerade, 
 was making hay close to the road, which was then separated by no wall from 
 the lawn. On account of the part which Fox had taken in this singular 
 love affair, he was the only member of the Privy Council who was not sum- 
 moned to the meeting at which his Majesty announced his intended marriage 
 with the Princess of Mecklenburg. Of all the statesmen of the age, therefore, 
 it seemed that Fox was the last with whom Bute, the Tory, the Scot, the 
 favourite of the Princess Mother, could, under any circumstances, act. Yet to 
 Fox Bute was now compelled to apply. 
 
 Fox had many noble and amiable qualities, which in private life shone forth 
 in full lustre, and made him dear to his children, to his dependents and to his 
 friends ; but as a public man he had no title to esteem. In him the vices which 
 were common to the whole school of Walpole appeared, not^ perhaps, in their 
 worst, but certainly in their most prominent form ; for his parliamentary and 
 oflficial talents made all his faults conspicuous. His courage, his vehement 
 temper, his contempt for appearances, led him to display much that others, 
 quite as unscrupulous as himself, covered with a decent veil. He was the most 
 unpopular of the statesmen of his time, not because he sinned more than many 
 of them, but because he canted less. - . 
 
TaS:M4^I^ O^' CMA^md^¥^ 8>|v 
 
 •He 'felt his unpoiJiuiarity ; but, he felt it after the fashion of strong minds;' 
 lie became, not cautious, but reckless, and faced the vage of the whole nation 
 with a scowl of inflexible defiance. He was born with a sweet and generous 
 temper : but he had been goaded and baited into a savageness which was not 
 natural to him, and which amazed and shocked those who knew him best. 
 Such, was the man to whom Bute, in extreme need, applied for succour. 
 
 yhat succour Fox was not unwilling to afford. Though by no means of an 
 envious temper, he had undoubtedly contemplated the success and popularity 
 of Pitt with bitter mortification. He thought himself Pitt's match as a debater 
 atvd Pitt's superior as a man of business. They had long been regarded as 
 well-paired rivals. They had started fair in the career of ambition. They had 
 long run side by side. . At length Fox had taken the lead and Pitt had fallen 
 behind. Then had come a sudden turn of fortune, like that in Virgil's foot- 
 race. Fox had stumbled in the mire, and had not only been defeated, but be- 
 fouled. Pitt had reached the goal and received the prize. The emoluments 
 of the Pay Office might induce the defeated statesman to submit in silence to 
 the ascendancy of his competitor, but could not satisfy a mind conscious of 
 great powers and sore from great vexations. . As soon, therefore, as a party 
 arose adverse to the war and to the supremacy of the great war minister^ 
 tlie hopes of Fox began to revive. His feuds with the Princess Mother, with 
 the Scots, with the Tories, he was ready to forget,, if/iby the, help of his old 
 enemies, he could now regain the importance which he had lost, and coofrfSKt 
 Pitt on equal terms. ; .' r- '.f, . 
 
 The alliance was, therefore, soon concluded. Fox was assured that, if he would 
 piiot the government out of its embarrassing situation, he should be rewarded 
 vath a peerage, of which he had long been desirous. He undertook on his side 
 to obtain, by fair or foul means, a vote in favour of the peace. In consequence 
 of tliis arrangement he became leader of the House of Commons ; and Grenville 
 stifling his vexation as well as he could, sullenly acquiesced in the change. 
 
 Fox had expected that his influence would secure to the Gourt the cordial sup*- 
 port of some eminent Whigs who were his personal friends, particultirly of the 
 Duke of Cumberland and of the Duke of Devonshire. He was disappointed, and 
 sdon. found that, in addition to all his other difficulti(*s, he must reckon on the 
 opposition of the ablest prince of the blood and of the great house of Cavendish. 
 
 ■A\Mi he had pledged himself to win the battle ; and he was not a man to go 
 back. It was no time for squeamishness. Bute was made to comprehend that 
 tlie ministry could l)e saved only by practising the tactics of Walpole to an 
 extent at which Walix>le himself would have stared. The Pay Office was 
 turned into a mart for j-otes. Hundreds of members were closeted there with' 
 Fxxx, and, as there is too much reason to lyelieve, departed carrying with them 
 the wages of infamy. It was aflirmed by persons whohad the best opportunities 
 of obtaining information, that twenty-five thousand pounds were thus paid 
 away in a single morning. The lowest bribe given, it was said, was a bank- 
 notxi for two hundred pounds, ■ ' ' 
 
 cln^midation was joined with corruption. All ranks, frOni' the highest 
 to the lowest, were to be taught that the King would be obeyed. The Lords 
 Lieutenants of several anmties were dismissed. The Duke of Devonshire 
 ^V!as especially .singled out as thtjviGlJmljy whose fate the magnates <of England 
 were to take warning. His wealth, rank and influence, his- stainless pri- 
 vate character, ^nd the constant attachment of his family to the House of 
 
 Hanover did not secure him from gross personal indignity. It was- known that 
 he disapproved of the course which the government had taken ; and it was 
 accordingly determined to humble the Prince of the Whigs, as he had l)een 
 nicknamed by the Princess Mother. He went to the palace to pay his dlity. 
 
 '\Tell him," said the King to a page, " that I will not see him.^' The page 
 
 hesitated. "Go to him," said the King, "and tell him those very words. '* 
 
 E E 
 
834 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 The message was delivered. The Duke tore off his gold key, and went away 
 boiling with anger. His relations who were in office instantly resigned. A 
 few days later, the King called for the list of Privy Councillors, and with his 
 own hand struck out the Duke's name. 
 
 In this step there was at least courage, though little wisdom or good 
 nature. But, as nothing was too high for the revenge of the Court, so also was 
 nothing too low. A persecution, such as had never been known before, and 
 has never beeri known since, raged in every public department. Great num- 
 bers of humble and laborious clerks were deprived of their bread, not because 
 they had neglected their duties, not because they had taken an active part 
 against the ministry, but merely because they had owed their situations to the 
 retommendation of some nobleman or gentleman who was against the peace. 
 The proscription extended to tidewaiters, to gaugers, to doorkeepers. One 
 poor man to whom a pension had been given for his gallantry in a fight with 
 smugglers, was deprived of it because he had been befriended by the Duke of 
 Grafton. An aged widow, who, on account of her husband's services in the 
 navy, had, many years before, been made housekeeper to a public office, was 
 dismissed from her situation, because it was imagined that she was distantly 
 connected by marriage with the Cavendish family. The public clamour, as 
 may well be supposed, grew daily louder and louder. But the louder it grew, 
 the more resolutely did Fox go on with the work which he had begun. His 
 old friends could not conceive what had possessed him. " I could forgive," 
 said the Duke of- Cumberland, *' Fox's political vagaries ; but I am quite con- 
 founded by his inhumanity. Surely he used to be the best-natured of men." 
 
 At last Fox went so far to take a legal opinion on the question, whether the 
 patents granted by George the Second were binding on George the Third. It 
 is said, that, if his collefigues had not flinched, he would at once have turned 
 out the Tellers of the Exchequer and Justices in Eyre. 
 
 Meanwhile the Parliament met. The ministers, more hated by the people 
 than ever, were secure of a majority, and they had also reason to hope that 
 they would have the advantage in the debates as well as in the divisions ; for 
 Pitt was confined to his chamber by a severe attack of gout. His friends 
 moved to defer the consideration of the treaty till he should be able to attend : 
 but the motion was rejected. The great day arrived. The discussion had 
 lasted some time, when a loud huzza was heard in Palace Yard. The noise 
 came nearer and nearer, up the stairs, through the lobby. The door opened, 
 and from the midst of a shouting multitude came forth Pitt, borne in the arms 
 of his attendants. His face was thin and ghastly, his limbs swathed in flannel, 
 his crutch in his hand. The bearers set him down within the bar. His friends 
 instantly surrounded him, and with their help he crawled to his seat near the 
 table. In this condition he spoke three hours and a half against the peace. 
 During that time he was repeatedly forced to sit down and to use cordials. It 
 may well be supposed that his voice was faint, that his action was languid, and 
 that his speech, though occasionally brilliant and impressive, was feeble when 
 compared with his best oratorical performances. But those who remembered 
 what he had done, and who saw what he suffered, listened to him with 
 emotions stronger than any that mere eloquence can produce. He was unable 
 to stay for the division, and was carried away from the House amidst shouts as 
 loud as those which had announced his arrival. 
 
 A large majority approved the peace. The exultation of the Court was 
 boundless. ** Now," exclaimed the Princess Mother, " my son is really King." 
 The young sovereign spoke of himself as freed from the bondage in which his 
 grandfather had been held. On one point, it was announced, his mind was 
 unalterably made up. Under no circumstances whatever should those Whig 
 grandees, who had enslaved his predecessors and endeavoured to enslave him- 
 self, be restored to power. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 835 
 
 This vaunting was .premature. The real strength of the favourite was by no 
 means proportioned to the number of votes which he had, on one particular 
 division, been able to command. He was soon again in difficulties. The 
 most important part of his budget was a tax on cider. The measure was 
 opposed, not only by those who were generally hostile to his administration, 
 but also by many of his supporters. The imme of excise had always been hateful 
 to the Tories. One of the chief crimes of Walpole, in their eyes, had been his 
 partiality for this mode of raising money. The Tory Johnson had in his ** Die* 
 tionary " given so scurrilous a definition of the word " Excise," that the Com- 
 missioners of Excise had seriously thought of prosecuting him. The counties 
 which the new impost particularly affected had always been Tory counties. It 
 was the boast of John Philips, the poet of the English vintage, that the Cider- 
 land had ever been faithful to the throne, and that all the pruning-hooks of her 
 thousand orchards had been beaten into swords for the service of the ill-fated 
 Stuarts. The effect of Bute's fiscal scheme was to produce an union between 
 the gentry and the yeomanry of the Cider-land and the Whigs of the capital, 
 Herefordshire and Worcestershire were in a flame. The city of London, 
 though not so directly interested, was, if possible, still more excited. The 
 debates on this question irreparably damaged the government. Dashwood's 
 financial statement had been confused and absurd beyond belief, and had been 
 received by the House with roars of laughter. He had sense enough to be 
 conscious of his unfitness for the high situation which he held, and exclaimed 
 in a comical fit of despair, *' What shall I do ? The boys will point at me in 
 the street, and cry, ' There goes the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer that 
 ever was.'" George Grenville came to the rescue, and spoke strongly on his 
 favourite theme, the profusion with which the late war had been carried on. 
 That profusion, he said had made taxes necessary. He called on the gentle- 
 men opposite to him to say where they would have a tax laid, and dwelt on 
 this topic with his usual prolixity. "Let them tell me where," he repeated, 
 in a monotonous and somewhat fretful tone. *' I say, sir, let them tell me 
 where. I repeat it, sir ; I am entitled to say to them, Tell me where." Un- 
 luckily for him, Pitt had come down to the House that night, and had l:>eeu 
 bitterly provoked by the reflections thrown on the war. He revenged himself 
 by murmuring in a whine resembling Grenville's, a line of a well-known song, 
 " Gentle Shepherd, tell me where." " If," cried Grenville, "gentlemen are 
 
 to be treated in this way " Pitt, as was his fashion when he meant to 
 
 mark extreme contempt, rose deliberately, made his bow, and walked out of 
 the House, leaving his brother-in-law in convulsions of rage, and everybody 
 else in convulsions of laughter. It was long before Grenville lost the nickname 
 of the Gentle Shepherd. 
 
 But the ministry had vexations still more serious to endure. The hatjred 
 which the Tories and Scots bore to Fox was implacable. In a moment of 
 extreme peril they had consented to put themselves under his guidance. But 
 the aversion with which they regarded him broke forth as soon as the crisis 
 seemed to be over. Some of them attacked him about the accounts of the 
 Pay Office. Some of them rudely interrupted him when speaking, by laughter 
 and ironical cheers. He was naturally desirous to escape from so disagreeable 
 a situation, and demanded the peerage which had been promised as the reward 
 of his services. 
 
 It was clear that there must be some change in the composition of the 
 ministry. But scarcely any, even of those who, from their situation, might be 
 supposed to be in all the secrets of the government, anticipated what really 
 took place. To the amazement of the Parliament and the nation, it was 
 suddenly announced that Bute had resigned. . . 
 
 Twenty different explanations of this strange step were su^ested. Some 
 attributed it to profound design, and some to sudden panic. Some said that 
 
S36 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 the lampoons of the opposition had driven the Eatl from the field ; some that 
 he had taken office only in order to bring the war to a close, and had always 
 meant- to retire when that object had been accomplished. He publicly 
 assigned ill health as his reason for quitting business, and privately complained 
 that he was not cordially seconded by his colleagues, and that Lord Mansfield, 
 in particular, whom he had himself brought into the cabinet, gave him no 
 support in the House of Peers. Mansfield M'as, indeed, far too sagacious 
 not to perceive that Bute's situation was one of great peril, and far too 
 timorous to thrust himself into peril for the sake of another. The probability, 
 however, is that Bute's conduct on this occasion, like the conduct of most men 
 on most occasions, was determined by mixed motives. We suspect that he 
 was sick of office ; for this is a feeling much more common among ministers 
 than persons who see public life from a distance are disposed to believe ; 
 and nothing could be more natural than that this feeling should take possession 
 of the mind of Bute. In general, a statesman climbs by slow degrees. Many 
 laborious years elapse before he reaches the topmost pinnacle of preferment. 
 In the earlier part of hi.s career, therefore, he is constantly lured on by seeing 
 something above him. During his ascent he gradually becomes inured to the 
 annoyances which belong to a life of ambition. By the time that he has 
 attained the highest point, he has become patient of labour and callous to 
 abuse. He is kept constant to his vocation, in spite of all its discomforts, at 
 first by hope, and at last by habit. It was not so with Bute. His whole 
 public life lasted little more than two years. On the day on which he became 
 a politician he became a cabinet minister. In a few months he was, both in 
 name and in show, chief of the administration. Greater than he had been he 
 could not be. If what he already possessed was vanity and vexation of spirit, 
 no delusion remained to- entice him onward. He had been cloyed with 
 the pleasures of ambition before he had been seasoned to its pains. His 
 habits had not been such as were likely to fortify his mind against obloquy and 
 public hatred. He had reached hi^ forty-eighth year in dignified ease, 
 without knowing, by personal experience, what it was to be ridiculed and 
 slandered. All at once, without any previous initiation, he had found himself 
 exposed to such a storm of invective and satire as had never burst on the head 
 of any statesman. The emoluments of office were now nothing to him ; for he 
 had just succeeded to a princely property by the death of his father-in-law. 
 All the honours which could be bestowed on him he had already secured. He 
 had obtained the Garter for himself and a British peerage for his son. He 
 seems also to have imagined that by quitting the treasury he should escape from 
 danger and abuse without really resigning power, and should still be able to 
 exercise in private supreme influence over the royal mind. 
 
 Whatever may have been his motives, he retired. Fox at the same time took 
 refuge in the House of Lords ; and George Grenville became First Lord of the 
 Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. 
 
 We believe that those who made this arrangement fully intended that 
 Grenville should be a mere puppet in the hands of Bute ; for Grenville was as 
 yet very imperfectly known even to those who had observed him long. He 
 IDassed for a mere official drudge ; and he had all the industry, the minute 
 accuracy, the formality, the tediousness, which belong to the character. But 
 he had other qualities which had not yet shown themselves : devouring ambition, 
 dauntless courage, self-confidence amounting to presumption, and a temper 
 which could not endure opposition. He was not disposed to be anybody's 
 tool ; and he had no attachment, political or personal, to Bute. The two men 
 had, indeed, nothing in common, except a strong propensity towards harsh and 
 unpopular courses. Their principles were fundamentally different. 
 
 Bute was a Tory. Grenville would have been very angry with any person 
 who should have denied his claim to' be a Whig. He was more prone to 
 
THE EARL OF CHA 7 HAM. S37 
 
 tyrannical measures than Bute ; but he loved tyranny only when disguised 
 under the forms of constitutional liberty. He mixed up, after a fashion then 
 not very unusual, the theories of the republicans of the seventeenth century 
 with the technical maxims of English law, and thus succeeded in combining 
 anarchical speculation with arbitrary practice. The voice of the people was 
 the voice of God ; but the only legitimate organ through which the voice of 
 the people could be uttered was the Parliament. All power was ffom the 
 people ; but to the Parliament the whole power of the people had been 
 delegated. No Oxonian divine had ever, even in the years which immediately 
 followed the Restoration, demanded for the King so abject, so unreasoning a 
 homage, as Grenville, on what he considered as the purest Whig principles, 
 demanded for the Parliament. As he wished to see the Parliament despotic 
 over the nation, so he wished to see it also despotic over the Court. In his 
 view the Prime Minister, possessed of the confidence of the House of Commons, 
 ought to be ISIayor of the Palace. The king was a mere Childeric or Chilperic, 
 who might well think himself lucky in being permitted to enjoy such handsome 
 apartments at Saint James's and so fine a park at Windsor. 
 
 Thus the opinionsof Bute and those of Grenville were diametrically opposed. 
 
 Nor was there any private friendship between the two statesmen. Grenville's 
 nature was not forgiving ; and he well remembered how, a few months before, 
 he had been compelled to yield the lead of the House of Commons to Fox. 
 
 We are inclined to think, on the whole, that the worst administration which 
 has governed England since the Revolution was that of George prenville. 
 His public acts may be classed under two heads, outrages on the liberty of the 
 people and outrages on the dignity of the crown. 
 
 lie began by making war on the press. John Wilkes, member of Parlia- 
 ment for Aylesbury, was singled out for persecution. Wilkes had, till very 
 lately, been known chiefly as one of the most profane, licentious and agree- 
 able rakes about town. He was a man of taste, reading and engaging man- 
 ners. His sprightly conversation was the delight of green-rooms and taverns, 
 and pleased even grave hearers when he was sufficiently under restraint to 
 abstain from detailing the particulars of his amours, and from breaking jests 
 on the New Testament. His expensive debaucheries forced him to have re- 
 course to the Jews. He was soon a ruined man, and determined to try his 
 chance as a political adventurer. In parliament he did not succeed. His 
 speaking, though pert, was feeble, and by no means interested his hearers so 
 much as to make them forget his face, which was so hideous that the Carica 
 turists were forced, in their own despite, to flatter. As a writer he made a better 
 figure. He set up a weekly paper called the North Briton. This journal, 
 written with some pleasantry and great audacity and impudence, had a con- 
 siderable number of readers. Forty-four numbers had been putjished when 
 Bute resigned ; and, though almost every number had contained matter grossly 
 libellous, no prosecution had been instituted. The forty-fifth number was 
 innocent when compared with the majority of those which had preceded it, 
 and, indeed, contained nothing so strong as may in our time be found daily in 
 the leading articles of the Times and Morning Chronicle. But Grenville was 
 now at the head of affairs. A new spirit had been infused into the adminis- 
 tration. Authority was to be upheld. The government was no longer to be 
 braved with impunity. Wilkes was arrested under a general warrant, conveyed 
 to the Tower, and confined there with circumstances of unusual severity. His 
 papers were seized and carried to the Secretary of State. These harsh and 
 illegal measures produced a violent outbreak of popular rage, which was sooa 
 changed to delight and exultation. The arrest was pronounced unlawful by 
 the Court of Common Pleas, in which Chief Justice Pratt presided, and the 
 prisoner was discharged. This victory over the government was celebrated 
 with enthusiasm both in London and in the cider counties. 
 
THE EARL OF CHA THAM. 
 
 While the ministers were daily becoming more odious to the nation, they 
 were doing their best to make themselves also odious to the Court. They gave 
 the King plainly to understand that they were determined not to be Lord 
 Bute's creatures, and exacted a promise that no secret adviser should have 
 access to the royal ear. They soon found reason to suspect that this promise 
 had not been observed. They remonstrated in terms less respectful than their 
 master "had been accustomed to hear, and gave him a fortnight to m^ke his 
 choice between his favourite and his cabinet. 
 
 George the Third was greatly disturbed. He had but a few weeks before 
 exulted in his deliverance from the yoke of the great Whig connection. He 
 had even declared that his honour would not permit him ever again to admit 
 the members of that connection into his service. He now found that he had 
 only exchanged one set of masters for another set still harslier and more impe- 
 rious. In his distress he thought on Pitt. From Pitt it was possible that 
 better terms might be obtained than either from Grenville or from the party 
 of which Newcastle was the head. 
 
 Grenville, on his return from an excursion into the country, repaired to 
 Buckingham House. He was astonished to find at, the entrance a chair, the 
 shape of which was well known to him and, indeed, to all London. It was 
 distinguished by a large boot, made for the purpose of accommodating the 
 great Commoner's gouty leg. Grenville guessed the whole. His brother-in- 
 law was closeted with the King. Bute, provoked by what he considered as 
 the unfriendly and ungrateful conduct of his successors, had himself proposed 
 that Pitt should be summoned to the palace. 
 
 Pitt had two audiences on two successive days. \\'Tiat passed at the first 
 interview led him to expect that the negotiation would be brought to a 
 satisfactory close ; but on the morrow he found the King less complying. 
 The best account, indeed the only trustworthy account of the conference, 
 is that which was taken from Pitt's own mouth by Lord Hardwicke. It 
 appears that Pitt strongly represented the importance of conciliating those 
 chiefs of the Whig party who had been so unhappy as to incur the royal 
 displeasure. They had, he said, been the most constant friends of the House 
 of Hanover. Their power was great ; they had been long versed in public 
 business. If they were to be under sentence of exclusion, a solid administra- 
 tion could not be formed. His Majesty could not bear to think of putting 
 himself into the hands of those whom he had recently chased from his Court 
 with the strongest marks of anger. *' I am sorry, Mr. Pitt," he said, " but I 
 see this will not do. My honour is concerned. I must support my honour." 
 How his Majesty succeeded in supporting his honour, we shall soon see. 
 
 Pitt retired, and the King was reduced to request the ministers, whom he 
 had been on the point of discarding, to remain in office. During the two 
 years which followed, Grenville, now closely leagued with the Bedfords, was 
 the master of the Court ; and a hard master he proved. He knew that he was 
 kept in place only because there was no choice except between himself and the 
 Whigs. That under any circumstances the Whigs would be forgiven, he 
 thought impossible. The late attempt to get rid of him had roused his resent- 
 ment ; the failure of that attempt had liberated him from all fear. He had 
 never been very courtly. He now began to hold a language, to which, since 
 the days of Cornet Joyce and President Bradshaw, no English King had been 
 compelled to listen. 
 
 In one matter, indeed, Grenville, at the expense of justice and liberty, grati- 
 fied the passions of the Court while gratifying his own. The persecution of 
 Wilkes was eagerly pressed. He had written a parody on " Pope's Essay on 
 Man," entitled " The Essay on Woman/' and had appended to it notes, in 
 ridicule of Warburton's farnous " Commentary. " 
 . This composition was exceedingly profligate, but not more so, we think. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. S39 
 
 than some of Pope's own works — the imitation of the second satire of the 
 *' First book of Horace," for example ; and, to do Wilkes justice, he had not, 
 like Pope, given his ribaldry to the -world. He had merely printed at a 
 private press a very small number of copies, which he meant to present to 
 some of his boon companions, whose morals were in no more danger of being 
 corrupted by a loose book than a negro of being tanned by a warm sun. 
 A tool of the government, by giving a bribe to the printer, procured a copy of 
 this trash and placed it in the hands of the ministers. The ministers resolved 
 to visit Wilkes's offence against decorum with the utmost rigour of the law. 
 What share piety and respect for morals had in dictating this resolution, our 
 readers may judge from the fact that no person was more eager for bringing 
 the libertine poet to punishment than Lord March, afterwards Duke of 
 Queensbury. On the first day of the session of Parliament, the book, thus 
 disgracefully obtained, was laid on the table of the Lords by the Earl of 
 Sandwich, whom the Duke of Bedford's interest had made Secretary 
 ;of State. The unfortunate author had not the slighest suspicion 
 that his licentious poem had ever been seen, except by his printer 
 and by a few of his dissipated companions, till it was produced in full 
 Parliament.- Though he was a man of easy temper, averse from danger, and 
 not very susceptible of shame, the surprise, the disgrace, the prospect of utter 
 ruin, put him beside himself. He picked a quarrel with one of Lord Bute's 
 dependents, fought a duel, was seriously wounded, and when half recovered, 
 fled to France. His enemies had now their own way both in the Parliament 
 and in the King's Bench. He was censured, expelled from the House of Com- 
 mons, outlawed. His works were ordered to be burned by the common hang- 
 man. Yet was the multitude still true to him. In the minds even of many 
 moral and religious men, his crime seemed light when compared with the 
 crime of his accusers. The conduct of Sandwich, in particular, excited univer- 
 sal disgust. His own vices were notorious ; and only a fortnight before he laid 
 the " Essay on Woman" before the House of Lords, he had been drinking and 
 singing loose catches with Wilkes at one of the most dissolute clubs in London. 
 Shortly after the meeting of Parliament, the "Beggar's Opera" was acted at 
 Covent Garden Theatre. When Macheath uttered the words : — " That Jemmy 
 Twitcher should peach me I own surprised me," — pit, boxes and galleries 
 burst into a roar which seemed likely to bring the roof down. P'rom that day 
 Sandwich was universally known by the nickname of Jemmy Twitcher. The 
 ceremony of burning the North Briton was interrupted by a riot. The con- 
 stables were beaten ; the paper was rescued, and, instead of it, a jack boot and 
 a petticoat were committed to the flames. Wilkes had instituted an action for 
 the seizure of his papers against the Under-secretary of State. The jury gave 
 a thousand pounds damages. But neither these nor any other indications of 
 public feeling had power to move Grenville. He had the Parliament with 
 him ; and, according to his political creed, the sense of the nation was to be 
 collected from the Parhament alone. 
 
 Soon, however, he found reason to fear that even the Parliament might fail 
 him. On the question of the legality of general warrants, the Opposition, 
 having on its side all sound principles, all constitutional authorities, and the 
 voice of the whole nation, mustered in great force, and was joined by many 
 who did not ordinarily vote against the government. On one occasion the 
 ministry, in a very full House, had a majority of only fourteen votes. The 
 storm, however, blew over. The spirit of the Opposition, from whatever 
 cause, began to flag at the moment when success seemed almost certain. The 
 session ended without any change. Pitt, whose eloquence had shone with its 
 usual lustre in all the principal debates, and whose popularity was greater 
 than ever, was still a private man. Grenville, detested alike by the Court and 
 by the people, was still minister. 
 
«4t) THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 \s, soon as the Houses liad risen, Grenville took a step wiiich proved, even 
 more signally than that of his past acts, how despotic, how acrimonious and 
 liow fearless his nature was. Among the gentlemen not ordinarily opposed to 
 the government, who, on the great constitutional question of general warrants, 
 had voted with the minority, was Henry Conway, brother of the Earl of Hert- 
 ford, a brave soldier, a tolerable speaker, and a well-meaning, though not a 
 wise or vigorous politician. He was now deprived of his regiment, the meriteil 
 reward of faithful and gallant service in two wars. It was confidently asserted 
 that in this violent measure the King heartily concurred. 
 
 But whatever pleasure the persecution of Wilkes or the dismissal of Conway 
 may have given to the royal mind, it is certain that his Majesty's aversion to 
 his ministers increased day by day. Grenville was as frugal of the public 
 money as of his own, and morosely refused to accede to the King's request 
 that a few thousand pounds might be expended in buying some open 
 fields to the west of the gardens of Buckingham House. In consequence of 
 this refusal, the fields were soon covered with buildings, and the King and 
 Queen were overlooked in their most private walks by the upper windows 
 of a hundred houses. Nor was this the worst. Grenville was as liberal 
 of w^ords as he was sparing of guineas. Instead of explaining himself 
 in that clear, concise and lively manner which alone could win the attention 
 of a young mind new to business, he spoke in the closet just as he spoke in 
 the House of Commons. When he had harangued two hours, he looked 
 at his watch, as he had been in the habit of looking at the clock opposite 
 the Speaker's chair, apologised for the length of his discourse, and then went 
 on for an hour more. The members of the House of Commons can cough 
 an orator down, or can walk away to dinner ; and they were by no means 
 sparing in the use of these privileges when Grenville was on his legs. But the 
 poor young King had to endure all this eloquence with mournful civility. To 
 the end of his life he continued to talk with horror of Grenville's orations. 
 
 About this time took place one of the most singular events in Pitt's life. 
 There was a certain Sir William Pynsent, a Somersetshire baronet of Whig 
 politics, who had been a member of the House of Commons in the days of 
 Queen Anne, and had retired to rural privacy when the Tory party, towards 
 the end of her reign, obtained the ascendancy in her councils. His manners 
 were eccentric. His morals lay under very odious imputations. But his 
 fidelity to his political opinions was unalterable. During fifty years of seclu- 
 sion he continued to brood over the circumstances which had driven him from 
 public life, the dismissal of the W^higs, the peace of Utrecht, the desertion of 
 our allies. He now thought that he perceived a close analogy between the 
 well remembered events of his youth and the events which he had witnessed 
 in extreme old age ; between the disgrace of Marlborough and the disgrace 
 of Pitt ; between the elevation of Harley and the elevation of Bute ; between 
 the treaty negotiated by St. John and the treaty negotiated by Bedford ; 
 between the wrongs of the House of Austria in 1712 and the wrongs of the 
 House of Brandenburgh in 1 762. This fancy took such possession of the old 
 man's mind that he determined to leave his whole property to Pitt. In this 
 way, Pitt unexpectedly came into possession of near three thousand pounds a- 
 year. Nor could all the malice of his enemies find any ground for reproach in 
 the transaction. Nobody could call him a legacy-hunter. Nobody could accuse 
 him of seizing that to which others had a better claim. For he had never in 
 his life seen Sir William ; and Sir William had left no relation so near as to be 
 entitled to form any expectation? respecting the estate. 
 
 The fortunes of Pitt seemed to flourish ; but his health was worse than 
 ever. We cannot find that, during the session which began in January, 1765, 
 he once appeared in parliament. He remained some months in prof und 
 tetiretnent at Hayes, his favourite villa, scarcely mo\'ing except from his oarm- 
 
THE EARL OP CHATHAM. 841 
 
 chair to his bed, and from his bed to his armchair, and often employing his 
 wife as his amanuensis in his most confidential correspondence. Some of his 
 detractors whispered that his invisibiHty was to be ascribed quite as much to 
 affectation as to gout. In truth, his character, high and splendid as it was, 
 wanted simplicity. With genius which did not need the aid of stage tricks, 
 and with a spirit which should have been far above them, he had yet been, 
 through life, in the habit of practising them. It was, therefore, now surmised 
 that, having acquired all the consideration which could be derived from elo- 
 quence and from great services to the state, he had determined not to make 
 himself cheap by often appearing inpuWic, but, under the pretext of ill health, to 
 surround himself with mystery, to emerge only at long intervals and on momen 
 tous occasions, and at other times to deliver his oracles only to a few favoured 
 votaries, who were suffered to make pilgrimages to his shrine. If such were 
 his object, it was for a time fully attained. Never was the magic of his name 
 so powerful, never was he regarded by his country with such superstitious 
 veneration, as during this year of silence and seclusion. 
 
 While Pitt was thus absent from Parliament, Grenville proposed a mea- 
 sure destined to produce a great revolution, the effects of which will long 
 be felt by the whole human race. We speak of the act for imposing stamp 
 duties on the North American colonies. The plan was eminently characteristic 
 of its author. Every feature of the parent was found in the child. A timid 
 statesman would have shrunk from a step, of which Walpole, at a time when 
 the colonies were far less powerful, had said — "He who shall propose it will 
 be a much bolder man than I." But the nature of Grenville was insensible to 
 fear. A statesman of large views M'ould have felt that to lay taxes at West- 
 minster on New England and New York, was a course opposed, not indeed lo 
 the letter of the " Statute Book," or to any decision contained in the "Term 
 Reports," but to the principles of good government, and to the spirit of the 
 constitution. A statesman of large views would also have felt that ten times 
 the estimated produce of the American stamps would have been de.irly pur- 
 chased by even a transient quarrel between the mother country and the colonics. 
 But Grenville knew of no spirit of the constitution distinct from the letter- of 
 the law, and of no national interests except those which are expressed by 
 pounds, shiUings and pence. That his policy might give birth to deep dis- 
 contents in all. the provinces, from the shore of the Great Lakes to the Mexican 
 sea : that France and Spain might seize the opportunity of revenge ; that the 
 empire might be dismembered ; that the debt, that debt with the amount of 
 which he perpetually reproached Pitt, might, in consequence of his own policy, 
 be doubled ; these were possibilities which never occurred to that small, sharp 
 mind. 
 
 The Stamp Act will be remembered as long as the globe lasts. But, at the 
 time, it attracted much less notice in this country than another Act which is 
 now almost utterly forgotten. The King fell ill, and was thought to be ia 
 a dangerous state. His complaint, we believe, was the same which at a later 
 period, repeatedly incapacitated him for the performance of his regal func- 
 tions. The heir-apparent was only two years old. It was clearly proper to 
 make provision for the administration of the government, in case of a minor- 
 ity. The discussions on this point brought the quarrel between the Court and 
 the ministry to a crisis. The King wished to be intrusted with the power of 
 naming a regent by will. The ministers feared, or affected to fear, that . if 
 this power were conceded to him, he would name the Princess Mother, nay, 
 possibly the Earl of Bute. They, therefore, insisted on introducing into the 
 bill words confining the King's choice to the royal family. Having thus ex- 
 cluded Bute, they urged the King to let them, in the most marked manner, 
 exclude the Princess Dowager also. They assured him that the House of 
 Commons would undoubtedly strike her name out, and by this threat they 
 
842 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 wrung from him a reluctant assent. In a few days, it appeared that the 
 representations by which they had induced the King to put this gross and 
 pubhc affront on his mother were unfounded. The friends of the Princess in 
 the House of Commons moved that her name should be inserted. The 
 ministers could not decently attack the parent of their master. They hoped 
 that the Opposition would come to their help, and put on them a force to 
 which they would gladly have yielded. But the majority of the opposition, 
 though hating the Princess, hated Grenville more, beheld his embarrassment 
 with delight, and would do nothing to extricate him from it. The Princess's 
 name was accordingly placed in the list of persons qualified to hold the 
 regency. 
 
 The King's resentment was now at the height. The present evil seemed to 
 him m9re intolerable than any other. Even the junta of Whig grandees 
 could not treat him worse than he had been treated by his present ministers. 
 In his distress, he poured out his whole heart to his uncle, the Duke of Cum- 
 berland. The Duke was not a man to be loved ; but he was eminently a man 
 to be trusted. He had an intrepid temper, a strong understanding, and a 
 high sense of honour and duty. As a general, he belonged to a remarkable 
 class of captains — captains, we mean, whose fate it has been to lose almost 
 all the battles which they have fought, and yet to be reputed stout and skilful 
 soldiers. Such Captains were Coligni and WilUam the Third. We might, 
 perhaps, add Marshal Soult to the list. The bravery of the Duke of Cumber- 
 land was such as distinguished him even among the princes of his brave 
 house. The indifference with which he rode about amidst musket balls and 
 cannon balls was not the highest proof of his fortitude. Hopeless maladies, 
 horrible surgical operations, far from unmanning him, did not even discom- 
 pose him. With courage, he had the virtues which are akin to courage. He 
 spoke the truth, was open in enmity and friendship, and upright in all his 
 dealings. But his nature was hard ; and what seemed to him justice was 
 rarely tempered with mercy. He was, therefore, during many years one of the 
 most unpopular men in England. The severity with which he had treated 
 the rebels after the battle of Culloden, had gained for him the name of the 
 Butcher. His attempts to introduce into the army of England, then in a 
 most disorderly state,, the rigorous discipline of Potsdam, had excited still 
 stronger disgust. Nothing was too bad to be believed of him. Many honest 
 people were so absurd as to fancy that, if he were left Regent during the 
 minority of his nephews, there would be another smothering in the Tower. 
 These feelings, however, had passed away. The Duke had been living, during 
 some years, in retirement. The English, full of animosity against the Scots, 
 now blamed his Royal Highness only for having left so many Camerons and 
 Macphersons to be made gaugers and custom-house officers. He was, there- 
 fore, at present, a favourite with his countrymen, and especially with the 
 inhabitants of London. 
 
 He had little reason to love the King, and had shown clearly, though not 
 obtrusively, his dislike of the system which had lately been pursued. But he 
 had high and almost romantic notions of the duty which, as a prince of the 
 blood, he owed to the head of his house. He determined to extricate his 
 nephew from bondage, and to effect a reconciUation between the Whig party 
 an4 the throne, on terms honourable to both. 
 
 In this mind he set off for Hayes, and was admitted to Pitt's sick room ; 
 for Pitt would not leave his chamber and would not communicate with any 
 messenger of inferior dignity. And now began a long series of errors on 
 the part of the illustrious statesman, errors which involved his country in 
 difficulties and distresses more serious even than those from which his genius 
 had formerly rescued her. His language was haughty, unreasonable, almost 
 unintelligible. The only thing which could be discerned through a cloud 
 
THE EARL OP CHATHAM. 843 
 
 of vague and not veiy gracious phrases, was that he would not at that 
 moment take office. The truth, we beheve, was this. Lord Temple, who 
 was Pitt's evil genius, had just formed a new scheme of politics. Hatred of 
 Bute and of the Princess had, it shoul<f seem, taken entire possession of Tem- 
 ple's soul. Ke had quarrelled with his brother George, because George had 
 been connected with Bute and the Princess. Now that George appeared 
 to be the enemy of Bute and of the Princess, Temple was eager to bring 
 about a general family reconciliation. The three brothers, as Temple, Gren- 
 ville and Pitt were popularly called, might make a ministry, without leaning 
 for aid either on Bute or on the Whig connection. With such views. Temple 
 used all his influence to dissuade Pitt from acceding to the propositions of 
 the Duke of Cumberland. Pitt was not convinced. But Temple had an 
 influence over him such as no other person had ever possessed. They were 
 very old friends,, very near relations. If Pitt's talents and fame had been 
 useful to Temple, Temple's purse had formerly, in times of great need been 
 useful to Pitt. They had never been parted in politics. Twice they had 
 come into the cabinet together, twite they had left it together. Pitt could 
 not bear to think of taking ofHce without his chief ally. Yet he fdt that 
 he was doing wrong, that he was throwing away a great opportunity of 
 serying his country. The obscure and unconciliatory style of the answers 
 which he returned to the overtures of the Duke of Cumberland, may be 
 ascribed to the embarrassment and vexation of a mind not at peace with itself. 
 It is said that he mournfully exclaimed to Temple, 
 
 " Extinxti te meque, soror, populumque, patresque 
 Sidonios, urbemque tuam." 
 
 The prediction was but too just. 
 
 Finding Pitt impracticable, the Duke of Cumberland advised the King to 
 submit to necessity, and to keep Grenville and the Bedfords. It was, indeed, 
 not a time at which offices could safely be left vacant. The unsettled state of 
 the government had produced a general relaxation through all the departments 
 of the pubhc service. Meetings, which at another time would have been 
 harmless, now turned to riots, and rapidly rose almost to the dignity of re- 
 bellions. The Houses of Parliament were blockaded by the Spitalfields 
 weavers. Bedford house was assailed on all sides by a furious rabble, and was 
 strongly garrisoned with horse and foot. Some people attributed these 
 disturbances to the friends of Bute, and some to the friends of Wilkes. But, 
 whatever might be the cause, the effect was general insecurity. Under such 
 circumstances the King had no choice. With bitter feelings of mortification, 
 he informed the ministers that he meant to retain them. 
 
 They answered by demanding from him a promise on his royal word never 
 more to consult Lord Bute. The promise was given. They then demanded 
 something more. Lord Bute's brother, Mr. Mackenzie, held a lucrative 
 office in Scotland. Mr. Mackenzie must be dismissed. The King replied 
 that the office had been given under very peculiar circumstances, and that he 
 had promised never to take it away while he lived. Grenville was obstinate ; 
 and the King, with a very bad grace, yielded. 
 
 The session of Parliament was over. The triumph of the ministers was com- 
 plete. The King was almost as much a prisoner as Charles the First had been, 
 when in the Isle of Wight. Such were the fruits of the policy which, only a 
 few months before, was represented as having for ever secured the throne 
 against the dictation of insolent subjects. 
 
 His Majesty's natural resentment showed itself in every look and word. In 
 his extremity he looked wistfully towards that Whig connection, once the 
 object of his dread and hatred. The Duke of Devonshire, who had been 
 treated with such unjustifiable harshness, had lately died, and had l)een suc- 
 ceeded by his son, who was still a boy. The King condescended to express 
 
844 ^/^-^ EARL OF CHA THAM. 
 
 his regret for what had passed, and to mvite the young Duke to Court. The 
 noble youth came, attended by his xincles, and was received with marked 
 graciousness. 
 
 This and many other symptoms of the same kind irritated the ministers. 
 They had still in store for their sovereign an insult which would have provoked 
 his grandfather to kick them out of the room. Grenville and Bedford demanded 
 an audience of him, and read him a remonstrance of many pages, which they 
 had drawn up with great care. His Majesty was accused of breaking his word 
 and of treating his advisers with gross unfairness. The Princess was mentioned 
 in language by no means eulogistic. Hints were thrown out that Bute's head 
 was in danger. The King was plainly told that he must not continue to show, 
 as he had done, that he disliked the situation in which he was placed, that he 
 must frown upon the Opposition, that he must carry it fair towards his minis- 
 ters in public. He several times interrupted the reading by declaring that he 
 had ceased to hold any communication with Bute. But the ministers, disre- 
 garding his denial, went on, and the King listened in silence, almost choked 
 by ra^. When they ceased to read, he merely made a gesture expressive of 
 his wish to I5e left alone. He afterwards owned that he thought he should have 
 gone into a fit. 
 
 Driven to despair, he again had recourse to the Duke of Cumberland ; 
 and the Duke of Cumberland again had recourse to Pitt. Pitt was really 
 desirious to undertake the direction of affairs, and owned, with many dutiful 
 expressions, that the terms offered by the King were^ all that any subject 
 could desire. But Temple was impracticable ; and Pitt, with great regret, 
 declared that he could not, without the concurrence of his brother-in-law, 
 undertake the administration. 
 
 The Duke now saw only one way of delivering his nephew. An adminis 
 tration must be formed of the Whigs in opposition, without Pitt's help. The 
 difficulties seemed almost insuperable. Death and desertion had grievously 
 thinned the ranks of the party lately s"preme in the state. Those among 
 whom the Duke's choice lay might be divided into two classes, men too old 
 for important offices and men who had never been in any important office 
 before. The cabinet must be composed of broken invalids or of raw recruits. 
 
 This was an evil, yet not an unmixed evil. If the new Whig statesmen had 
 little experience in business and debate, they were, on the other hand, 
 pure from the taint of that political immorality which had deeply infected 
 their predecessors. Long prosperity had corrupted that great party which 
 had expelled the Stuarts, limited the prerogotives of the Crown, and curbed 
 the intolerance of the Hierarchy. Adversity had already produced a salu- 
 tary effect. On the day of the accession of George the Third, the ascendency 
 of the Whig party terminated ; and on that day the purification of the Whig 
 party began. The rising chiefs of that party were men of a very different 
 sort from Sandys and Winnington, from Sir William Yonge and Henry Fox. 
 They were men worthy to have charged by the side of Hampden at Chal- 
 grove, or to have exchanged the last embrace with Russell on the scaffold in 
 Lincoln's Inn Fields. They carried into politics the same high principles 
 of virtue which regulated their private dealings, nor would they stoop to 
 promote even the noblest and most salutary ends by means which honour and 
 probity condemn. Such men were Lord John Cavendish, Sir George Savile, 
 and others whom we hold in honour as the second founders of the Whig 
 party, as the restorers of its pristine health and energy after half a century 
 of degeneracy. 
 
 The chief of this respectable band was the Marquess of Rockingham, a 
 man of splendid fortune, excellent sense and stainless character. He 
 was, indeed, nervous to such a degree that, to the very close of his life, he 
 never rose without great reluctance and embarrassment to address the 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. ,1845 
 
 Ilov.se of Lords. But, though not a great orator, he had in a high degree 
 some of the quahties of a statesman. He chose his friends well ; and he had, 
 in an extraordinany degree, the art of attaching them to him by ties of the 
 most honourable kind. The cheerful^fidelity with whicli they adhered tp 
 him through many years of almost hopeless opposition was less admirable than 
 the disinterestedness and delicacy which they showed when he rose to power. 
 
 We are inclined to think that the use and the abuse of party cannot be 
 better illustrated than by a parallel between two powerful connections of 
 that time, the Rockinghams ancV the ,Bedfords. The Rockingham party 
 was, in our view, exactly what a party should be. It consisted of 
 men bound together by common opinions, by common public objects, 
 by mutual esteem. That they desired to obtain, by honest: and con- 
 stitutional means, the direction of affairs, they openly avowed. But, though 
 often invited to accept the honours and enioluments of office, they 
 steadily refused to do so on any conditions inconsi^nt with their principles. 
 The Bedford party, as a party, had, as far as we can discover, no principle 
 whatever. Rigby and Sandwich wanted public money, and thought that 
 they should fetch a higher price jointly than singly. They therefore acted in 
 concert, and prevailed on a much more important and a much better man 
 than themselves to act with them. 
 
 It was to Rockingham that the Duke of Cumberland now had 
 recourse. The Marquess consented to take the Treasury. Newcastle 
 so long the, recognized chief of the Whigs could not well be 
 excluded from the ministry. He was appointed Keeper of the Privy Seal. 
 A very honest clear-headed country gentleman, of the name of Dowdeswell, 
 became Chancellor of the Exchequer. General Conway, who had served 
 under the Duke of Cumberland, and was strongly attached to his royal high- 
 ness, was made Secretary of State, with the lead in the House of Commons. 
 A great Whig nobleman, in the prime of manhood, from whom much was at 
 that time expected, Augustus, Duke of (^rafton, was the other Secretary. 
 
 The oldest man living could remember no government so weak in oratorical 
 talents and in official experience. The general opinion was, that the ministere 
 might hold office during the recess, but that the first day of debate in Parha- 
 ment would be the last day of their power. Charles Townshend was asked 
 what he thought of the new administration. "It is," said he, "merelutc; 
 string ; pretty summer wear. It will never do for the winter." 
 
 At this conjuncture Lord Rockinghaipi had the wisdom to discern the value, 
 and secure the aid, of an ally, who, to eloquence surpassing the eloquence of 
 Pitt, and to industry which shamed the industry of Grenville, united an ampli- 
 tude of comprehension to which neither Pitt nor Grenville could lay claim. A 
 young Irishman had some time before, come over to push his fortune in Lon- 
 don. He had written much for the booksellers; but he was best known by a 
 little treatise, in which the style and reasoning of Bolingbroke were mimicked 
 with exquisite skill, and by a theor)-, of more ingenuity than soundness, touch- 
 ing the pleasures which we receive from the objects of taste. He had also 
 attained a high reputation as a talker, and was regarded by the men of letters 
 who supped together at the Turk's Head, as the only match in conversa- 
 tion for Dr. Johnson. He now became private secretary to Lord Rockingham, 
 and was brought into Parliament by his patron's influence. These arrange- 
 ments, indeed, were not made without some difficulty. The Duke of New« 
 castle, who was always meddling and chattering, adjured the First Lord of the 
 Treasury to be on his guard against this adventurer, whose real name was 
 O'Bourke, and whom his Grace knew to be a wild Irishman, a, Jacobite, a 
 Papist, a concealed Jesuit. Lord Rockingham treated the caluipny as it 
 deserved ; and the Whig party was strengthened and adorned by the accession 
 of Edmund 3urke. 
 
M TtiR EARL OP CHATHAM. 
 
 The party, indeed, stood in need of accessions ; for it sustained about this time 
 an almost irreparable loss. The Duke of Cumberland had formed the govern- 
 ment, and was its main support. His exalted rank and great name in some 
 degree balanced the fame of Pitt. As mediator between the Whigs and the 
 Court, he held a place which no other person could lill. The strength of his 
 character supplied that which was the chief defect of the new ministry. Con- 
 Way, in particular, who, with excellent intentions and respectable talents, was 
 the most dependent and irresolute of human beings, drew from the counsels of 
 that masculine mind a determination not his own. Before the meeting of Par- 
 liament the Duke suddenly died. His death was generally regarded as the 
 •signal of great troubles, and on this account, as well as from respect for his per- 
 sonal qualities, was greatly lamented. It was remarked that the mourning in 
 London was the most general ever known, and was both deeper and longer than 
 the Gazette had prescribed. 
 
 In the meantime, ever^ mail from America brought alarming tidings. The 
 crop which Grenville had sown his successors had now to reap. The colonies 
 were in a state bordering on rebellion. The stamps were burned, the revenue 
 officers were tarred and feathered. All traffic between the discontented provinces 
 and the mother country was interrupted. The Exchange of London was in dis- 
 may. Half the firms of Bristol and Liverpool were threatened with bankruptcy. 
 In Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, it was said that three artisans out of every ten 
 had been turned adrift. Civil war seemed to be at hand ; and it could not be 
 doubted that, if once the British nation were divided against itself, France and 
 Spain woidd soon take part in the quarrel. 
 
 Three courses were open to the ministers. The first was to enforce the Stamp 
 Act by the sword. This was the course on which the King and Grenville, 
 whom the King hated beyond all living men, were alike bent. The natures of 
 both were arbitrary and stubborn. They resembled each other so much that 
 they could never be friends ; but they resembled each other also so much that 
 they saw almost all important practical questions in the same point of view. 
 Neither of them would bear to be governed by the other ; but they were per- 
 fectly agreed as to the best way of governing the people. 
 
 Another course was that which Pitt recommended. He held that the British 
 Parliament was not constitutionally competent to pass a law for taxing the 
 colonies. He therefore considered the Stamp Act as a nullity, as a document 
 of no more validity than Charles's writ of shipmoney, or James's proclama- 
 tion dispensing with the penal laws. This doctrine seems to us, we must own, 
 to be altogether untenable. 
 
 Between these extreme couirses lay a third way. The opinion of the most 
 judicious and temperate statesmen of those times was that the British consti- 
 tution had set no limit whatever to the legislative power of the British King, 
 Lords and Commons, over the whole British Empire. Parliament, they held, 
 was legally competent to tax America, as Parliament was legally competent 
 to commit any other act of folly or wickedness, to confiscate the property 
 of all the merchants in Lombart Street, or to attaint any man in the kingdom 
 of high treason, without examining witnesses against him, or hearing him 
 in his own defence. The most atrocious act of confiscation or of attainder 
 is just as valid an act as the Toleration Act or the Habeas Corpus Act. But 
 from acts of confiscation and acts of attainder lawgivers are bound, by every 
 obligation of morality, systematically to refrain. In the same manner ought 
 the British legislature to refrain from taxing the American Colonies. The 
 Stamp Act was indefensible, not because it was beyond the constitutional com- 
 petence of Parliament, but because it was unjust and impolitic, sterile of revenue 
 and fertile of discontents. These sound doctrines were adopted by Lord Rock- 
 ingham and his colleagues, and were, during a long course of years, inculcated 
 by Burke, in orations, some of which will last as long as the English language. 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. . 84? 
 
 The winter came ; the Parliament met ; and the state of the colonies 
 instantly became the subject of fierce contention. Pitt, whose health had 
 been somewhat restored by the waters of Bath, reappeared in the House of 
 Commons, and, with ardent and pathetitT eloquence, not only condemned the 
 Stamp Act, but applauded the resistance of Massachusetts and Virginia, and 
 vehemently maintained, in defiance, we must say, of all reason and of all 
 authority, that, according to the British constitution, the supreme legislative 
 power does not include the power to tax. The language of Grenville, on the 
 other hand, was such as Strafford might have used at the council table of 
 Charles the First, when news came of the resistance to the liturgy at Edinburgh. 
 The colonists were traitors ; those who excused them were little better. Frigates, 
 mortars, bayonets, sabres, were the proper remedies for such distempers. 
 
 The ministers occupied an intermediate position ; they proposed to declare 
 that the legislative authority of the British Parliament over the whole 
 Empire was in all cases supreme ; and they proposed, at the same time, to 
 repeal the Stamp Act. To the former measure Pitt objected ; but it was 
 carried with scarcely a dissentient voice. The repeal of the Stamp Act Pitt 
 strongly supported ; but against the Government was arrayed a formidable 
 assemblage of opponents. Grenville and the Bedfords were furious. Temple, 
 who had now allied himself closely with his brother, and separated himself from 
 Pitt, was no despicable enemy. This, however, was not the worst. The 
 ministry was without its natural strength. It had to struggle, not only against 
 its avowed enemies, but against the insidious hostility of the King, and of a set 
 of persons who, about this time, began to be designated as the King's friends. 
 
 The character of this faction has been drawn by Burke with even more than 
 his usual force and vivacity. Those who know how strongly, through his whole 
 life, his judgment was biassed by his passions, may not unnaturally suspect that 
 he has left us rather a caricature than a likeness ; and yet there is scarcely, in 
 the whole portrait, a single touch of which the fidelity is not proved by fa^ts of 
 unquestionable authenticity. 
 
 The public generally regarded the King's friends as a body of which Bute 
 was the directing soul. It was to no purpose that the Earl professed to have 
 done with politics, that he absented himself year after year from the levee and 
 the drawing-room, that he went to the North, that he went to Rome. The notion 
 that, in some inexplicable manner, he dictated all the measures of the Court, 
 was fixed in the minds, not only of the multitude, but of some who had good 
 opportunities of obtaining information and who ought to have been superior to 
 vulgar prejudices. Our own belief, is that these suspicions were unfounded, 
 and that he ceased to have any communication with the King on political 
 matters some time before the dismissal of George Grenville. The supposition 
 of Bute's influence is, indeed, by no means necessary to explain the phenomena. 
 The King, in 1765, was no longer the ignorant and inexperienced boy who had, 
 in 1760, been managed by his mother and his Groom of the Stole. He had, 
 during several years, observed the struggles of parties, and conferred daily on high 
 questions of state with able and experienced politicians. His way of life had de- 
 veloped his understanding and character. He was now no longer a puppet, 
 but had very decided opinions both of men and things. Nothing could be 
 more natural than that he should have high notions of his own prerogatives, 
 should be impatient of opposition, and should wish all pubHc men to be 
 detached from each other and dependent on himself alone ; nor could anything 
 be more natural than that, in the state in which the political world then was, 
 he should find instruments fit for his purpose. 
 
 Thus sprang into existence and into note a reptile species of politicians 
 never before and never since known in our country. These men disclaimed 
 all political ties, except those which bound them to the throne. They were 
 willing to covilesce with any party, to abandon any party, to undermine any 
 
848 . THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 party, to assault any party, at a moment's notice. To thern, all administrations, 
 and all oppositions were the same. They reg.Tded Bute, Grenville, Rocking- 
 ham, Pitt, without one sentiment either of predilection or of aversion. They 
 were the King's friends. It is to be observed that this friendship implied no 
 personal intimacy. These people had never lived with their master as 
 Dodington at one time lived with his father, or as Sheridan afterwards lived 
 with his son. They never hunted with him in the morning or played cards 
 wfith him in the evening, never shared his mutton or walked with him among 
 his turnips. Only one or two of them ever saw his face, except on public 
 days. The whole band, however, always had early and accurate information as 
 to his personal inclinations. None of these people were high in the adminis- 
 tration. They were generally to be found in places of much emolument, little 
 labour and no responsibility ; and these places they continued to occupy 
 securely while the cabinet \yas six or seven times reconstructed. Their 
 peculiar business was not to support the ministry against the opposition, but 
 to support the King against the ministry. Whenever his Majesty was induced 
 to give a reluctant assent to the introduction of some bill which his constitu- 
 tional advisers regarded aS necessary, his friends in the House of Commons 
 were sure to speak against it, to vote against it, to throw in its way every 
 obstruction compatible with the forms of "Parliament. If his Majesty found it 
 necessary to admit into his closet a Secretary of State or a First Lord of the 
 Treasury whom he disliked, his friends were sure to miss no opportunity of 
 thwarting and humbling the obnoxious minister. In return for these services, 
 the King covered them with his protection. It was to no purpose that his 
 responsible servants complained to him that they were daily betrayed and im- 
 peded by men who were eating the bread of the government. He sometimes 
 justified the offenders, sometimes excused them, sometimes owned that they 
 were to blame, but said that he must take time to consider whether he could 
 part with them. He never would turn them out ; and, while every thing else 
 in the state was constantly changing, these sycophants seemed to have a life 
 estate in their offices. 
 
 It was well known to the King's friends that, though his Majesty had con- 
 sented to the repeal of the Stamp Act, he had consented with a very bad 
 grace, and that though he had eagerly welcomed the Whigs, when, in his 
 extreme need and at his earnest entreaty, they had undertaken to free hirn 
 from an insupportable yoke, he had by no means got over his early prejudices 
 against his deliverers. The ministers soon found that while they were en- 
 countered in front by the whole force of, a strong opposition, their rear w^as 
 assailed by a large body of those whom they had regarded as auxiliaries. 
 
 Nevertheless, Lord Rockingham and his adherents w'ent on resolutely with 
 the bill for repealing the Stamp Act. They had on their side all the manu- 
 facturing and commercial interests of the realm. In the debates the govern- 
 ment was powerfully supported. Two great orators and statesmen, belonging 
 to two different generations, repeatedly put forth all their powers in defence of 
 the bill. The House of Commons heard Pitt for the last time and Burke 
 for the first time, and was in doubt to which of them the palm of eloquence 
 should be assigned. It was indeed a splendid sunset and a splendid dawn. ■■■'^'' 
 
 For a time the everit' seemed doubtful. In several divisions the minister*' 
 were hard pressed. On one occasion not less than twelve of the King's friends, 
 all men in office, voted against the government. It was to no purpose that 
 Lord Rockingham remonstrated with the King. His Majesty confessed that 
 there was ground for complaint, but hop6d that gentle means would bring the 
 mutineers to a better mind. If they persisted in their misconduct he would 
 dl^fmiss thetn. 
 
 ' At' length the decisive day arrived.' The gallery, the lobby, the Court of 
 ReouRsts, the staircases, were crov.'dcd with merchants from all the great ports 
 
THE EARL OF CHA THAM. 849 
 
 of the island. Tlie debate lasted till long after midnight. On the division the 
 ministers had a great majority. The dread of civil war, and the outcry of all 
 the trading towns of the kingdom, had been too strong for the combined 
 strength of the Court and the OppositioiC 
 
 It was in the first dim twilight of a February morning that the doors were 
 thrown open, and that the chiefs of the hostile parties showed themselves to 
 the multitude. Conway was received with loud applause. But, when Pitt 
 appeared all eyes were fixed on him alone. All hats were in the air. Loud 
 and long huzzars accompanied him to his chair and a train of admirers 
 escorted him all the way to his home. Then came forth Grenville. As soon 
 as he was recognised a storm of hisses and curses broke forth. He turned 
 fiercely on the crowds and caught one man by the throat. The bystanders 
 were in great alarm. If a scuffle began none could say how it might end. 
 Fortunately the person who had been collared only said, ''If I may not hiss 
 sir, I hope I may laugh," and laughed in Grenville's face. 
 
 The majority had been so decisive, that all the opponents of the ministry, 
 save one, were disposed to let the bill pass without any further contention. 
 But solicitation and expostulation were thrown away on Grenville. His indom- 
 itable spirit rose up stronger and stronger under the load of public 
 hatred. He fought out the battle obstinately to the end. On the last reading 
 he had a sharp altercation with his brother-in-law, the last of their many 
 sharp altercations. Pitt thundered in his loftiest tones against the man 
 who had wished to dip the ermine of a British King in the blood of 
 the British people. Grenville replied with his wonted intrepidity and 
 asperity. *' If the tax," he said, " were still to be laid on, I would lay it on. 
 For the evils which it may produce my accuser is answerable. His profusion 
 made it necessary. His declarations against the constitutional powers of Kings, 
 Lords and Commons, have made it doubly necessary. I do not envy him the 
 huzza. I glory in the hiss. If it were to be done again I would do it." 
 
 The repeal of the Stamp Act was the chief measure of Lord Rockingham's 
 government. But that government is entitled to the praise of having put a 
 stop to two oppressive practices, which, in Wilkes' case, had attracted the notice 
 and excited the just indignation of the public. The House of Commons was 
 induced by the ministers to pass a resolution condemning the use of general war- 
 rants and another resolution condemning the seizure of papers in cases of libel. 
 
 It must be added, to the lasting honour of Lord Rockingham, that his ad- 
 ministration was the first which, during a long course of years, had the courage 
 and the virtue to refrain from bribing members of Parliament. His enemies 
 accused him and his friends of weakness, of haughtiness, of party spirit ; but 
 calumny itself never dared to couple his name with corruption. 
 
 Unhappily his government, though one of the best that has ever existed in 
 our country, was also one of the weakest. The King's friends assailed and 
 obstructed the ministers at every turn. To appeal to the King was only to draw 
 forth new promises and new evasions. His Majesty was sure that there must he 
 some misunderstanding. Lord Rockingham had better speak to the gentlemen. 
 They should be dismissed on the next fault. The next fault was soon committed, 
 and his Majesty still continued to shuffle. It was too bad. It was quite 
 abominable ; but it mattered less as the prorogation was at hand. He would give 
 the delinquents one more chance. If they did not alter their conduct next 
 session, he should not have one word to say for them. He had already re- 
 solved that, long before the commencement of the next session. Lord Rock- 
 ingham should cease to be minister. 
 
 We have now come to a part of our story which, admiring as we do the 
 genius and the many noble qualities of Pitt, we cannot relate without much 
 pain. We believe that, at this conjuncture, he had it in his ix)wer to give the 
 victory either to the Whigs or to the King's friends. If he had allied himself 
 
8!;o THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 closely with Lord Rockingham, what could the Court have done ? There 
 would have been only one alternative, the Whigs or Grenville ; and there 
 could be no doubt what the King's choice would be. He still remembered, 
 as well he might, with the uttermost bitterness, the thraldom from which his 
 uncle had freed him, and said about this time, with great vehemence, that he 
 would sooner see the Devil come into his closet than Grenville. 
 
 And what was there to prevent Pitt from allying himself with Lord Rocking- 
 ham ? On all the most important questions their views were the same. They 
 had agreed in condemning the peace, the Stamp Act, the general warrant, the 
 seizure of papers. The points on which they differed were few and unim- 
 portant. In integrity, in disinterestedness, in hatred of corruption, they 
 resembled each other. Their personal interests could not clash. They sat in 
 different Houses, and Pitt had always declared that nothing should induce him 
 to be First Lord of the Treasury. 
 
 If the opportunity of forming a coalition beneficial to the state and honour- 
 able to all concerned was suffered to escape, the fault was not with the Whig 
 ministers. They behaved towards Pitt with an obsequiousness which, had it 
 not been the effect of sincere admiration and of anxiety for the public interests, 
 might have been justly called servile. They repeatedly gave him to under- 
 stand that if he chose to join their ranks, they were ready to receive him, not 
 as an associate, but as a leader. ■ They had proved their respect for him by 
 bestowing a peerage on the person who at that time enjoyed the largest share 
 of his confidence, Chief Justice Pratt. What then was there to divide Pitt 
 from the Whigs? What, on the other hand, was there in common between 
 him and the King's friends, that he should lend himself to their purposes — he 
 who had never owed anything to flattery or intrigue, he whose eloquence and 
 independent spirit had overawed two generations of slaves and jobbers, he 
 who had twice been forced by the enthusiasm of an admiring nation on a 
 reluctant Prince? 
 
 Unhappily the Court had gained Pitt, not, it is true, by those ignoble means 
 which were employed when such men as Rigby and Wedderburn were to be 
 won, but by allurements suited to a nature noble even in its aberrations. The 
 King set himself to seduce the one man who could turn the Whigs out without 
 letting Grenville in. Praise, caresses, promises, were lavished on the idol of 
 the nation. He, and he alone, could put an end to faction, could bid defiance 
 to all the powerful connections in the land united, Whigs and Tories, Rocking- 
 hams, Bedfords and Grenvilles. These blandishments produced a great effect. 
 For though Pitt's spirit was high and manly, though his eloquence was often 
 exerted with formidable effect against the Court, and though his theory of 
 government had been learned in the school of Locke and Sydney, he had 
 always regarded the person of the sovereign with profound veneration. As 
 soon as he was brought face to face with royalty, his imagination and sensibility 
 became too strong for his principles. His WTiiggism thawed and disappeared ; 
 and he became, for the time, a Tory of the old Ormond pattern. Nor was he 
 by any means unwilling to assist in the work of dissolving all political con- 
 nections. His own weight in the state was wholly independent of such con- 
 nections. He was, therefore, inclined to look on them with dishke, and made 
 far too little distinction between gangs of knaves associated for the mere pur- 
 pose of robbing the public, and confederacies of honourable men for the 
 promotion of great public objects. Nor had he the sagacity to perceive that 
 the strenuous efforts which he made to annihilate all parties tended only to 
 establish the ascendency of one party, and that the basest and most hateful of all. 
 
 It may be doubted whether he would have been thus misled if his mind had 
 been in full health and vigour. But the truth is that he had for some time 
 l)een in an unnatural state of excitement. No suspicion of this sort had yet 
 got abroad. His elocjuence had never shonq >Yith more splendour than during 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. . 85 1 
 
 the recent debates. But people afterwards called to mind many things which 
 ought to hare roused their apprehensions. His habits were gradually becom- 
 ing more and more eccentric. A horror of all loud' sounds, such as is said to 
 have been one of the many oddities of AVallenstein, grew upon him. Though 
 the most affectionate of fathers, he could not at this time bear to hear the voices 
 of his own children, and laid out great sums at Hayes in buying up houses 
 contiguous to his own, merely that he might have no neighbours to disturb 
 him with their noise. He then sold Hayes, and took possession of a villa at 
 Hampstead, where he again began to purchase houses to right and left. In 
 expense, indeed, he vied, during this part of his life, with the wealthiest of the 
 conquerors of Bengal and Tanjore. At Burton Pynsent, he ordered a great 
 extent of ground to be planted with cedars. Cedars enough for the purpose 
 were not to be found in Somersetshire. They were therefore collected in 
 London, and sent down by land carriage. Relays of labourers were hired ; 
 and the work went on all night by torchlight. No man could be more ab- 
 stemious than Pitt ; yet the profusion of his kitchen was a wonder even to 
 epicures. Several dinners were always dressing ; for his appetite was capricious 
 and fanciful ; and at whatever moment he felt inclined to eat, he expected a 
 meal to be instantly on the table. Other circumstances might be mentioned, 
 such as separately are of little moment, but such as, when taken together and 
 when viewed in connection with the strange events which followed, justify us 
 in believing that his mind was already in a morbid state. 
 
 Soon after the close of the session of Parliament Lord Rockingham received 
 his dismissal. He retired, accompanied by a firm body of friends, whose con- 
 sistency and uprightness enmity itself was forced to admit. None of them had 
 asked or obtained any pension or any sinecure, either in possession or in rever- 
 sion. vSuch disinterestedness was then rare among politicians. Their chief, 
 though not a man of brilliant talents, had won for himself an honourable fame, 
 which he kept pure to the last. He had, in spite of difficulties which seemed 
 almost insurmountable, removed great abuses and averted a civil war. Sixteen 
 years later, in a dark and terrible day, he was again called upon to save the 
 state, brought to the very brink of ruin by the same perfidy and obstinacy 
 which had embarrassed, and at length overthrown, his first administration. 
 
 Pitt was planting in Somersetshire when he was summoned to Court by a 
 letter written by the royal hand. He instantly hastened to London. The 
 irritability of his mind and body were increased by the rapidity with which he 
 travelled ; and when he reached his journey's end he was suffering from fever. 
 Ill as he was, he saw the King at Richmond, and undertook to form an 
 administration. 
 
 Pitt was scarcely in a state in which a man should be who has to conduct 
 delicate and arduous negotiations. In his letters to his wife he complained 
 that the conferences in which it was necessary for him to bear a part heated 
 his blood and accelerated his pulse. From other sources of information we 
 learn that his language, even to those whose co-operation he wished to engage, 
 was strangely peremptory and despotic. Some of his notes written at this 
 time have been preserved, and are in a style which Louis the Fourteenth would 
 have been too well bred to employ in addressing any French gentleman. 
 
 In the 'attempt to dissolve all parties, Pitt met with some difficulties. 
 Some Whigs, whom the Court would gladly have detached from Lord Rock- 
 ingham, rejected all offers. The Bedfords were perfectly willing to break 
 with Grenville ; but Pitt would not come up to their terms. Temple, whom 
 Pitt at first meant to place at the head of the treasury, proved intractible. A 
 coldness, indeed, had, during some months, been fast growing between the 
 brothers-in-law, so long and so closely allied in politics. Pitt was angry with 
 Temple for opposing the repeal of the Stamp Act. Temple was angry with 
 Pitt for refusing to accede to that family league which was now the favourite 
 
 \ 3 K A /i V 
 
8s2 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 plan at Stowe. At length the Earl proposed an equal partition of power and 
 patronage, and offered, on this condition, to give up his brother George. 
 Pitt thought the demand exorbitant, and positively refused comphance. A 
 bitter quarrel followed. Each of the kinsmen was true to his character.. 
 Temple's soul festered with spite, and Pitt's swelled into contempt. Temple 
 represented Pitt as the most odious of hypocrites and traitors. Pitt held a 
 different and, perhaps, a more provoking tone. Temple was a good sort of 
 man enough, whose single title to distinction was, that he had a large garden, 
 with a large piece of water, and a gifbat many pavilions and summer-houses. 
 To his fortunate connection with a great orator and statesman he was indebted 
 for an importance in the state which his own talents could never have gained 
 for him. That importance had turned his head. He had begun to fancy that 
 he could form administrations and govern empires. It was piteous to see a 
 well-meaning man under such a delusion. 
 
 In spite of all these difficulties, a ministry was made such as the King wished 
 to see, a ministry in which all his Majesty's friends were comfortably 
 accommodated, and which, with the exception of his Majesty's friends, con- 
 tained no four persons who had ever in their lives been in the habit of acting 
 together. Men who had never concurred in a single vote found them- 
 selves seated at the same board. The office of Paymaster was divided be- 
 tween two persons who had never exchanged a word. Most of the chief 
 posts were filled either by personal adherents of Pitt, or by members of the 
 late ministry, who had been induced to remain in place after the dismissal of 
 Lord Rockingham. To the former class belonged Pratt, now Lord Camden, 
 who accepted the great seal, and Lord Shelburne, who was made one of the 
 vSecretaries of State. To the latter class belonged the Duke of Grafton, who 
 became First Lord of the Treasury, and Conway, who kept his old position 
 both in the government and in the House of Commons. Charles Townshend, 
 who had belonged to every party, and cared for none, was Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer. Pitt himself was declared Prime Minister, but refused to take 
 any laborious office. He was created Earl of Chatham, and the privy seal 
 was delivered to him. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say, that the failure, the complete and disgrace- 
 ful failure, of this arrangement, is not to be ascribed to any want of talents 
 in the persons whom we have named. None of them were deficient in abili- 
 ties ; and four of them, Pitt himself, Shelburne, Camden and Townshend, were 
 men of high intellectual eminence. The fault was not in the materials, but 
 in the principle on which the materials were put together. Pitt had mixed up 
 these conflicting elements, in the full confidence that he should be able to 
 keep them all in perfect subordination to himself and in perfect harmony with 
 each other. We shall soon see how the experiment succeeded. 
 
 On the very day on which the new Prime Minister kissed hands, three- 
 fourths of that popularity which he had long enjoyed without a rival, and to 
 which he owed the greater party of his authority, departed from him. A 
 violent outcry was raised, not against that part of his conduct which really 
 deserved severe condemnation, but against a step in which we can see nothing 
 to censure. His acceptance of a peerage produced a general burst of indig- 
 nation. Yet surely no peerage had ever been better earned ; nor was there 
 ever a statesman who more needed the repose of the Upper house. Pitt was 
 now growing old. He was much older in constitution than in years. ^ It was 
 with imminent jisk to his life that he had, on some important occasions, at- 
 tended his duty in Parliament. During the session of 1764, he had not been 
 able to take part in a single debate. It was impossible that he should go 
 through the nightly labour of conducting the business of the government in 
 the House of Commons. His wish to be transferred, under such circum- 
 stances, to a less busy and less turbulent assembly, was natural and reasonable. 
 
THE EARL OF CIIA'IHAM. S53 
 
 The nation, however, overlooked all these considerations. Those v/ho had 
 most loved and honoured the great Commoner were loudest in invective against 
 the new made Lord. London had hitherto been true to him through every 
 vicissitude. ^Vhen the citizens learned t^Mt he had been sent for from Somer- 
 setshire, that he had been closeted with the King at Richmond, and that he 
 was to be first minister, they had been in transports of joy. I'rcparations were 
 made for a grand entertainment and for a general illumination. The lamps 
 had actually been placed round the Monument, when the Gazette announced 
 that the object of all this enthusiasm was an Earl. Instantly the feast was 
 countermanded. The lamps were taken down. The newspapers raised the 
 roar of obloquy. Pamphlets, made up of calumny and scurrility, filled the shops 
 of all the booksellers ; and of those pamphlets, the most galling were written 
 under the direction of the malignant Temple. It was now the fashion to com- 
 pare the two Williams, William Pulteney and William Pitt. Both, it was 
 said, had, by eloquence and simulated patriotism, acquired a great ascendency 
 in the House of Commons and in the country. Both had been intrusted with 
 the office of reforming the government. Both had, when at the heighth of 
 power and popularity, been seduced by the splendour of the coronet. Both 
 had been made Earls, and both had at once become objects of aversion and 
 scorn to the nation which a few hours before had regarded them with affection 
 and veneration. 
 
 The clamour against Pitt appears to have had a serious effect on the foreign 
 relations of the country. His name had till now, acted like a spell at Ver- 
 sailles and Saint Ildefonso. English travellers on the Continent had remarked 
 that nothing more was necessary to silence a whole room full of boasting 
 Frenchmen than to drop a hint of the probability that Mr. Pitt would return to 
 power. In an instant there was deep silence : all shoulders rose and all 
 faces were lengthened. Now, unhappily, every foreign court, in learning that 
 he was recalled to office, learned also that he no longer possessed the hearts of 
 his countrymen. Ceasing to be loved at home, he ceased to be feared abroad. 
 The name of Pitt had been a charmed name. Our envoys tried in vain to 
 conjure with the name of Chatham. 
 
 The difficulties which beset Chatham were daily increased by the despotic 
 manner in which he treated all around him. Lord Rockingham had, at the 
 time of the change of ministry, acted with great moderation, had expressed a 
 hope that the new government would act on the principles of the late govern- 
 ment, and had even interfered to prevent many of his friends from quitting 
 office. Thus Saunders and Keppel, two naval commanders of great eminence, 
 had been induced to remain at the Admiralty, where their services were much 
 needed. The Duke of Portland was still Lord Chamberlain, and Lord 
 Besborough Postmaster. But within a quarter of a year. Lord Chatham had 
 so effectually disgusted these men, that they_ all retired in disgust. In truth, 
 his tone, submissive in the closet, was at this time insupportably tyrannical in 
 the cabinet. His colleagues were merely his clerks for naval, financial and 
 diplomatic business. Conway, meek as he was, was on one occasion pro- 
 voked into declaring that such language as Lord Chatham's had never been 
 heard west of Constantinople, and was with difficulty prevented by Horace 
 Walpole from resigning, and rejoining the standard of Lord Rockingham. 
 
 The breach which had been made in the government by the defection of so 
 many of the Rockinghams, Chatham hoped to supply by the help cf tlic 
 Bedfords. But with the Bedfords he could not deal as he had dealt with other 
 parties. It was to no purpose that he bade high for one or two members of the 
 faction, in the hope of detaching them from the rest. They were to be had ; 
 but they were to be had only in the lot. There was, indeed, for a moment, 
 some wavering and some disputing among them. But at length the counsels 
 of the shrewd"^ and resolute Rigby prevailed. They determined to stand firmly 
 
§54 TUB EARL OP CHATHAM. 
 
 together, and plainly intimated to Chatham that he must take them all, or that 
 he should get none of them. The event proved that they were wiser in their 
 generation than any other connection in the state. In a few months they were 
 able to dictate their own terms. 
 
 The most important public measure of Lord Chatham's administration was 
 his celebrated interference with the corn trade. The harvest had been bad ; 
 the price of food was high ; and he thought it necessary to take on himself the 
 responsibility of laying an embargo on the exportation of grain. "When Par- 
 liament met, this proceeding was attacked by the opposition as unconstitutional 
 and defended by the ministers as indispensably necessary. At last an act was 
 passed to indemnify all who had been concerned in the embargo. 
 
 The first words uttered by Chatham, in the House of Lords, were in defence 
 of his conduct on this occasion. He spoke with a calmness, sobriety and 
 dignity, well suited to the audience which he was addressing. A subsequent 
 speech which he made on the same subject was less successful. He bade defiance 
 to aristocratical connections, with a superciliousness to which the Peers were 
 not accustomed, and with tones and gestures better suited to a large and 
 stormy assembly than to the body of which he was now a member. A short 
 altercation followed, and he was told very plainly that he should not be suffered 
 to browbeat the old nobility of England. 
 
 It gradually became clearer and clearer that he was in a distempered state 
 of mind. His attention had been drawn to the territorial acquisitions of the 
 East India Company, and he determined to bring the whole of that great sub- 
 ject before Parliament. He would not, however, confer on the subject with 
 any of his colleagues. It was in vain that Conway, who was charged with the 
 conduct of business in the House of Commons, and Charles Townshend, who 
 was responsible for the direction of the finances, begged for some glimpse of 
 light as to what was in contemplation. Chatham's answers were sullen and 
 mysterious. He must decline any discussion with them ; he did not want 
 their assistance ; he had fixed on a person to take charge of his measure in the 
 House of Commons. This person was a member who was not connected with 
 the government, and who neither had, nor deserved to have, the ear of the 
 House — a noisy, purse-proud, illiterate demagogue, whose Cockney English 
 and scraps of mispronounced Latin were the jest of the newspapers — Alder- 
 man Beckford. It may well be supposed that these strange proceedings pro- 
 duced a ferment through the whole political world. The city was in commo- 
 tion. The East India Company invoked the faith of charters. Burke thun- 
 dered against the ministers. The ministers looked at each other, and knew 
 not what to say. In the midst of the confusion, Lord Chatham proclaimed 
 himself gouty, and retired to Bath. It was announced, after some time, that 
 he was better, that he would shortly return, that he would soon put everything 
 in order. A day was fixed for his arrival in London. But when he reached 
 the Castle Inn, at Marlborough, he stopped, shut himself up in his room, and 
 remained there some weeks. Everybody who travelled that road was amazed 
 by the number of his attendants. Footmen and grooms, dressed in his family 
 livery, filled the whole inn, though one of the largest in England, and 
 swarmed in the streets of the little town. The truth was, that the invalid had 
 insisted that, during his stay, all the waiters and stable-boys of the Castle 
 should wear his livery. 
 
 His colleagues were in despair. The Duke of Grafton proposed to go down 
 to Marlborough in order to consult the oracle. But he was informed that Lord 
 Chatham must decline all conversation on business. In the mean time, all 
 the parties which were out of office, Bedfords, Grenvilles and Rockinghams, 
 joined to oppose the distracted government on the vote for the land tax. 
 They were reinforced by almost all the county members, and had a considerable 
 majority. This was the first time that a ministry had been beaten on an im- 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAJyi., 855 
 
 portant division in the House of Commons since the fall of Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole. The administration, thus furiously assailed from without, was torn by 
 internal dissensions. It had been formed on no principle whatever. From the 
 very first, nothing but Chatham's authofity had prevented the hostile contin- 
 gents which made up his ranks from going to blows with each other. That 
 authority was now withdrawn, and everything was in commotion. Conway, a 
 brave soldier, but in civil affairs the most timid and irresolute of men, afraid 
 of disobliging the King, afraid of being abused in the newspapers, afraid of 
 being thought factious if he went out, afraid of being thought interested if he 
 stayed in, afraid of everything, and afraid of being known to be afraid of any- 
 thing, was beaten backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock, between Horace 
 Walpole, who wished to make him Prime Minister, and Lord John Cavendish, 
 who wished to draw him into opposition. Charles Townshend, a man of 
 splendid talents, of lax principles and of boundless vanity and presumption, 
 would submit to no control. The full extent of his parts, of his ambition and 
 of his arrogance, had not yet been made manifest ; for he had always quiiikd 
 before the genius and the lofty character of Pitt. But now that Pitt had 
 quitted the House of Commons, and seemed to have abdicated the part of 
 chief minister, Townshend broke loose from all restraint. 
 
 While things were in this state, Chatham at length returned to London. He 
 might as well have remained at Marlborough. He would see nobody ; he 
 would give no opinion on any public matter. The Duke of Grafton begged 
 piteously for an interview, for an hour, for half-an-hour, for five minutes. The 
 answer was that it was impossible. The King himself repeatedly condescended 
 to expostulate and implore : "Your duty," he wrote, "your own honour, re- 
 quire you to make an effort." The answers to these appeals were commonly 
 written in Lady Chatham's hand, from her lord's dictation ; for he had-not 
 energy even to use a pen. He flings himself at the King's feet ; he is pene- 
 trated by the royal goodness so signally shown to the most unhappy of men ; 
 he implores a little more indulgence ; he cannot as yet transact business ; he 
 cannot see his colleagues ; least of all can he bear the excitement of an inter- 
 view with majesty. ' 
 
 Some were half inclined to suspect that he was, to use a military phrase, 
 malingering. He had made, they said, a great blunder, and had found it out. 
 His immense popularity, his high reputation for statesmanship, were gone for 
 ever. Intoxicated by pride, he had undertaken a task beyond his abilities. 
 He now saw nothing before him but distresses and humiliations ; and he had 
 therefore simulated illness, in order to escape from vexations which he had 
 not fortitude to meet. This suspicion, though it derived some colour from 
 that weakness which was the most striking blemish of his character, was 
 certainly unfounded. His mind, before he became first minister, had been, as 
 we have said, in an unsound state ; and physical and moral causes now con- 
 curred to make the derangement of his faculties complete. The gout, which 
 had been the torment of his whole life, had been suppressed by strong reme- 
 dies. For the first time since he was a boy at Oxford, he had passed several 
 months without a twinge. But his hand and foot had been relieved at the 
 expense of his nerves. He became melancholy, fanciful, irritable. The 
 embarrassing state of public affairs, the grave responsibility which lay on 
 him, the consciousness of his errors, the disputes of his colleagues, the savage 
 clamours raised by his detractors, bewildered his enfeebled mind. Ope thing 
 alone, he said, could save him. He must repurchase Hayes. The unwilling 
 consent of the new occupant was extorted by Lady Chatham's entreaties and 
 tears ; and her lord was somewhat easier. But if business were mentioned tq 
 him, he, once the proudest and boldest of mankind, behaved like a hysterical 
 girlj trembled from head to foot and burst into a flood of tears. 
 
 J lis colleagues for a time continued to entertain the cxp(;ctalion tli-t his 
 
S56 THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 health would soon be restored, and that he would emerge from his retirement. 
 But month followed month, and still he remained hidden in mysterious seclu- 
 sion and sunk, as far as they could learn, in the deepest dejection of spirits. 
 They at length ceased to hope or to fear anything from him ; and though he 
 was still nominally Prime Minister, took without scruple steps which they 
 knew to be diametrically opposed to all his opinions and feelings, allied them- 
 selves with those whom he had proscribed, disgraced those whom he most 
 esteemed, and laid taxes on the colonies, in the face of the strong declarations 
 which he had recently made. 
 
 When he had passed about a year and three quarters in gloomy privacy, the 
 King received a few lines in Lady Chatham's hand. They contained a request, 
 dictated by her lord, that he might be permitted to resign the Privy Seal. 
 After some civil show of reluctance, the resignation was accepted. Indeed 
 Chatham was, by this time, almost as much forgotten as if he had already been 
 lying in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 At length the clouds which had gathered over his mind broke and 
 p.issed away. His gout returned, and freed him from a more cruel malady. 
 Hi's nerves were newly braced. His spirits became buoyant. He woke as 
 from a sickly dream. It was a strange recovery. Men had been in the habit 
 of talking of him as of one dead, and, when he first showed himself at the 
 King's levee, started as if they had seen a ghost. It was more than two 
 )ears and a half since he had appeared in public. 
 
 He, too, had cause for wonder. The world which he now entered was not 
 the world which he had quitted. The administration which he had formed 
 had never been, at any one moment, entirely changed. But there had been 
 so many losses and so many accessions that he could scarcely recognise his 
 own work. Charles Townshend was dead. Lord Shelburne had been 
 dismissed. Conway had sunk into utter insignificance. The Duke of Grafton 
 had fallen into the hands of the Bedfords. The Bedfords had deserted 
 Crenville, had made their peace with the King and the King's friends, and 
 had been admitted to office. Lord North was Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 and was rising fast in importance. Corsica had been given up to France 
 without a struggle. The disputes with the American colonies had been re- 
 vived. A general election had taken place. Wilkes had returned from exile, 
 and, outlaw as he was, had been chosen knight of the shire for Middlesex. The 
 multitude was on his side. The Court was obstinatety bent on ruining him, 
 and was prepared to shake the very foundations of the constitution for the 
 sake of a paltry revenge. The House of Commons, assuming to itself an 
 authority which of right belongs only to the whole legislature, had declared 
 Wilkes incapable of sitting in Parliament. Nor had it been thought sufficient 
 to keep him out. Another must be brought in. Since the freeholders of 
 Middlesex had obstinately refused to choose a member acceptable to the 
 Court, the House had chosen a member for them. This was the only instance, 
 perhaps not the most disgraceful instance, of the inveterate malignity of the 
 Court. Exasperated by the steady opposition of the Rockingham party, the 
 King's friends had tried to rob a distinguished Whig nobleman of his private es- 
 tate, and had persisted in their mean wickedness till their own servile majority had 
 revolted from mere disgust and shame. Discontent had spread throughout the 
 nation, and was kept up by stimulants such as had rarely been applied to the 
 public mind. Junius had taken the field, had trampled Sir William Draper 
 in the dust, had well nigh broken the heart of Blackstone, and had so 
 mangled the reputation of the Duke of Grafton, that his grace had become 
 sick of office, and was beginning to look wistfully towards the shades of 
 Euscon. Every principle of foreign, domestic and colonial policy which was 
 ilear to the heart of Chatham had, during the eclipse of his genius, been 
 violated by the government which he had formed. 
 
THE EARL 0^' CHATHAxM. ^$7 
 
 The remaining years of his life were spent in vainly struggling against that 
 fatal policy which, at the moment when he might have given it a death blow, 
 he had been induced to take under his protection. His exertions redeemed 
 his own fame, but they eftected little for his country, 
 
 He found two parties arrayed against the government, the party of his own 
 brothers-in-law, the Grenvilles and the party of Lord Rockingham. On 
 the question of the Middlesex election these parties were agreed. But on 
 many other important questions they differed widely ; and they were, in 
 truth, not less hostile to each other than to the Court. The Grenvilles 
 had, during several years, annoyed the Rockinghams with a succession of 
 acrimonious pamphlets. It was long before the Rockinghams could be in- 
 duced to retaliate. But an ill-natured tract, written under Grenville's direction 
 and entitled " A State of the Nation," was too much for their patience. Burke 
 undertook to defend and avenge his friends, and executed the task with 
 admirable skill and vigour. On every point he was victorious, and nowhere 
 more completely victorious than when he joined issue on those dry and minute 
 questions of statistical and financial detail in which the main strength of 
 Grenville lay. The official drudge, even on his own chosen ground, was 
 utterly unable to maintain the fight against the great orator and philoso- 
 pher. When Chatham reappeared, Grenville was still writhing with the 
 recent shame and smart of this wall merited chastisement. Cordial co-opera- 
 tion between the two sections of the Opposition was impossible. Nor could 
 Chatham easily connect himself >vith either. His feelings, in spite of many 
 affronts given and received, drew him towards the Grenvilles. For he had 
 strong domestic affections ; and his nature, which, though haughty, was by no 
 means obdurate, had been softened by affliction. But from his kinsmen he was 
 separated by a wide difference of opinion on the question of colonial taxation. 
 A reconciliation, however, took place. He visited Stowe : he shook hands 
 with George Grenville ; and the Whig freeholders of Buckinghamshire, at 
 their public dinners, drank many bumpers to the unioa of the three brothers. 
 
 In opinions, Chatham was much nearer to the Rockinghams than to his own 
 relatives. But between him and the Rockinghams there was a gulf not easily 
 to be passed. He had deeply injured them, and in injuring them had deeply 
 injured his country. When the balance was trembling between them and the 
 Court, he had thrown the whole weight of his genius, of his renown, of his 
 popularity, into the scale of misgovernment. It must be added, that many 
 eminent members of the party still retained a bitter recollection of the asperity 
 and disdain with which they had been treated by him at the time when he 
 assumed the direction of affairs. It is clear from Burke's pamphlets and 
 speeches, and still more clear from his private letters, and from the language 
 which he held in conversation, that he long regarded Chatham with a feeling 
 not far removed from dislike. Chatham was undoubtedly conscious of his 
 error and desirous to atone for it. But his overtures of friendship, though 
 made with earnestness, and even with unwonted humility, were at first received 
 by Lord Rockingham with cold and austere reserve. Gradually the intercourse 
 of the two statesmen became courteous and even amicable. But the past wr.s 
 never wholly forgotten. 
 
 Chatham did not, however, stand alone. Round him gathered a party, 
 small in number, but strong in great and various talents. Lord Camden, 
 I^ord Shelburne, Colonel Barre, and Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, 
 were the principal members of this connection. 
 
 There is no reason to believe that, from this time till within a few weeks 
 of Chatham's death, his intellect suffered any decay. His eloquence was 
 almost to the last heard with delight. But it was not exactly the elcxjuence of 
 the House of Lords. That lofty and passionate, but somewhat desultory 
 declamation, in which he excelled all men, and which was set off by looks, 
 
§5^ THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 tones and gesture, worthy of Garrick or Talma, was out of place in a small 
 apartment where the audience often consisted of three or four drowsy prelates, 
 three or four old judges, accustomed during many years to disregard 
 rhetoric, and td look only at facts and arguments, and three or four list- 
 less and supercilious men of fashion, whom anything like enthusiasm moved 
 to a sneer. In the House of Commons a flash of his eye, a wave of his arm, 
 had sdmetimes cowed Murray. But in the House of Peers his utmost vehe- 
 mence and pathos produced less effect than the moderation, the reasonableness, 
 the luminous order and the serene dignity which characterised the speeches of 
 Lord Mansfield. 
 
 On the question of the Middlesex election, all the three divisions of the 
 Opposition acted in concert. No orator in either House defended what is 
 now universally admitted to have been the constitutional cause with more 
 ardour or eloquence than Chatham, Before this subject had ceased to occupy 
 the public mind George Grenville died. His party rapidly melted away ; and 
 in a short time most of his adherents appeared on the ministerial benches. 
 
 Had George Grenville lived many months longer the friendly ties which, 
 after years of estrangement and hostility, had bewa renewed between him and 
 his brother-in-law, would, in all probability, have been a second time violently 
 dissolved. For now the quarrel between England and the North American 
 Colonies took a gloomy and terrible aspect. Oppression provoked resistance ; 
 resistance was made the pretext for fresh oppression. The warnings of all 
 the greatest statesmen of the age were lost on an imperious Court and a 
 deluded nation. Soon a colonial senate confronted the British Parliament. 
 Then the colonial militia crossed bayonets with the British regiments. At 
 length the commonwealth was torn asunder. Two millions of Englishmen, 
 who, fifteen years before, had been as loyal to their prince and as proud of 
 their country as the people of Kent or Yorkshire, separated themselves by a 
 solemn act from the Empire. For a time it seemed that the insurgents would 
 struggle to small purpose against the vast financial and military means of the 
 mother country. But disasters, following one another in rapid succession, 
 rapidly dispelled the illusions of.national vanity. At length a great British force, 
 exhausted, famished, harassed on every side by hostile peasantry, was com- 
 pelled to deliver up its arms. Those governments which England had, in the 
 late war so signally humbled, and which had during many years been sullenly 
 brooding over the recollections of Quebec, of Minden and of the Moro, now 
 saw with exultation that the day of revenge was at hand. France recognised 
 the independence of the United States ; and there could be little doubt that 
 the example would soon be followed by Spain. 
 
 Chatham and Rockingham had cordially concurred in opposing every part 
 of the fatal policy which had brought the state into this dangerous situation. 
 But their paths now diverged. Lord Rockingham thought, and, as the event 
 proved, thought most justly, that the revolted colonies were separated from 
 the Empire for ever, and that the only effect of prolonging the war on the 
 American continent would be to divide resources which it was desirable to 
 concentrate. If the hopeless attempt to subjugate Pennsylvania and Virginia 
 were abandoned, war against the House of Bourbon might possibly be avoided, 
 or, if inevitable, might be carried on with success and glory. We might even 
 indemify ourselves for part of what we had lost, at the expense of those foreign 
 enemies who had hoped to profit by our domestic dissensions. Lord Rock- 
 ingham, therefore, and those who acted with him, conceived that the wisest 
 course now open to England was to acknowledge the independence of the 
 United States, and to turn her whole force against her European enemies. 
 
 Chatham, it should seem, ought to have taken the same side. Before France 
 had taken any part iii our quarrel with the colonies, he had repeatedly, and 
 with great energy of language, declared that it was impossible to conquer 
 
THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 859, 
 
 America, and he could not without absurdity maintain that it was easier to con- 
 quer France and America together than America alone. But his passions over- 
 powered his judgment, and made him Wind to his own inconsistency. The 
 very circumstances which made the separation of the colonies inevitable made 
 it to him altogether insupportable. The dismemberment of the Empire seemed 
 to him less ruinous and humiliating, when produced by domestic dissensions, 
 than when produced by foreign interference. His blood boiled at the degre- 
 dation of his country. Whatever lowered her among the nations of the earth, 
 he felt as a personal outrage to himself. And the feelitig was natural. He 
 had made her so great. He had been so proud of her ; and she had been so 
 proud of him. He remembered how, more than twenty years before, in a day 
 of gloom and dismay, when her possessions were torn from her, when her flag 
 was dishonoured, she had called on him to save her. He remembered the 
 sudden and gloriouschange which his energy had wrought, the long series of 
 triumphs, the days of thanksgiving, the nights of illumination. 'Fired by such 
 recollections, he determined to separate himself from those who advised that 
 the independence of the colonies should be acknowledged. That he was in 
 error will scarcely, we think, be disputed by his warmest admirers. Indeed, 
 the treaty, by which, a few years later, the Republic of the United States was re- 
 cognised, was the work of his most attached adherents and of his favourite son. 
 
 The Duke of Richmond had given notice of an address to the throne, 
 against the further prosecution of hostilities with America. Chatham had, 
 during some time, absented himself from Parliament, in consequence of his 
 growing infirmities. He determined to appear in his place on this occasion, 
 and to declare that his opinions were decidedly at variance with those of the 
 Rockingham party. He was in a state of great excitement. His medical 
 attendants were uneasy, and strongly advised him to calm himself, and to 
 remain at home. But he was not to be controlled. His son William and 
 his son-in-law Lord Mahon, accompanied him to Westminster. He rested 
 himself in the Chancellor's room till the debate commenced, and then, leaning 
 on his two young relations, limped to his seat. The slightest particular 
 of that day were remembered, and have been carefully recorded. He bowed, 
 it was remarked, with great courtliness to those Peers who rose to make way 
 for him and his supporters. His crutch was in his hand. He wore, as was 
 his fashion, a rich velvet coat. His legs were swathed in flannel. His wig 
 was so large and his face so emaciated that none of his features could be dis- 
 cerned, except the high curve of his nose and his eyes, which still retained a 
 gleam of the old fire. 
 
 WTien the Duke of Richmond had spoken, Chatham rose. For some time 
 his voice was inaudible. At length his tones became distinct and his action 
 animated. Here and there his hearers caught a thought or an expression 
 which reminded them of William Pitt. But it was clear that he was not him- 
 self. He lost the thread of his discourse, hesitated, repeated the same 
 words several times, and was so confused that, in speaking of the Act of 
 Settlement, he could not recall the name of the Electress Sophia. The 
 House listened in solemn silence, and with the aspect of profound respect 
 and compassion. The stillness was so deep that the dropping of a hand- 
 kerchief would have been heard. The Duke of Richmond replied with great 
 tenderness and courtesy ; but while he spoke, the old man was observed to be 
 restless and irritable. The Duke sat down. Chatham stood up again, pressed 
 his hand on his breast, and sank down in an apoplectic fit. Three or four lords 
 who sat near him caught him in his fall. The House broke up in confusion. 
 The dying man was carried to the residence of one of the officers of Parlia- 
 ment, and was so far restored as to be able to bear a journey to Hayes. At 
 Hayes, after lingering a few weeks, he expired in his seventieth year. His bed 
 was watched to the last, with anxious tenderness, by his wife and children ; 
 
86o THE EARL OF CHATHAM. 
 
 and he well deserved their care. Too often haughty and wayward to others, to 
 them he had been almost effeminately kind. He had through life been 
 dreaded l)y his political opponents, and regarded with more awe than love even 
 by his political associates. But no fear seems to have mingled with the affec- 
 tions which his fondness, constantly overflowing in a thousand endearing 
 forms, had inspired in the little circle at Hayes. 
 
 Chatham, at the time of his decease, had not, in both Houses of Parliament, 
 ten personal adherents. Half the public men oC the age had been estranged 
 from him by his errors, and the other half by the exertions which he had made 
 to repair his errors. His last speech had been* an attack at once on the policy 
 pursued by the government and on the policy recommended by the opposition. 
 But death at once restored him to his old place in the affection of his country. 
 Who could hear unmoved of the fall of that which had been so great and 
 which had stood so long ? The circumstances, too, seemed rather to belong to 
 the tragic stage than real life. A great statesman, full of years and honours, 
 led forth to the Senate House by a son of rare hopes, and stricken down in 
 full council while straining his feeble voice to rouse the drooping spirit of his 
 country, could not but be remembered with peculiar veneration and tenderness. 
 Detraction was overawed. The voice even of just and temperate censure was 
 mute, nothing was remembered but the lofty genius, the unsullied probity, the 
 undisputed services of him who was no more. For once, the chiefs of all 
 all parties were agreed. A public funeral, a public monument, were eagerly 
 voted. The debts of the deceased were paid. A provision was made for his 
 family. The City of London requested that the remains of the great man 
 whom she had so long loved and honoured might rest under the dome of her 
 magnificent cathedral. But the petition came too late. Everything was 
 already prepared for the interment in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 Though men of all parties had concurred in decreeing posthumous honours 
 to Chatham, his corpse was attended to the grave almost exclusively by oppon- 
 ents of the government. The banner of the lordship of Chatham was borne 
 by Colonel Barre, attended by the Duke of Richmond and Lord Rockingham. 
 Burke, Saville and Dunning upheld the pall. Lord Camden was conspicuous 
 in the procession. The chief mourner was young William Pitt. After the 
 lapse of more than twenty-seven years, in a season as dark and perilous, his 
 own shattered frame and broken heart were laid, with the same pomp, in the 
 same consecrated mould. 
 
 Chatham sleeps near the northern door of the Church, in a spot which has 
 ever since been appropriated to statesmen, as the other end of the same transept 
 has long been to poets. Mansfield rest there, and the second W^illiam Pitt, 
 and Fox, and Grattan, and Canning, and Wilberforce. In no other cemetery 
 do so many great citizens lie within so'narrow a space. High over those vener- 
 able graves towers the stately monument of Chatham, and from above, his 
 own effigyj graven by a cunning hand, seems still, with eagle face and out- 
 stretched arm, to bid England be of good cheer, and to hurl defiance at her 
 foes. The generation which reared that memorial of him has disappeared. 
 The time has come when the rash and indiscriminate judgments which his con- 
 temporaries passed on his character may be calmly revised by history. And 
 history, while, for the warning of vehement, high And daring natures, she 
 notes his many errors, Avill yet deliberately pronounce, that among the eminent 
 men whose bones lie near his, scarcely one has left a more stainless, and none 
 a more splendid name. 
 
LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 That what is called the history of the Kings and early Consuls of Rome is to 
 a great extent fabulous, few scholars have, since the time of Beaufort, ventured 
 lo deny. It is certain that, more than three hundred and sixty years after the 
 date ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city, the public records were, 
 with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Ciauls. It is certain that the oldest 
 annals of the commonwealth were compiled more than a century and a half 
 after the destruction of the records. It is certain, therefore, that the great 
 Latin writers of the* Augustan age did not possess those materials, without 
 which a trustworthy account of the infancy of the Repubhc could not possibly 
 be framed. Those writers own, indeed, that the chronicles to which they had 
 access were filled with battles that were never. fought and Consuls that were 
 never inaugurated ; and we have abundant proof that in these chronicles events 
 of the greatest importance, such as the issue of the war with Porsena, and the 
 issue of the war with Brennus, were grossly misrepresented.. Under these cir- 
 cumstances a wise man will look with great suspicion on the legend which has 
 come down to us. He will, perhaps, be inclined to regard the princes who are 
 said to have founded the civil and religious institutions of Rome, the son of 
 Mars, and the husband of Egeria, as mere mythological personages, of the 
 same class with Perseus and Ixion. As he draws nearer and nearer to the con- 
 fines of authentic history, he will become less and less hard of belief. He \yill 
 admit that the most important parts of the narrative have some foundation 
 in truth. But he will distrust almost all the details, not only because they 
 seldom rest on any solid evidence, but also because he will constantly detect 
 in them, even when they are within the limits of physical possibility, that 
 peculiar character, more easily understood than defined, which distinguishes 
 the creations of the imagination from the realities of the world in which 
 we live. 
 
 The early history of Rome is indeed far more poetical than anything else in 
 Latin literature. The loves of the Vestal and the Cod of War, the cradle laid 
 among the reeds of Tiber, the fig-tree, the she-wolf, the shepherd's cabin, the 
 recognition, the fratricide, the rape of the Sabines, the death of Tarpeia, the 
 fall of Hostus Hostilius, the struggle of Mettus Curtius through the marsh, the 
 women rushing with torn raiment and dishevelled hair between their fathers 
 and their husbands, the nightly meetings of Numa and the Nymph by the well 
 in the sacred grove, the fight of the three Romans and the three Albans, the 
 purchase of the Sibylline books, the crime of Tullia, the simulated madness of 
 Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs 
 of Lucretia, the heroic actions of Horatius Codes, of Sc.^vola and of Cloelia, 
 the battle of Regillus won by the aid of Castor and Pollux, the defence of 
 Cremera, the touching story of Coriolanus, the still more touching story of 
 Virginia, the wild k-gend about the draining of the Alban lake, the combat 
 between Valerius Corvus and the gigantic Caul are among the many instancci> 
 wliich will at o.ncc suggest themselves to every reader. 
 
862 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 r In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of fine imagination, these stories 
 I retain much of their genuine character. Nor could even the tasteless Dionysius 
 distort and mutilate them into mere prose. The poetry shines, in spite of him, 
 through the dreary pedantry of his eleven books. It is discernible in the most 
 tedious and in the most superficial modern works on the early, times of Rome. 
 It enlivens the dulness of the Universal History, and gives a charm to the most 
 meagre abridgments of Goldsmith. , 
 
 Even in the age of Plutarch there were discerning men who rejected the 
 popular.account of the foundation of Rome, because that account appeared to 
 them to have the air, not of a history, but of a romance or a drama. Plutarch, 
 who was displeased at their incredulity, had nothing better to say in reply ta 
 their arguments thar that chance sometimes turns poet, and produces trains of 
 events not to be distinguished from the most elaborate plots which are con- 
 structed by art.* But though the existence of a poetical element in the early 
 history of the Great City was detected- so many years ago, the first critic who 
 distinctly saw from what source that poetical element had been derived was 
 James Perizonius, one of the most acute and learned antiquaries of the seven- 
 teenth century. His theory, which, in his own days, attracted little or no 
 notice, was revived in the present generation by Niebuhr, a ''man who would 
 have been the first writer of his time, if his talent for communicating truths had 
 borne any proportion to his talent for investigating them. It has been adopted 
 by several eminent scholars of our own country, particularly by the Bishop of' 
 St. David's, by Professor Maiden, and by the lamented Arnold. It appears to 
 be now generally received by men conversant with classical antiquity ; and in- 
 deed it rests on such strong proofs, both internal and external, that it will not 
 be easily subverted. A-p opular exposition of this theory, and of the evidence 
 by which it is supported, may not be without interest even for readers who are 
 unacquainted with the ancient languages. 
 
 The Latin literature which has come down to us is of later date than the 
 commencement of the Second Punic War, and consists almost exclusively of 
 works fashioned on Greek models. The Latin metres, heroic, elegiac, lyric, 
 and dramatic, are of Greek origin. The best Latin epic poetry is the feeble 
 echo of the Iliad and Odyssey. The best Latin eclogues are imitations of 
 Theocritus. The plan of the most finished didactic poem in the Latin tongue 
 was taken from Hesiod. The Latin tragedies are bad copies of the master- 
 pieces of Sophocles and Euripides. The Latin comedies are free translations 
 from Demophilus, Menander and Apollodorus. The Latin philosophy was 
 borrowed, without alteration, from the Portico and the Academy ; and the 
 great Latin orators constantly proposed to themselves as patterns the speeches 
 of Demosthenes and Lysias. 
 
 But'there was an earlier Latin literature, a literature truly Latin, which has 
 wholly perished, which had, indeed, almost wholly perished long before those 
 whom we are in the habit of regarding as the greatest Latin writers were born. 
 That literature abounded with metrical romances, such as are found in every 
 country where there is much curiosity and intelligence, but little reading and 
 writing. All human beings, not utterly savage, long for some information 
 about past times, and are delighted by narratives which present pictures to the 
 
 *"Y7roffTOw fxi-v ^vt'oir to-ri to Spa/JLariKov Kal v\a<riJ.ar Codes' ov 6e'i ii ain<neiv, Tt]V Tvxr,v 
 optuvToy, o'iutv noi>]fxaTU)v dt]fxtovpy6s ecTi. — Plut. Rom. viii. This remarkable passage has 
 bef n more grossly misinterpreted than any other in the Greek language^ where the sense 
 was so obvious. The Latin version ot Cruserius, the French version of Amyot, the old 
 English version by several hands, and the later English version by Langhorne, are all 
 equally destitute of every trace of the meaning of the original. None of the translators 
 saw even that Tro/nMa is a poem. They all render it an event. 
 
PREFACE, 863 
 
 eye of the mind. But it is only in ver^ enlightened communities that books 
 are readily accessible. Metrical composition, therefore, which, in a highly 
 civilised nation, is a mere luxury, is, in nations imperfectly civilised, almost a 
 necessary of life, and is valued less on account of the pleasure which it gives to 
 the ear than on account of the help which it gives to the memory. A man 
 who can invent or embellish an interesting story, and put it into a form which 
 others may easily retain in their recollection, will always be highly esteemed 
 by a people eager for amusement and information, but destitute of libraries. 
 vSuch is the origin of ballad-poetry, a species of composition which scarcely ever 
 fails to spring up and flourish in every society, at a certain point in the progress 
 towards refinement. Tacitus informs us that songs were the only memorials of 
 the past which the ancient Germans possessed. We learn from Lucan and 
 from Ammianus Marcellinus that the brave actions of the ancient Gauls were 
 commemorated in the verses of Bards. During many ages, and through many 
 revolutions, minstrelsy retained its influence over both the Teutonic and the 
 Celtic race. The vengeance exacted by the spouse of Attila for the murder of 
 Siegfried was celebrated in rhymes, of which Germany is still justly proud. 
 The exploits of Athelstane were commemorated by the Anglo-Saxons, and 
 those of Canute by the Danes, in rude poems, of which a few fragments have 
 come down to us. The chants of the Welsh harpers preserved, through ages 
 of darkness, a faint and doubtful memory of Arthur. In the Highlands of 
 Scotland may still be gleaned some relics of the old songs about CuthuUin and 
 Fingal. The long struggle of the Servians against the Ottoman power was 
 recorded in lays full of martial spirit. We learn from Herrera that, when a 
 Peruvian Inca died, men of skill were appointed to celebrate him in verses, 
 which all the people learned by heart, and sang in public on days of festival. 
 The feats of Kurroglou, the great-freebooter of Turkistan, recounted in ballads 
 composed by himself, are known in every village of Northern Persia. Captain 
 Beechey heard the bards of the Sandwich Islands recite the heroic achieve- 
 ments of Tamehameha, the most illustrious of their kings. Mungo Park found 
 in the heart of Africa a class of singing men, the only annalists of their rude 
 tribes, and heard them tell the story of the victory which Damel, the Negro 
 prince of the Jaloffs, won over Abdulkader, the Mussulman tyrant off" Foota 
 Torra. This species of poetry attained a high degree of excellence among the 
 Castilians, before they began to copy Tuscan patterns. It attained a still 
 higher degree of excellence among the English and the Lowland Scotch during 
 the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But it reached its full per- 
 fection in ancient Greece ; for there can be no doubt that the great Homeric 
 poems are generically ballads, though widely distinguished from all other 
 l)allads, and indeed, from almost all other human compositions, by transcendent 
 merit. 
 
 As it is agreeable to general experience that, at a certain stage in the progress 
 of society, ballad-poetry should flourish, so is it also agreeable to general ex- 
 perience that, at a subsequent stage in the progress of society, ballad-poetry 
 should be undervalued and neglected. Knowledge advances : manners change : 
 great foreign models of composition are studied and imitated. The phraseology 
 of the old minstrels . becomes obsolete. Their versification, which, having 
 received its laws only from the car, abound in irregularities, seems licentious 
 and uncouth. Their simplicity appears beggarly when compared with the 
 f luaint forms and gaudy colouring of such artists as Cowley and Gongora. The 
 ancient lays, unjustly despised by the learned and polite, linger for a time in 
 the memory of the vulgar, and are at length too often irretrievably lost. Wc 
 cannot wonder that the ballads of Rome should have altogether disappeared, 
 when we remember how very narrowly, in spite of the invention of printing. 
 
864 LAVS OF ANC/ENT ROME. 
 
 those of our own countiy and those of Spain escaped the same fate. There is, 
 indeed, little doubt that oblivion covers many English songs equal to any that 
 were published by Bishop Percy, and many Spanish songs as good as the best 
 of those which have been so happily translated by Mr. Lockhart. Eighty 
 years ago England possessed only one tattered copy of Childe Waters and Sir 
 Gauline, and Spain only one tattered copy of the noble poem of the Cid. The 
 snuff of a candle, or a mischievous dog, might in a moment have deprived the 
 world for ever of any of those fine compositions. Sir Walter Scott, who 
 united to the tire of a great poet the minute curiosity and patient diligence of a 
 great antiquary, was but just in time to save the precious relics of the Minstrelsy 
 of the Border. In Germany, the lay of the Nibelungs had been long utterly 
 forgotten, when, in the eighteenth century, it was, for the first time, printed 
 from a manuscript in the old library of a noble family. In truth, the only 
 people who, through their whole passage from simplicity to the highest civili- 
 sation, never for a moment ceased to love and admire their old ballads were 
 the Greeks. 
 
 That the early Romans should have had ballad-poetry, and that this poetry 
 should have perished, is, therefore, not strange. It would, on the contrary, 
 have been strange if these things had not come to pass ; and we should be 
 justified in pronouncing them highly probable, even if we had no direct 
 evidence on the subject. But we* have direct evidence of unquestionable 
 authority. 
 
 Ennius, who flourished in the time of the Second Punic War, was regarded 
 in the Augustan age as the father of Latin poetry. He was, in tnith, the 
 father of the second school of Latin poetry, the only school of which the works 
 have descended to us. But from Ennius himself we learn that there were poets 
 who stood to him in the same relation in which the author of the romance of 
 Count Alarcos stood to Garcilaso, or the author of the " Lytell Geste of Robyn 
 Hode " to Lord Surrey. Ennius speaks of verses which the Fauns and the 
 Bards were wont to chant in the old time, when none had yet studied the 
 graces of speech, when none had yet climbed the peaks sacred to the goddesses 
 of Grecian song. *' Where," Cicero mournfully asks, " are those old verses 
 now ? " * 
 
 Contemporary witli Ennius was Quintus Fabius Pictor, the earliest of the 
 Roman annalists. His account of the infancy and youth of Romulus and 
 Remus has been preserved by Dionysius, and contains a very remarkable 
 reference to the ancient Latin poetry. Fabius says that, in his time, his 
 countrymen were still in the habit of singing ballads about the Twins. " Even 
 in the hut of Faustulus " — so these old lays appear to have run — " the children 
 of Rhea and Mars were, in port and in spirit, Hot like unto swineherds or 
 
 * " Quid ? Nostri veteres versus ubi sunt? 
 
 . . . . -'Quos olim Faiini vatesque canebant, 
 Cum neque Musarum scopulos quisquam superarat, 
 Nee dicti studiosus erat.' " 
 
 Cic. in Biuto, cap, xviii. 
 
 The Muses, it should be observed, are Greek divinities. The Italian goddesses of 
 verse were the Caniojnos. At a later period, the appellations were used indiscriminately ; 
 but in the age of Ennius there was probably a distinction. In the epitaph of Nasvius, 
 who was the representative of the old Italian school of poetry, the -Camoenas, not the 
 Muses, are represented as grieving for the loss of their votary. The " Musarum scopuli '' 
 are evidently the peaks of Parnassus. 
 
 Scaliger, in a note on Varro {De Lingua Latina, lib, vi), suggests, with great ingenuity, 
 that the Fauns, who were represented by the superstition of later ages as a race of 
 monsters, half gods and half brutes, may really have been a class of men who exercised 
 in Latium, at a very remote period, the same functions which belonged to the Magians 
 in Persia and to the Bards in Gaul. 
 
PREFACE. 865 
 
 cowherds, but such that men might well guess them to be of the blood of 
 kings and gods. " * 
 
 Cato the Censor, who also lived in the days of the Second Punic War, 
 mentioned this lost literature in his lost work on the antiquities of his country. 
 Many ages, he said, before his time, there were ballads in praise of illustrious 
 men ; and these ballads it was the fashion for the guests at banquets to sing in 
 turn while the piper played. " Would," exclaims Cicero, ** that we still had 
 the old ballads of which Cato speaks ! " t 
 
 Valerius Maximus gives us exactly similar information, without mentioning 
 Ins authority, and observes that the ancient Roman ballads were probably of 
 
 * <^)i hi avipwOivrev 'fivovrat, Kara re a^iiacrtv noptpijt Kal ^povijfiaTOv ofKov, oy avo<pOp^oi<! 
 Kat /3ot//coXot9 eoii(6Te<:, uA\' oVofS uk tis a^tiixieie rov^ tK jiaatXcLov xe (pvvja^ Tftvou?, Ka'i iino 
 datn6vu)v (Tiropu^ feveaOai. vofii^oiJ.ivOvi, <l>s iv roh naTpiot<: viJ.voi^ Ino ' Pmixaicov eji Kai vvv 
 abiTai.—Dion. Hal. i. 79. This passage has sometimes been cited as if Dionysius had 
 been speaking in his own person, and had, Greek as he was, been so industrious or so 
 fortunate as to discover some valuable remains of that early Latin poetry which the 
 greatest Latin writers of his age regretted as hopelessly lost. Such a -supposition is 
 highly improbable ; and indeed it seems clear from the context that Dionysius, as Reiske 
 and other editors evidently thought, was merely quoting from.Fabius Pictor. The whole 
 passage has tne air of an extract from an ancient chronicle,- and is introduced by the 
 words, KoiVtos niv 'l>a/3ios, 6 n«KT<op Xe-^o/uevor, Trjde 7pa<^ei. 
 
 Another argument may be urged which seems to deserve consideration. The author 
 of the passage in question mentions a thatched hut which, in his time, stood between 
 the summit of Mount Palatine and the Circus. This hut, he says, was built by Romulus, 
 and was constantly kept in repair at the public charge, but never in any respect embel- 
 lished. Now, in the age of Dionysius there certainly was at Rome a thatched hut, said 
 to have been that of Romulus. But this hut, as we learn from Vitruvius, stood, not near 
 the Circus, but in the Capitol. (Kt^ ii. i.) If. therefore, we understand Dionysius to 
 speak in his own person, we can reconcile his statement with that of Vitruvius only by 
 supposing that there were at Rome in the Augustan age two thatched huts, both believed 
 to have been built by Romulus, and both carefully repaired and held in high honour. 
 The objections to such a supposition seem to be strong. Neither Dionysius nor Vitruvius 
 speak of more than one such hut. Dio Cassius inlorms us that twice, during the long 
 administration of Augustus, the hut of Romulus caught fire, (xlviii. 43, liv. 29.) Had 
 there been two such huts, would he not have told us of which he spoke ? An English 
 historian would hardly give an account of a fire at Queen's College without saying 
 whether it was at Queen's College, Oxford, or at Queen's College, Cambridge. Marcus 
 Seneca, Macrobius, and Conon, a Greek writer from whom Photius has made large ex- 
 tracts, mention only one hut of Romulus, that in the Capitol. (M. Seneca, Contr. i. 6; 
 Macrobius, Sat. i. 15 ; Photius, Bibl. 186.) Ovid, Livy, Petronius, Valerius Maximu.s, 
 Lucius Seneca, and St. Jerome mention only one hut of Romulus, without specifying the 
 site. [Ovid, Fasti, iii. 183; Lw. v. 53; Petronius, Fragm.; Val. Max. iv. 4; L. Seneca, 
 Consolatio ad Helviam; D. Hieron. ad PauUnianum dc Didymo.) 
 
 The whole difficulty is removed if we suppose that Dionysius was merely quoting 
 Fabius Pictor. Nothing is more probable than that the cabin, which in the time of 
 Fabius stood near the Circus, might, long before the age of Augustus, have been trans- 
 ported to the Capitol, as the place fittest, by reason both of its safety and of its sanctity, 
 to contain so precious a relic. 
 
 The language of Plutarch confirms this hypothesis. He describes, with great preci- 
 sion, the spot where Romulus dwelt, on the slope of Mount Palatine leading to the Circus; 
 but he says not a word implying that the dwelling was still to be seen there. Indeed, his 
 expressions imply that it was no longer there. The evidence of Solinus is still more to 
 the point He, like Plutarch, describes the spot where Romulus had resided, and says 
 expressly that the hut had been there, but that in his time it was there no longer. The 
 site, it is certain, was well remembered ; and probably retained its old name, as Charing 
 Cross and the Haymarket have done. This is probably the explanation of the words 
 " casa Romuli,' in Victor's description of the Tenth Region of Rome, under Valen- 
 tinian. tii 
 
 \ Cicero refers twice to this important passage in Cato's Antiquitie ^?.' " Gravissimus 
 auctor in * Originibus ' dixit Cato, morem apud majores hunc epular^^ i^4sse, ut dein- 
 ceps, qui accubarent, canerent ad tibiam clarorum virorum laudes ; ^, * Ttutes. Ex 
 quo perspicuum est, et cantus tum fuisse rescriptos vocum sonis, Ct. ia." — Tusc. 
 
 Quast.'w.z. Again: '* Utinam exstarent ilia carmina, quae, multis saect..^ nte suaiu 
 aetatera, in epulis esse cantitata a singulis convivis de clarorum virortim Uadibus, io 
 * Originibus' scriptum rcliquit Caxo."'-Drutns, cap. xis. 
 
 F ? 
 
866 LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 more benefit to the young than all the lectures of the Athenian schools, and 
 that to the influence of the national poetry were to be ascribed the virtues of 
 such men as Camillus and Fabricius.* 
 
 Varro, whose authority on all questions connected with the antiquities of his 
 country is entitled to the greatest respect, tells us that at banquets it was once 
 the fashion for boys to sing, sometimes with' and sometimes without instru- 
 mental music, ancient ballads in praise of men of former times. These young 
 performers, he observes, were of unblemished character, a circumstance which 
 he probably mentioned because, among the Greeks, and indeed in his time 
 among the Romans also, the morals of singing boys were in no high repute, f 
 
 The testimony of Horace, though given incidentally, confirms the statements 
 of CatOi Valerius Maximus, and Varro. The poet predicts that, under the 
 peaceful administration of Augustus, the Romans will, over their full goblets, 
 sing to the pipe, after the fashion of their fathers, the deeds of brave captains, 
 and the ancient legends touching the origin of the city. J 
 
 The proposition, then, that Rome had ballad-poetry is not merely in itself 
 highly probable, but is fully proved by direct evidence of the greatest 
 weight. ' 
 
 This proposition being established, it becomes easy to understand why the 
 early history of the city is, unlike almost everything else in Latin literature, 
 native where almost everything else is borrowed, imaginative where almost 
 everything else is prosaic. We can scarcely hesitate to pronounce that the 
 magnificent, pathetic^ and truly national legends, which present so striking a 
 contrast to all that surrounds them, are broken and defaced fragments of that 
 early poetry, which, even in the age of Cato the Censor, had become anti- 
 quated, and of which Tully had never heard a line. 
 
 That this poetjy should have been suffered to perish will no^ appear strange 
 when we consider how complete was the triumph of the Greek Genius over 
 the public mind of Italy. It is probable that, at an early period. Homer, 
 Archilochus, and Herodotus, furnished some hints to the Latin minstrels ;§ 
 but it was not till after the war with Pyrrhus that the poetry of Rome began 
 to put off its old Ausonian character. The transformation was soon con- 
 sumated. The conquered, says Horace, led captive the conquerors. It was 
 precisely at the time at which the Roman People rose to unrivalled political 
 ascendancy that they stooped to pass under the intellectual yoke. It was pre- 
 cisely at the time at which the sceptre departed from Greece that the empire 
 of her language and of her arts became universal and despotic. The revolu- 
 tion, indeed, was not effected without a struggle. Noevius seems to have been 
 the last of the ancient line of poets. Ennius was the founder of a new 
 dyna^y. Nsevius celebrated the First Punic War in Saturnian verse, the old 
 
 ■■■ " Majores natu in conviviis ad tibias egregia superiorum opera carmine comprehensa 
 pangebant, quo ad ea imitanda juventutemalacrioremredderent. . . . QuasAthenas, 
 quam scholam, quae alienigena studia huic domesticaB disciplinaj praetuierim? Inde 
 oriebantur Camilli, Scipiones, Fabricii, Marcelli, ¥a.hn"—Val. Max. ii. i. 
 
 \ " In conviviis pueri modesti ut cantarent carmina antiqua, in quibus laudes erant 
 naajorum, et assa voce, et cum tibicine." — Nonius, Assa voce pro sola. 
 \ " Nosque et profestis lucibus et sacris, 
 ; Inter jocosi munera Liberi, 
 
 ^ Cum prole matronisque nostris, 
 
 Jnre ^^^^ Deos prius apprecati, 
 
 ^ thr Virtute functos, more patrum, duces, 
 
 J, Lydis remixto carmine tibiis, 
 
 Trojamque, et Anchisen, et almas 
 Progeniem Veneris canemus." 
 
 Carm. iv. 15. 
 § See the Preface to the Lay of the Battle of Regillus. 
 
PREFACE. 867 
 
 national verse of Italy.* Ennius ^ng the Second Punic \Var in numbers 
 borrowed from the Iliad. The elder poet, in the epitaph which he wrote for 
 himself, and which is a fine specimen of the early Roman diction and versifica- 
 
 ,* Cicero speaks highly in more than one place of this poem of Naevius ; Ennius 
 sneered at it and stole from it. 
 
 As to the Saturnian measure, see Hermann's Elementa Doctrinse, Metricae, iii. q. 
 
 The Saturnian line, according to the grammarians, consisted of two parts. The first 
 was a catalectic dimeter iambic ; the second was composed of threeltrochees. But the 
 license taken by the early Latin poets seems to have been almost boundless. The most 
 perfect Saturnian line which has been preserved was the work, not of a professional 
 artist, but of an amateur : .. j^^^^^^ ^^^^^ Metelli Najvio poets." 
 
 There has been much difference of opinion among learned men respecting the history 
 of this measure. That it is the same with a Greek measure used by Archiiochus is indis- 
 putable. (Bentley, Phalaris, xi.) But in spite of the authority of Terentianus Maurus, 
 and of the still higher authority of Bentley, we may venture to doubt whether the coinci- 
 dence was not fortuitous. We constantly find the same rude and simple numbers in 
 different countries, under circumstances which make it impossible to suspect that there 
 has been imitation on either side. Bishop Heber heard, the children of a village in 
 Bengal singing " Radha, Radha," to the tune of " My Boy Billy." Neither the Castillian 
 nor the German minstrels of the Middle Ages owed anything to Paros or to ancient 
 Rome. Yet both the poem of the Cid and the poem of the Nibelungs contain many 
 Saturnian verses ; as, — 
 
 " Estas nuevas a mio Cid eran venidas." 
 " A mi lo dicen ; a ti dan las orejadas," 
 " Man mohte michel wunder von Sifride sagen;" 
 " Wa ich den Kiinic vinde daz sol man mir sagen." 
 Indeed, there cannot be a more perfect Saturnian line than one which is sung in every 
 English nursery — 
 
 " The queen was in her parlour eating bread and honey ; " 
 yet the author of this line, we may be assured, borrowed nothing from either Naevius or 
 Archiiochus. 
 
 On the other hand, it is by no means improbable that, two or three hundred years be- 
 fore the time of Ennius, some Latin minstrel may have visited Sybaris or Cortona, may 
 have heard some verses of Archiiochus sung, may have been pleased with the metre, and 
 may have introduced it at Rome. This much is certain, that the Saturnian measure, if 
 not a native of Italy, was at least so early and so completely naturalised there that its 
 foreign origin was forgotten. 
 
 Bentley says, indeed, that the Saturnian measure was first brought from Greece into 
 Italy by Naevius. But this is merely obiter dictum, to use a phrase common in our courts 
 of law, and would not have been deliberately maintained by that incomparable critic, 
 whose memory is held in reverence by all lovers of learning. The arguments which 
 might be brought against Bentley's assertion— for it is mere assertion, supported by no 
 evidence— are innumerable. A few will suffice. 
 
 1. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Ennius. Ennius sneered at 
 Naevius for writing on the First Punic War in verses such as the old Italian bards used 
 before Greek literature had been studied. Now the poem of Naevius was in Saturnian 
 verse. Is it possible that Ennius could have used such expressions if the Saturnian 
 verse had been just imported from Greece for the first time ? 
 
 2. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Horace. "When Greece," says 
 Horace, " introduced her arts into our uncivilised country, those rugged Saturnian 
 numbers passed away." Would Horace have said this if the Saturnian numbers had 
 been imported from Greece just before the hexameter ? 
 
 3. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Festus and of Aurelius Victor, 
 both of whom positively say that the most ancient prophecies attributed to the Fauns 
 were in Saturnian verse. 
 
 4. Bentley's assertion is opposed to the testimony of Terentianus Maurus, to whom he 
 has himself appealed. Terentianus Maurus does indeed say that the Saturnian measure, 
 though believed by the Romans from a very early period (" Creditit vetustas *') to be of 
 Italian invention, was really borrowed from the Greeks. But Terentianus Maurus does 
 not say that it was first borrowed by ^aevius. Nay, the expressions used by Terentianus 
 Maurus clearly imply the contrary : for how could the Romans have believed, from a very 
 early period, that this measure was the indigenous production of Latium, if it was 
 really brought over from Greece in an age of intelligence and liberal curiosity — in the 
 age which gave birth to Ennius, Plautus, Cato the Censor, and other distinguished 
 writers ? If Bentley's assertion were correct, there could have been no more doubt at 
 Rome about the Greek origin of the Saturnian measure than about the Greek origin of 
 hexametres of Sapphics. 
 
868 LAVS OF J.VC/BJVT ROME. 
 
 tion, plaintively toasted that the Latin language had died with him.* Thus 
 what to Horace appeared to be the first faint dawn of Roman literature 
 appeared to Nsevius to be its hopeless setting. In truth, one literature was 
 setting, and another dawning. 
 
 The victory of the foreign taste was decisive : and, indeed, we can hardly 
 blame the Romans for turning away with contempt from the rude lays which 
 had delighted their fathers, and giving their whole admiration to the immortal 
 oroductions of Greece. The national romances, neglected by ihe great and 
 the refined, whose education had been finished at Rhodes or Athens, continued, 
 it may be supposed, during some generations, to delight the vulgar. While 
 Virgil, in hexameters of exquisite modulation, described the sports of rustics, 
 those rustics were still singing their wild Saturnian ballads. f It is not im- 
 probable that, at the time when Cicero lamented the irreparable loss of the 
 poems mentioned by Cato, a search among the nooks of the Apennines, ns 
 active as the search which Sir Walter Scott made among the descendants of 
 the moss-troopers of Liddesdale, might have brought to light many fine remains 
 of ancient minstrelsy. _ No such search was made. The Latin ballads peri-shed 
 for ever. Yet discerning critics have thought that they could still perceive in 
 the early history of Rome numerous fragments of this lost poetry, as the 
 traveller on classic ground sometimes finds, built into the heavy wall of a fort or 
 convent, a pillar rich with acanthus leaves, or a frieze where the Amazons and 
 Bacchanals seem to live. The theatres and temples of the Greek and the 
 Roman were degraded into the quarries of the Turk and the Cioth. Even so 
 did the ancient Saturnian poetry become the quarry in which a crowd of 
 orators and annalists found the materials for their prose. 
 
 It is not difficult to trace the process by which the old songs were transmuted 
 into the form which they now wear. Funeral panegyric and chronicle appear 
 to have been the intermediate links which connected the lost ballad with the 
 histories now extant. From a very early period it was the usage that an ora- 
 tion should be pronounced over the remains of a noble Roman. The orator, 
 as we learn from Polybius, was expected, on such an occasion, to recapitulate 
 all the services which the ancestors of the deceased had, from the earliest time, 
 rendered to the commonwealth. There can be little doubt that the speaker on 
 whom this duty was imposed would make use of all the stories suited to his 
 purpose which were to be found in the popular lays. There can be as little 
 doubt that the family of an eminent man would preserve a copy of the speech 
 which had been pronounced over his corpse. The compilers of the early chroni- 
 cles would have recourse to these speeches ; and the great historians of a later 
 period would have recourse to the chronicles. 
 
 It may be worth while to select a particular story, and to trace its probable 
 progress through these stages. The description of the mig-ration of the Fabian 
 house to Cremera is one of the finest of the many fine passages which lie thick in 
 the earlier books of Livy. The Consul, clad in his military garb, stands in the 
 vestibule of his house, marshalling his clan, three hundred and .six fighting men, 
 all of the same proud patrician blood, all worthy to be attended by the fasces and 
 to command the legions. A sad and anxious retinue of friends accompanies 
 the adventurers through the streets ; but the voice of lamentation is drowned 
 by the shouts of admiring thousands. As the procession passes the Capitol, 
 prayers and vows are poured forth, but in vain. The devoted band, leaving 
 Janus on the right, marches to its doom through the Gate of Evil Luck. 
 After achieving high deeds of valour against overwhelming numbers, all 
 
 Aulus Gellius, Nodes A tticce, i. 24. 
 t See Servius, in Georg. ii. 385. 
 
PREFACE. 869 
 
 perish save one child, the stock ^m which the great Fabian race was 
 destined again to spring, for the safety and glory of the commonwealth. 
 That this tine romance, the details of which are so full of poetical truth, 
 and so utterly destitute of all show of historical truth, came originally from 
 some lay which had often been sung with great applause at banquets, 
 is in the highest degree probable. Nor is it difficult 'to imagine a mode 
 in which the transmission might have taken place. The celebrated Quintus 
 Fabius Maximus, who died about twenty years before the First Punic 
 War, and more than forty years before Ennius was born, is said to have been 
 interred with extraordinary pomp. In the eulogy pronounced over his body 
 all the great exploits of his ancestors were doubtless recounted and exaggerated. 
 If there were then extant songs which gave a vivid and touching description 
 of an event, the saddest and the most glorious in the long history of the Fabian 
 house, nothing could be more natural than that the panegyrist should borrow 
 from such songs their finest touches, in order to adorn his speech. A few genera- 
 tions later the songs would perhaps be forgotten, or remembered only by 
 shepherds and vine-dressers. But the speech would certainly be preserved in 
 the archives of Fabian nobles. Fabius Pictor would be well acquainted with 
 a document so interesting to his personal feelings, and would insert large 
 extracts from it in his rude chronicle. That chronicle, as we know, was the 
 oldest to which Livy had access. Livy would at a glance distinguish the bold 
 strokes of the forgotten poet from the dull and feeble narrative by which they 
 were surrounded, would retouch them with a delicate and powerful pencil, and 
 would make them immortal. 
 
 That this might happen at Rome can scarcely be doubted ; for something 
 very like this has happened in several countries, and among others, in our own. 
 1 'erhaps the theory of Perizonius cannot be better illustrated than by showing 
 that what he supposes to have taken place in ancient times has, beyond all 
 doubt, taken place in modern times. 
 
 "History," says Hume with the utmost gravity, "has preserved some 
 instances of Edgar's amours, from which, as from a specimen, we may form a 
 conjecture of the rest. " He then tells very agreeably the stories of Elfleda 
 and Elfrida ; two stories which have a most suspicious air of romance, and 
 which, indeed, greatly resemble, in their general character, some of the legends 
 of early Rome. He cites, as his authority for these two tales, the chronicle of 
 William of Malmesbury, who lived in the time of King Stephen. The great 
 majority of readers suppose that the device by which Elfleda was substituted 
 f(>r her young mistress, the artifice by which Athelwold obtained the hand of 
 Elfrida, the detection ot that artifice, the hunting party, and the vengeance of 
 the amorous king, are things about which there is no more doubt than about the 
 execution of Anne Boleyn or the slitting of Sir John Coventry's nose. But 
 when we turn to William of Malmesbury, we find that Hume, in his eagerness 
 to relate these pleasant fables, has overlooked one very important circumstance. 
 William does indeed tell both the stories ; but he gives us distinct notice that 
 he does not warrant their truth, and that they rest on no better authority than 
 that of ballads.* 
 
 Such is the way in which these two well-known tales have been handed 
 down. They originally appeared in a poetical form. They found their way 
 from ballads into an old chronicle. The ballads perished ; the chronicle 
 remained. A great historian, some centuries after the ballads had been alto- 
 
 * " Infamias q^uas post dicam magis respersenmt cantilenas. " Edgar appears to have 
 been most mercilessly treated in the Anglo-Saxou ballads. He was the favourite of the 
 jnonks; and the naonks and minstrels w:re at deadly feud. 
 
870 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 gether forgotten, consulted the chronicle. He was struck by the lively colour- 
 ing of these ancient fictions : he transferred them to his pages ; and thus we 
 find inserted, as unquestionable facts, in a narrative which is likely to last as 
 long as the English tongue, the inventions of some minstrel whose works were 
 probably never committed to writing, whose name is buried in oblivion, and 
 whose dialect has become obsolete. It must, then, be admitted to be possible, or 
 rather highly probable, that the stories of Romulus and Remus, and of the 
 Horatii and Curiatii, may have had a similar origin. 
 
 Castilian literature will furnish us with another parallel case. Mariana, the 
 classical historian of Spain, tells the story of the ill-starred marriage which the 
 King, Don Alonso, brought about between the heirs of Carrion and the two 
 daughters of the Cid. The Cid bestowed a princely dower on his sons-in-law. 
 But the young men were base and proud, cowardly and cruel. They were tried 
 in danger and found wanting. They fled before the Moors, and once, when a 
 lion broke out of his den, they ran and ctouched in an unseemly hiding-place. 
 They knew that they were despised, and took council how they might be 
 avenged. They parted front their father-in-law with many signs of love, and 
 .set forth on a journey with Dona Elvira and Dona Sol. In a solitary place the 
 bridegrooms seized their brides, stripped them, scourged them, and departed, 
 leaving them for dead. But one of the house of Bivar, suspecting foul play, 
 had followed them in disguise. The ladies were brought back safe to the house of 
 their father. Complaint was made to the king. It was adjudged by the Cortes 
 that the dower given by the Cid should be returned, and that the heirs of 
 Carrion, together with one of their kindred, should do battle against three 
 knights of the party of the Cid. The guilty youths would have declined the 
 combat ; but all their shifts were vain. They were vanquished in the lists, 
 and for ever disgraced, while their injured wives were sought in marriage by 
 great princes.* 
 
 Some Spanish writers have laboured to show, by an examination of dates 
 and circumstances, that this story is untrue. Such confutation M^as surely not 
 needed ; for the narrative is on the face of it a romance. How it found its 
 way into Mariana's history is quite clear. He acknowledges his obligations to 
 the ancient chronicles ; and had doubtless before him the ' ' Cronica del famoso 
 Cavallero Cid Ruy Diez Campeador," which had been printed as early as the 
 year 1552. He little suspected that all the most striking passages in this 
 chronicle were copied from a poem of the twelfth century, a poem of which the 
 language and versification had long been obsolete, but which glowed with no 
 common portion of the fire of the Iliad. Yet such was the fact. More than a 
 century and a half after the death of Mariana, this venerable ballad, of which 
 one imperfect copy on parchment, four hundred year old, had been preserved 
 at Bivar, was for the first time printed. Then it was found that every interesting 
 circumstance of the story of the heirs of Carrion was derived by the eloquent 
 Jesuit from a song of which he had never heard, and which was composed by a 
 minstrel whose very name had long been forgotten, t 
 
 Such, or nearly such, appears to have been the process by which the lost 
 ballad-poetry of Rome was transformed into history. To reverse that process, 
 to transform some portions of early Roman history back into the poetry out of 
 which they were made, is the object of this work. 
 
 In the following poems the author speaks, not in his own person, but in the 
 
 " Mariana, lib. x. cap. 4. 
 
 + See the account which Sanchez gives of the Bivar manuscript in the first volume of 
 the Colleccion de Poesias Castellanas anteriores ad Siglo XV. Part of the story of the 
 lords of Carrion, in the poem of the Cid, has been translated by Mr. Frere in a manner 
 above all praise. 
 
HO RATI us. 871 
 
 persons of ancient minstrels who know only what a Roman citizen, born three 
 or four hundred years before the Christian a^ra, may be supposed to have 
 known, and who are in nowise above the passions and prejudices of their age 
 and nation; To these imaginary poets must be ascribed some blunders which 
 are so obvious that it is unnecessary to point them out. The real blunder 
 would have been to represent these old poets as deeply versed in general his- 
 tory, and studious of chronological accuracy. . To them must also be attributed 
 the illiberal sneers at the Greeks, the furious party spirit, the contempt for the 
 arts of peace, the love of war for its own sake, the ungenerous exultation over 
 the vanquished, which the reader will sometimes observe. To portray a 
 Roman of the age of Camillus or Curius as superior to national antipathies, as 
 mourning over the devastation and slaughter by which empire and triumphs 
 were to be won, as looking on human suffering with the sympathy of Howard, 
 or as treating conquered enemies with the delicacy of the Black Prince, would 
 be to violate all dramatic propriety. The old Romans had some great virtues 
 — fortitude, temperance, veracity, spirit to resist oppression, respect for legiti- 
 mate authority, fidelity in the observing of contracts, disinterestedness, ardent 
 patriotism ; but Christian charity and chivalrous generosity were alike unknown 
 to them. 
 
 It would have been obviously improper to mimic the manner of any par- 
 ticular age or country. Something has been borrowed, however, from our own 
 old ballads, and more from Sir Walter Scott, the great restorer of our ballad- 
 poetry. To the Iliad still greater obligations are due ; and those obligations 
 have been contracted with the less hesitation because there is reason to believe 
 that some of the old Latin minstrels really had recourse to that inexhaustible 
 store of poetical images. 
 
 It would have been easy to swell this little volume to a very considerable 
 bulk by appending notes filled with quotations ; but to a learned reader such 
 notes are not necessary ; for an unlearned reader they would have little inte- 
 rest ; and the judgment passed both by the learned and by the unlearned on a 
 work of the imagination will always depend much more on the general charac- 
 ter and spirit 0*1 such a work than on minute details. 
 
 HORATIUS. 
 
 There can be little doubt that among those parts of early Roman history 
 which had a poetical origin was the legend of Ploratius Codes. We have 
 several versions of the story, and these versions differ from each other in points 
 of no small importance. Polybius, there is reason to believe, heard the tale 
 recited over the remains of some Consul or Prxtor descended from the old 
 lioratian patricians ; for he evidently introduces it as a specimen of the narra- 
 tives with which the Romans were in the habit of embellishing their funeral 
 oratory. It is remarkable that, according to his description, Horatius defended 
 the bridge alone, and perished in the waters. Acccording to the chronicles 
 which Livy and Dionysius followed, Horatius had two companions, swam safe 
 to shore, and was loaded with honours and rewards. 
 
 T^ese discrepancies are easily explaijied. Our own literature, indeed, will 
 furnish an exact parallel to what may have taken place at Rome. It is highly 
 probable that the memory of the war of Porsena was preserved by composi- 
 tions much resembling the two ballads which stand first in the Relics of Ancient 
 English Poetry. In both those ballads the English, commanded by the Percy, 
 fight with the Scots, commanded by the Douglas. In one of the ballads the 
 
^7^ I^AVS OF ANCmNT ROME. 
 
 Douglas is killed by a nameless English archer, and the Percy by a Scottish 
 spearman : in the other, the Percy slays the Douglas in single combat, and is 
 himself made prisoner. In the former, Sir Hugh Montgomery is shot through 
 the heart by a Northumbrian bowman : in the latter, he is taken and exchanged 
 for the Percy. Yet both the ballads relate to the same event, and that an 
 event which probably took place within the memory of persons who were alive 
 when both the ballads were made. One of the minstrels says : 
 
 " Old men that knowen the grounde well yenoughe 
 . Call it the battell of Otterburn : 
 At Otterburn began this spurne 
 Upon a monnyn day. 
 Ther was the dougghte Doglas slean : 
 The Perse never went away." 
 
 The other poet sums up the event in the following lines : 
 
 " Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne 
 Bytwene the nyghte and the day ; 
 Ther the Dowglas lost hys lyfe, 
 And the Percy was lede away." 
 
 It is by no means unlikely that there were two old Roman lays about the 
 defence of the bridge ; and that, while the story which Livy has transmitted 
 to us was preferred by the multitude, the other, which ascribed the whole glory 
 to Horatius alone, may have been the favourite with the Horatian house. 
 
 The following ballad is supposed to have been made about a hundred and 
 twenty years after the war which it celebrates, and just before the taking of 
 Rome by the Gauls. The author seems to have been an honest citizen, proud 
 of the military glory of his countr)^, sick of the disputes of factions, and much 
 given to pining after good old times which had never really existed. The 
 allusion, however, to the partial manner in which the public lands were 
 allotted could proceed only from a plebeian ; and the allusion to the fraudulent 
 sale of spoils marks the date of the poem, and shows that the poet shared in 
 the general discontent with which the proceedings of Camillus, after the taking 
 of Veii, were regarded. 
 
 The penultimate syllable of the name Porsena has been shortened in spite of 
 the authority of Niebuhr, who pronounces, without assigning any ground for 
 his opinion, that Martial was guilty of a decided blunder in the line, 
 
 *' Hanc spectare manum Porsena non potuit." 
 
 It is not easy to understand how any modern scholar, whatever his attain- 
 ments may be — and those of Niebuhr were undoubtedly immense — can venture 
 to pronounce that Martial did not know the quantity of a word which he must 
 have uttered and heard uttered a hundred times before he left school. Niebuhr 
 seems also to have forgotten that Martial has fellow-culprits to keep him in 
 countenance. Horace has committed the same decided blunder ; for he gives 
 us, as a pure iambic line, 
 
 "Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenas maims." 
 Silius Italicus has repeatedly offended in the same way, as when he says, 
 
 " Cernitur effugiens ardentem Porsena dextram : " 
 and again, 
 
 " Clusinum vulgus, cum, Porsena magne, jubebas.' ♦^ 
 
 A modem writer may be content to err in such company. 
 
 Niebuhr's supposition that each of the three defenders of the bridge was 
 the representative of one of the three patrician tribes is both ingenious and 
 probable, and has been adopted in the following poem. 
 
HO RATI us. 
 
 873 
 
 HORATIUS. 
 A Lay Made about the Year of the City ccclx. 
 
 Lars Porsena of Clusium 
 
 By the Nine Gods he swore 
 That the great house of Tarquin 
 
 Should suffer wrong no more. 
 By the Nine Gods he swore it, 
 
 And named a trysting day, 
 And bade his messengers ride forth, 
 East and west and south and north, 
 
 To summon his array. 
 
 2. 
 East and west and south and north 
 
 The messengers ride fast. 
 And tower and town and cottage 
 
 Have heard the trumpet's blast. 
 Shame on the false Etruscan 
 
 Who lingers in his home, 
 When Porsena of Clusium 
 
 Is on the march for Rome. 
 
 3- 
 
 The horsemen and the footmen 
 
 Are pouring in amain 
 From many a stately market ])Iace, 
 
 P'rom many a fruitful plain ; 
 From many a lonely hamlet. 
 
 Which, hid by beech and pine. 
 Like an eagle's nest, hangs oji the 
 crest 
 
 Of purple Apennine j 
 
 TV: + "■ 
 
 ' Froni lordly \ olaterrse, 
 
 Where scowls the far-famed hold 
 Piled by the hands of giants 
 
 For godlike kings of old ; 
 From seagirt Popu Ionia, 
 
 Whose sentinels descry 
 Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops 
 
 Fringing the southern sky ; 
 
 5- 
 
 From the proud mart of Pi.sx, 
 
 Queen of the western waves, 
 ^here ride jNIassilia's triremes 
 
 Heavy with fair-haired slaves ; 
 From where sweet Clanis wanders 
 
 Through corn and vines and flowers; 
 From where Gorton a lifts to heaven 
 
 Her diadem of to\\ ers. 
 
 Tall are the oaks whose acorns 
 
 Drop in dark Auser's rill ; 
 Fat are the stags that chr^mp the 
 boughs 
 
 Of the Ciminian hill ; 
 Beyond all streams Clitumnus 
 
 Is to the herdsman dear ; 
 Best of all pools the fowler loves 
 
 The great Volsinian mere. 
 
 But now no stroke of woodman 
 
 Is heard by Auser's rill ; 
 No hunter tracks the stag's green path 
 
 Up the Ciminian hill ; 
 Unwatched along Clitumnus 
 
 Grazes the milk-white steer ; 
 Unharmed the water-fowl may dip 
 
 In the Volsinian mere. 
 
 8. 
 The harvests of Arretium, 
 
 This year, old men shall reap ; 
 This year, young boys in Umbro 
 
 Shall plunge the struggling sheep ; 
 And in the vats of Luna, 
 
 This year, the must shall foam 
 Round the white feet of laughing 
 girls, 
 
 \yhose sires have marched to Rome. ) 
 
 ^ 1 here be thirty chosen prophets, 
 j The wisest of the land, 
 I Who alway by Lars Porsena 
 I Both morn and evening stand : 
 I Evening and morn the Thirty 
 ! Have turned the verses o'er, 
 j Traced from the right on linen white 
 By mighty seers of yore. 
 
 I '10. 
 
 i And with one voice the Thirty 
 
 j Have their glad answer given : 
 
 "Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena ; 
 I Go forth, beloved of Heaven ; 
 I Go, and return in glory 
 
 To Clusium's royal dome ; 
 ; And hang round Nurscia's altars 
 '■ The golden shields of Rome," J 
 
S74 
 
 LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME, 
 
 Attd now hath every city 
 
 Sent up her tale of men ; 
 The foot are fourscore thousand, 
 
 The horse are thousands ten. 
 Before the gates of Sutrium 
 
 Is met the great array. 
 A proud man was Lars Porsena 
 
 Upon the trysting day. 
 
 12. 
 
 For all the Etruscan armies 
 
 Were ranged beneath his eye, 
 And many a banished Roman, 
 
 And many a stout ally ; 
 And with a mighty following 
 
 To join the muster came 
 The Tusculan Mamilius, 
 
 Prince of the Latian name. 
 
 But by the yellow Tiber 
 
 Was tumult and affright ; 
 From all the spacious champaign 
 
 To Rome men took their flight. 
 A mile around the city, 
 
 The throng stopped up the ways ; 
 A fearful sight it was to see 
 
 Through two long nights and days, 
 
 The Fathers of the City, 
 They sat all night and day, 
 
 For every hour some horseman came 
 With tidings of dismay, 
 
 17. 
 To eastward and to westward 
 
 Have spread the Tuscan bands ; 
 Nor house, nor fence, nor dovecote 
 
 In Crustumerium stands. 
 Verbenna down to Ostia 
 
 Hath wasted all the plain ; 
 Astur hath stormed Janiculum, 
 
 And the stout guards are slain. 
 
 I . '«• 
 
 I wis, in all the Senate, 
 
 There was no heart so bold, 
 
 But sore it ached, and fast it beat, 
 
 When that ill news was told. J 
 I For with up rose the Consul, — ^ 
 
 I Up rose the Fathers all ; 
 
 In haste they girded up their gowns, 
 And hied them to the wall. 
 
 14. 
 
 For aged folk on crutches, 
 
 And women great with child, 
 And mothers sobbing over babes 
 
 That clung to them and smiled 
 And sick men borne in litters 
 
 High on the necks of slaves, 
 And troops of sun-burned husband- 
 men 
 
 With reaping-hooks and staves. 
 
 15- 
 
 And droves of mules and asses 
 
 Laden with skins of wine. 
 And endless flocks of goats and sheep, 
 
 And endless herds of kine, 
 And endless trains of waggons 
 
 That creaked beneath the weight 
 Of corn-sacks and of household goods, 
 
 Choked every roaring gate. 
 
 i6.x 
 
 Now, from the rock Tarpeian, 
 Could the wan burghers spy 
 The line of blazing villages 
 - Red in the midnight sky. 
 
 19- 
 Th ey held a council standing 
 
 Before the River-Gate ; 
 Short time was there, ye well may 
 guess. 
 For musing or debate- 
 Out spake the Consul roundly : 
 ^J^ " The bridge must straight go 
 ^'^^ down ; 
 
 For, since Janiculum is lost, 
 Nought else can save the town." 
 
 . 20.; 
 Just then a scout came flying. 
 
 All wild with haste and fear : 
 *' To arms ! to arms ! Sir Consul : 
 
 Lars Porsena is here." 
 On the low hills to westward 
 
 The Consul fixed his eye,^ 
 And saw the swarthy storm of dust 
 
 Rise fast along the sky, 
 
 21. 
 
 And nearer fast and nearer 
 ' Doth the red whirlwind come ; 
 And louder still and still more loud, 
 From underneath that rolling cloud, 
 Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, 
 The trampling, and the hum, 
 
HORAfltJS. 
 
 ^ ^ — 
 
 87S 
 
 And plainly and more plainly 
 Now through the glooni appears, 
 
 far to left and far to right. 
 
 In broken gleams of dark-blue light, 
 
 The long array of helmets bright, 
 The long array of spears. 
 
 22. 
 And plainly and' more plainly, 
 
 Above that glimmering line, 
 Now might ye see the banners 
 
 Of twelve fair cities shine ; 
 But the banner of proud Glusium 
 
 Was highest of them all, 
 The terror of the Umbrian, 
 
 The terror of the Gaul. 
 
 r 
 
 23- 
 
 And plainly and more plainly 
 
 Now might the burghers know. 
 By port and vest, by horse and crest, 
 
 Each warlike Lucomo. 
 There Cilnius of Arretium 
 
 On his.ileet roan was seen ; 
 And Astur of the four-fold shield, 
 Girt with the brand none else may 
 
 wield, 
 Tolumnius with the belt of gold, 
 And dark Verbenna from the hold 
 
 By reedy Thrasymene. j 
 
 ' 24: ■ " 
 Fast by the royal standard 
 
 O'erlooking all the war, 
 Lars Porsena of Clusium 
 
 Sate in his ivory car. 
 By the right wheel rode Mamilius, 
 
 Prince of the Latian name ; 
 And by the left false Sextus, 
 
 That wrought the deed of shame. 
 
 r. 
 
 25- 
 
 But when the face of Sextus 
 
 Was seen among the foes, 
 A yell that rent the firmament 
 
 From all the town arose. 
 On the house-tops was no woman 
 
 But spat towards him and hissed ; 
 No child but screamed out curses. 
 
 And shook its littje fist. / 
 
 26, xti^ 
 
 l>iit the Consul's brow was sad,\ 
 
 And the Consul's speech was low, 
 And darkly looked he at the wall. 
 
 And darkly at the foe. 
 
 " Their van will be upon us 
 Before the bjjidge goes down ; 
 
 And if they once may win the bridge. 
 What hope to save the town ? " '--u'' 
 
 Then out spake brave Horatius, '' 
 
 The Captain of the gate : 
 *' To every man upon tliis earth 
 
 Death cometh soon or late ; 
 And how can man- die better 
 
 Than facing fearful odds. 
 For the ashes of his fathers 
 
 And the temples of his god:., 
 
 ^ 28. 
 
 /" And for the tender mother 
 
 Who dandled him to rest, 
 And for the wife who nurses 
 
 His baby at her breast, 
 And for the holy maidens 
 
 Who feed the eternal flame, 
 To save them from false Sextus \ 
 
 That wrought the deed of shame ? j 
 
 .29.\ 
 " Hew down the bridge* Sir Consul, 
 
 With all the speed ye may ; 
 I, with two more to help me. 
 
 Will hold the ^e in play. 
 In yon strait path a thousand 
 
 May well be stopped' by three. 
 Now who will'stand on either hand, 
 
 And keep the bridge with me ? " 
 
 Then out spake Spurius Lartius ; 
 
 A Ramnian proud was he : 
 " Lo, I will stand at thy right hand. 
 
 And keep the bridge with thee. " 
 And out spake strong Herminius ; 
 
 Of Titian blood was he : 
 " I will abide on thy left side. 
 
 And keep the bridge with thee. " 
 
 " Horatius," quoth the Consul, 
 
 ' ' As thou sayest, so let it be. " 
 And straight against that great array 
 
 Forth went the dauntless Three. 
 fFor Romans in Rome's quarrel 
 ( vS pared neither land nor gold. 
 Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life, 
 In, the brave days of old. 
 
§7^ 
 
 LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 r. 
 
 32. 
 
 Then none was for a p^rty ; 
 
 Then all were for the state ; 
 Then the great men helped the poor, 
 
 And the poor man loved the great : 
 Then lands were fairly portioned ; 
 
 Then spoils were fairly sold : 
 The Romans were like brothers ' 
 
 In the brave days of old. 
 
 33. 
 Now Roman is to Roman 
 More hateful than a foe, 
 Arid the Tribunes beard the high, 
 And the Fathers grind the low. 
 As we wax hot in faction, 
 In battle we wax cold : 
 Wherefore men fight not as they 
 fought 
 the brave days of old. 
 
 34. 
 Now while the Three were tightening 
 
 Their harness on their backs, 
 The Consul was the foremost man 
 
 To take in hand an axe : 
 And Fathers mixed with Commons 
 
 Seized hatchet, bar, and crow, 
 And smote upon the planks above, 
 
 And loosed the props below. 
 
 35- 
 Meanwhile the Tuscan army, 
 
 Right glorious to behold, 
 Came flashing back the noonday light, 
 Rank behind rank, like surges bright 
 
 Of a broad sea of gold. 
 Four hundred trumpets sounded 
 
 A peal of warlike glee. 
 As that great host, with measured 
 
 tread. 
 And spears advanced, and ensigns 
 
 spread. 
 Rolled slowly towards the bridge's 
 head, 
 Where stood the dauntless Three. 
 
 36. 
 
 1 he Three stood calm and silent 
 And looked upon the foes, 
 
 And a great shout of laughter 
 From all the vanguard rose ; 
 
 And forth three chiefs came spurring 
 Before that deep array ; 
 
 To earth they sprang, their swords 
 
 they drew, 
 And lifted high their shields, and flev/ 
 To win the narrow way ; 
 
 d^ 37.; 
 
 j^'Aunus from green Tifernum, 
 1 Lord of the Hill of Vines ; . 
 And Seius, whose eight hundred 
 slaves 
 .Sicken in Ilva's mines ; 
 And Picus, long to Clusium 
 Vassal in peace and war, 
 Who led to fight his Umbrian powers 
 From that grey crag where, girt with 
 
 towers. 
 The fortress of Nequinum lowers 
 O'er the pale waves of Nar. 
 
 1 38. 
 
 i Stout Lartius hurled down Aunus 
 i Into the stream beneath : 
 I Ilerminius struck at Seius, 
 i And clove him to the teeth : 
 i At Picus brave Horatius 
 
 Darted one fiery thrust ; 
 And the proud Umbrian 's gilded arms 
 
 Clashed in the bloody dust: 
 
 39. 
 Then Ocnus of Falerii 
 
 Rushed on the Roman Three ; 
 And Lausulus of Urgo, 
 
 The rover of the sea ; 
 And Aruns of Volsinium, 
 
 Who slew the great wild boar. 
 The great wild boar that had his den 
 Amidst the reeds of Cosa's fen, 
 And wasted fields, and slaughtered 
 men, 
 
 Along Albinia's shore. 
 
 40. 
 Herminius smote down Aruns : 
 
 Lartius laid Ocnus low : 
 Right to the heart of Lausulus 
 
 Horatius sent a blow. 
 " Lie there," he cried, " fell pirate ! 
 i No more, aghast and pale, 
 I From Ostia's walls the crowd shall 
 mark 
 Tlie track of thy destroying bark. 
 No more Campania's hinds shall fly 
 To woods and caverns when they spy 
 Thy thrice accursed sail." 
 
HORATIUS. 
 
 877 
 
 41. 
 
 But now no sound of laughter 
 
 Was heard amongst the foes. 
 A wild and wrathful clamour 
 
 From all the vanguard rose. 
 .Six spears' lengths from the entrance 
 
 Halted that deep array, 
 And for a space no man came forth 
 
 To win the narrow way. 
 
 But hark ! the cry is Astur : 
 
 And lo ! the ranks divide ; 
 And the great Lord of Luna 
 
 Comes with his stately stride. 
 Upon his ample shoulders 
 
 Clangs loud the fourfold shieKl, 
 And in his hand he shakes the l)rand 
 
 Which none but he can wield. 
 
 43- 
 He smiled on those bold Romans 
 
 A smile serene and high ; 
 He eyed the flinching Tuscans, 
 /— -And scorn was in his eye. 
 / Quoth he, "The she-wolfs litter 
 .Stand savagely at bay : 
 But will ye dare to follow, . 
 If Astur clears the way ?Jr 
 
 44. 
 
 Then, whirling up his broadsword 
 
 With both hands to the height, 
 He rushed against Horatius, 
 
 And smote with all his might. 
 With shield and blade Horatius 
 
 Right deftly turned the blow. 
 The blow, though turned, came yet 
 
 too nigh ; 
 It missed his helm, but gashed his 
 
 thigh: 
 The Tuscans raised ajoyful cry 
 
 To see the red blood flow. 
 
 45. 
 
 He reeled, and on Herminius 
 
 He leaned one breathing-space ; 
 Then, like a wild cat mad with 
 wounds. 
 
 Sprang right at Astur's face. 
 Through teeth, and skull, and helmtl, 
 
 So fierce a thrust he sped, 
 The good sword stood ahand-breadlh 
 out 
 
 Behind the Tuscan's head. 
 
 46. 
 And the great Lord of Luna 
 
 Fell at that deadly stroke, 
 As falls on .Mount Alvernus 
 
 A thunder-smitten oak. 
 Far o'er the crashing forest 
 
 The giant arms lie spread ; 
 And the pale augurs, muttering Jov/,' 
 
 Gaze on the blasted head. 
 
 47. 
 On Astur's throat Horatius 
 
 Right firmly pressed his heel, 
 And thrice and four times- tugged 
 amain, 
 
 Ere he wrenched out the steel. 
 " And see," he cried, *' the welcome, 
 
 Fair guests, that waits you here ! 
 What noble Lucumo comes next 
 
 To taste our Roman cheer ? " 
 
 48. 
 But at this haughty challenge 
 
 A sullen murmur ran, [dread, 
 
 Mingled of wrath, and shame, and 
 
 Along that glittering van. 
 There lacked not men of prowess, 
 
 Nor men of lordly race ; 
 For all Etruria's noblest 
 
 Were round the fatal place. 
 
 49. 
 But all Etruria's noblest 
 
 Felt their hearts sink to see 
 On the earth the bloody corpses, 
 
 In the path the dauntless Three : 
 And, from the ghastly entrance 
 
 Where those bold Romans stood, 
 All shrank, like boys who unaware, 
 Ranging the woods to start a hare, 
 Come to the mouth of the dark lair 
 Where, growling low, a fierce old bear 
 
 Lies amidst bones and blood. 
 
 50. 
 Was none who would be foremost 
 
 To lead such dire attack ; 
 But those behind cried " Forward ! " 
 
 And those before cried " Back ! " 
 And backward now and forward 
 
 W'avers the deep array ; 
 And on the tossing sea of steel, 
 
 To and fro the standards reel ; 
 And the victorious trumpet-peal 
 
 Dies fitfully away. 
 
878 
 
 LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 51- 
 Yet one man for one moment 
 
 Strode out before the crowd ; 
 Well known was he to all the Three, 
 
 And they gave him greeting loud. 
 *' Now welcome, welcome, Sextus ! 
 
 Now welcome to thy home ! 
 "Why dost thou stay, and turn away ? 
 Here lies the road to Rome." 
 
 52. 
 Thrice looked he at the city ; 
 
 Thrice looked he at the dead ; 
 And thrice came on in fury, 
 
 And thrice turned back in dread : 
 And, white with fear and hatred. 
 
 Scowled at the narrow way, 
 Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, 
 
 The bravest Tuscans lay. 
 
 53. 
 
 But meanwhile nxe and lever 
 
 Have manfully been plied ; 
 And now the bridge hangs tottering 
 
 Above the boiling tide. 
 *' Come back, come back, Horatius ! " 
 
 Loud cried the Fathers all. 
 " Back, Lartius ! back, Herminius ! 
 
 Back, ere the ruin fall ! " 
 
 54. 
 Back darted Spurius Lartius ; 
 
 Herminius darted back : 
 And, as they passed, beneath their feet 
 
 They felt the timlDers crack. 
 But when they turned their faces. 
 
 And on the farther shore 
 Saw brave Horatius stand alone, 
 
 They would have crossed once more 
 
 ■55. ;( 
 
 But with a crash like thunder 
 
 Fell every loosened beam, 
 And, like a dam, the mighty wreck 
 
 Lay right athwart the stream : 
 And a long shout of triumph 
 
 Rose from the walls of Rome, 
 As to the highest turret-tops . 
 
 Was splashed the yellow foam. 
 
 56. 
 And, like a horse unbroken 
 
 When first he feels the rein, 
 The furious river struggled hard," 
 
 And tossed his tawny mane ; 
 And burst the curb, and bounded. 
 
 Rejoicing to be free ; 
 
 And whirling down, in fierce career, 
 Battlement, and plank, and pier, 
 Rushed headlong to the sea. 
 
 Alone stood brave Horatius, 
 
 But Constant still in mind ; 
 Thrice thirty thousand foes before, 
 
 And the broad flood behind. 
 " Down with him ! " cried false Sextus, 
 
 With a smile on his pale face. 
 ' 'Now yield thee," cried Lars Porsena, 
 
 '' Now yield thee to our grace." 
 
 58. 
 Round turned he, as not deigning 
 
 Those craven ranks to see ; 
 Nought spake he to Lars Porsena, 
 
 To Sextus nought spake he ; 
 But he saw on Palatinus 
 
 The white porch of his home ; 
 And he spake to the noble river 
 
 That rolls by the towers of Rome. 
 
 59. 
 " O Tiber ! father Tiber ! 
 
 To whom the Romans pray, 
 A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, 
 
 Take thou in charge this day ! " 
 So he spake, and speaking sheathed 
 
 The good sword by his side. 
 And with his harness on his back, 
 
 Plungedjieadlong in the tide. 
 
 o>J?^^^'^^ 60. 
 
 \o sound of joy or sorrow 
 
 Was heard from either bank ; 
 But friends and foes in. dumb surprise 
 With parted lips and straining eyes, 
 
 Stood gazing where he sank ; 
 And when above the surges 
 
 They saw his crest appear. 
 All Rome sent forth a rapturous cry. 
 And even the ranks of Tuscany 
 
 Could scarce forbear to cheer. 
 
 61. 
 
 But fiercely ran the current. 
 
 Swollen high by months of rain : 
 And fast his blood was flowing ; 
 
 And he was sore in pain. 
 And heavy with his armour, 
 
 And spent with changing blows ; 
 And oft they thought him sinking. 
 
 But still again he rose. 
 
HORATIUS, 
 
 r. 
 
 62. /^ 
 
 Never, I ween, did swimmer, 
 
 In such dn evil case, 
 Struggle through such a raging flood 
 
 Safe to the landing-place : 
 But his limbs were borne up bravely 
 
 By the brave heart within, 
 And our good father Tiber \ 
 
 Bare bravely up his chinJLV 
 
 63. 
 
 " Curse on him ! " quoth false Sextus ;• 
 
 " Will not the villain drown ? 
 But for this stay, ere close of day 
 
 We shouldliave sacked the town ! " 
 " Heaven help him ! " quoth Lars 
 Porsena, 
 
 *' And bring him safe, to shore ; 
 For such a gallant feat of arms 
 
 Was never seen before." 
 
 ;'64.} 
 
 And now he feelsthe bottom ; 
 
 Now on dry earth he stands ; 
 Now round him throng the Fathers 
 
 To press his gory hands ; 
 And now with shouts and clapping. 
 
 And noise of weeping loud, 
 lie enters through the River- Gate, 
 
 Borne by the joyous crowd. 
 
 — 65.^ 
 
 They gave him of the corn-land, 
 
 That was of public right. 
 As much as two strong oxen 
 
 Could plough from morn till night ; 
 And they made a molten image, 
 
 And set it up on high. 
 And there it stands unto this day 
 
 To witness if I lie. 
 
 " Our ladye bare upp her chinne." 
 
 Ballad of Childc Waters. 
 " Never heavier man and horse 
 Stemmed a midnight torrent's force ; 
 
 Yet, through good heart and our Lady's 
 
 grace, 
 At length he gained the landing-place." 
 Lay of the Last Minstrel, I, 
 
 66. 
 
 It stands in the Comitium, 
 
 Plain for all folk to see ; 
 Iloratius in his harness. 
 
 Halting upon one knee : 
 And underneath is written, 
 
 In letters all of gold, 
 How valiantly he kept the bridge 
 
 In the brave days of old. 
 
 67. 
 
 And still his name sounds stirring 
 
 Unto the men of Roriie, 
 As the trumpet blast that cries to them 
 
 To charge the Volscian home ; 
 And wives still pray to Juno 
 
 For boys with hearts as bold 
 As his who kept the bridge so well 
 
 In the brave days of old. 
 
 68, 
 And in the nights of winter, 
 
 When the cold north winds blow, 
 And the long howling of the wolves 
 
 Is heard amidst the snow ; 
 When round the lonely cottage • 
 
 Roars loud the tempest's din. 
 And the good logs of Algidus 
 
 Roar louder yet within ; 
 
 69. 
 When the oldest cask is opened. 
 
 And the largest lamp is lit, 
 When the chestnuts glow in the 
 embers, 
 
 And the kid turns on the spit ; 
 When young and old in circle 
 
 Around the firebrands close ; 
 When the girls are weaving baskets, 
 
 And the lads are shaping bows ; 
 
 70i . . . 
 
 When the goodfnan mends his armour 
 
 And trims his helmet's plume ; 
 When the goodwife's shuttle merrily 
 
 Goes flashing through the loom ; 
 With weeping and with laughter 
 
 Still is the story told, 
 How well Horatius kept the bridge 
 
 In the brave days of old. 
 
88o LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 
 
 The -following poem is supposed to have been produced about ninety years 
 after the lay of Horatius. Some persons mentioned in the lay of Horatius 
 make their appearance again, and some appellations and epithets used in the 
 lay of Horatius have been purposely repeated ; for, in an age of ballad-poetry, 
 it sca«;ely ever fails to happen that certain phrases come to be appropriated 
 to certain men and things, and are regularly apphed to those men and things 
 by every minstrel. Thus we find, both in the Homeric poems and in Hesiod, 
 /St'?; 'HpaKXyjelTj, TrepiKXvros 'Aficpiyvrieis, oiaKTopos ^ApyeKpovrrjs, €irTdirv\os 
 Q7)(3tj, 'EX^vtjs eVe/c* rjVKOfxoio. Thus, too, in our own national songs, Douglas 
 is almost always the doughty Douglas : England is Merry England : all the 
 gold is red ; and all the ladies are gay. 
 
 The principal distinction between the lay of Horatius and the lay of the 
 Lake Regillus is that the former is meant to be purely Roman, while the latter, 
 though national in its general spirit, has a slight tincture of Greek learning and 
 of Greek superstition. The story of the Tarquins, as it has come down to us, 
 appears to have been compiled from the works of several popular poets ; and 
 one, at least, of those poets appears to have yisited the Greek colonies in 
 Italy, if not Greece itself, and to have had some acquaintance with the works 
 of Homer and Herodotus. Many of the inpst striking adventures of the house 
 of Taxquin, before Lucretia makes her appearance, havQ:n. Greek c)iara£tsr. 
 The Tarquins themselves are represented as Corinthian nobles of the great 
 house of the Bacchiadce, driven from their country by the tyranny of that 
 Cypselus, the tale of whose strange escape Herodotus has related with in- 
 comparable simplicity and liveliness.* Livy and Dionysius tell us that, when 
 Tarquin the Proud was asked what was the best mode of governing a conquered 
 city, he replied only by beating down with his staff all the tallest poppies in 
 his garden.! This is exactly what Herodotus, in the passage to which reference 
 has already been made, relates of the counsel given to Periander, the son of 
 Cypselus. The stratagem by which the town of Gabii is brought under the 
 power of the Tarquins is, again, obviously copied"from Herodotus.J The 
 embassy of the young Tarquins to the oracle at Delphi is just such a story as 
 would be told by a poet whose head was full of- the Greek mythology ; and the 
 ambiguous answer returned by Apollo is in the exact s'tyle of the prophecies 
 which, according to Herodotus, lured Croesus to destruation: Then the 
 character of the narrative changes. From the first mention of Lucretia to the 
 retreat of Porsena nothing seems to be borrowed from foreign sources. The 
 villany of Sextus, the suicide of his victim, the revolution, the death of the 
 sons of Brutus, the defence of the bridge^ Mucins burning his hand,§ Cloelia 
 swimming through Tiber, seem to be all strictly Roman. * But when we have 
 done with the Tuscan war, and enter upon the war with the Latines, we are 
 again struck by the Greek air of ,the story. The battle 'of the Lake Regillus 
 is in all respects a Homeric battle, except that the combatants ride astride on 
 their horses, insfead of driving chariots. The mass of fighting men is hardly 
 mentioned. The leaders single each other out, and engage hand to hand. 
 The great object of the warriors on both sides is, as in the IHad, to obtain 
 possession of the spoils and bodies of the slain ; and several circumstances are 
 related which forcibly remind us of the great slaughter round the corpses of 
 S arpedon and Patroclu s. 
 
 * Herodotus, v. 92. Livy, i. 34. Dionysius, iii. 46. 
 
 i h^'^jf' v.'"*:,, dionysius, iv. 56. t Herodotus, iii. 154. Livy, i. 53. 
 
 § M. de Pouilly attempted, a hundred and twenty years ago, to prove that the story 
 of Mucius was of Greek origin ; but he was signally confuted by the Abbe Sallier. See 
 the Mimoircs de V Academic des Ir.scriptious, vi. 27, 66. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 88 1 
 
 But there is one circumstance whicii deserves especial notice. Both the 
 war of Troy and the war of RegiUus were caused by the licentious passions of 
 young princes, who were therefore peculiarly bound not to be sparing of their 
 own persons in the day of battle. Now the conduct of Sextus at Regillus, as 
 described by Livy, so exactly resembles that of Paris, as described at the 
 beginning of the third book of Iliad, that it is difficult to believe the 
 resemblance accidental. Paris appears before the Trojan ranks defying the 
 liravest Greek to encounter him : 
 
 Tpuaiv fiev TTpo/xdxti'^i' ' Wi^avopos deoeidrjs, 
 . . . 'Apyeiiou irpoKoXii'eTO irdvTas dpi(XTOvs, 
 avTi^iotf ixax€(ra<x6ai iv aipy drji'oTiJTi. 
 
 I.ivy introduces Sextus to a similar manner : " Ferocem juvenem Tarquinium, 
 ostentantem se in prima exsulum acie." Menelaus rushes to meet Paris. A 
 Roman noble, eager for vengeance, spurs his horse towards Sextus. Both 
 the guilty princes are instantly terror-stricken : 
 
 T6v 5' ws oJfv ev6r]<rev ' A\4^av8pos deoeiSrjs 
 
 iv irpofiaxoKTi (pavefra, KareTrXriyy] (piXoy ^Top' 
 
 h\p 5' irdpuv eh ^dvoi ixdi^ero kt}^' dXeeivuu. 
 
 " Tarquinius," says Livy, "retro in agmen suorum infenso cessit "hosti. " If 
 this be a fortuitous coincidence, it is one of the most extraordinary in 
 literature. 
 
 In the following poem, therefore, images and incidents have been borrowed, 
 not merely without scruple, but on principle, from the incomparable battle- 
 pieces of Homer. 
 
 The popular belief at Rome, from an early period, seems to have been that 
 the event of the great day of Regillus was decided by supernatural agency. 
 Castor and Pollux, it was said, had fought, armed and mounted, at the head of 
 the legions of the Commonwealth, and had afterwards carried the news of the 
 victory with incredible speed to the city. The well in the Forum at which 
 they had alighted was pointed out. Near the, well rose their ancient temple. 
 A great festival was kept to their honour on the Ides of Quintilis, supposed to 
 be the anniversary of the battle ; and on that day sumptuous sacrifices were 
 offered to them at the public pharge. One spot on the margin of Lake Regillus 
 was regarded during many ages with superstitious awe. A mark, resembling 
 in shape a horse's hoof, was discernible in the volcanic rock ; and this mark 
 was believed to have been made by one of the celestial chargers. 
 
 How the legend originated cannot now be ascertained ; but we may easily 
 imagine several ways in which it might have originated : nor is it at all necessary 
 to suppose, with Julius Frontinus, that two young men were dressed up by the 
 Dictator to personate the sons of I-,eda. It is probable that Livy is correct 
 when he says that the Roman general, in the hour of peril, vowed a temple to 
 Castor. If so, nothing could be more natural than that the multitude should 
 ascribe the victory to the favour of the Twin Gods. When such was the pre- 
 vailing sentiment, any man who chose to declare that, in the midst of the 
 confusion and slaughter, he had seen two godlike forms on white horses 
 scattering the Latines, would find ready credence. We know, indeed, that, in 
 modern times, a" very similar story actually found credence among a people 
 much more civilised than the Romans of the fifth century before Christ. A 
 chaplain of Cortes, writing about thirty years after the conquest of Mexico, in 
 an age of printing-presses, libraries, universities, scholars, logicians, jurists, 
 and statesmen, had the face to assert that, in one engagement against the 
 Indians, St. James had appeared on a grey horse at the head of the Castilian 
 
882 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME, 
 
 adventurers. Many of those adventurers were living when this lie was printed. 
 One of them, honest Bernal Diaz, wrote an account of the expedition. He 
 had the evidence of his own senses against the chaplain's legend ; but he seems 
 to have distrusted even the evidence of his own senses. He says that he was 
 in the battle, and that he saw a grey horse with a man on his back, but that 
 the man was, to his thinking, Francesco de Morla, and not the ever-blessed 
 Apostle St. James. ''Nevertheless," he adds, "it may be that the person on 
 the grey horse was the glorious Apostle St. James, and that I, sinner that I am, 
 was unworthy to see him." The Romans of the age of Cincinnatus were 
 probably quite as credulous as the Spanish subjects of Charles the Fifth. It is 
 therefore conceivable that the appearance of Castor and Pollux may have 
 become an article of faith before the generation which had fought at Kegillus 
 had passed away. Nor could anything be more natural than that the poets of 
 the next age should embellish this story, and make the celestial horsemen bear 
 the tidings of victory to Rome. 
 
 Many years after the temple of the Twin Gods had been built in the Forum, 
 an important addition was made to the ceremonial by which the state annually 
 testified its gratitude for their protection. Quintus Fabius and Publius Decius 
 were elected Censors at a momentous crisis. It had become absolutely necessary 
 that the classification of the citizens should be revised. On that classification 
 depended 'the distribution of political power. Party spirit ran high ; and the 
 Republic seemed to be in danger of falling under the dominion either of a 
 narrow oligarchy or of an ignorant and headstrong rabble. Under such cir- 
 cumstances, the most illustrious patrician and the most illustrious plebeian of 
 the age were intrusted with the office of arbitrating between the angry factions ; 
 and they performed their arduous task to the satisfaction of all honest and 
 reasonable men. 
 
 One of their reforms was a remodelling of the equestrian order ; and, having 
 effected this reform, they determined to give to their work a sanction derived 
 from religion. In the chivalrous societies of modern times, societies which 
 have much more than may at first sight appear in common with the equestrian 
 order of Rome, it has been usual to invoke the special protection of some Saint, 
 and to observe his day with peculiar solemnity. Thus the Companions of the 
 Garter wear the image of St. George depending from their collars, and meet, 
 on great occasions, in St. George's Chapel. Thus, when Louis the Fourteenth 
 instituted a new order of chivalry for the rewarding of military merit, he com- 
 mended it to the favour of his own glorified ancestor and patron, and decreed 
 that all the members of the fraternity should meet at the royal palace on the 
 Feast of St. Louis, should attend the king to chapel, should hear mass, and 
 should subsequently hold their great annual assembly. There is a considerable 
 resemblance between this rule of the Order of St. Louis and the rule which 
 Fabius and Decius made respecting the Roman knights. It was ordained that 
 a grand muster and inspection of the equestrian body should be part of the 
 ceremonial performed, on the anniversary of the battle of Regillus, in honour 
 I of Castor and Pollux, the two equestrian gods. AlUhe knights, clad in purple 
 / and crowr^gdwith olive, were XQl nieet at a temple of Mars in the suburbs. 
 I Thence they were to ride in state to theTorum, where the temple of the Twins 
 stood. This pageant'^va's, during'severSl'centuries, considered as one of the 
 most splendid sights of Rome. In the time of Dionysius the calvalcade some- 
 times consisted of five thousand horsemen, all persons of fair repute and easy 
 fortune. * ' - ' ' ■ 
 
 * See Livy, ix. 46. Val. Max. ii. 2. Aurel. Vict. De Viris Illustribus, 32. Dionysius, 
 vi. 13. Plin. Hist. Nat. xv. 5. See also the singularly ingenious chapter in Niebuhr's 
 posthuinous volume, Die Censur des Q. Fabius nnd P, Decisis. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 883 
 
 7" \ — ; \ ^ 
 
 There can be no doubt that the Censors who instituted this august ceremony- 
 acted in concert with the Pontiffs, to whom, by the constitution of Rome, the 
 superintendence of the public worship belonged ; and it'is probable that those 
 high religious functionaries were; as usual, fortunate -'enough to find'.in th^ir 
 books or traditions some warrant for the innovation. 
 
 The fol lowing' poeiri is supposed to have been made for this great occasi'dri. 
 Songs, we know, were chaunted at the religious festivals of Rome from an early 
 period, indeed from so early a period that some of the sacred verses were 
 popularly ascribed to Numa, and were utterly unintelligible in the age of 
 Augustus. In the Second Punic War a great feast was held in honour of Juno, 
 and a song was sung in her praise. This song was extant when Livy wrote ; 
 and. though exceedingly rugged and uncouth, seemed to him not wholly desti- 
 tute of -merit.* A song, as we learn from Horace, was part of the established 
 •ritual at the great Secular Jubilee, t It is therefore likely that the Censors and 
 Pontiffs, when they had resolved to add a grancLj^rocession of knightj__to the 
 other solemnities annually performed onTTTeTcTes ofQuiritilis, would call in the 
 aid of a poet. Such a poet wotrtdlTatttfally take for his subject the baUle of 
 Regillus, the apjDearance of the Twin Gods, and the institution of their festival. 
 He woulTI find abundant materials in the ballads ^of his predecessors ; and he 
 would make free u se of the scanty stock of Greelc_learning which he had him- 
 self acquired. He would probably introduce some wise and holy Pontiff 
 enjoining the magnificent ceremonial, which, after a long interval, had- at 
 length been adopted. If the poem succeeded, many persons would commit it 
 to memory. Parts of it would be sung to the pipe at banquets. . It would be 
 peculiary interesting to the great Posthumian House, which numbered among its 
 many images that of the Dictator Aulus, the hero of Regillus. The orator who, 
 in the following generation, pronounced the funeral panegyric over the remains 
 of Lucius Posthumius Megellus, thrice Consul, would borrow largely from the 
 lay ; and thus some passages, much disfigured,' would probably find their way 
 into the chronicles which were afterwards in the hands of Dionysius and Livy. 
 
 Antiquaries differ widely as to the' situation of the field of b?ttle. The 
 opinion of those who suppose that the- armies met near Cornufelle, between 
 Frascati and the Monte Porzio, is at least plausible, and has been followed in 
 the poem. 
 
 As to the details of the battle, it has not been thought desirable to adhere 
 minutely to the accounts which have come down to us. Those accoupts, 
 indeed, differ widely from each other, and, in all probability, differ as widely 
 from the ancient poem irom which they were originally derived. -. 
 
 It is unnecessary to point out the obvious imitations of the Iliad, which have 
 been jDurposely introduced. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 
 
 A Lay Sung at the Feast of Castor and Pollux on the Ides of Quintilis, in the Year of 
 the City ccccli. 
 
 1. I From Castor in the P^orum, 
 
 Ho, trumpets, sound a war-note ! | _ To Mars without the wall 
 
 Ho, lictors, clear the way*! 
 The Knights will ride, in all their 
 
 Each Knight is robed in purple. 
 With olive each is crown'd ; 
 
 A gallant war-horse under each 
 Paws haughtily the ground. 
 
 While flows the Yellow River, 
 Are hung with garlands all, I While stands the Sacred Hill, 
 
 pride. 
 Along the streets to-day 
 To-day the doors and windows 
 
 Livy, xxvii. 37. t Hor. Carmen Seculaie. 
 
LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME'. 
 
 The proud Ides of Quintilis 
 Shall have such honour still. 
 
 Gay are the M artia n Kalends : 
 December's notes are gay : 
 
 But the proud Ides, when the squadron 
 rides, ^ 
 
 Shall be Rome's whitest day. 
 
 Unto the Great Twin Brethren 
 
 We keep this solemn feast. 
 Swift, swift, the Great/Twin Brethren 
 
 Came spurring from the East. 
 They came o'er wild Partheniys 
 • Tossing in waves of^ne, 
 O'er Cirrha's dome, o'er Adria's foam, 
 7 O'er purgle Apennine, 
 
 From where with flutes and dances 
 
 Their ancient mansion ri-ngs, 
 In lordly Lacedaemon, 
 
 The city of two kings, 
 To where, by Lake Regillus, 
 
 Under the Porcian height, 
 All jn the lands of Tusculum, 
 
 Was fought the glorious tight. 
 
 3' 
 Now on the place of slaughter 
 
 Are cots and sheepfolds seen, 
 And rows of vines, and fields of wheat, 
 
 And apple-orchards green : 
 The swine crushithe big acorns 
 
 That fall from Gome's oaks. 
 Upon the turf by the Fair Fount 
 
 The reaper's cottage smokes. 
 The fisher baits his angle ; 
 
 The hunter twangs his bow ; 
 Little they think on those strong limbs 
 
 That moulder deep below : 
 Little they think how sternly 
 
 That day the trumpets pealed ; 
 How in the slippery swamp of l)lood 
 
 Warrior and war-horse reeled ; 
 How wolves came with fierce gallop, 
 
 And crows on eager wings, 
 To tear the flesh of captains 
 
 And peck the eyes of kings ; 
 How thick the dead lay scattered 
 
 Under the Porcian height ; 
 How through the gates of Tusculum 
 
 Raved the wild stream of flight ; 
 And how the Lake Regillus 
 
 Bubbled with crimson foam, 
 What time the Thirty Cities 
 
 Came forth to war with Rome. 
 
 ^ ^ 4. 
 
 But, Roman, when thou standest 
 
 Upon that holy ground. 
 Look thou with heed on the dark rock 
 
 That girds the dark lake round. 
 So shak thou see a hoof-mark 
 
 Stamped deep into the flint : 
 It was no hoof of mortal steed 
 
 That made so strange a dint ; 
 There to the great Twin Brethren 
 
 Vow thou thy vows, and pray 
 That they, in tempest and in fight, 
 
 Will keep thy head- al way. 
 
 5- 
 Since last the Great Twin Brethren 
 
 Of mortal eyes were seen. 
 Have years gone by an hundred 
 
 And fourscore and thirteen. 
 That summer, a Virginius 
 
 Was Consul first in place ; 
 The second was stout Aulus, 
 
 Of the Posthuinian race. 
 The Herald of theLatines 
 
 I'rom Gabii came in state : 
 The Herald of the Latines [Gale ; 
 
 Passed through Rome's Lasteru 
 The Herald of the Latines 
 
 Did in our Forum stand ; 
 And there he did his ofiice, 
 
 A screptre in his hand. 
 
 6. 
 *' Hear, Senators and people 
 
 Of the good town of Rome : 
 The- Thirty Cities charge you 
 
 To bring the Tarquins home : 
 ' And if ye still be stubborn 
 I To work the Tarquins wrong, 
 ; The Thirty Cities warn you, 
 I Look that your walls be strong. 
 
 ! Then spake the Consul Aulus, 
 j He spake a bitter jest : * 
 I " Once the jays sent a message 
 ! Unto the eagle's nest : — 
 ! Now yield thou up thine eyrie 
 1 Unto the carrion-kite. 
 
 Or come forth valiantly ,--and face 
 
 The jays in deadly fight. — 
 Forth looked in wrath the eagle ; 
 
 And carrion-kite and jay, 
 Soon as they saw his beak and claw, 
 Fled screaming far away. " 
 
THE BATTLE OP THE LAKE EE&ILLUS. 
 
 ^ 
 
 SS^ 
 
 r- »^^ 
 
 For edoome d to dogs and vultures, . 
 
 That gallant army came ; 
 From Setia's purple vineyards, 
 
 From Norba's ancient wall. 
 From the white streets of Tusculum, 
 
 The proudest town of all ; 
 From where the witch's fortress 
 
 O'erhangs the dark-blue seas, 
 From the still glassy lake that sleeps. 
 
 Beneath Aricia's trees — 
 Those trees in whose dim shadow 
 
 The ghastly priest doth reign, 
 The priest who slew the slayer. 
 
 And shall himself be slain ; — . 
 From the drear banks of Ufens, 
 
 Where flights of marsh-fowl play. 
 And buffaloes lie wallowing 
 
 Through the hot summer's day ; 
 From the gigantic watch-towers, 
 
 No work of earthly men, 
 \Vhence Cora's sentinels o'erlook 
 
 The never-ending fen ; 
 From the Laurentian jungle, 
 
 The wild hog's reedy home ; 
 From the green steeps whence Anio 
 leaps 
 
 In floods of snow-white foam. 
 II 
 Aricia, Cora, Norba, 
 
 Velitrje, with the might 
 Of Setia and of Tusculum, 
 
 Were marshalled on their right ; 
 There leader was Mamilius, ) ^ 
 
 Prince of the Latian name ;/ 
 Upon his head a helmet 
 
 Of red gold shone like flame : 
 High on a gallant charger 
 
 Of dark-grey hue he rode ; 
 Over his gilded armour 
 
 A vest of purple flowed, 
 Woven in the laijd-olsuiirisc 
 
 By Sxria^s-jdarkjjrowed daug]iters,\ 
 And by the sails of Carthage brought \ 
 
 Far o'er the southern waters. *» 
 
 12 
 
 Lavinium and Laurentum 
 
 Had on their left their post, 
 With all the banners of the marsii, 
 
 And banners of the coast. 
 Their leader was false Sextus, 
 
 That wrought the deed of shame . 
 With restless pace and haggard face| 
 
 To his lastwield he came. 
 
 8. 
 The Herald of the Latines 
 
 Hath hied him back in state : 
 The Fathers of the City 
 
 Are met in high debate. 
 Then spake the elder Consul, 
 
 An ancient man and wise : 
 •' Now hearken, Conscript Fathers, 
 
 To that which I advise. 
 In seasons of great peril 
 
 'Tis good that one bear sway, 
 Then choose we a Dictator, 
 
 Whom all men shall obey. 
 Camen um knows how deeply 
 
 TtTeWord of Aulus bites ; 
 And all our city caTI? him 
 
 The man of seventy fights. 
 Then let him be Dictator 
 
 For six months and no more. 
 And have a Master of the Knights, 
 
 And axes twenty-four." 
 
 So Aulus was Dictator, 
 
 The man of seventy fights ; 
 He made ^^butius Elva 
 
 His Master of the Knights. 
 On the third morn thereafter. 
 
 At dawning of the day, 
 Did Aulus and ^Ebutius 
 
 Set forth with their array. 
 Sempronious Atratinus 
 
 Was left in charge at home 
 With boys and with grey-headed men. 
 
 To keep the walls of Rome. 
 Hard by the Lake Regillus 
 
 Our camp was pitched at night : 
 Eastward a mile the Latines lay, 
 
 Under the Foreign height, 
 l-'ar over hill and valley 
 
 Their mighty host was spread ; 
 ^Vnd with their thousand watch-fires 
 
 The Midnight sky was red. 
 
 TO 
 
 Up rose the golden morning 
 
 Over the Porcian height, 
 The proud Ides of Quintilis, 
 
 Marked evermore with white. 
 Not without secret trouble 
 
 Our bravest saw the foes, 
 For girt by threescore thousand spears 
 
 The thirty standards rose. 
 From every warlike city 
 
 That boasts the Latian name, 
 
886 
 
 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 Men said he saw strange visions, 
 
 Which none beside might see ; 
 And that strange sounds were in his 
 \, ears . , 
 
 Which none might hear but he. 
 A woman fair and stately, 
 
 But pale as are the dead, 
 Oft through the w^atches of the night 
 
 Sate spinning by his bed. 
 And as she plied the distaff, 
 
 In a sweet voice and low, 
 She sang of great old houses, 
 
 And fights fought long ago. 
 So spun she,, and so sang she, | 
 
 Until the east was grey ; i 
 
 Then pointed to her bleeding breast, 
 
 And shrieked and fled away. 
 
 13 
 
 But in the centre thickest 
 
 Were ranged the shields of foes, 
 And from the centre loudest 
 
 The cry of battle rose. 
 There Tiber marched and Pedum 
 
 Beneath proud Tarquin's rule, 
 And Ferentinum of the rock, 
 
 And Gabii of the pool. 
 There rode the Volscian succours : 
 
 There, in a dark stern ring, 
 The Roman exiles gathered close 
 
 Around the ancient king. 
 Though white as mount Soracte 
 
 ^\Tlen winter nights are long, [belt, 
 His beard flowed down o'er mail and 
 
 His heart and hand were strong : 
 Under his hoary eyebrows 
 
 Still flashed forth quenchless rage ; 
 And, if the lance shook in his gripe, 
 
 'Twas more with hate than age. 
 Close at his side was Titus 
 
 On an Apulian steed, 
 Titus, the yougest Tarquin 
 
 Too good for such a breed. 
 
 14 
 Now on each side the leaders 
 
 Gave signal for the charge ; 
 And on each side the footmen 
 
 Strode on with lance and targe 
 And on each side the horsemen 
 
 vStruck their spurs deep in gore. 
 And front to front the armies 
 
 Met with a mighty roar : 
 iij^nd under that great battle 
 
 The earth with blood was red ; 
 
 And, like the Pomptine fog at morn, 
 
 The dust hung overhead ; 
 And louder still and louder, 
 
 Rose from the darkened field 
 The braying of the war-horns. 
 
 The clang of sword and shield. 
 The rush of squadrons sweeping 
 
 Like whirlwinds o'er the plain. 
 The shouting of the slayers, 
 
 And screeching of the slain. 
 
 False Sextus rode out foremost : 
 
 His look was high and bold ; 
 His corslet was of bison's hide, 
 
 Plated with steel and gold. 
 As glares the famished eagle 
 
 From the Digentian rock. 
 On the choice lamb that bounds alone 
 
 Before Bandusias flock, 
 Flerminius glared on Sextus 
 
 And came with eagle speed ; 
 Herminius on black Auster, 
 
 Brave champion on brave steed ; 
 In his right hand the broadsword 
 
 That kept the bridge so well, 
 And on his helm the crown he won 
 
 When proud Fid'enae fell. 
 Woe to the maid whose lover 
 
 Shall cross his path to-day ! 
 False Sextus saw and trembled. 
 
 And turned and fled aWay, 
 As turns, as flies the woodman 
 
 In the Calabrian brake, 
 When through the reeds gleams the 
 round eye 
 
 Of that fell painted snake ; 
 So turned, so fled, false Sextus, 
 
 And hid him in the rear. 
 Behind the dark Lavinian ranks, 
 
 Bristling with crest and spear, 
 
 16 
 
 Then far to north ^butius, 
 
 The Master of the Knights, 
 Gave Tubero of Norba 
 
 To feed the Porcian kites. 
 Next under those red horse-lioofs 
 
 Flaccus of Se'tia lay ; 
 Better had he been pruning 
 
 Among his elms that day. 
 Mamilius saw the slaughter, 
 
 And tossed his golden crest, 
 And towards the Master of the Knights 
 
 Through the thick battle pressed. 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 
 
 887 
 
 ^butius smote Mamilius 
 
 So fiercely on the shield, 
 That the great lord of Tusculum 
 
 Well nigh rolled on the field, 
 ?^Iamilius smote /Ebutius, 
 
 With ft good aim and true, 
 Just where the neck and shoulder join. 
 
 And pierced him through and 
 through ; 
 And brave ^Ebutius Elva^ 
 
 Fell swooning to thp-^found ; 
 But a thick wall of bucklers 
 
 Encompassed him around. 
 His clients from the battle ' 
 
 Bare him some little space ; 
 And filled a helm from the dark lake, 
 
 And bathed his brow and face ; 
 And when at last he opened 
 
 His swimming eyes to light, 
 Men «ay the earliest word he spake 
 
 Was, *' Friends, how goes the 
 fight ? " 
 
 17- 
 But meanwhile in the centre 
 
 Great deeds of arms were wrought ; 
 Therp Aulus the Dictator, 
 
 And there Valerius fought. 
 .A.ulus, with his good broadsword, 
 
 A bloody passage cleared 
 To where, amidst the thickest foes, 
 
 He saw the long white beard. 
 Flat lighted that good broadsword 
 
 Upon proud Tarquin's head. 
 He dropped the lance : he dropped 
 the reins : 
 
 He fell as fall the dead. 
 Down Aulus springs to slay him, 
 
 With eyes like coals of fire ; 
 But faster Titus hath sprung down. 
 
 And hath bestrode his sire. 
 Latian captains, Roman knights. 
 
 Fast down to earth they spring. 
 And hand to hand they fight on foot 
 
 Around the ancient king. 
 First Titus gave tall Cceso 
 
 A death-wound in the face f 
 Tall Ca;so was the bravest man 
 
 Of the brave Fabian race : 
 Aulus slew Rex of Gabii., 
 
 The priest of Juno's shrine : 
 \'alerius smote down Julius, 
 
 (.)f Rome's great Julian line ; 
 Julius, who left his mansion 
 
 High on the Velian hill, 
 
 /" 
 
 And through all turns of weal and woe 
 
 Followed proud Tarquin still. 
 Now right across proud Tarquin 
 
 A corpse was Julius laid ; 
 And Titus groaned with rage and grief, 
 
 And at Valerius made. 
 Valerius struck at Titus, 
 
 And lopped off half his crest ; 
 But Titus stabbed Valerius 
 
 A span deep in the breast. 
 Like a mast snapped by the tempest, 
 
 Valerius reeled and fell. 
 Ah ! woe is me for the good house 
 
 That loves the people well ! 
 Then shouted loud the Latines ; 
 
 And with one rush they bore 
 The struggling Romans backward 
 
 Three lances' length and more : 
 And up they took proud Tarquin, 
 
 And laid him on a shield. 
 And four strong yeomen bare him, 
 
 Still senseless, from the field. 
 
 But fiercer grew the fighting 
 
 Around Valerius dead ; 
 For Titus dragged him by the foot. 
 
 And Aulus by the head. 
 " On, Latines, on ! " quoth Titus, 
 
 " See how the rebels fly ! " 
 " Romans stand firm !" quoth Aulus,, 
 
 " And wdn this fight or die ! 
 They must not give Valerius 
 
 To raven and to kite ; 
 For aye Valerius loathed the wrong 
 
 And aye upheld the right : 
 And for your wives and babies 
 
 In the front rank he fell. 
 Now play the men for the good house 
 
 That loves the people well ! " 
 
 19. 
 
 Then tenfold round the body 
 
 The roar of battle rose. 
 Like the roar of a burning forest 
 
 When a strong north wind blows. . 
 Now backward and now forward 
 
 Rocked furiously the fray. 
 Till none could see Valerius, 
 
 And none wist where he lay. 
 For shivered arms and ensigns 
 
 Were heaped there in a mound, 
 And corpses stiff, and dying men 
 
 That writhed and gnawed the 
 ground ; 
 
LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 X 
 
 And wounded horses kicking, 
 
 And snorting purple foam : 
 ]\.ight well did such a couch befit 
 
 A Consular of Rome. 
 20. 
 But north looked the Dictator ; 
 
 North looked he long and hard ; 
 And spake to Caius Cossus. 
 
 The Captain of his guard : 
 " Caius, of all the Romans 
 
 Thou hast the keenest sight ; [dust 
 Say, what through yonder storm of 
 
 Comes from the Latian right ? " 
 21. 
 Then answered Caius Cossus 
 
 " I see an evil sight ; 
 The banner of proud Tusculum 
 
 Comes from the Latian right ; 
 I see the plumed horsemen ; 
 
 And far before the rest 
 I see the dark -grey charger, 
 
 I see the purple vest ; 
 I see the golden helmet 
 
 That shines far off like flame ; 
 So ever rides Mamilius, 
 
 Prince of the Latian name." 
 '^ 22. 
 " Now hearken, Caius Cossus : 
 
 Spring on thy horse's back ; 
 Ride as the wolves of Apennine 
 
 Were all upon thy track ; 
 Haste to our southward battle ; 
 
 And never draw thy rein 
 Until thou find Herminius, 
 
 And bid him come amain. " 
 
 23. 
 
 So Aulus spake, and turned him 
 
 Again to that fierce strife ; 
 And Caius Cossus mounted, 
 
 And rode for death and life. 
 Loud clanged beneath his horse-hoofs. 
 
 The helmets of the dead, 
 x\nd many a curdling pool of blood 
 
 Splashed him from heel to head. 
 So came he far to southward, 
 
 \Vhere fought the Roman host, 
 Against the banners of the marsh 
 
 And banners of the coast . 
 Like corn before the sickle 
 
 The stout Lavinians fell, 
 lieneath the edge of the true sword 
 
 That kept the bridge so well. 
 
 24. 
 
 " Herminius ! Aulus greets thee ; 
 
 He bids thee come with speed. 
 To help our central battle ; 
 
 For sore is there our need. 
 There wars the youngest Tarquin, 
 
 And there the Crest of Flame, 
 The Tusculan Mamilius, 
 
 Prince of the Latian name. 
 Valerius hath fallen fighting 
 
 In front of our array ; 
 And Aulus of the seventy fields 
 
 Alone upholds the day." 
 
 25. 
 Herminius beat his bosom ; 
 
 But never a word he spake. 
 He clapped his hand on Auster's 
 mane ; 
 
 He gave the reins a shake, . 
 Away, away, went Auster, 
 
 Like an arrow from the bow : 
 Black Auster was the fleetest steed 
 
 From Aufidus to Po. 
 
 26. 
 Right glad were all the Romans 
 
 Who, in that hour of dread. 
 Against great odds bear up the war 
 
 Around Valerius dead. 
 When from the South the cheering 
 
 Rose with a mighty swell ; 
 '* Herminius comes, Herminius, 
 
 Who kept the bridge so well ! " 
 
 27. 
 Mamilius spied Herminius, 
 
 And dashed across the way. 
 " Herminius ! I have sought thee 
 
 Through many a bloody day. 
 One of us two, Herminius, 
 
 Shall never more go home. 
 I will lay on for Tusculum, 
 
 And lay thou on for Rome I '' 
 
 28. 
 All round them paused the battle, 
 
 While met in mortal fray 
 The Roman and Tusculan, 
 
 The horses black and grey. 
 Herminius smote Mamilius 
 
 Through breast-plate and through 
 breast ; 
 And fast flowed out the purple blood 
 
 Over the purple vest, 
 
The battle of the lake regillus. 
 
 S8v; 
 
 Mamiiius smote Herminius 
 
 Through head-piece and through 
 head ; 
 And side by side those chiefs of pride 
 
 Together fell down dead. 
 Down fell they dead together 
 
 In a great lake of gore ; 
 And still stood all who saw them fall 
 
 While men might count a score. 
 
 29. X 
 
 Fast, fast, with heels wild spurning, 
 
 The dark -grey charger fled : 
 He burst through ranks of fighting 
 men, 
 
 He sprang o'er heaps of dead : 
 His bridle far out-streaming, 
 
 His flanks all blood and foam, 
 He sought the southern mountains. 
 
 The mountains of his home. 
 The pass was steep and rugged. 
 
 The wolves they howled and 
 whined ; 
 But he ran like a whirlwind up the 
 pass. 
 
 And he left the wolves behind. 
 Through many a startled hamlet 
 
 Thundered his flying feet : 
 He rushed through the gate of Tus- 
 culum, 
 
 He rushed up the long white street ; 
 «He rushed by tower and temple, 
 
 And paused not from his race 
 Till he stood .before his master's door 
 
 In the stately market-place. 
 And straightway round him gathered, 
 
 A pale and trembling crowd, 
 And when they knew him, cries of 
 rage 
 
 Brake forth, and wailing loud : 
 And women rent their tresses 
 
 For their great prince's fall ; 
 And old nicn girt on their old swords, 
 
 And went to man the wall. 
 
 30. 
 But, like a graven image, 
 
 Black Auster kept his place. 
 And ever wistfully he looked 
 
 Into his master s face. 
 The raven-mane that daily, 
 
 With pats and fond caresses, 
 The young Herminia washed and 
 combed, \ 
 
 And twined in even tresses, 
 
 '"And decked with coloured ribands 
 
 From her own gay attire, 
 Hung sadly o'er her father'^ corpse 
 
 In carnage and in mire. 
 Forth with a shout sprang Titus, 
 
 And seized black Auster's rein. 
 Then Aulus sware a fearful oath. 
 
 And ran at him amain. 
 ** The furies of thy brother 
 
 With me and mine abide, 
 If one of your accursed house 
 
 Upon black Auster ride I '' 
 As on an Alpine watch-tower 
 
 From Heaven comes down the 
 flame, 
 Full on the neck of Titus 
 
 The blade of Aulus came : 
 And out the red blood spouted, 
 
 In a wide arch and tall, 
 As spouts a fountain in the court, 
 
 Of some rich Capuan's hall. 
 The knees of all the Latines 
 
 Were loosened with dismay 
 When dead, on dead Herminius, 
 
 The bravest Tarquin lay. 
 
 And Aulus the Dictator 
 
 Stroked Auster's raven mane, 
 With heed he looked into the girths, 
 
 With heed unto the rein. 
 *• Now bear me well, black Auster, 
 
 Into yon thick array ; 
 And thou and I will have revenge 
 
 For thy good lord this day." 
 
 32. 
 So spake he ; and was buckling 
 
 Tighter black Auster's band, 
 When he was aware of a princely pair 
 
 That rode at his right hand. 
 So like they were, no mortal 
 
 Might one from other know : 
 White as snow their armour was : 
 
 Their steeds were white as sno a . 
 Never on earthly anvil 
 
 Did such rare armour gleam ; 
 And never did such gallant steeds 
 
 Drink of an earthly stream. 
 
 33. 
 
 And all who saw them trembled, 
 And pale grew every cheek ; 
 
 And Aulus the Dictator 
 Scarce gathered voice to speak. 
 
Sgo 
 
 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 " vSay by what name men call you ? 
 
 What City is your home ? 
 And wherefore ride ye in such guise 
 
 Before the ranks of Rome ! " 
 
 34. 
 " By many names men call us ; 
 
 In many lands we dwell ; 
 Well Samothracia knows us ; 
 
 CyrenB knows us well. 
 Our house in gay Tarentum 
 
 Is hung each morn with flowers : 
 High o'er the masts of Syracuse 
 
 Our marble portal towers ; 
 But by the proud Eurotas 
 
 Is our dear native home ; 
 And for the right we come to fight 
 
 Before the ranks of Rome." 
 
 35- 
 So answered those strange horsemen, 
 
 And each couched low his spear ; 
 And forthwith all the ranks of Rome 
 
 Were bold and of good cheer : 
 And on the thirty armies 
 
 Came wonder and affright, 
 And Ardea wavered on the left, 
 
 And Cora on the right. 
 " Rome to the charge ! " cried Aulus ; 
 
 " The foe begins to yield ! 
 Charge for the hearth of Vesta ! 
 
 Charge for the Golden Shield ! 
 Let no man stop to plunder, 
 
 But slay, and slay, and slay ; 
 The Gods who live for ever 
 
 Are on our side to-day. " 
 
 36. 
 Then the fierce trumpet. flourish 
 
 From earth to heaven arose ; 
 The kites know well the long stern 
 swell 
 
 That bids the Romans close. 
 Then the good sword of Aulus 
 
 Was lifted up to slay : 
 Then, like a crag down Apennine 
 
 Rushed Austur through the fray. 
 But under those strange horsemen 
 
 Still thicker lay the slain ; 
 And after those strange horses 
 
 Black Auster toiled in vain. 
 Behind them Rome's long battle 
 
 Came roUing on the foe, 
 Ensigns dancing wild above, 
 
 Blades all in line below. 
 
 So comes the Po in flood-time 
 
 Upon the Celtic plain : 
 So comes the squall, blacker than 
 night. 
 
 Upon the Adrian main. 
 Now, by our sire Quirinus, 
 
 It was a goodly sight 
 To see the thirty standards 
 
 Swept down the tide of flight. 
 So flies the spray of Adria 
 
 When the black squall doth blow ; 
 So corn-sheaves in the flood-time 
 
 Spin down the whirling Po. 
 False Sextlis to the mountains 
 
 Turned first his horse's head ; 
 And fast fled Ferentinum, 
 
 And fast Lanuvium fled. 
 The horsemen of Nomentum 
 
 Spurred hard out of the fray ; 
 The footmen of Velitrce 
 
 Threw shield and spear away. 
 And underfoot was trampled. 
 
 Amidst the mud and gore, 
 The banner of proud Tusculum, 
 
 That never stooped before : 
 And down went Flavius Faustus, 
 
 Who led his stately ranks 
 From where the apple blossoms wave 
 
 On Anio's echoing banks, 
 And Tullus of Arpinum, 
 
 Chief of the Volscian aids, 
 And Mertus with the long fair curls, • 
 
 The love of Anxur's maids, 
 And the white head of Vulso, 
 
 The great Arician seer, 
 And Nepos of Laurentum, 
 
 The hunter of the deer ; 
 And in the back false Sextus 
 
 Felt the good Roman steel. 
 And wriggling in the dust he died. 
 
 Like a worm beneath the wheel : 
 And fliers and pursuers 
 
 Were mingled in a mass ; 
 And far away the battle 
 
 W^ent roaring through the pass. 
 
 37- 
 Sempronius Atratinus 
 
 Sat in the Eastern Gate. 
 Beside him were three Fathers, 
 
 Each in his chair of state ; 
 Fabius, whose nine stout grandsons 
 
 That day were in the field, 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS. 
 
 891 
 
 And Manlius, eldest of the Twelve 
 
 Who keep the Golden Shield ; 
 And Sergius, the High Pontiff, 
 
 For wisdom far renowned ; 
 In all Etruria's colleges 
 
 '.Yas no such Pontiff found. 
 And all around the portal, 
 
 And high above the wall, 
 Stoo-1 a great throng of people, 
 
 But sad and silent all ; 
 \ oung lads, and stooping elders 
 
 That might not bear the mail, 
 Matrons with lips that quivered, 
 
 And maids with faces pale. 
 Since the first gleam of daylight 
 
 Sempronius had not ceased 
 To listen for the rushing 
 
 Of horse-hoofs from the east. 
 The mist of eve was rising, 
 
 The sun was hastening down, 
 When he was aware of a princely pair 
 
 Fast pricking towards the town. 
 So like they were, man never 
 
 Saw twins so like before ; 
 Red with gore their armour was, 
 
 Their steeds were red with gore. 
 
 38. 
 '* Hail to the great Asylum ! 
 
 Hail to the hill-tops seven ! 
 Hail to the fire that burns for aye, 
 
 And the shield that fell from heaven! 
 This day, by Lake Regillus, 
 
 Under the Porcian height. 
 All in the lands of Tusculum 
 
 Was fought a glorious fight. 
 To-morrow your Dictator 
 
 Shall bring in triumph home 
 The spoils of thirty cities 
 
 To deck the shrines of Rome ! " 
 
 39. 
 Then burst from that great concourse 
 
 A shout that shook the towers. 
 And some ran north, and some ran 
 south. 
 
 Crying, " The day is ours ! " 
 But on rode these strange horsemen, 
 
 With slow and lordly pace ; 
 And none who saw their bearing 
 
 Durst ask their name or race. 
 On rode they to the Forum, 
 
 While laurel-boughs and flowers, 
 I'rom house-tops and from windows, 
 
 Fell on their crests in showers. 
 
 When they drew nigh to Vesta, 
 They vaulted down amain. 
 
 And washed their horses in the well 
 That springs by Vesta's fane. 
 
 And straight again they mounted. 
 And rode to Vesta's door ; 
 
 Then, like a blast, away they passed, 
 
 ■ And no man saw them more. 
 
 40. 
 
 And all the people trembled. 
 
 And pale grew every cheek ; 
 And Sergiils the High Pontiff 
 
 Alone found voice to speak : 
 " The Gods who live for ever 
 
 Have fought for Rome to-day ! 
 These be the Great Twin Brethren 
 
 To whom the Dorians pray. 
 Back comes the chief in triumph, 
 
 Who in the hour of fight. 
 Hath seen the Great Twin "Brethren 
 
 In harness on his right. 
 Safe comes the ship to haven 
 
 Through billows and through gales, 
 If once the Great Twin Brethren 
 
 Sit shining on the sails. 
 Wherefore they washed their horses 
 
 In Vesta's holy well, 
 Wherefore they rode to Vesta's door, 
 
 I know, but may not tell. 
 Here, hard by Vesta's temple. 
 
 Build we a stately dome 
 Unto the Great Twin Brethren 
 
 Who fought so well for Rome. 
 And when the months returning 
 
 Bring back this day of fight 
 The proud Ides of Quintilis, 
 
 Marked evermore with white, 
 Unto the Great Twin Brethren 
 
 Let all the people throng. 
 With chaplets and with offerings, 
 
 With music and with song ; 
 And let the doors and windows 
 
 Be hung with garlands all, 
 And let the Knights be summoned 
 
 To Mars without the wall ! 
 Thence let them ride in purple 
 
 With joyous trumpet-sound, 
 Each mounted on his war-horse, 
 
 And each with olive crowned ; 
 And pass in solemn order 
 
 Before the sacred dome 
 Where dwell the Great Twin Brethren 
 
 Who fought so well for Rome." 
 
892 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 
 A collection consisting exclusively of war-songs would give an impertect, or 
 rather an erroneous, notion of the spirit of the old Latin ballads. The 
 Patricians, during more than a century after the expulsion of the Kings, held 
 all the high military commands. A Plebeian, even though, like Lucius Siccius, 
 he were distinguished by his valour and knowledge of war, could serve only 
 in subordinate posts. A minstrel, therefore, who wished to celebrate the 
 earjj. triumphs of his country, could hardly take any but Patrickns for his 
 heroes. The warriors who are mentioned in the two preceding lays, Horatius, 
 Lartius, Herminius, Aulus Posthumius, ^'Ebutius Elva, Sempronius Atratinus, 
 Valerius Poplicola, were all members of the dominant order ; and a poet who 
 was singing their praises, whatever his own political opinions might be, would 
 naturally abstain from insulting the class to which they belonged, and from 
 reflecting on the system which had placed such men at the head of the legions 
 of the Commonwealth. 
 
 But there was a class of compositions in which the great families were by no 
 means so courteously treated. No parts of early Roman history are richer 
 with poetical colouring than those which relate to the longcojji^t between the 
 privileged Hbu'seS and the commonalty. The population oTTRdme was, from a 
 very early period, divided into hereditary castes, which, indeed, readily united 
 to repel foreign enemies, but which regarded each other, during many years, 
 with bitter animosity. Between those castes there was a barrier hardly less 
 strong than .that which, at Venice, parted the members of the Great Council 
 from their countrymen. In some respects, indeed, the line which separated 
 an Icilius or a Duilius from a Posthumius or a Fabius was even more deeply 
 marked than that which separated the rower of a Gondola from a Contarini or 
 a Morosini. At Venice the distinction was merely civil. At Rome it was 
 both civil and religious. Among the grievances under which the Plebeiars 
 suffered, three were felt as pecuUarly severe. They were excluded fiom the 
 highest magistracies ! they were excluded from all share in the public lands ; 
 aincTthey were ground down to the dust by partial and barbarous legislation 
 touching pecuniary contracts. The ruling class in Rome was a monied class ; 
 and it made and admintstered the laws with a view solely to its own interest. 
 Thus the relation between lender and borrower was mixed up with the 
 relation between sovereign and subject. The great men held a large portion 
 of the community in dependence by means of advances at enormous usury. 
 The law of debt, framed by creditors, and for the protection of creditors, wr.s 
 the most horrible that has ever been known among men. The liberty, and 
 even the life, of the insolvent were at the mercy of the Patrician money-lenders. 
 Children often became slaves in consequence of the misfortunes of their parents. 
 The debtor was imprisoned, not in a public gaol under the care of impartial 
 public functionaries, but in a private workhouse belonging to the creditor. 
 Frightful stories were told respecting these dungeons. It was said that torture 
 and brutal violation were common ; that tight stocks, heavy chains, scanty 
 measures of food, were used to punish wretches guilty of nothing but poverty ; 
 and that brave soldiers, whose breasts were covered with honourable scars, 
 were often marked still more deeply on the back by the scourges of high-born 
 usurers. 
 
 The Plebeians were, however, not wholly without constitutional rights. 
 From an early period they had been admitted to some share of political power. 
 They were enrolled in the centuties, and were allowed a share, considerable 
 though not proportioned to their numerical strength, in the disposal of those 
 
VIRGINIA. 893 
 
 high dignities from which they were themselves exchidcd. Thus their 
 position bore some resemblance to that <5f the Irish Catholics during the interval 
 between the year 1792 and the year 1829. The Plebeians had also the 
 privilege of annually appointing officers, named Tribunes, who had no active 
 share in the government of the Commonwealth, but who, by degrees, acquired 
 a power which made them formidable even to the ablest and most resolute 
 Consuls and Dictators. The person of the Tribune was inviolable ; and, 
 though he could directly effect little, he could obstruct everything. 
 
 During more than a century after the institution of the Tribuneship, the 
 Commons struggled manfully for the removal of the grievances under which 
 they laboured ; and, in spite of many checks and reverses, succeeded in 
 wringing concession after concession from the stubborn aristocracy. At length, 
 in the year of the city 378, both parties mustered their whole strength for their 
 last and most desperate conflict. The popular and active Tribune, Caius 
 Licinius, proposed the three memorable Uiws which are called by his name, 
 and which were intended to redress the three great evils of which the Plebeians 
 complained. He was supported, with eminent ability and firmness, by his 
 colleague, Lucius Sextius. The struggle appears to have been the fiercest 
 that ever in any community terminated without an appeal to arms. If such a 
 contest had raged in any Greek city, the streets would have run with blood. 
 But, even in the paroxysms of faction, the Roman retained his gravity, his 
 respect for law, and his tenderness for the lives of his fellow-citizens. Year 
 after year Licinius and Sextius were re-elected Tribunes. Year after year, if 
 the narrative which has come down to us is to be trusted, they continued to 
 exert, to the full extent, their power of stopping the whole machine of govern- 
 ment. No curule magistrates could be chosen ; no military muster could be 
 held. We know too little of the state of Rome in those days to be able to 
 conjecture how, during that long anarchy, the peace was kept, and ordinary 
 justice administered between man and man. The animosity of both parties 
 rose to the greatest height. The excitement, we may well suppose, would 
 have been peculiarly intense at the annual election of Tribunes. On such 
 occasions there can be little doubt that the great families cJid all that could be 
 done, by threats and caresses, to break the union of the Plebeians. That 
 imion, however, proved indissoluble. At length the good cause triumphed. 
 The licinian laws were carried. Lucius Sextius was the first Plebian Consul. 
 Caius Licinius the third. 
 
 The results of this great change were singularly happy and glorious. Two 
 centuries of prosperity, harmony and victory followed the reconciliation of the 
 orders. Men who remembered Rome engaged in waging petty wars almost 
 within sight of the Capitol lived to see her the mistress of Italy. While the 
 disabilities of the Plebians continued, she was scarcely able to maintain her 
 ground against the Volscians and Hernicans. When those disabilities were 
 removed, she rapidly became more than a match for Carthage and Macedon. 
 
 During the great Licinian contest the Plebeian f)oets were, doubtless, not 
 silent. Even in modern times songs have been by no means without influence 
 on public affoirs ; and we may therefore infer that, in a .society where printing 
 was unknown, and where books were rare, a pathetic or humorous party-ballad 
 must have produced effects such as we can but faintly conceive. It is certain 
 that satirical poems were common at Rome from a very early period. The 
 rustics, who lived at a distance from the seat of government, and took little 
 part in the strife of factions, gave vent to their petty local animosities in coarse 
 1 'escennine verse. The lampoons of the city were doubtless of a higher order ; 
 and their sting was early felt by the nobility. For in the Twelve Tables, long 
 before the time of the Licinian laws, a severe punishment was denounced 
 
894 Z.^KS OF ANCIENT ROME, 
 
 against the citizen who should compose or recite verses reflecting on another.* 
 Satire is, indeed, the only sort of composition in which the Latin poets, whose 
 works have come down to us, were not mere imitators of foreign models ; and 
 it is therefore the only sort of composition in which they have never been 
 rivalled. It was not, like their tragedy, their comedy, their epic and lyric 
 poetry, a hot-house plant which, in return for assiduous and skilful culture, gave 
 only scanty and sickly fruits. It was hardy, and full of sap ; and in all the 
 various juices which it yielded might be distinguished the flavour of the 
 Ausonian soil. " Satire," said Quintilian, with just pride, "is all aur own." 
 It sprang, in truth, naturally from the constitution of the Roman government 
 and from the spirit of the Roman people ; and, though it submitted to metrical 
 rules derived from Greece, it retained to the last its essentially Roman character. 
 Lucilius was the earliest satirist whose works were held in esteem under the 
 Caesars. But, many years before Lucilius was born, Naevius had been flung 
 into a dungeon, and guarded there with circumstances of unusual rigour till the 
 tribunes interfered in his behalf, on account of the bitter lines in which he had 
 attacked the great Csecilian family. f The genius and spirit of the Rom^n 
 satirists survived the liberties of their country, and were not extinguished by the 
 ciuel despotism of the Julian and Flavian Emperors. The great poet who told 
 the story of Domitian's turbot was the legitimate successor of those forgotten 
 minstrels whose songs animated the factions of the infant Republic. 
 
 Those minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, appear to have generally taken 
 the popular side. We can hardly be mistaken in supposing that, at the great 
 crisis of the civil conflict, they employed themselves in versifying all the most 
 powerful and virulent speeches of the Tribunes, and in heaping abuse on the 
 chiefs of the aristocracy. Every personal defect, every domestic scandal, every 
 tradition dishonourable to a noble house, would be sought out, brought into 
 notice and exaggerated. The illustrious head of the aristocratical party, 
 Marcus Furius Camillus, might perhaps be, in some measure, protected by his 
 venerable age and by the memory of hi-s great services to the State. But 
 Appius Claudius Crassus enjoyed no such immunity. He was descended from 
 a long line of ancestors distinguished by their haughty demeanour, and by the 
 inflexibility with which they had withstood all the demands of the Plebeian 
 order. While the political conduct and the deportment of the Claudian nobles 
 drew upon them the fiercest public hatred, they were wanting, if any credit is 
 due to the early history of Rome, in a class of qualities which, in a military 
 Commonwealth, is sufficient to cover a multitude of offences. Several of them 
 appear to have been eloquent, versed in civil business, and learned after the 
 fashion of their age ; but in war they were not distinguished by skill or valour. 
 Some of them, as if conscious where their weakness lay, had, when filling the 
 highest magistracies, taken internal administration as their department of 
 pul)lic business, and left the military command to their colleagues. + One of 
 them had been intrusted with an army, and had failed ignominou%.§ None 
 of them had been honoured with a triumph. None of them had achieved any 
 martial exploit, such as. those by wliich Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, Titus 
 Quinctius Capitoljnus, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, and, above all, the great 
 Camillus, had extorted the reluctant esteem of the multitude. During the 
 Licinian conflict, AppiusjGlaudius Crassus signalised himself by the ability and 
 
 * :Cicero justly infers from this law, that there had been early Latin poets whose works 
 had been lost before his time. " Quamquam id quidem etiam xii tabulae declarant, condi 
 jam turn solitum esse carmen, quod neliceret fieri ad alteriusinjuriam lege sanxerunt." — 
 Tiisc.iv. 2. 
 
 \ Plautus, Miles, Gloriosus. Aulus Gellius, in. 3. 
 ; In the years of the city 360, 304, and 330. § In the year of the city 282. 
 
VIRGINIA. §95 
 
 severity with which he harangued again^t^the two great agitators. He would 
 naturally, therefore, be the favourite mark of the Plebeian satirists ; nor would 
 they have been at a loss to find a point on which he was open to attack. 
 
 His grandfather, called, like himself, Appius Claudius, had left a name as 
 much detested as that of Sextus Tarquinius. This elder Appius had been 
 Consul more than seventy years before the introduction of the Licinian laws. 
 By availing himself of a singular crisis in public feeling, he had obtained the 
 consent of the Commons to the"abolition of the Tribuneship, and had been the 
 Chief of that Council of Ten to which the whole direction of the State had 
 been committed. In a few months his administration had become universally 
 odius. It had been swept away by an irresistible outbreak of popular fury ; 
 and its memory was still held in aborrence by the whole city. The immediate 
 cause of the downfall of this execrable government was said to have been an 
 attempt made by Appius Claudius on the chastity of a beautiful young girl of 
 humble birth. The story ran, that the Decemvir, unable to succeed by bribes 
 and solicitations, resorted to an outrageous act of tyranny. A vile dependant 
 bi the Claudian house laid claim to the damsel as his slave. The cause was 
 brought before the tribunal of Appius. The wicked magistrate, in defiance of 
 the clearest proofs, gave judgment for the claimant- But the girl's father, a 
 brave soldier, saved her from servitude and dishonour by stabbing her to th;; 
 heart in the sight of the whole Forum That blow was the signal for a general 
 explosion. ■ Camp and city rose at once ; the Ten were pulled down ; the 
 Tribuneship was re-established ; and Appius escaped the hands of the 
 executioner only by a voluntary death. ' ' 
 
 It can hardly be doubted that a story so admirably adapted to the purpose^ 
 both of the poet and of the demagogue would be eagerly seized upon by 
 minstrels burning with hatred against the Patrician order, against the Claudian 
 house, and especially against the grandson and namesake of the infamous 
 Decemvir. 
 
 In order that the reader may judge fairly of these fragments of the lay of 
 Virginia, he must imagine himself a Plebeian who has just voted for the re- 
 election of Sextius and Licinius. All the power of the Patricians has been 
 exerted to throw out the two great champions of the Commons. Every 
 Posthumius, /Emilius and Cornelius has used his influence to the utmost. 
 Debtors have been let out of the workhouses on condition of voting against 
 the men of the people ; clients have been posted to hiss and interrupt the 
 favourite candidates ; Appius Claudius Crassus has spoken with more than 
 his usual eloquence and asperity : all has been in vain ; Licinius and Sextiu;^ 
 have a fifth time carried all the tribes ; work is suspended ; the booths are 
 closed ; the Plebeians bear on their shoulders the two champions of liberty 
 through the Forum. Just at this moment it is announced that a popular poet, 
 a zealous a#ierent of the Tribunes, has made a new song which will cut the 
 Claudian family to the heart. The [crowd gathers round him, and calls on 
 him to recite it. He takes his stand on the spot where, according to tradition. 
 Virginia, more than seventy years ago, was seized by the pander of Appius, 
 and he begins his story. 
 
 VIRGINIA. 
 Fragments of a Lay Sung in the Forum on the Day whereon Lucius Sextius Sextinus, 
 Lateranus and Caius Licinius Calvus Stolo were Elected Tribunes of the Commons 
 the Fifth Time, in the Year of the City ccclxxxii. 
 
 Ye good men of the Commons, with 
 
 loving hearts and true, 
 Who stand by the bold Tribunes that 
 
 Come, make a circle round me, and 
 
 mark my tale with care, 
 A tale of what Rome once hath bome^ 
 
 still have stcxKi by you, I of what Rome yet may bear. 
 
896 
 
 LA VS OF Ai^CIENT ROME. 
 
 This is no Grecian fable, of fountains 
 
 running wine, 
 Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors 
 . turned to swine. 
 
 ^**^ Here, in this very Forum, under the 
 noonday sun, 
 In sight of all the people, the bloody 
 
 deed was done. 
 Old men still creep among us who 
 
 saw that fearful day, 
 Just seventy years and seven ago, 
 ^when the wicked Ten bare sway. 
 
 ,^ 
 
 y^. 
 
 X 
 
 ^ 
 
 Of all the wicked Ten still the names 
 
 are held accursed. 
 And of all the wicked Ten Appius 
 
 Claudius was the worst. 
 He stalked along the Forum like King 
 
 Tarquin in his pride : 
 welve axes waited On him, six 
 
 marching on a side ; 
 The tov/nsmen shrank to right and 
 
 left, and eyed askance with fear 
 His lowering brow, his curling mouth, 
 
 which always seemed to sneer : 
 That brow of hate, that mouth of 
 
 scorn, marks all the kindred still ; 
 For never was there Claudius yet but 
 
 wished the Commons ill : 
 Nor lacks he fit attendance ; for close 
 
 behind his heels, 
 With outstretched chin and crouching 
 
 pace, the client Marcus steals. 
 His loins girt up to run with speed, 
 
 be the errand what it may, 
 And the smile flickering on his cheek, 
 
 for aught his lord may say. 
 Such varlets pimp and jest for hire 
 
 among the lying Greeks : 
 
 ^*^Such varlets still are paid 
 '^ when brave Licinius speaks. 
 (where'er ye shed the Ijoney 
 
 buzzing flies will crowd \\ ^^ _^^ 
 
 Where'er ye fling the carrion, tHeVj^^^-^'s^ 
 raven's croak is loud ; (^ Wit 
 
 Where'er down Tiber garbage flows, 
 
 the greedy pike ye see ; 
 And wheresoe'er such lord is found, 
 
 such client still will be. 
 Just then, r.s through one cloudless 
 
 chink in a l)lack stoiaiy sky 
 Shines out the dewy morning-star, a 
 fair young girl came by. 
 
 With her small tablets in her hand, 
 
 and her satchel on her arm. 
 Home she went bounding from the 
 
 school, nor dreamed of shame orharm 
 And past those dreaded axes she 
 
 innocently ran. 
 With bright, frank brow, that had not 
 
 learned to blush at gaze of man ; 
 And up the Sacred Street she turned, 
 
 and, as she danced along. 
 She warbled gaily to herself lines of 
 
 the good old song, 
 How for sport the princes came 
 
 spurring from the camp. 
 And found Lucrece, combing the 
 
 fleece, under the midnight lamp. 
 The maiden sang as sings the lark, 
 
 when up he darts his flight. 
 From his nest in the green April corn, 
 
 to meet the morning light ; 
 And Appius heard her sweet young 
 
 voice, and saw her sweet young face, 
 And loved her with the accursed love 
 
 of his accursed race, 
 And all along the Forum, and up the 
 
 Sacred Street, 
 His vulture eye pursued the trip of 
 
 those small glancing feet. 
 
 Over the Alban mountains the light of 
 
 morning broke ; 
 From all the roofs of the Seven Hills 
 
 curled the thin wreathes of smoke : 
 The city gates were opened ; the 
 
 Forum, all alive 
 With buyers and with sellers, was 
 
 humming like a hive : 
 Blithely on brass and timber 
 
 craftsman's stroke was ringing. 
 And blithely o'er her panniers 
 
 the 
 
 the 
 
 to .hoot ! ^larket-girl was singing, 
 
 JjKAnd bUthely young Virginia came 
 
 t],i^'j^4,,^miling from her homej ^-— -^ 
 
 f^. ^oe-JJor-'yoiing VTrginia, the 
 
 sweetest maid in Rome I 
 With her small tablets in her han 
 
 and her satchel on her arm. 
 Forth she . went bounding to ti. 
 
 school, nor dreamed of shame or 
 
 harm. 
 She crossed the Forum shining with 
 
 stalls in alleys gay. 
 And just had reached the very spc 
 
 whereon I stand this day, 
 
 ery spot 
 
VIRGINIA. 
 
 897 
 
 ? 
 
 When up the varlet Marcus came 5 
 not such as when erewhile ' ' 
 
 He crouched behind his patron'* heels 
 with the true client smile : - • - 
 
 ,He cafne with lowering for^heaidij 
 swollen features, and. cteftchedl 
 
 fist,'; '■ .::.;:■• •- •-• ' --^-^ 
 
 And strode across Virginia's path, 
 
 and caught her by the wrist. 
 Hard strove the frighted maidenj and 
 
 screamed with look aghast ; ' -•■ ' - « 
 And at her scream from right aftd 'left 
 . the folk came running fast ; 
 The money-changer, Crispus, with his 
 
 thin silver hairs, 
 And Hanno from the stately . booth 
 
 glittering with Punic war^s, 
 And the strong smith Muroena, grasp- 
 ing a half-forged brand, 
 And Volero, theflesher, his cleaver in 
 
 his hand. 
 AH came in wrath and wonder ; for 
 
 all knew that fair child ; ■ 
 And, as she passed them twice a day, 
 
 all kissed their hands and smiled ; 
 And the strong smith, Mursena, gave 
 
 Marcus such a blow, ■• -t ,' ' ...v 
 The caitiff reeled three pStC€« back^ 
 
 and let the maiden go,' 
 Yet glared he fiercely round him, and 
 
 growled in harsh, fell tone, ■ • - 
 *' She's mine, and I will hav«nheif7 
 
 I seek but for mine own : ' f-'- 
 She is my slave, born in my housed 
 
 and stolen away and sold, 
 ,' The year of the sore sickness, ere she 
 ( ' was twelve hours old. - . 
 
 ^Twas in the sad .September, the 
 
 month of wail and fright, ' ' ■ 
 
 Two augurs were borne forth that 
 
 morn ; the Consul died ere night. T 
 I wait on Appius Claudius ; I waited 
 
 on his sire : .• - '' 
 
 .^t him who works the client Wibng 
 
 beware tb 
 
 mjE jJatron s ire 
 
 So spake the varlet Marcus ; and 
 
 dread and silence came 
 On all the people at the sound of ^Uie 
 
 great Claudian name. , .;..; 
 
 l*'or then there was no Ttibune^to 
 
 speak the word of might, 
 Which makes the rich man tremble, 
 
 and guards the poor man's right 
 
 There was ho brave Licinius, no 
 
 honest Sextius then ; - " 
 But all tHe city, in • great fear, 
 
 obeyed the wicked Ten. 
 ,Yet ere the varlet Marcus again might 
 
 seize the maid, 
 Who clung tight to Muraeha's' ikirt, 
 
 and sobl)ed, and shrinked for 
 
 aid, • • 
 
 Forth through the throng' of gazers 
 
 the young Icilius pressed, 
 And stamped his foot, and rent his 
 
 gown, and smote upon his. breast, 
 And sprang upon that column, by 
 
 many a minstrel sung, 
 Whereon three mouldering helmets, 
 ■ three rusting swords, are hung. 
 And beckoned to the people, and in 
 
 bold voice and clear 
 Poured thick and fast the burning 
 . words which tyrants quake to hear. 
 
 "Now, by your children's cradles, 
 
 now, by your father's graves, "•'- 
 Be men to-day, Quirites, So*' b^ fbr ' 
 
 ever slaves ! n; ! . :.i- 
 
 For this did Servius give us law ? 
 
 For this did Lucrece bleed ? 
 
 For this was the great vengeance 
 
 wrought on Tarquin's evil seed ? 
 For this did those false sons make 
 
 red the axes of their sire ? yy-. . 
 
 For this did Scaeyola's right hand hiss / ' UxA 
 
 in the Tuscan fire ? ' 
 Shall the vile fox-earth awe'the race 
 
 that stormed the lion's den ? 
 Shall we, who could not brook one 
 
 lord, crouch to the wicked Ten ? 
 Oh for that ancient spirit which 
 
 curbed the Senate's will ! 
 Oh for the tents which in old time 
 
 whitened the Sacred Hill ! 
 In those brave days our fathers stood 
 
 firmly side by side ; 
 They faced the Marcian fury; they 
 
 tamed the Fabian pride : 
 They drove the fiercest Quinctius an 
 
 outcast forth from Rome ; 
 They sent the haughtiest ■■ Claudius 
 
 with shivered fasces home. 
 But what their care bequeathed us 
 
 our madness flung away : 
 All the ripe fruit^ of threescore years 
 
 was blighted in a day. 
 
S98 
 
 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 Exult, ye proud Patricians I The 
 
 hard-fought fight is o'er. 
 We strove for honours — 'twas in vain : 
 
 for freedom — 'tis no more. 
 No crier to the poUing summons the 
 
 eager throng ; 
 No Tribune breathes the word of 
 
 might that guards the weak from 
 
 wrong. 
 Our very hearts, that were so high, 
 
 sink down beneath your will. 
 Riches, and lands, and power, and 
 
 state — ye have • them : — keep them 
 
 still. 
 Still keep the holy fillets ; still keep 
 
 the purple gown, 
 The axes, and the curule chair, the 
 
 car, and laurel crown : 
 Still press us for your cohorts, and, 
 
 when the fight is done. 
 Still fill your garners from the soil 
 
 which our good swords have won. 
 Still, like a spreading ulcer, __which 
 
 leech-craft majTnot cure. 
 Let your foul usance eat away the 
 
 substance of the poor. 
 Still let your haggard debtors bear all 
 
 their fathers bore ; 
 Still let your dens of torment be 
 
 noisome as of yore ; 
 No fire when Tiber freezes ; no air 
 
 in dog-star heat ; 
 And store of rods for free-born backs, 
 
 and holes for free-born feet. 
 Heap heavier still the fetters ; bar 
 
 closer still the grate ; 
 Patient as sheep we yield us up unto 
 
 your cruel hate. 
 But, by the Shades beneath us, and 
 
 by the Gods above. 
 Add not unto your cruel hate your 
 
 yet more cruel love ! 
 Have ye not graceful ladies, whose 
 
 spotless lineage springs 
 From Consuls, and High Pontiffs, 
 
 and ancient Alban kings ? 
 Ladies, who deign not on our paths 
 
 to set their tender feet, 
 Who from their cars look down with 
 
 scorn upon the wondering street. 
 Who in Corinthian mirrors their own 
 
 proud smiles behold. 
 And breathe of Capuan odours, and 
 
 shine with Spanish gold ' 
 
 Then leave the poor Plebeian his 
 
 single tie to life — 
 The sweet, sweet love of daughter, of 
 
 sister, and of wife. 
 The gentle speech, the balm 'for all 
 
 that his vexed soul endures. 
 The kiss, in which he half forgets 
 
 even such a yoke as yours. 
 Still let the maiden's beauty swell the 
 
 father's breast with pride ; 
 Still let the bridegroom's arms infold 
 
 an unpolluted bride. 
 Spare us the inexpiable wrong, the 
 
 unutterable shame, 
 That turns the coward's heart to 
 
 steel, the sluggard's blood to flame. 
 Lest, when our latest hope is fled, ye 
 
 taste of our despair. 
 
 And learn by proof, in some wild hour, 
 
 how much the wretched dare. " • 
 ***** 
 
 Straightway Virginius led the maid a: 
 
 little space aside, 
 To where the reeking shambles stood,, 
 
 piled up with horn and hide. 
 Close to yon low dark archway, 
 
 where, in a crimson flood. 
 Leaps down to the great sewer the 
 
 gurgling stream of blood. 
 Hard by, a flesher on a block had 
 
 laid his whittle down : 
 Virginius caught the whittle up, and 
 
 hid it in his gown. 
 And then his eyes grew very dim, 
 
 and his throat began to swell, 
 And in a hoarse, changed voice he 
 
 spake, *' Farewell, sweet child I 
 
 Farewell ! 
 Oh ! how I loved my darling ! 
 
 Though stern I sometimes be. 
 To thee, thou know'st, I was not so. 
 
 Who could be so to thee ? 
 And how my darhng loved me ! How 
 
 glad she was to hear 
 My footstep on the threshold when I 
 
 came back last year ! 
 And how she danced with pleasure to 
 
 see my civic crown. 
 And took my sword, and hung it up> 
 
 and brought me forth my gown I 
 Now, all those things are over— yes, 
 
 all thy pretty ways, 
 Thy needlework, thy prattle, thy 
 
 snatches of old lays ; 
 
VIRGINIA. 
 
 899 
 
 And none will grieve when I go forth, 
 
 or smile when I return, 
 Or watch beside the old man's bed, 
 
 or weep upon his urn. 
 The house that was the happiest 
 
 within the Roman walls, 
 The house that envied not the wealth 
 
 of Capua's marble halls, 
 Now, for the brightness of thy smile, 
 
 must have eternal gloom. 
 And for the music of thy voice, the 
 
 silence of the tomb, 
 '^he time is come. See how he points 
 
 his eager hand this way ! 
 See how his eyes gloat on thy grief, 
 
 like a kite's upon the prey ! 
 With all his wit, belittle deems, that, 
 
 spurned, betrayed, bereft, 
 The father hath in his despair one 
 
 fearful refuge left. 
 He little deems that in this hand I 
 
 clutch what still can save 
 Thy gentle youth from taunts and 
 
 blows, the portion of the slave ; 
 Vea, and from nameless evil, that 
 
 passeth taunt and blow — 
 Foul outrage which thou know'st not, 
 
 which thou shalt never know. 
 Then clasp me round the neck once 
 
 more, and give me one more 
 
 kiss ; 
 And now, mine own dear little girl, 
 
 there is no way but this." 
 With that he lifted high the steel, and 
 
 smote her in the side. 
 And in her blood she sank to earth, 
 
 and with one sob she died. 
 
 Then, for a little moment, all people 
 
 held their breath ; 
 And through the crowded Forum was 
 
 stillness as of death ; 
 And in another moment brake forth 
 
 from one and all 
 A cry as if the Volscians were coming 
 
 o'er the wall. 
 Some with averted faces shrieking fled 
 
 home amain ; 
 Some ran to call a leech ; and some 
 
 ran to lift the slain : 
 Some felt her lips and little wrist, if 
 
 life might there be found ; 
 And some tore up their garments fast, 
 
 and strove to stanch the wound. 
 
 0[n vain they ran, and felt, and 
 stanched ; for never truer blow 
 That good right arm had dealt in fight 
 against a Volscian foe. 
 
 When Appius Claudius saw that deed, 
 
 he shuddered and sank down, 
 And hid his face some little space 
 
 with the corner of his gown. 
 Till, with white lips and bloodshot 
 
 eyes, Virginius tottered nigh. 
 And stood before the judgment-seat, 
 
 and held the knife on high. 
 " Oh ! dwellers in the nether gloom, 
 
 avengers of the slain. 
 By this dear blood I cry to you, do 
 
 right between us twain ; 
 And even as Appius Claudius hath 
 
 dealt by me and mine, 
 Deal you by Appius Claudius and all- 
 
 the Claudian line ! " 
 So spake the slayer of his child, and 
 
 turned, and went his way ; 
 But hrst he cast one haggard glance 
 
 to where the body lay. 
 And writhed, and groaned a fearful 
 
 groan, and then, with steadfast 
 
 feet. 
 Strode right across the market-place 
 
 unto the Sacred Street, 
 
 Then .up sprang Appius Claudius : 
 
 " Stop him ; alive or dead ! 
 Ten thousand pounds of copper to 
 
 the man who brings his head. " 
 He looked upon his clients ; but 
 
 none would work his will. 
 lie looked upon his lictors ; but they 
 
 trembled and stood still. 
 And, as Virginius through the press 
 
 his way in silence cleft. 
 Even the mighty multitude fell back 
 
 to right and left. 
 And he hath passed in safety unto 
 
 his woeful home. 
 And there ta'en horse to tell the camp 
 
 what deeds are done in Rome, 
 
 By this the flood of people was 
 
 swollen from every side. 
 And streets and porches round were 
 
 tilled with o'erflowing tide ; 
 And close around the body gathered 
 
 a little train 
 
900 
 
 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 Of them that were the nearest and 
 
 dearest to the slain. 
 They brought a bier, and hung it with 
 
 many a cypress crown, 
 And gently they uplifted her, and 
 
 gently laid her down. 
 The face of Appius Claudius wore the 
 
 Claudian scowl and sneer, • 
 And in the Claudian note he cried, 
 
 " What doth this rabble here ? 
 Have they no crafts to mind at home, 
 V that hitherward they stray ? 
 Ho ! lictors, clear the market-place, 
 
 and fetch the corpse away ! " 
 Till then the voice of pity and fury 
 
 was not loud ; 
 But a deep sullen murmur wandered 
 
 among the crowd, 
 Like the moaning noise that goes 
 
 before the whirlwind on the deep, 
 Or the growl of a fierce watch-dog but 
 
 half aroused from sleep. 
 But when the lictors at that word, tall 
 
 yeomen all and strong, 
 Each with his axe and sheaf of twigs, 
 
 went down into the throng, 
 Those old men say, w^ho saw that day 
 
 of sorrow and of sin, 
 That in the Roman Forum was never 
 
 such a din. 
 The wailing, hooting, cursing, the 
 
 howls of grief and hate, 
 Were heard beyond the Pincian Hill, 
 
 beyond the Latin Gate. 
 But close around the body, where 
 
 stood the little train 
 Of them that were the nearest and 
 
 dearest to the slain, 
 No cries were there, but teeth set fast, 
 
 low whispers, and black frowns, 
 And breaking up of benches, and 
 
 girding up of gowns. 
 "Twas well the lictors might not pierce 
 
 to where the maiden lay, 
 Else surely had they been all twelve 
 
 torn limb from Hmb that day. 
 Right glad they were to struggle back, 
 
 blood streaming from their heads, 
 With axes all in splinters, and raiment 
 
 all in shreds. 
 Then Appius Claudius gnawed his lip, 
 
 and the blood left his cheek ; 
 And thrice he beckoned with his hand, 
 
 and thrice he strove ta speak ; 
 
 And thrice the tossing P'orum set up 
 
 a frightful yell ; 
 "See, see thou dog ! what thou hast 
 
 done ; and hide thy shame in hell ! 
 Thou that would'st make our maidens 
 
 slaves must first make slaves of men. 
 Tribunes ! Hurrah for Tribunes ! Down 
 
 with the wicked Ten ! " 
 And straightway, thick as hailstones, 
 
 came whizzing through the air 
 Pebbles, and brick&> and potsherds, 
 
 all round the curule chair : 
 And upon Appius Claudius great fear 
 
 and trembling came ; 
 For n^ver was a Claudius yet brave 
 
 against aught but shame. 
 Though the great houses love us not, 
 
 we own, to do them right. 
 That the great houses, all save one, 
 
 have borne them well in fight. 
 Still Caius of Corioli, his triumphs, 
 
 and his wrongs, 
 His vengeance, and his mercy, live in 
 
 our camp-fire songs. 
 Beneath the yoke of Furius oft have 
 
 Gaul and Tuscan bowed ; 
 And Rome may bear the pride of him 
 
 of whom herself is proud. 
 But evermore a Claudius shrinks from 
 
 a Stricken field. 
 And changes colour like a maid at 
 
 sight of sword and shield. 
 The Claudian triumphs all were won 
 
 within the city towers ; 
 The Claudian yoke was never pressed 
 
 on any necks but ours. 
 A Cossug, like a wild cat, springs ever 
 
 at the face ; 
 A Fabius rushes like a boar against 
 
 the shouting chase ; 
 But the vile Claudian Htter, raging 
 
 with currish spite. 
 Still yelps and snaps at those who run, 
 
 still runs from those who smite. 
 So now 't was seen of Appius. When 
 
 stones began to fly, 
 He shook, and crouched, and wrung 
 
 his hands, and smote upon his thigh. 
 ** Kind clients, honest lictors, stand 
 
 by me in this fray ! 
 Must I be torn in pieces ? Home, 
 
 home, the nearest way ! " 
 While yet he spake, and looked around 
 
 with a bewildered stare, 
 
THE PROPHECY OF CAP VS. 
 
 901 
 
 Four sturdy lictors put their necks 
 
 beneath the curule chair ; 
 And fourscore cHents on the left, and 
 
 fourscore on the right. 
 Arrayed themselves with swords and 
 
 staves, and loins girt up for fight. 
 But, though without or staff or sword, 
 
 so furious was the throng, 
 That scarce the train with might and 
 
 main could bring their lord along. 
 Twelve times the crowd made at him ; 
 
 five time they seized his gown ; 
 Small chance was his to rise again, if, , 
 
 once they got him down : 
 And sharper came the pelting ; and 
 
 eVermore the yell — 
 *' Tribynes ! we will have Tribunes !"■ 
 
 — rose with a louder swell : y^- \ 
 And the chair tossed as tosses a 1?pjckj ,' 
 
 with tattered sail ',„: ^j'^ 
 
 When raves the Adriatic beneatlij aj^^ 
 
 eastern gale, 
 
 -ate 
 
 When t^e Calabriaii ' sda-tnkrks 
 ' lost in clouds of spume, 
 
 'And the great Thund'^r-Cape has 
 
 donned' his veil of inky gloom.. 
 One stone hit Appius in the mouth, 
 , and one beneath the ear ; ■ 
 And ere he reached Mount Palatine, 
 : he swooned with pain and fear. 
 His cursed head, that he was wOnt to 
 hold so high with pride, 
 
 -Now, like a drunken man's, hung 
 down, and swayed frpm side to 
 
 . , side; 
 
 ' And when his stotrt ' retainers Ttiaid 
 
 , brought him t6 his door j 
 His face and neck were all on6 cake 
 
 ^ . of filth and clotted gore. 
 
 ^jAs Appius Claudius was that day, so 
 
 „ ,■■ may his grandson be. 
 
 ippd send Rome one such other sight, 
 
 "VfAnd send me there to see ! 
 
 •^!2i_ 
 
 , , THE PROPHECY GF CAPYS. . u . , ,.. 
 
 It can hardly be necessary to remind any reader that, according to' the {ioptilar 
 tradition, Romulus, after he had slain his grand-unple ArnuHus, and restored 
 his grandfather Numitor, determined to quit Alba, the hereditary domain of 
 the Sylvian princes, and to found a new city. The Gods, it was added, 
 vouchsafed the clearest signs of the favour with which they regarded the 
 enterprise, and of the high destinies reserved for the young colony. 
 
 This event was likely to be a favour ate theme of the old Latin minstrels. 
 They would naturally attribute the project of Romulus to some divine 
 intimation of the power and prosperity which it was decreed that his city should 
 attain. They would probably introduce seers foretelling the victories of 
 unborn Consuls and Dictators, and the last great victory would generally 
 occupy the most conspicuous place in the prediction. There is nothing strange 
 in the supposition that the poet who was employed to celebrate the first great 
 triumph of the Romans over the Greeks might throw his song of exultation into 
 this form. 
 
 The occasion was one likely to excite the strongest feelings of national pride. 
 A great outrage had been followed by a great retribution. Seven years before 
 this time, Lucius Posthumius Megellus, who sprang from one of the noblest 
 houses of Rome, and had been thrice Consul, was sent ambassador to Tarentum, 
 with charge to demand reparation for grievious injuries. The Tarentines gave 
 him audience in their theatre, where he addressed them in such Greek as he 
 could command, which, we may well believe, was not exactly such as Cineas 
 would have spoken. An exquisite sense of the ridiculous belonged to the 
 Greek character ; and closely connected with this faculty was a strong 
 propensity to flippancy and impertinence. When Posthumius placed an accent 
 wrong, bis hearers burst into a laugh. When he remonstrated, they hooted 
 him, and called him barbarian ; and at length hissed him off the stage as if he 
 had been a bad actor. As the grave Roman retired, a buffoon, who, from his 
 constant drunkenness, was nicknamed the Pint-pot, came up with gestures of 
 
902 LAVS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 the grossest indecency, and bespattered the senatorial gown with filth. 
 Posthunjius turned round to the multitude, and held up the gown, as if 
 appealing to the universal law of nations. The sight only increased the 
 msolence of the Tarentines. They clapped their hands, and set up a shout of 
 laughter which shook the thealre. "Men of Tarentum," said Posthumius, 
 ** it will take not a little blood to wash this gown." * 
 
 Rome, in consequence of this insult, declared war against the Tarentines. 
 The Tarentines sought for allies beyond the Ionian Sea. Pyrrhus, king of 
 Epirus, came to their help with a large army ; and, for the first time the two 
 great nations of antiquity were fairly matched against each other. 
 
 The fame of Greece in arms, us well as in arts, was then at the height. 
 Half a century earlier, the career of Alexander had excited the admiration and 
 terror of all nations from the Ganges to the Pillars of Hercules. Royal houses, 
 founded by Macedonian captains, still reigned at Antioch and Alexandria. 
 That barbarian warriors, led by barbarian chiefs, should win a pitched battle 
 against Greek valour guided by Greek science, seemed as incredible as it 
 would now seem that the Burmese or the Siamese should, in the open plain, 
 put to flight an equal number of the best English troops. The Tarentines 
 were convinced that their countrymen were irresistible in war ; and this 
 conviction had enboldened them to treat with the grossest indignity one whom 
 they regarded as the representative of an inferior race. Of the Greek generals 
 then living, Pyrrhus was indisputably the first. Among the troops who were 
 trained in the (Jreek discipline, his Epirotes ranked high. His expedition to 
 Italy was a turning-point in the history of the world. He found there a people 
 who, far inferior to the Athenians and Corinthians in the fine arts, in the 
 speculative sciences, and in all the refinements of life, were the best soldiers on 
 the face of the earth. Their arms, their graduations of rank, their order of 
 battle, their method of intjrenchment, were all of Latian origin, and had all 
 been gradually brought near to perfection, not by the study of foreign models, 
 but by the genius and experience of many generations of great native com- 
 manders. The first words which broke from the king, when his practised eye 
 bad surveyed the Roman encampment, were full of meaning : — " These 
 barbarians," he said, "have nothing barbarous in their military arrrange- 
 ments." He was at first victorious ; for his own talents were superior to those 
 of the captains who were opposed to him ; and the Romans were not prepared 
 for the onset of the elephants of the East, which were then for the first time 
 seen in Italy — moving mountains, with long snakes for hands. t But the 
 victories of the Epirotes were fiercely disputed, dearly purchased, and 
 altogether unprofitable. At length, Manius Curius Dentatus, who had in his 
 first consulship won two triumphs, was again placed at the head of the Roman 
 Commonwealth, and sent to encounter the invaders. A great battle was 
 fought near Beneventum. Pyrrhus was completely defeated. He re-passed 
 the sea ; and the world learned with amazement, that a people had been 
 discovered, who, in fair fighting, were superior to the best troops that bad 
 been drilled on the system of Parmenio and Antigonus. 
 
 The conquerors had a good right to exult in their success ; for their glory 
 was all their own. They had not learned from their enemy how to conquer 
 him. It was with their own national arms, and in their own national battle- 
 array, that they had overcome weapons and tactics long believed to be in- 
 vincible. The pilum and the broadsword had vanquished the Macedonian 
 spear. The legion had broken the Mocedonian phalanx. Even the elephants, 
 
 * Dion. Hal. De Legationib^s, 
 •j AngMimanui is the old Latin ej)ithet for an elephant. Lucretius, ii. 538, v. 1303. 
 
THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 903 
 
 when the surprise produced by their first appearance was over, could cause no 
 disorder in the steady yet flexible battalions of Rome. 
 
 It is said by Florus, and may easily be believed, that the triumph far sur- 
 passed in magnificence any that Rome had previously seen. The only spoils 
 which Papirius Cursor and Fabius Maximus could exhibit were flocks and 
 herds, waggons of rude structure, and heaps of spears and helmets. But now, 
 for the first time, the riches of Asia and the arts of Greece adorned a Roman 
 ])ageant. Plate, fine stuff's, costly furniture, rare animals, exquisite paintings 
 and sculptures, formed part of the procession. At the banquet would be 
 assembled a crowd of warriors and statesmen, among whom Manius Curius 
 Dentatus would take the highest room. Caias Fabricius Luscinus, then, after 
 two Consulships and two triumphs. Censor of the Commonwealth, would 
 doubtless occupy a place of honour at the board. In situations less conspicuous 
 probably lay some of those who were, a few years later, the terror of Carthage ; 
 Caius DuiUus, the founder of the maritime greatness of his country ; Marcus 
 Atilius Regulus, who owned to defeat a renown far higher than that which he 
 had derived from his victories ; and Caius Lutatius Catulus, who, while suffer- 
 ing from a grievous wound, fought the great battle of the .'Egates, and brought 
 the first Punic war to a triumphant close. It is impossible to recount the 
 names of these eminent citizens, without reflecting that they were all, without 
 exception. Plebeians, and would, but for the ever-memorable struggle 
 maintained by Caius Licinius and Lucius Sextius, have been doomed to hide 
 in obscurity, or to waste in civil broils the capacity and energy which prevailed 
 against Pyrrhus and Hamilcar. 
 
 On such a day we may suppose that the patriotic enthusiasm of a Latin poet 
 would vent itself in reiterated shouts of lo triuniphe^ such as were uttered by 
 Horace on a far less exciting occasion, and in boasts resembling those which 
 Virgil, two hundred and fifty years later, put into the mouth of Anchises. 
 The superiority of some foreign nations, and especially of the Greeks, in the 
 lazy arts of peace, would be admitted with disdainful candour ; but pre- 
 eminence in all the qualities which fit a people to subdue and govern mankind 
 would be claimed for the Romans. 
 
 The following lay belongs to the latest age of Latin ballad-poetry. Naevius 
 and Livius Andronicus were probably among the children whose mothers held 
 them up to see the chariot of Curius go by. The minstrel who sang on that 
 flay might possibly have lived to read the first hexameters of Ennius, and to 
 see the first comedies of Plautus. His poeni, as might be expected, shows a 
 much wider acquaintance with the geography, manners, and productions of 
 remote nations, than would have been found in compositions of the age of 
 Camillus. But he troubles himself little about dates; and having heard 
 travellers talk with admiration of the Colossus of Rhodes, and of the structures 
 and gardens with which the Macedonian kings of Syria had embellished their 
 residence on the banks of the Orontes, he has never thought of inquiring 
 whether these things existed in the age of Romulus. 
 
 THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 
 
 A Lay Sung at the Banquet in the Capitol, on the Day whereon Manius Curius Dentatus, * 
 a Second Time Consul, Triumphed over King Pyrrhus and the Tarentines, in the 
 Year of the City cccclxxix. 
 
 I. 
 Now slain is King Amulius, I Slain is the Pontiff Camers, 
 
 Of the great Sylvian line, ^Vho spake the words of doom 
 
 Who reigned in All)a Longa, '* The children to the Tiber, 
 
 On the throne of Aventine. ' The mother to the tomb." 
 
904 
 
 LA VS OF ANCIENT ROME, 
 
 .In Alba's lake no fisher 
 
 His net to-day is flinging : 
 On the dark rind of Alba's oaks 
 
 To-day no axe is ringing : 
 The yoke hangs o'er the manger : 
 
 The scythe lies in the hay : 
 Through all the Alban villages 
 
 No work is done to-day. 
 
 3. 
 
 And every Alban burgher 
 
 Hath donned his whitest gown ; 
 And every head in Alba 
 
 Weareth a poplar crown : 
 And every Alban door-post 
 
 With boughs and flowers is gay : 
 For to-day the dead are living ; 
 
 The lost are found to-day. 
 
 I They were doomed by a bloody king ; 
 They were doomed by a lying 
 priest : 
 They were cast on the raging flood : 
 They were tracked by the raging 
 { beast ; 
 
 Raging beast and raging flood 
 Alike have spared the prey ; 
 And to-day the dead are living : 
 The lost are found to-day. 
 
 ( 5. , 
 
 The troubled river knew them, 
 
 And smoothed his yellow foam, 
 And gently rocked the cradle 
 
 That bore the fate of Rome. 
 The ravening she- wolf knew them, 
 
 And licked them o'er and o'er. 
 And gave them of her own fierce milk. 
 
 Rich with raw flesh and gore. 
 Twenty winters, twenty springs, 
 
 Since then have rolled away ; 
 And to-day the dead are living : 
 
 The lost are found to-day. 
 
 6. 
 
 Blithe it was to see the twins, 
 
 Right goodly youths and tall, 
 Marching from Alba Longa 
 
 To their old grandsire's hall. 
 Along their path fresh garlands ■ 
 
 Are hung from tree to tree : 
 Before them stride the pipers, 
 
 Piping a note of glee. 
 
 On the right goes Romulus, 
 
 With arms to the elbows red, 
 And in his hand a broadsword. 
 
 And on the blade a head — 
 A head in an iron helmet, 
 
 With horse-hair hanging down, 
 A shaggy head, a swarthy head. 
 
 Fixed in a ghastly frown — 
 The head of King Amulius 
 
 Of the great Sylvian line, 
 Who reigned in Alba Longa, 
 
 On the throne of Aventine. 
 
 On the left side goes Remus, 
 
 With wrist and fingers red, 
 And in his hand a boar-spear, 
 
 And on the point a head — 
 A wrinkled head and aged, 
 
 With silver beard and hair. 
 And holy fillets round it, 
 
 Such as the pontiffs wear — 
 The head of ancient Gamers, 
 
 Who spake the words of doom 
 " The children to the Tiber ; 
 
 The mother to the tomb." 
 
 Two and two behind the twins 
 
 Their trusty comrades go, 
 Four and forty vaUant men, 
 
 With club, and axe, and bow. 
 On each side every hamlet 
 
 Pours fourth its joyous crowd, 
 Shouting lads and baying dogs. 
 
 And children laughing loud, 
 And old m^en weeping fondly 
 
 As Idea's boys go by, 
 And maids who shriek to see the 
 heads, 
 
 Yet shrieking, press more nigh. 
 
 10. 
 
 So they marched along the lake ; 
 
 They marched by fold and stall, 
 By corn-field and by vineyard, 
 
 Unto the old man's hall. . 
 
 In the hall-gate sate C^ys, 
 Capys, the sightles^ seer ; 
 From head to foot he trembled 
 
 As Romulus drew near. 
 
THE PROPHECY OF CAPYS. 
 
 905 
 
 And up stobd ^tiff his thin white hair;' 
 
 And his blind eyes flashed fire : 
 " Hail ! foster child of the wondercus 
 
 iy;^And woe to them that shear her, 
 Hail ! son of the wonderous sire fP f And woe to them that goad ! 
 
 ' 12. 
 
 '* But thou— what dost thou here 
 
 In the old rrlan's peaceful hall ? 
 What doth the eagle in the coop, 
 
 The bison in the stall ? 
 Our corn fills many a garner ; 
 
 Our vines clasp many a tree ; 
 Our flocks are white on many a hill ; 
 
 But these are not for thee. - 
 
 13- 
 
 " For thee no treasure ripens 
 
 In the Tartessian mine : 
 For thee no ship brings precious bales 
 
 Across the Libyan brine : 
 Thou shalt not drink from amber ; 
 
 Thou shalt not rest on down ; 
 Arabia shall not steep thy locks, 
 
 Nor Sidon tinge thy gown. 
 
 " Leave gold and myrrh and jewels, 
 
 Rich table and soft bed. 
 To them who of man's seed are born, 
 
 Whom woman's milk hath fed. 
 Thou wast not made for lucre, 
 
 For pleasure, nor for rest ; 
 Thou, that art sprung from the War- 
 god's loins, . [breast. 
 
 And hast tugged at the she wolf s 
 
 15- 
 
 " From sunrise unto sunset 
 
 All earth shall hear thy fame : 
 A glorious city thou shalt build, 
 
 And name it by thy name : 
 And there, unquenched through ages, 
 
 Like Vesta'i sacred fire, . 
 Shall live the spirit of thy nurse, 
 
 The spirit of tlTy sire. 
 
 " The ox toils through the furrow. 
 
 Obedient to the goad ; 
 The patient ass, up flinty paths, 
 
 Plods with his weary load : 
 With whine and bound the spaniel 
 
 His master's whistle hears ; 
 And the sheep yields her patientlydr*' 
 
 To the loud clashing shears. iU 
 
 17. 
 
 But thy nurse will hear no master, 
 Thy nurse will bear no load ; 
 
 When all the pack, loud baying, 
 Her bloody lair surrounds, 
 
 She dies in silence, biting hard, 
 Amidst the dying hounds. 
 
 '* Pomona loves the orchard ; 
 
 AnHTLiber loves the vine ; 
 And Pales loves the straw-built shed 
 
 Warm with the breath of kine ; 
 And Venus loves the whispers 
 
 Of plighted youth and maid, 
 In April's ivory moonlight 
 
 Beneath the chestnut shade. 
 
 19. 
 " But thy father loves the clashing 
 
 Of broadsword and of shield : 
 He loves to drink the stream that reeks 
 
 From the fresh battle-field : 
 He smiles a smile more dreadful 
 
 Than his own dreadful frown, 
 When he sees the thick black cloud 
 of smoke 
 
 Go up from the conquered town. 
 
 • 20. 
 
 " And such as is the War -god. 
 
 The author of thy line. 
 And such as she who suckles thee, 
 
 Even such be thou and thine. 
 Leave to the soft Campanion 
 
 His baths and his perfumes ; 
 Leave to the sordid race of Tyre 
 
 Their dyeing-vats and looms : 
 Leave to the sons of Carthage 
 
 The rudder and the oar : 
 Leave to the Greek his marble 
 Nymphs 
 
 And scrolls of worthy lore. 
 
 21. 
 
 " Thine, Roman, is the pHum : 
 
 Roman, the sword is thine, 
 The even trench, the bristling mound. 
 
 The legion's ordered line ; 
 And thine the wheels of triumph, \ 
 
 Which with their laurelled train 
 Move slowly up the shouting streets 
 
 To Jove's eternal fane.- - 
 
go6 
 
 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 "Beneath thy yoke the Volscian 
 
 Shall vail his lofty brow : 
 Soft Capua's curled revellers 
 Before thy chairs shall bow : 
 ^ The Lucumoes of Arnus 
 j , ' Shall quake thy rods to see ; [steel 
 And the proud Samnite's heart of 
 Shall yield to only thee. 
 
 23. 
 
 " The Gaul shall come against thee 
 From the land of snow and night ; 
 
 Thou shalt give his fair-haired armies 
 To the raven and the kite. 
 
 24. 
 " The Greek shall come against thee, 
 
 The conqueror of the East. 
 Beside him stalks to battle 
 
 The huge earth-shaking beast, 
 The beast on whom the castle 
 
 With all its guards doth stand, 
 The beast who hath between his eyes 
 
 The serpent for a hand. 
 First march the bold Epirotes, 
 
 Wedged close with shield and spear; 
 And the ranks of false Tarentum 
 
 Are glittering in the rear. 
 
 25. 
 
 *' The ranks of false Tarentum 
 
 Like hunted sheep shall fly : 
 In vain the bold Epirotes ^ 
 
 Shall round their standards die : 
 And Apennine's grey vultures 
 
 Shall have a noble feast 
 On the fat and the eyes 
 
 Of the huge earth-shaking beast. 
 
 26. 
 
 " Hurrah ! for the good weapons 
 
 That keep the War-god's land. 
 Hurrah ! for Rome's stout pilum 
 
 In a stout Roman hand. 
 Hurrah ! for Rome's short broad- 
 sword, 
 
 That through the thick array 
 Of levelled spears and serried shields 
 
 Hews deep its gory way. 
 
 27. f^ 
 
 *' Hurrah ! for the great triumph 
 That stretches many a mile. 
 
 Hurrah ! for the wan captives 
 That pass in endles file. 
 
 Ho ! bold Epirotes, whither 
 
 Hath the Red King ta'en flight ? 
 
 Ho ! dogs of false Tarentum, 
 Is not the gown washed white ? 
 
 28. 
 *' Hurrah ! for the great triumph 
 
 That stretches many a mile. 
 " Hurrah ! for the rich dye of Tyre, 
 
 And the fine web of Nile, 
 The helmets gay with plumage 
 
 Torn from the pheasant's wings, 
 The belts set thick with starry gems 
 
 That shone on Indian kings, 
 The urns of massy silver. 
 The goblets rough with gold. 
 The many-coloured tablets bright 
 
 With loves and wars of old, 
 The stone that breathes and struggles, 
 
 The Brass that seems to speak ; — 
 Such cunning they who dwell on high 
 
 Have given unto the Greek. 
 
 t 29, 
 
 "Hurrah ! for Manius Curius, 
 
 The bravest son of Rome, 
 Thrice in utmost need sent forth, 
 
 Thrice drawn in triumph home. 
 Weave, weave, for Manius Curius 
 
 The third embroidered gown : 
 Make ready the third lofty car. 
 
 And twine the third green crown ; 
 And yoke the steeds of Rosea 
 
 With necks like a bended bow ; 
 And deck the bull, Mevania'sbull, 
 
 The bull as white as snow. 
 30. 
 " Blest and thrice blest the Romao 
 
 Who sees Rome's brightest day, 
 Who sees that long victorious pomp 
 
 Wind down the Sacred Way, 
 And through the bellowing Forum, 
 
 And round the Suppliant's Grove, 
 Up to the ev-erlasting gates 
 
 Of Capitolian Jove. 
 
 31- 
 
 "Then where, o'er two bright havens, 
 
 The towers of Corinth frown ; 
 Where the gigantic King of Day 
 
 On his own Rhodes look down ; 
 Where soft Orontes murmurs 
 
 Beneath the laurel shades ; 
 Where Nile reflects the endless length 
 
 Oi dark-red colonnades ; 
 
IVR Y. 
 
 907 
 
 "Where in the still deep water, 
 Sheltered from waves and blasts, 
 
 Bristles the dusky forest 
 Of Byrsa's thousand masts ; 
 
 Where fur-clad hunters wander 
 Amidst the northern ice ; 
 
 Where through the sand of morning- 
 The camel bears the spice ; [land 
 
 Where Atlas flings his shadow 
 Far o'er the western foam, 
 
 Shall be great fear on all who hear 
 The mighty name of Rome." 
 
 IVRY : 
 A Song of the Huguenots. 
 
 Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, 
 
 from whom all glories are ! 
 And glory to our Sovereign Liege, 
 
 King Henry of Navarre ! 
 Now let there be the merry sound of 
 
 music and of dance, 
 Through thy corn-fields green, and 
 
 sunny vines, oh pleasant land of 
 
 France ! 
 And thou, Rochelle,our own Rochelle, 
 
 proud city of the waters, 
 Again let rapture light the eyes of all 
 
 thy mourning daughters. 
 As thou wert constant in our ills, be 
 
 joyous in our joy, 
 For cold, and stiff, and still are they 
 
 who wrought thy walls annoy. 
 Hurrah ! Hurrah ! a single field hath 
 
 turned the chance of war. 
 Hurrah ! Hurrah ! for Ivry, and 
 
 Henry of Navarre. 
 
 Oh ! how our hearts were beating, 
 
 when, at the dawn of day, 
 We saw the army of the League 
 
 drawn out in long array ; 
 With all its priest-led citizens, and 
 
 all its rebel peers. 
 And Appenzel's stout infantry, and 
 
 Egmont's Flemish spears. 
 There rode the brood of false Lorraine, 
 
 the curses of our land ; 
 And dark Mayenne was in the midst, 
 
 « truncheon in his hand : 
 And, as we looked on them, we 
 thought of Seine's empurpled floo<l, 
 And good Coligni's hoary hair all 
 
 dabbled with his blood ; 
 And we cried unto the living God, 
 
 who rules the fate of wair. 
 To fight for His own holy name, and 
 Henry of Navarre. 
 
 The King is come to marshal us, in 
 all his armour drest, 
 
 And he has bound a snow white plume ^ 
 
 upon his gallant crest. 
 He looked upon his people, and a 
 
 tear was in his eye ; 
 He looked upon the traitors, and his 
 
 glance was stern and high. 
 Right graciously he smiled on us, as 
 
 rolled from wing to wing, 
 Down all our line, a deafening shout, 
 
 '* God save our Lord the King ! " 
 *' And if my standard-bearer fall, as 
 
 fall full well he may, f bloody fray, 
 For never saw I promise yet of such a 
 Press where ye see my white plume 
 
 shine, amidst the ranks of war. 
 And be your oriflamme to-day the 
 
 helmet of Navarre. " 
 
 Hurrah ! the foes are moving. Hark 
 
 to the mingled din 
 Of fife, and steed, and trump, m^ Aaui— rr 
 
 drum, and roaring culverin^ j*^ \, C^^^**^ 
 The fiery Duke is pricking fast across 
 
 Saint Andre's plain, - ' •- ■■'^u^.j^Km 
 With all the hireling chivalry of 
 
 Guelders and Almayne, 
 Now by the lips of those ye love, fair 
 
 gentlemen of France, 
 Charge for the golden lilies — upon 
 
 them with the lance. 
 A thousand spurs are striking deep, a 
 
 thousand spears in rest, 
 A thousand knights are pressing close 
 
 behind the snow-white crest ; 
 And in they burst, and on they rushed, 
 
 while like a guiding star. 
 Amidst the thickest carnage blazed 
 
 the helmet of Navarre. 
 
 Now, God be praised, the day is ours. 
 
 Mayenne hath turned his rein. '^ 
 D'Aumsle hath cried for quarter. The 
 
 Flemish count is slain. ■^^--r'S'^ rr^ (— 
 Their ranks are breaking like thinr 
 
 clouds before a Biscay gale ; 
 
908 
 
 LA YS OF ANCIENT ROME. 
 
 -rj.The field is heaped with bleeding 
 ^:•- steeds, and flags, and cloven mail. 
 And then we thought on vengeance, 
 
 and, all along our van, 
 *' Remember St. Bartholomew," was 
 
 passed from man to man. 
 But out spake gentle Henry, *' No 
 i Frenchman is my foe : 
 'Down, down with every foreigner, 
 
 but let your brethren go." 
 Oh ! was there ever such a knight in 
 
 friendship or in war. 
 As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, 
 the soldier of Navarre ? 
 
 Right well fought all the Frenchmen 
 
 who fought for France to-day • 
 And many a lordly banner God gave 
 
 them for a prey. ^ [best in fight ; 
 But we of the religion have borne us | 
 And the good Lord of Rosny has \ 
 
 ta'en the cornet white. j 
 
 Our own true Maximilian' th6 idornet ' 
 
 white hath ta'en, | 
 
 The cornet white with crosses black, j 
 
 the flag of false Lorraine. i 
 
 Up with it high ; unfurl it wide ; that | 
 
 all the host may know I 
 
 How God hath humbled the proud 
 house which wrought His church 
 such woe. ', * '':'•-■ 
 
 Then on the' ground,' while 'trijiripets 
 sound their loudest point of war,' 
 
 Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet 
 for Henry of Navarre. 
 
 Ho ! maidens of Vienna ; Ho ! ma- 
 trons of Lucerne ; 
 Weep, weep, and rend your hair for 
 
 those who never shall, return. 
 Ho ! Philip, send, for charity, thy 
 
 Mexican pistoles, * 
 That Antwerp monks may sing a 
 
 mass for thy poor spearmen's souls. 
 Ho ! gallant nobles of the League, 
 
 look that your arms be bright ; J^pK 
 Ho ! burghers of Saint Genevieve,^^^ 
 
 keep watch and ward to-night. *^^**^ 
 For our God hath crushed the tyrant, '^^ 
 
 .our God hath raised the slave, 
 And mocked the counsel of the wise, 
 
 and the valour of the brave. 
 Then glory to His holy name, from 
 
 whom all glories are ; 
 And glorj' to bur Sovereign Lord, 
 
 King Henry of Navarre. 1824. 
 
 TtiE ARMADA. 
 
 Attend, all ye who list 'to bear our 
 
 noble England's praise ; 
 I tell of the thrice famous deeds she 
 
 wrought in ancient days, 
 WTien that great fleet invincible 
 
 against her bore in vain 
 The richest spoils of Mexico, the 
 
 stoutest hearts of Spain. 
 
 It was about' the lovely dose 'df a 
 
 warm summer day, ' ,'' 
 
 There came a gallant merchant-ship 
 
 full sail to Plymouth Bay ; 
 Her crew hath seen Castile's black 
 
 fleet, beyond Aurigny's isle. 
 At earliest twilight, on the'wa.yes lie 
 
 heaving many a mile. •-• 
 At sunrise she escaped thefr vany by 
 
 God's especial grac0 ; 
 And the tall Pinta, till the noon^ had 
 
 held her close in chase. 
 Forthwith a guard at every gun was 
 
 placed along the wall ; 
 
 A Fragment. 
 
 The beacon blazed upon the roof of 
 
 Edgecumbe's lofty hall ; 
 Many a light fishing-bark put out to 
 
 pry along the coast, 
 And with loose rein and bloody spur 
 
 rode inland many a post. 
 With his white hair unbonneted, the 
 
 stout old sheriff comes : 
 Behind him march the halberdiers ; 
 
 before him sound the drums ; 
 His yeomen round the market cross 
 
 make clear an ample space ; • 
 For there behoves him to set up the 
 
 standard of Her Grace. ; 
 And haughtily the trumpets peal, and 
 
 gaily dance the bells. 
 As slow upon the labouring wind' the 
 
 royal blazon swells. 
 Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up 
 
 his ancient crown, = . • ^ ' 
 And underneath his deadly paw treads 
 
 the gay lilies down. . _. , 
 
THE ARMADA. 
 
 909 
 
 So stalked he when he turned to flightT 
 
 on that famed Picard field, 
 Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, 
 
 and Caesar's eagle shield. 
 So glared he when at Aginco)irt, in 
 
 wrath he turned to bay, ^' - '^ 
 
 And crushed and torn beneath his 
 
 claws the princely hunters lay. 
 Ho ! strike the flagstaff deep Sir Knight : 
 
 ho ! scatter flowers, fair maids : 
 Ho ! gunners, fire a loud salule : ho ! 
 
 gallants, draw your blades: 
 Thou sun, shine on her joyously ; ye 
 
 breezes, waft her wide ; 
 Our glorious semper eadem, the 
 
 banner of our pride. 
 
 The freshening breeze of eve unfurled 
 
 that banner's massy fold ; 
 The parting gleam of sunshine kissed 
 
 that haughty scroll of gold ; 
 Night sank upon the dusky beach, 
 
 and on the purple sea, 
 Such night in England ne'er had been, 
 
 nor e'er again shall be. 
 From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, 
 
 from Lynn to Milford Bay, 
 That time of slumber was as bright 
 
 and busy as the day ; 
 For swift to east and swift, to west. tb'e 
 
 ghastly war-flame spread, ; : . \, 
 High on St. Michael's Mount iit shoiie : 
 
 it shone on Beachy Head. ' >-'•'' 
 Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, 
 , along each southern shire, 
 Cape beyond cape, in endless range, 
 
 those twinkhng points of fire. 
 The fisher left his skiff to rock on 
 
 Tamar's glittering waves : 
 The rugged miners poured to war from 
 
 Mendip's sunless caves ! 
 O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cran- 
 
 bourne's oaks, the fiery herald 
 
 flew: 
 He roused the shepherds of Stone- 
 
 henge, the rangers of Beaulieu. 
 Right sharp and quick the bells all 
 
 night rang out from Bristol town, 
 And ere the day three hundred horse 
 
 had met on Clifton down ; 
 The sentinel on Whitehall gatelodked 
 
 forth into the night, 
 And saw o'erhanging Richmond Hill 
 
 the streak of bloc^-red light, .- 
 
 Thea bugle's note and cannon's roar 
 
 the deathlike silence broke. 
 And with one start, and with one cry, 
 
 the royal city woke. 
 At once on all her stately gates arose 
 - the -answering fires ; 
 At once the wild alarum clashed from 
 
 all her reeling spires ; 
 From all the batteries of the Tow/sr 
 
 pealed loud the voice of fear ; a. 
 And all the thousand masts of Thames 
 
 sent back a louder cheer ; 
 And from the furthest \\Tirds was heard 
 
 the rush of hurrying feet. 
 And the broad streams of pikes and flags 
 
 rushed down each roar'ing Street ; 
 And broader still became the blaze, 
 , and louder still the din. 
 As fast from every village round the 
 
 horse came spurring in : 
 And eastward straight from wild Black- 
 heath the warlike errand went. 
 And roused in many an ancient hall 
 
 the gallant squires of Kent. 
 Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills 
 
 flew those bright couriers forth ; 
 High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy 
 
 moor they started for the north ; 
 And on, and on, without a pause, un- 
 
 tired they bounded still : 
 All night from tower to tower they 
 
 sprang ; they sprang from hill to hill: 
 Till the proud peak unfurled the flag 
 
 o'er Darwin's rocky dales. 
 Till like volcanoes flared to heaven 
 
 the stormy hills of Wales, 
 Till twelve fair counties saw the blare 
 
 on Malvern's lonely height. 
 Till streamed in crimson on the wind 
 
 the Wrekin's crest of light. 
 Till broad and fierce the sta,r came 
 
 forth on Ely's stately fane. 
 And tower and hamlet rose in arms 
 
 o'er all the boundless plain ; 
 Till Belvoir's lordly terraces the sign 
 
 to Lincoln sent, 
 And Lincoln sped the message, on o'er 
 
 the wide vale of Trent ; 
 Till Skiddaw saw the fire that b«rned 
 
 on Gaunt's embattled pile, 
 And the red glare on Skiddaw roused 
 . the burghers of Carlisle. 
 
 
 1832. 
 
INDEX TO ESSAYS. 
 
 Abbe and abbot, difference between, 251. 
 
 Academy, character of its doctrines, 414. 
 
 Adam, Robert, court architect to George III., 
 831. 
 
 Addison, Joseph, review of Miss Aikin's life 
 of, 769-814 ; his character, 770; hisbirthand 
 early life, 771 ; appointed to a scholarship 
 in Magdalene College, Oxford, 771 ; his 
 Essay on the Evidences of Christianity, 
 773 J his intention to take orders frustrated, 
 775 ; sent by the Government to the Conti- 
 nent, yyji his introduction to Boileau, 
 779; composes his Epistle to Montague 
 (then Lord Halifax) 781 ; becomes tutor 
 to a young English traveller, 782 ; writes 
 his Treatise on Medals, 782 ; engaged by 
 Godolphin to write a poem in honour of 
 Marlborough's exploits, 784; is appointed 
 to a Commissionership, 784 ; merits of his 
 "Campaign," 784; criticism of his Tra- 
 vels in Italy, 786 ; his opera of Rosamond, 
 787; is made Under-Secretary of State, 
 788; his election (o the House of Com- 
 mons, 788 ; his failure as a speaker, 788 ; 
 his popularity and talents for conversation, 
 f89; his timidity and constraint among 
 strangers, 789; becomes Chief Secretary 
 for Ireland under Wharton, 791 ; origina- 
 tion of the Tatler, 793 ; his characteristics 
 as a writer, 793 ; compared with Swift 
 and Voltaire as a master of the art of 
 ridicule, 794 ; his pecuniary losses^ 796 ; 
 loss of his Secretaryship, 796; resignation 
 of his Fellowship, 796 ; returned to Parlia- 
 ment without a contest, 797; his Whig 
 Examiner, 797 ; his discontinuance of the 
 Tatler and commencement of the Spec- 
 tator, 797; his commencement and dis- 
 continuance of the Guardian, 799 : his 
 Cato, 800 ; his intercourse with Pope, 
 802; his concern for Steele, 802; begins 
 a new series of the Spectator, 803 ; 
 appointed Secretary to the Lords Justices 
 of the Council on the death of Queen 
 Anne, 803 ; relations with Swift and 
 Tickell, 805 ; removed to the Board of 
 Trade, 805 ; production of his Drummer, 
 805 ; his Freeholder, 805 ; his long court- 
 ship of the Countess Dowager of Warwick 
 and union with her, 809; appointed 
 Secretary ©f State bv Sunderland, 810 ; 
 resigns his post, 810 ; receives a pension, 
 810; his estrangement from Steele and 
 other friends, 8ii ; advocates the bill for 
 limiting the number of Peers, 811 ; refuta- 
 tion of a calumny upon him, 812; his 
 death and funeraj, 813 -^ Tick^Il's el^y on 
 his death, 813 ; superb edition of his 
 \rorks, 813 j his monument, 814. 
 
 Adiaphorists, a sect of German Protestants, 
 
 238. 
 Adultery, how represented by the dramatists 
 
 of the Restoration, 596. 
 Advancement of Learning, by Bacon, 391. 
 ^schylus and the Greek drama, 8-12. 
 Afghanistan, the monarchy of, analogous to 
 
 that of England in the i6th century, 243 ;. 
 
 bravery of its inhabitants, 640. 
 Agricultural and manufacturing labourers, 
 
 comparison of their conditions, 113, 
 Agujari, the singer, 740. 
 Aix, its capture, 326. 
 Akenside, his Epistle to Curio, 298. 
 Alexander the Great, compared with Clive, 
 
 570. 
 Alfieri and Cowpcr, comparison between 
 
 them, 162. 
 Allahabad, 639. 
 
 Allegories of Johnson and Addison, 197. 
 Alphabetical writing, views of its value by 
 
 Plato and Bacon, 420. 
 America, acquisitions of the Catholic Church 
 
 •"» 572 ; its capabilities, 572. 
 American colonies, British, war with them,. 
 
 653 ; act for imposing stamp duties upon 
 
 them, 841 ; their disaffection, 846 ; revival 
 
 of the dispute with them, 856. 
 Angria, his fortress of Gheriah reduced by 
 
 Clive, 540. 
 Anne, Queen, her political and religious in- 
 clinations, 275 ; relative estimation by the 
 
 Whigs and the Tories of her reign, 276- 
 
 278,280; state of parties at her accession, 
 
 783 ; dismisses the Whigs, 796. 
 Apostolical succession, Mr. Gladstone 
 
 claims it for the Church of England, 512- 
 
 524. 
 Aquinas, Th»mas, 431. 
 Arbuthnot's Satirical Works, 794. 
 Arcot, Nabob of, his relations with England, 
 , 532-535, 570- 
 Argyle, Duke of, secedes from Walpole's- 
 
 administration, 309. 
 Arithmetic, comparative estimate of, by 
 
 Plato and by Bacon, 418, 419. 
 Arlington, Lord, 451. 
 Armies in the middle ages, how constituted, 
 
 36, 37, 75 ; a powerful restraint on the 
 
 regal power, 75; subsequent change in 
 
 this respect, 75. 
 Army, The, control of, by Charles I. or by- 
 Parliament, 79 ; its triumph over both, 83 ; 
 
 danger of a standing army becoming an. 
 
 instrument of despotism, 230, 231. 
 Arne, Dr., 787. 
 Arragon and Castile, their old institutions' 
 
 favourable to public liberty, 256, 
 Arundel, Earl of, 411. 
 
INDEX TO ESS A YS. 
 
 911 
 
 . Asiatic Society, commencement of itscarerf 
 , under Warren Hastings, 671. 
 Astronomy, comparative estimate of, by 
 
 Socrates and by Bacon, 419. 
 Athenian comedies, their impurity, 594; 
 
 reprinted at the two Universities, 594. 
 Atterbury, Bishop, his reply to Bentley to 
 
 prove the genuineness of the Letters of 
 
 Phalaris, 466, 487. 
 Attila, 572. 
 Aubrey, his charge of corruption against 
 
 Bacon, 402 ; Bacon's decision against him 
 
 after his present, 409. 
 Augustin, St., 571. 
 Austen, Jane, notice of, 763. 
 
 Bacon, Lord, review of Basil Montagu's 
 new edition of the works of, 368-439; his 
 early years, 375 ; his services refused by 
 government, 376, 377; his admission at 
 Gray's Inn, 377; sat in Parliament In 
 1593, 378 ; his conduct to Essex, 384-388 ; 
 intluence of King James on his fortunes, 
 
 388 ; his servility to Lord Southampton. 
 
 389 ; his distinction in Parliament and in 
 the courts of law, 390 ; his works, 391 ; his 
 work of reducing and recompiling the laws 
 of England, 391; his tampering with the 
 judges on the trial of Peacham, 391 ; his 
 appointment as Lord Keeper, 396 ; his 
 share in the vices of the administration, 
 396; his animosity towards Sir Edward 
 Coke, 399 ; his titles of Baron Verulam 
 and Viscount St. Albans, 400; report 
 against him of the Committee on the 
 Courts of Justice, 402; his admission of 
 his guilt, 403; his sentence, 404; chief 
 peculiarity of bis philosophy, 412-417 ; his 
 views compared with those of Plato, 
 417-422 ; his views as a theologian, 427 ; 
 contemplation of his life, 438. 
 
 Bacon, Sir Nicholas, his character, 370-373. 
 
 Baconian philosophy, 412. 
 
 Baillie, Gen!, destruction of his detachment 
 
 by Hyder Ali, 659. 
 Balance of power, interest of the Popes in 
 
 preserving it, 588. 
 Bar, The, its degraded condition in the time 
 
 of James IL, 95. 
 Barcelona, capture of, by Peterborough, 270. 
 Barillon, M., his pithy words on the new 
 
 council proposed by Temple, 468, 472. 
 Barlow, Bishop, 602. 
 Bavaria, its contest between Protestantism 
 
 and Catholicism, 583-588. 
 Bayle, Peter, 574. 
 Bedford, Duke of, 818; his views of the 
 
 policy of Chatham, 825, 831 ; presents 
 
 remonstrance to George IlL, 844. 
 Becifords, The, 818 ; their opposition to the 
 
 Rockingham ministry on the Sttm J Act, 
 
 847- 
 Bedford House assailed by a rabble, 843. 
 Begums of Oude, 666 ; their spoliation 
 
 charged against Hastings, 681. 
 Belgium, its contest between Protestantism 
 
 and Catholicism, 583-588. 
 
 Belial, 595. 
 
 Bell, Peter, Byron's spleen against, 163. 
 
 Benares, its grandeur, 660 ; its annexation 
 to the British dominions, 665. 
 
 Benevolences, Oliver St. John's opposition 
 to, and Bacon's support of, 391. 
 
 Bentham, his language on the French Revo- 
 lution, 335. 
 
 Bentham and Dumont, 285. 
 
 Bentivoglio, Cardinal, on the state of reli- 
 gion in England in the iCth century, 246. 
 
 Bentley, Richard, his quarrel with Boyle, 
 and remarks on Temple's Essay on the 
 Letters of Phalaris, 487; his edition of 
 Milton, 488, 768 ; his notes on Horace, 
 488; his reconciliation with Boyle and 
 Atterbury, 4S9. 
 
 BickerstafF, Isaac, astrologer, 793. 
 
 Bishops, claims of those of the Church of 
 England to apostolical succession, 512- 
 
 515- 
 
 Black Hole of Calcutta described, 541-542- 
 
 Blackmore, Sir Richard, his attainments in 
 the ancient languages, 773. 
 
 Blackstone, 366. 
 
 Blasphemous publications, policy of Govern- 
 ment in respect to, 123. 
 
 Blenheim, battle of, 783. 
 
 Blois, Addison's retirement to, ^J•J^. 
 
 " Bloomsbury gang," the denomination o£ 
 the Bedfords, 818. 
 
 Bodley, Sir Thomas, founderof the Bodleian 
 library, 391, 411. 
 
 Boileau, Addison's intercourse with, 777. 
 
 Bolinbroke, Lord, the liberal patron of 
 literature, 184 ; proposed to strengthen the 
 royal prerogative, 293 ; his pretence of phi- 
 losophy ir. his exile, 426; his remedy for 
 the diseases of the state, 823, 824. 
 
 Book of the Church, Southey's, 107. 
 
 Books, puffing of, 133-135- 
 
 Boroughs, rotten, the abolition of, a neces- 
 sary reform in the time of George I., 297. 
 
 Boswell's Life of Johnson, by Croker, review^ 
 of, 170-196; character of the work, 180. 
 
 Bourne, Vincent, 810. 
 
 Boyle, Charles, his nominal editorship of the 
 Letters of Phalaris, 487 ; his book on 
 Greek history and philology, •]■]},. 
 
 Boyle, Rt, Hon. Henry, 784. 
 
 " Boys, The," in opposition to Sir R. Wal- 
 poie, 295. 
 
 Bracegirdle, Mrs., her celebrity as an actress, 
 619. 
 
 Bribery, foreign, in the time of Charles I., 
 
 97. 
 " Broad Bottom Administration, The," 315. 
 Brunswick, the House of, 820. 
 Brydges, Sir Egerton, 763. 
 Buckingham, Duke of, the "Stecnie" of 
 
 James I., 210, 394, 402. 
 Buckingharn, Duke of, one of the Cabal 
 
 ministry, 604 ; anecdote of his voIatiUty, 
 
 604. 
 Bunyan, John, his history and character, 
 
 200-202 ; his style, 203. 
 Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, review of 
 
 Southey's edition of, 196. 
 Buonaparte, 86, 322, 785. See also Napoleon. 
 Burke, Edmundi his characteristics, 106 » 
 
912 
 
 INDEX TO. ESS A KS*. 
 
 ' ;not the author of Letters of Junius, 643 ; 
 
 ' jhis charges against Hastings, 673, 688 ; 
 his kindness to Miss Burney, 755 ; his 
 early political career, 845; his opposition 
 to Chatham's measures relating to India, 
 854 ; his defence of his party against Gren- 
 ville's attacks, 857. 
 
 Burleigh and his Times, review of Rev. Dr. 
 Nares's, 235 ; his early life and character, 
 ^36-239; his death, 239; importance of 
 the times in which he lived, 239 ; the great 
 stain on his character, 248; his conduct 
 towards Bacon, 376-380; his apology for 
 having resorted to torture, 393. 
 
 Burnet, Bishop, 489. 
 
 Burney, Dr., his social position, 736-740; 
 his conduct relative to his daughter's first 
 publication, 745. 
 
 Bute, Earl of, his character and education, 
 822; appointed Secretary of State, 824; 
 opposes the proposal of war with Spain on 
 account of the family compact, 826 ; be- 
 comes Prime Minister, 827; becomes 
 ■First Lord of the Treasury, 828 ; his resig- 
 nation, 835 ; continues to advise the king 
 privately, 838, 843, 847. 
 
 Byng, Admiral, his failure at Minorca, 320; 
 his trial, 322 ; opinion of his conduct, 322 ; 
 Chatham's defence of him, 323, 
 
 Byron, Lord, his epistolary style, 151; his 
 character, 152; his early life, 152; his 
 quarrel with and separation from his wife, 
 153; his expatriation, 155 ; decline of his 
 mtellectual powers, 155 ; his attachment 
 to Italy and Greece, 155 ; his sickness and 
 ■death, 156; remarks on his dramatic 
 works, 165-169; his egotism, 169; cause 
 of his influence, 169. 
 
 Cabal, The, their proceedings and desi^n'^, 
 459.460,463. 
 
 Calcutta, scene of the Black Hole of, 541 • 
 resentment of the English at its fall, 542 ; 
 again threatened by Surajah Dovvlah, 543 ; 
 revival of its prosperity, s-^o; its sufferings 
 durmg the famine, 565 ; its capture, 630. 
 
 Cambridge, University of, its superiority to 
 Oxford in intellectual activity, 371 ; distur- 
 bances produced in by the Civil War, 445. | 
 
 Camilla, Madame D'Arblay's, 765. 
 
 Canada, subjugation of, by the British, 328. 
 
 Canning, Mr., 762. I 
 
 Carnatic, The, its resources, 552, 539 ; its in- i 
 vasion by Hyder Ali, 658. 
 
 Carteret, Lord, his ascendancy after the fall 
 of Walpole, 299 ; his defection from Sir 
 Robert Walpole, 307; succeeds Waloole, 
 314 ; created Earl Granville, 315, 
 
 Carthagena, surrender of the arsenal and 
 ships of, to the Allies, 271. 
 
 Catholic Association, attempt of the Tories 
 to put it down, 621. 
 
 Catholics and Jews, the same reasonin"- 
 employed against both, 146. 
 
 Cato, its first representation, 800: its per- 
 formance at Oxford, 801, 
 
 Cavaliers, their successors in the reign Of 
 George I. turned demagogues, 815. 
 
 , Cecil. See Burleigh. 
 
 Cecil, Robert, his rivalry with Francis 
 Bacon, 376, 381 ; his interference to obtain 
 knighthood for Bacon, 389. 
 
 Cecilia, Madame D'Arblay's, 764. \ 
 
 Censorship, existed in some form from 
 Henry VIII. to the Revolution, 364. 
 
 Chalmers, Dr., Mr. Gladstone's opinion of 
 his defence of the Church, 493. 
 
 Charles, Archduke, his claim to the Spanish 
 crown, 257 ; is proclaimed king at Madrid, 
 270 ; his reverses and retreat, 272 ; his re- 
 entry into Madrid, 274. 
 
 Charles I., lawfulness of the resistance to, 
 16-19; Milton's defence of his execution, 
 21 ; his treatment of the Parliament of 
 1640, 65; his treatment of Strafford, 70; 
 estimate of his character, 71-83, 211 ; his 
 fall, 83 ; his condemnation and its con- 
 sequences, 84 ; resistance of the Scots to 
 him, 219; his increasing difficulties, 219; 
 his conduct towards the House of Com- 
 mons, 226 ; his flight, 229 ; review of his 
 conduct and treatment, 229-231. 
 
 Charles I. and Cromwell, choice between, 
 83. 
 
 Charles II., his foreign subsidies, 96; his 
 situation in 1660 contrasted with that 
 of Louis XVIII. , 344 ; his position towards 
 the king of France, 349 ; consequences of 
 his levity and apathy, 351 ; his extrava- 
 gance, 453 ; his subserviency to France, 
 455-465 ; his renunciation of the dispens- 
 • ing power, 463 ; his system of bribery of 
 the Commons, 469-471; his social dispo- 
 sition, 604. 
 
 Charles II., of Spain, his difficulties in re- 
 spect to the succession, 257-261. 
 
 Charles v., 578. 
 
 Charles VIII., 433. 
 
 Charles XII., compared with dive, 570. 
 
 Chatham, Earl of, character of his public 
 life, 303 ; his early life, 305 ; his travels, 
 305 ; enters the army, 305 ; oljtains a seat 
 in Parliament, 305; attaches himself to 
 the Whigs in opposition, 309; dismissed 
 from the army, 312 ; declaims against the 
 ministers, 314; his opposition to Car- 
 teret, 314 ; supports the Pelham minis- 
 try, 315 ; appointed Vice-Treasurer of 
 Ireland, 315 ; made Secretary of State, 
 320 ; defends Admiral Byng, 323 ; coalesces 
 with the Duke of Newcastle, 325 ; review 
 of his Correspondence, 813 ; his coalition 
 with Newcastle, 817 ; his strength in Par- 
 liament, 819; proposes to declare war 
 against Spain on account of the family 
 compact, 826; his resignation, 826; his 
 speech against peace with France and 
 Spain, 834; his unsuccessful audiences 
 with George III. to form an administra- 
 
 . tion, 838 ; his condemnation of the Ameri- 
 can Stamp Act, 847; is induced by the 
 king to assist in ousting Rockingham, 
 850; undertakes to form an administra- 
 tion, 851 ; is created Earl of Chatham, 852; 
 failure of his ministerial arrangements, 
 852-855 ; lays an embargo on the exporta- 
 
INDEX TO ESS A YS. 
 
 913 
 
 tion of corn, 854; his retirement frorti^ 
 office, 854 ; his policy violated, 855 ; resigns 
 the privy seal,. 856; state of parties and of 
 public affairs on his recovery, 856; opposed 
 the recognition of the independence of the 
 United States, 858; his last appearance in 
 the House ef Lords, 859; his death, 859. 
 
 > herbourg, guns taken from, 326. 
 
 • hesterfield, Lord, his dismissal by Walpolc, 
 308. 
 
 ■ tievte Sing, 661 ; his treatment made the 
 successful charge against Hastings, 680. 
 
 ■chivalry, its form in Languedoc in the iath 
 century, 575. 
 
 ' (lolmondely, Mrs., 747. ■ 
 
 I hristianity, its alliance with the ancient 
 philosophy, 415 ; light in which it was 
 regarded by the Italians at the Reforma- 
 tion. 578. 
 
 Church, The, Southey's Book of, 107. 
 
 Church, The English, persecutions in her 
 name, 60; High and Low Church parties, 
 787. 
 
 Church of England, its origin and connec- 
 tion with the State, 64, 523 ; its condition 
 in the time of Charles L, 122-124 ; endea- 
 vour of the leading Whigs at the Revolu- 
 
 . tion to alter its Liturgy and Articles, 361, 
 518; its contest with the Scotch nation, 
 361; Mr. Gladstone's work in defence of 
 it, 492, 493 ; his arguments for its being 
 
 . the pure Catholic Church of Christ, 510, 
 512; its claims to apostolic succession 
 discussed, 512-519; views respecting its 
 alliance with the State, 519-524 ; contrast 
 of its operations during the two genera- 
 tions succeeding the Reformation, with 
 those, of the Church of Rome, 584, 585. 
 
 Church' of Rome, its alliance \vith ancient 
 philosophy, 416; causes of its success and 
 vitality, 571, 572 ; sketch of its history, 
 575-593- 
 
 Churchill, Charles, 94, 831. 
 
 Cicero, the most eloquent arid skilful of 
 advocates, 370. 
 
 Cider, proposal of a tax on, 835. ■ 
 
 Civil privileges and political power identical, 
 145- 
 
 Civil war, its evils the price of our liberty, 
 19; conduct of the Long Parliament in 
 reference to it, 71, 72, 83. 
 
 Clarendon, Lord, his character, 95 ; his posi- 
 tion at the head of affairs, 451-455; his 
 opposition to the growing power of the 
 Commons, 471, 
 
 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 573. 
 
 Clarkson, Thomas, 764. -'- .f '">l "'"' -' ■ > 
 
 Clifford, Lord, his character^ 4^0; htS frtirei 
 ment, 463 ; his talent for debafe, 470. 
 
 Cllve, Lord, review of Sir John Malcolm's 
 Life of, 524-571 ; his attack, capture, and 
 defence of Arcot, 533-535; his marriage 
 and return to England, 538; enters Parlia- 
 ment, 539; returns to India, 539; ap- 
 pointed Governor of the Company's pos- 
 sessions in Bengal, 551; his dispersion 
 of Shah Alum's army, 552 ; nominated 
 Governor of the British possessions in 
 • Bengal, 558; suppresses a conspiracy, 
 
 ''558-560; success of his foreign policy. 
 
 561 ; his speech in his defence, and its 
 
 consequence, 568 ; his life in retirement, 
 
 569; his death, 570. 
 Club-room, Johnson's, 195. 
 Coke, Sir E., his conduct towar<is Blcon, 
 
 377i 399 ; his removal from the Bench, 398; 
 
 his reconciliation with Bacon, 399; his 
 
 behaviour to Bacon at his trial, 408. 
 Coleridge, relative "correctness" of his 
 
 poetry, 157; Byron's opinion of him, 163. 
 Collier, Jeremy, his publication on the prs- 
 
 faneness of the English stage, 614-617. 
 Colloquies on Society, Southey's, 105-131. 
 Colonies, 254 ; question of the competency 
 
 of Parliament to tax them, 846. 
 Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, 593- 
 
 621. 
 Commons, House of, increase of its power, 
 
 100 ; increase of its power by and since 
 
 the Revolution, 362. 
 Commonwealth, 600; 
 Congreve, sketch of his career at the Temple, 
 
 610 ; success of his Love for Love, 
 
 612 ; his Mourning Bride, 612 ; hi& 
 
 controversy with Collier, 616; his Way 
 
 of the World, 617 ; his death and capri- 
 cious will, 620. 
 Congreve and Sheridan, effect of their works 
 
 upon the comedy of England, 43 ; con- 
 trasted with Shakspeare, 44. 
 Const.-:ince, Council of, put an end to the 
 
 Wickliffe schism, 577. 
 Constitution, The, of England, in the I5th> 
 
 and i8th centuries, compared with thbse 
 
 of other European States, 74 ; its theory 
 
 in respect to the three branches of the 
 
 legislature, 811. 
 Constitutional History of England, review 
 
 of Hallam's, 55-105. 
 Cooke, Sir Anthony, his learning, 373. 
 Coote, Sir Eyre, 654. 
 " Correctness " in the fine arts and in the 
 
 sciences, 157-160 ; in painting, 159 ; what 
 
 is meant by it in poetry, 158. 
 Corruption, Parliamentary, not necessary to 
 
 the Tudors, 292 ; its extent in the reigns 
 
 of George I. and II., 823. 
 Council of York, its abolition, 222. 
 Courtenay, Rt. Hon. T. P., review of his 
 
 Membirs of Sir William Temple, 439-490- 
 Covenant, the Scotch, 219. 
 Covenanters, The, their con<;lusion of a 
 
 treaty with Charles L, 219. 
 Coventry, Lady, 743. 
 Cowley, 289, 437. 
 
 Cowper, Earl, Keeper of the Great Seal, 787. 
 Cowper, William, 162; his friendship with 
 ' W^arren Hastings, 629. 
 Coyer, Abbe, his imitation of Voltaire, 794. 
 Cranmer, Archbishop, estimate of his 
 
 character, 6r. 
 Crebillon the Younger, 286. 
 Crisis, Steele's, 805. 
 Crisp, Samuel, his early career, 741; nls 
 
 tragedy of Virginia, 743: his retirement 
 
 anil seclusion, 744, 
 Criticism, remarks on Johnson's code of, 
 
 191. 
 Croker, Mr., "his edition of Boswell's Life of 
 
 Dr. Johnson, reviewed, 170-196. 
 
914 
 
 INDEX TO ESS A YS. 
 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 86 ; embarked with 
 Hampden for America, but not suffered 
 to proceed, 218 ; his administration, 345 ; 
 his abilities displayed in Ireland, 449. 
 
 Crown, The, veto by, on Acts of Parliament, 
 79 ; its control over the army, 79 ; its 
 power in the i6th century, 241 ; curtail- 
 ment of its prerogatives, 292; its power 
 predominant at the beginning of the 17th 
 <:entury, 468 ; decline of its power during 
 the Pensionary Parliament, 470 ; its long 
 contest with the Parliament put an end 
 to by the Revolution, 473. See also Prero- 
 gative. 
 
 Crusades, The, their beneficial effect upon 
 Italy, 34. 
 
 Cumberland, Duke of, 554 ; his character, 
 842. 
 
 D. 
 
 Dacier, Madame, Tj-j. 
 
 Danby, Earl, 292 ; impeached and sent to 
 the Tower, 466. 
 
 Danger, public, a certain amount of, will 
 warrant a retrospective law, 223. 
 
 Dante, his Divine Comedy, 9, 35 ; compari- 
 son of him with Milton, 9 et seq. 
 
 D'Arblay, Madame, review of her Diary and 
 Letters, 736-769 ; her Diary, 737 ; her first 
 literary efforts, 741; publication of her 
 Evelina, 745 ; her comedy. The Wit- 
 lings, 748; her second novel, Cecilia, 
 748; accepts the situation of keeper of the 
 robes, 750 ; her espousal of the cause of 
 Hastings, 754 ; her incivility to Windham 
 and Burke, 754 ; her sufferings during her 
 kecpership, 751, 755, 759; her marriage 
 and close of the Diary, 760, 
 
 Dashwood, Sir Francis, Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer under Bute, 829, 
 
 Davies, Tom, 177. 
 
 De Augmentis Scientiarum, by Bacon, 391, 
 411. 
 
 Debt, the national, effect of its abrogation. 
 
 Declaration of Right, 359. 
 
 Declaration of the Practices and Treasons 
 attempted and committed bv Robert, Earl 
 of Essex, by Lord Bacon, 387. 
 
 Delany, Dr., his connection with Swift, 749. 
 
 Delium, battle of, 447. 
 
 Demccricy, violence in its advocates in- 
 duces reaction, 239. 
 
 Demosthenes, 408. 
 
 Dennis, John, Pope's narrative of his frenzy, 
 802 ; his attack upon Addison's Cato, 
 801. 
 
 Devonshire, Duchess of, 683. 
 
 Devonshire, Duke of, forms an administra- 
 tion after the resignation of Newcastle, 
 321; Lord Chamberlain under Bute, 830; 
 dismissed from his Lord-lieutenancy, 833. 
 
 Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblav, 
 reviewed, 736-769. 
 
 Discussion, free, its tendency, 122. 
 
 Dissent, cause of, in England, 586; avoid- 
 ance of, in the Church of Rome, 586 ; its 
 extent in the time of Charles I , 121. 
 
 Dissenters, The, examination of the reason- 
 ing of Mr. Gladstone for their exclusion 
 from civil offices, 503-506. 
 
 Divine right, 17, 
 
 Division of Labour, its necessity, 493. 
 
 Dodington, Bubb, 819. 
 
 Donne, John, comparison of his wit with 
 Horace Walpole's, 289. 
 
 Dover, Lord, review of his edition of Horace 
 Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann, 
 281-303. See Walpole, Sir Horace. 
 
 Drama, The, its origin in Greece, 7 ; causes 
 of its dissolute character soon after the 
 Restoration, 600. 
 
 Dramas, Greek, compared with the English 
 plays of the age of Elizabeth, 157. 
 
 Dramatic Art, the unities violated in all the 
 great masterpieces of, 157. 
 
 Dramatic Works, The, of Wycherley, Con- 
 greve, Vanburgh and Farquhar, review of 
 Leigh Hunt's edition of, 593-621. 
 
 Dryden, his merits not adequately appre- 
 ciated in his day, 132 ; his poetical genius, 
 594 ; his excuse for the indecency and im- 
 morality of his writings, 596 ; censure on 
 him by Collier for his language regarding 
 heathen divinities, 615. 
 
 Dublin, Archbishop of, his work on logic, 
 430. 
 
 Dumont, M., the interpreter of Bentham. 
 285. 
 
 Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry, 528 etuq. 
 
 East India Company, its absolute authority 
 in India, 326; its condition when Clive 
 first went to India, 526; its war with the 
 French East India Company, 528 ; increase 
 of its power, 540 ; its factories in Bengal, 
 540; fortunes made by its servants in Ben- 
 gali 555 ; its sen'ants transformed into 
 diplomatists and generals, 630 ; nature ot 
 its government and power, 634-635 ; rights 
 of the Nabob of Oude over Benares 
 ceded to it, 661 ; its financial embarrass- 
 ments, 663. 
 
 Ecclesiastical commission. The, 242. 
 
 Education in England in the i6th century, 
 376 ; duty of the government in promoting 
 it, 520 ; in Italy, 34. 
 
 Egerton, his charge of corruption against 
 Bacon, 402 ; Bacon's decision against him , 
 after receiving his present, 409. 
 
 Elephants, use of, in war in India, 533. 
 
 Eliot, Sir John, 212-215. 
 
 Elizabeth, Queen, fallacy entertained re- 
 specting the persecutions under her, 57 
 her penal laws, 58 : condition of the work- 
 ing-classes in her reign, 125, 208; her 
 favour towards Essex, 379 ; factions at the 
 close of her reign, 379, 388. 
 
 Ellenborough, Lord (Law), one of the coun- 
 sel for Hastings on his trial, 684. 
 
 Elphinstone, Lord, 571. 
 
 Emigration from England to Ireland under 
 Cromwell, 450. 
 
 England, her progress in civilisation due to 
 the people, 131 ; her physical and moral 
 
INDEX TO ESSA YS. 
 
 915 
 
 condition in the 15th century, 207 ; never' 
 so rich and powerful as since the loss of 
 her American colonies, 254 ; conduct of, in 
 reference to the Spanish succession, 262 ; 
 successive steps of her progress, 342 ; her 
 situation in 1678, 347-351 ; character of 
 her public men at the latter part of the 
 17th century, 442 ; difference in her situa- 
 tion under Charles II. and under the Pro- 
 tectorate, 452. 
 
 English, The, in the i6th century a free 
 people, 242-244 ; their character, 348-351. 
 
 English plays of the age of Elizabeth, 158. 
 
 Enthusiasts, dealings of the Church of Rome 
 and the Church of England with them, 
 585-587. 
 
 Essay on Government, Sir William Tem- 
 ple's, 461. 
 
 Essex, Earl of, 250; his character, popularity 
 and favour with Elizabeth, 379-381, 395 ; 
 his political conduct, 380; his friendship 
 for Bacon, 380, 381, 384, 39s ; his expedi- 
 tion to Spain, 382 ; his faults, 382, 394 ; 
 decline of his fortunes, 382 ; his adminis- 
 tration in Ireland, 383 ; his trial and execu- 
 tion, 383. 
 
 Essex, Earl of {temp. Ch. I.), 232, 233. 
 
 Evelina, Madame O'Arblay's, specimens of 
 her style from, 766. 
 
 Evelyn, 452, 459- 
 
 Exchequer, fraud of the Cabal ministry in , 
 closing it, 462. 
 
 F. 
 
 Falkland, Lord, his conduct in respect to 
 the bill of attainder against Strafford, 70; 
 at the head of the Constitutional Rovalists, 
 226. 
 
 Family Compact, The, between France and 
 Spain, 278, 279, 826. 
 
 Female Quixote, The, 768. 
 
 Fenelon, standard of morality in his Tele- 
 machus, 597, 598. 
 
 Ferdinand U., his devotion to Catholicism, 
 584. 
 
 Fictions, literary, 30. 
 
 Fidelity, touching instance of, in the Sepoys 
 towards Clive, 534. 
 
 Fielding, his contempt for Richardson, 742; 
 case from his Amelia analogous to 
 Addison's treatment of Steele, 791. 
 
 Finance, Southey's theory of, 115-117. 
 
 Fine Arts, The, encouragement of in Italy in 
 the 14th century, 35 ; causes of their 
 decline in England after the civil war, 287. 
 
 Fletcher, the dramatist, 596, 601. 
 
 Foote, Charles, his stage character of an 
 Anglo-Indian grandee, 563; his mimicry, 
 762 ; his inferiority to Garrick, 762. 
 
 Fox, Charles James, comparison of his His- 
 tory of James II. with Mackintosh's His- 
 tory of the Revolution, 330; clamour 
 raised against his India Bill, and his 
 defence of it, 675 ; his alliance with Burke, 
 and call for peace with the American 
 republic, 676 ; his rupture with Burke, 688. 
 
 Fox, Henry, accepts office, 320 ; directed to 
 form an administration in concert with 
 
 Chatham, 321, 325 ; applied to by Bute 
 to manage the House of Commons, 832 ; 
 became leader of the House of Commons, 
 833 ; obtained his promised peerage, 836. 
 
 France, her condition in 1712 and in 1832, 
 277 ; her state at the restoration of Louis 
 XVIII. ,344; enters into a compact with 
 Spain against England, 826; her recogni- 
 tion of the independence of the United 
 States, 858. 
 
 Francis, Sir Philip, councillor under the 
 Regulating Act for India, 643; probability 
 of his being the author of the Letters of 
 Junius, 643 ; his opposition to Hastings, 
 645, 652, his patriotic feeling, and recon- 
 ciliation with Hastings, 655 ; renewal of 
 his quarrel with Hastings, 658 ; duel with 
 Hastings, 658 ; his speech on Mr. Fox's 
 motion relating to Cheyte Sing, 679 ; his 
 exclusion from the committee selected to 
 conduct the impeachment of Hastings, 
 682. 
 
 Franklin, Benjamin, 573. 
 
 Frederic the Great, his birth, 694 ; his father, 
 695 ; his father's cruelty to him, 695 ; his 
 education, 696 ; his accession to the throne, 
 699; death of Charles VI., 700; Maria 
 Theresa, 700; war with Austria, 702; 
 occupation of Silesia, 703 ; peace, 704 ; 
 Frederic's associates at Potsdam, 711 ; 
 Voltaire, 713 ; the Seven Years' War, 723 ; 
 frightful state of the kingdom, 736. 
 
 Galileo, 573. 
 
 Garrick, David, his acquaintance with 
 Johnson, 184 ; his power of amusing 
 children, 740; his power of imitation, 762. 
 
 Genoa, its dec^y owing to Catholicism, 589. 
 
 " Gentleman Dancing-Master," its produc- 
 cion on the stage, 605. 
 
 George I., his accession, 278. 
 
 George II., his resentment against Chatham 
 for his opposition to the payment of 
 Hanoverian troops, 314; compelled to 
 admit him to office, 315 ; his efforts for 
 the protection of Hanover, 319; his death, 
 819 ; his character, 820. 
 
 George III., cause of the discontents in the 
 early part of his reign, loi ; his partiality 
 to Clive, 568; bright prospects at his acces- 
 sion, 653, 814, 820; his interview with 
 Miss Burney, 749 ; his opinions of Voltaire, 
 Rousseau and Shakspeare, 750 ; his par- 
 tisanship for Hastings, 755; his illness, 
 and the view taken of it in the palace, 
 756; his characteristics, 821; his favour 
 to Lord Bute, 822 ; slighted for Chatham 
 at the Lord Mayor's dinner, 827; his trea'- 
 ment by Grenv'ille, 838 ; increase of his 
 aversion to his ministers, 840; his illness, 
 841 ; disputes between him and his minis- 
 try on the regency question, 841 ; inclined 
 to enforce the American Stamp Act by the 
 sword, 846 ; the faction of the ** King's 
 friends," 847; his unwilling consent to 
 the repeal of the Stamp Act, 848. 
 
 George IV., 683. 
 
9i6 
 
 INDEX TO ESSAYS. 
 
 Ghosts, Johnson's belief in, 189. 
 
 Gibbon, his alleged conversion to Mahonn- 
 medanism, I73 ; his success as a his- 
 ,torian,329. 
 
 Gibraltar, capture of, by Sir George Rooke, 
 266. 
 
 Gifford, Byron's admiration of, 163. 
 
 Gladstone, W. E., review of " The State in 
 its Relations with the Church," 490-524 ; 
 quality of his mind, 491 ; grounds on 
 which he rests his case for the defence of 
 the Church, 493 ; his doctrine that the 
 
 :,i duties of government are paternal, 494; 
 specimen of his arguments, 495 5 his 
 argument that the profession of a national 
 religion is imperative, 497; the conse- 
 quence of his reasoning, 502-505. 
 
 Gkig, Rev., G. R., review of his Life of 
 Warren Hastings, 627-692. 
 
 Godolphin and Marlborough, their policy 
 soon after the accession of Oueen Anne, 
 783. 
 
 Goldsmith, 181. 
 
 Goordas, son of Nuncomar, his appoint- 
 ment as treasurer of the household, 638. 
 
 Goree, conquest of, 326. 
 
 Government, various forms of, 190; the 
 science of, experimental and progressive, 
 276, 338 ; its conduct in relation to intidel 
 publications, 123 j its proper functions, 599. 
 
 Grafton, Duke of, Secretarv of State under 
 Lord Rockingham, 845 ; First Lord of the 
 Treasury under Chatham, 852 ; joined the 
 Bedfords, 856. 
 
 Grand Alliance, The, against the Bourbons, 
 263. 
 
 Grand Remonstrance, debate on and passmg 
 of it, 225. 
 
 Greece, its history compared with that of 
 Italy, 36; instances of the corruption of 
 judges in the ancient commonwealths of, 
 405 J its literature, 575, 
 
 Greek drama, its origin, 7 ; compared with 
 English plays of the age of Elizabeth, 158. 
 
 Gregory XIII., his austerity and zeal, 582. 
 
 Greuville, George, his character, 825 ; en- 
 trusted with the lead in the Commons 
 under the Bute administration, 827 ; his 
 support of the proposed tax on cider, 835 ; 
 his nickname of " Gentle Shepherd," 835 ; 
 appointed prime minister, 836 ; proposed 
 the imposition of stamp duties on the 
 North American colonies, 841 ; his embar- 
 rassment on the question of a regency, 
 841 ; his triumph over the king, 844 ; 
 superseded by Lord Rockingham and his 
 friends, 845 ; popular demonstration 
 against him on the repeal of the Stamp 
 Act, 848; his reconciliation with Chatham, 
 857 ; his death, 858. 
 
 Grenvilles, The, 818; Richard Lord Temple 
 at their head, 818. 
 
 Grey, Earl, 684, 688. 
 
 Grey, Lady Jane, her high classical acquire- 
 ments, 373. 
 
 " Grievances," popular, on occasion of Wal- 
 pole's fall, 296, 298. 
 
 Grubb Street, 187. 
 
 Guardian, The, its birth, 799 ; its discon- 
 tinuance, 802. 
 
 Gutlfs, The, their success greatly promoted 
 
 by the ecclesiastical power, 33. 
 Guicowar, its interpretation, 653. 
 Guise, Henry, Duke of, his conduct on the 
 
 day of the barricades at Paris, 384. 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 588. 
 
 H. 
 
 Habeas Corpus Act, 475, 479. ' 
 
 Hale, Sir Matthew, his integrity, 235, 392. 
 
 Halifax, Lord, a trimmer both by intellect 
 and by constitution, 477 ; his pelitical 
 tracts, 478 ; his recommendation of Addi- 
 son to Godolphin, 784. 
 
 Hallam, Mr., review of his Constitutional 
 History of England, 55-105. 
 
 Hamilton, Gerard> his celebrated single 
 speech, 320. 
 
 Hampden, John, his conduct in the ship- 
 money affair approved by the Royalists, 
 66 ; effect of his loss on the ParUamentary 
 cause, 83, 234; review of Lord Nugent's 
 Memorial of him, 204-235 ; his origin and 
 early history, 205 ; took his seat in the 
 House of Commons in 1621, 206; joined 
 the opposition to the Court, 206 : his first 
 appearance as a public man, 210 ; his first 
 stand for the fundamental principle of the 
 Constitution, 211; committed to prison, 
 211 ; set at liberty and re-elected for Wen- 
 dover, 212; Clarendon's character of him 
 as a debater, 213, 222 ; his acquirements, 
 204; his resistance to the assessment for 
 ship-money, 217; Strafford's hatred for 
 him, 218 ; his intention to leave England, 
 218 ; his election by two constituencies to 
 the Long Parliament, 221 ; his opinion on 
 the bill for the attainder of Stratford, 224 ; 
 his mission to Scotland, 224; his conduct 
 in the House of Commons on the passing 
 of the Grand Remonstrance, 225 ; his im- 
 peachment ordered by the king, 226; 
 returns in triumph to the House, 229 ; his 
 resolution, 229; raised a regiment in Buck- 
 inghamshire, 232 ; his encounter with 
 Rupert at Chalgrove, 234; his death 
 and burial, 234. 
 Harcourt, French ambassador to the court of 
 Charles II. of Spain, 259. 
 
 Hardwicke, Earl of, 819. 
 Harley, Robert, 184 ; his accession to power 
 1710,275; his unsuccessful attempt to 
 
 rally the Tories in 1707, 
 
 his advice to 
 the queen to dismiss the Whigs, 796. 
 Hastings, Warren, review of Mr. Gleig's 
 Memoirs of his Life, 627-692; sent to 
 Westminster school, 629 ; sent as a writer 
 to Bengal, 630 ; events which originated 
 his greatness, 631 ; becomes a member of 
 council at Calcutta, 631 ; his return to 
 England, and loss of his moderate fortune, 
 632; his appointment as member of coun- 
 cil at Madras, and voyage to India, 633 ; 
 his attachment to the Baroness Imhoff, 
 633 ; his nomination to the head of the 
 government at Bengal, 634 ; his relation 
 with Nuncomar, 635; his embarrassed 
 finances and means to relieve tiiem, 638, 
 
INDEX TO £,SSA VS, 
 
 917 
 
 660 ; his proceedings towards the NabqfeTf 
 and the Great Mogul, 639; hi§ sale of 
 territory to the Nabob of Oude, 639 ; his 
 refusal to interfere to stop the barbarities 
 of Sujah Dowlah, 642 ; his measures 
 reversed, and the powers of government 
 taken from him, 645 ; charges preferred 
 against him, 646; his condemnation by 
 the directors, 651; his resignation, 651 ; 
 his reappointment, 652 ; his duel with 
 Francis, 658; his great influence, 659; his 
 transactions with and measures against 
 Cheyte Sing, 661 ; his perilous situation 
 in Benares, 664 ; his treatment of the 
 Nabob Vizier, 665 ; his treatment of the 
 Begums of Oude, 666-558 ; close of his 
 administration, 668; his impeachment, 
 674-678; his defence at the bar of the 
 House, 678 ; brought to the bar of the 
 Peers, 682; his arraignment by Burke, 
 684 ; narrative of the proceedings against 
 him, 684-688 ; his reception at Oxford, 
 691 ; sworn of the Privy Council, and 
 gracious reception by the Prince Regent, 
 691 : his presentation to the Emperor of 
 Russia and King of Prussia, 6gr ; his 
 death, 692. 
 
 Hatton, Lady, 382. 
 
 Hawke, Admiral, his victory over the French 
 fleet under Conflans, 326. 
 
 " Heathens," Tlie, of Cromw9irs time, 26. 
 
 Heathtield, Lord, 683. ■ , 
 
 Hebrides, The, Johnson's visit to, 193 ; his 
 letters from, 194. 
 
 Henry IV. of France, 500; twice abjured 
 Protestantism from interested motives, 
 
 .. 587. 
 
 Henry VIII., 63; his position between the 
 Catholic and Protestant parties, 247. 
 
 Hesse Darmstadt, Prince of, commanded 
 
 ' the land forces sent against Gibraltar in 
 1704, 266. 
 
 High Commission Court, its abolition, 223. 
 
 Hindoos, their mendacity and perjury, 645 ; 
 their view of forgery, 646 ; importance 
 attached by them to ceremonial practices, 
 648; their feelings against English law, 
 655- 
 
 History of the Popes of. Roxne, duripg 
 the i6th and 17th cetituHer, jflTicWii;cf 
 Ranke's, 571-593. ; ;> . .*; -'m - 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas, 400. 
 
 Holdernesse, Earl of, hid resignation of 
 oflice, 824. 
 
 Holkar, origin of the House of, 653. 
 
 Holland, governed by John de Witt, 452 ; 
 its defensive alliance with England and 
 Sweden, 458. 
 
 Holland House, 626. 
 
 Holland, Lord, review of his opinions as re- 
 corded in the journals of the House of 
 Lords, 621-627 : hisfamily, 622 ; his philan- 
 thropy, 025; his hospitality at Holland 
 House, 626. 
 
 Hollis, Mr., committed to prison by Charles 
 L, 212 ; his impeachment, 222. 
 
 Holwell, Mr., his presence of mind in the 
 Black Hole, 542. 
 
 Homer, 6, 157. 
 
 Hoole, specimen of his heroic couplets, 774. 
 
 tlou^e of Commons, The, increase of its 
 power, 100;, change jn public feeling in 
 respect to its privileges, 102; its respon- 
 sibility, 103; commencement of the prac- 
 tice of buying of votes in, 292 ; increase of 
 its influence after the Revolution, 292. 
 
 Hunt, Leigh, review of his edition of the 
 Dramatic Wdrks of Wycherley, Congreve, 
 Vanbrugh and Firquhar, 593-621. 
 
 Huntingdon, Countess of, 587, 
 
 Hutchinson, Mrs., 449. 
 
 Hyde, Mr., at the head of the Constitutional 
 Royalists, 225 ; voted for Strafl'ord's at- 
 tainder, 224. 
 
 Hyder Ali, his invasion of the Carnatic, and 
 triumphant success, 659 ; his progress 
 arrested by Sir Eyre Coote, 660. 
 
 L 
 
 Idolatry, 11. 
 
 Illustrations of Bunyan and Milton by Mar- 
 tin, 196. 
 Impey, Sir Elijah, 630 ; Chief Justice of the 
 Supreme Court at Calcutta, 644 ; his hosti- 
 lity to the Council, 646; remarks on his 
 trial of Nuncomar, 648 ; dissolution of his 
 friendship with Hastings, 649 ; his inter- 
 ference in the proceedings against the 
 Begums, 667. 
 
 Indemnity, bill of, to protect witnesses 
 against Walpole, 314, 
 
 India, foundation of the English empire in, 
 326; high civilisation of its people, 525. 
 
 Induction, method of, 427. 
 
 Indulgences, 577. 
 
 Ihfiddity, on the treatment of, 123. 
 
 Inquisition inetituted on the suppression of 
 the Albigensian heresy, 576 ; armed with 
 powers to suppress the Reformation, 582. 
 
 Intolerance, religious, effects of, 123. 
 
 Ireland, rebellion in, in 1640, 224 ; Essex's 
 Administration in, 383 ; its condition 
 under Cromwell's government, 449 ; its 
 state contrasted with that of Scotland, 
 509 ; reason of it not joining in favour of 
 the Reformation, 578. 
 
 Italians, their character in the middle ages, 
 
 39- 
 Italy, progress of civilisation and refine- 
 ment in, 32 et seq. ; its temper at the 
 Reformation, 578 et seq. ; its slow pro- 
 gress owing to Catholicism,.589 ; revival of 
 the power of the Church in, 592. 
 
 J. 
 
 " jackboot," a popular pun on Bute's name, 
 831. 
 
 Jacobin Club, its excesses, 591. 
 
 Jacobins, their origin, 240. 
 
 James I,, 65; his folly and weakness, 209; 
 his twofold character, 388 ; his anxiety for 
 the union of England and Scotland, 390; 
 his employment of Bacon in perverting the 
 laws, 391 ; absoluteness of his government, 
 398 ; his political blunders, 401 ; his readi- 
 ness to make concessions to Rome, 584. 
 
 James II., the causes of his expulsion, 17 
 administration of the law in his time, 95 
 his misgovernment, 353 ; his claims as 
 
91 8 
 
 INDEX TO ESSAYS. 
 
 supporter of toleration, 353 ; his union with 
 Louis XIV., 355 ; his confidential advisers, 
 355. 
 
 Jetlreys, Judge, his cruelty, 353. 
 
 Jesuits, order of, instituted by Loyola, 580 ; 
 their policy and proceedings, 580. 
 
 Jews, The, review of the Civil Disabilities of 
 143-15 1. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, review of Croker's 
 edition of Boswell's Life of, 170-196 ; his 
 peculiarities, 183 ; condition of literary 
 men at the time of his settling in London, 
 184-186; his dilficulties, 186; his elevation, 
 186; his opinion on forms of government, 
 190; his judgments on books, 190; his 
 visit to the Hebrides, 193 ; his club-room, 
 195 ; singularity of his destiny, 196; his 
 bigotry, 366; his detinitions of Excise and 
 Pensioner, 366; his ignorance cf music, 
 739 ; his position with the Thrales, 746 ; 
 his irritability, 747 ; his benevolence, 747 ; 
 his death, 749. 
 
 Jones, Inigo, 768. 
 
 Jones, Sir William, 177. 
 
 Jonson, Ben, 45; his Hermogenes, 166; 
 his description of humours In character, 
 763 ; specimen of his heroic couplets, 774. 
 
 Judges, The, condition of their tenure of 
 oHice, 79; formerly accustomed to receive 
 gifts from suitors, 404-407 ; how their cor- 
 ruption is generally detected, 409 ; integrity 
 required from them, 649. 
 
 Judgment, private, Milton's defence of the 
 right of, 28. 
 
 Junius, Letters of, 643. 
 
 Juvenal's Satires, 175 ; their impurity, 594. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kirabolton, Lord, his impeachment, 226. 
 " King's Friends," the faction of the, 847. 
 Kit-Cat Club, Addison's introduction to the, 
 
 782. 
 Kneller, Sir Godfrey, 287. 
 Knights, comedy of the, 447. 
 Knowledge, advancement of society in, 276. 
 
 L. 
 
 Labour, division of, 493 ; effects of attempts 
 by government to limit the hours of, 599. 
 
 Labouring classes. The, their condition in 
 England and on the Continent, 127; in the 
 United States, 128. 
 
 La Fontaine, allusion to, 181. 
 
 Lally, Governor, his treatment by the French 
 government, 569. 
 
 Lamb, Charles, his defence of the dramatists 
 of the Restoration, 597. 
 
 Lampoons, Pope's, 808. 
 
 Languedoc, description of it in the 12th 
 century, 575. 
 
 Latimer, Hugh, his popularity in London, 
 407. 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, his treatment by the Par- 
 liament, 81 ; his impeachment and im- 
 prisonment, 215 ; his rigour against the 
 Puritans, and tenderness towards tlie 
 Catholics, 224. 
 
 Lawrence, Major, his earlv notice of CHve, 
 528, 536 ; his abilities, 528. 
 
 Lawrence," Sir Thomas, 762. 
 
 Laws, penal, of Elizabeth, 58. 
 
 Learning in Italy, revival of, 34 ; causes of 
 its decline, 36. 
 
 Lemon, Mr., his discovery of Milton's 
 Treatise on Christian Doctrine, i, 
 
 Leo X., 582. 
 
 Letters of Phalaris, 487. 
 
 Libels on the court of George III. in Bute's 
 time, 831. 
 
 Liberty, public, Milton's support of, 21. 
 
 Lingard, Dr., 354-457. 
 
 Literary men more independent than for- 
 merly, 132; their influence, 133 ; abjectness 
 of their condition during the reign of 
 George II., 184; their importance to con- 
 tending parties in the reign of Queen Anne, 
 787. 
 
 Literature of the Roundheads, 14; of the 
 Royalists, 15 ; of Italy in the 14th century, 
 34 ; of the Elizabethan age, 250 ; of Spain 
 in the i6th century, 253. 
 
 Locke, 573. 
 
 Logan, Mr., his ability in defending Hast- 
 ings, 689. 
 
 Lollardism in England, 247. 
 
 London in the 17th century, 227 ; devoted to 
 the national cause, 228; its public spirit, 
 242; its prosperity during the ministry of 
 Lord Chatham, 327; conduct of, at the 
 Restoration, 346 ; effects of the Great 
 Plague upon, 452. 
 
 Long Parliament, The, its first meeting, 66, 
 221 ; its early proceedings, 71 ; its nineteen 
 propositions, 78; treatment of it by the 
 army, 83 ; recapitulation of its acts, 222 ; 
 its attainder of Straff"ord defended, 223 ; 
 sent Hampden to Edinburgh to watch the 
 king, 224 ; refuses to surrender the mem- 
 bers ordered to be impeached, 226; openly 
 defies the king, 228 ; its conditions of 
 reconciliation, 230. 
 
 Lords, the House of, its position previous to 
 the Restoration, 345.; its condition as a de- 
 bating assembly in 1770, 624. 
 
 Louis XIV., his conduct in respect to the 
 Spanish succession, 257 et seq. ; his pro- 
 ceedings in support of his grandson, 
 Philip, 266 ; his reverses in Germany, Italy 
 and the Netherlands, 275 ; his rnilitary 
 exploits, 441 ; his ill-humour at the Triple 
 Alliance, 457 ; his conquest of Franchc 
 Comte, 457 ; his treaty with Charles, 462 ; 
 the early part of his reign a time of licence, 
 
 599- 
 
 Louis XV., his government, 569. 
 
 Louisburg, fall of, 326. 
 
 Luther, sketch of the contest which began 
 with his preaching against the Indulgences 
 and terminated with the treaty of West- 
 phalia, 577-587- 
 
 M. 
 
 Machiavelli, his Works, by Perier, review of, 
 
 30-54- 
 Mackenzie, Henry, his ridicule of the Nabob 
 
 class, 564. 
 Mackintosh, Sir James, review of his History 
 
 of the Revolution in England, 329-367, 
 
INDEX TO ESS A YS. 
 
 919 
 
 Madras, description of it, 526 ; its capitviKT' 
 tion to the French, 528 ; restored to the 
 English, 529. 
 
 Madrid, capture of, by the English army, in 
 1705, 270. 
 
 Magdalen College, 771. 
 
 Mahommed Reza Khan, his character, 635 ; 
 selected by Clive, 636 ; his capture, confine- 
 ment at Calcutta, and release, 637. 
 
 Mahon, Lord, Review of his History of the 
 War of the Succession in Spain, 251-280. 
 
 Mahrattas, sketch of their History, 530, 653 ; 
 expedition against them, 654. 
 
 Malcolm, Sir John, review of his Life of Lord 
 Clive, 524-571 ; value of his work, 525 ; 
 his partiality for Clive, 543 ; his defence of 
 Clive's conduct towards Omichund, 548. 
 
 Manchester, Countess of, yjT, 
 
 Manilla, capitulation of, 827. 
 
 Mansfield, Lord, 828; his character and 
 talents, 316; his rejection of the overtures 
 
 of Newcastle, 320; his elevationj 
 
 sy: 
 opinion upon, 113. 
 
 Manufacturing system. The, Southey's 
 
 South 
 
 Marat, his bust substituted for the statues 
 of the martyrs of Christianity, 591. 
 
 Marlborough, Duchess of, her friendship with 
 Congreve, 619 ; her inscription on his 
 monument, 620; her death, 314. 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of , 99 ; his conversion to 
 Whiggism, 276 ; notice of Addison's poe'JJ 
 in his honour, 785. 
 
 Marlborough and Godolphin, their policy, 
 783. 
 
 Martinique, capture of, 827. 
 
 Mary, Queen, 249. 
 
 Massinger, his fondness for the Roman 
 Catholic Church, 248 ; indelicate writing in 
 his dramas, 596, 
 
 Maynooth, Mr. Gladstone's objection to the 
 vote of money for, 518. 
 
 Medals, Addison's Treatise on, 772, 782. 
 
 Meer Cossim, his talents, 556. 
 
 Meer Jaffier, his conspiracy, 545 el uq. 
 
 Melancthon, 238. 
 
 Mcnander, the lost comedies of, 793. 
 
 Mercenaries, employment of, in Italy, 37. 
 
 Methodists, their early object, 579. 
 
 Middlesex election, the constitutional ques- 
 tion in relation to it, 857. 
 
 Middleton, Dr., 369. 
 
 Militia, The, control of, by Charles L or by 
 the Parliament, 79, 
 
 Mill, James, his merits as a historian, 341 ; 
 defects of his History of British India, 525 ; 
 his unfairness towards Clive'* character, 
 543. 
 
 Milton, review of his Treatise on Christian 
 Doctrine, i; his theological opinions, 2; 
 his poetry his great passport to general 
 remembrance, 2 et seq. ; his public con- 
 duct, 15 ; his defence of the execution of 
 Charles L, 21 ; his conduct under the Pro- 
 tector, 22 ; his defence of the freedom of 
 the press, 28. 
 
 Mlnden, Battle of, 327. 
 
 Mines, Spanish-American, 255. 
 
 Minorca, capture of, ty the French, 320. 
 
 Missionaries, Catholic, their zeai and spirit, 
 571. 
 
 Mogul, the Great, 639; plundered by Hast- 
 ings, 660. 
 
 Moliere, 609, 6ro. 
 
 Mompesson, Sir Giles, conduct of Bacon in 
 regard to his patent, 396; abandoned to 
 the vengeance of the Commons, 401. 
 
 Monarchy, absolute, establishment of, in 
 Continental states, 76. 
 
 Monarchy, the English, in the 16th century, 
 241, 244. 
 
 Monmouth, Duke of, 351 ; his supplication 
 for life, 482. 
 
 Monopolies, English, during the latter end of 
 Elizabeth's reign, 380 ; multiplied under 
 James, 396; connived at by Bacon, 397. 
 
 Monson, Mr., 645 ; his death, and its impor- 
 tant consequences, 651. 
 
 Montagu, Basil, review of his edition of 
 Lord Bacon's works, 368-439. 
 
 Montagu, Charles, notice of him, 775. See 
 also Halifax. 
 
 Montagu, Mary, her testimony to Addison's 
 colloquial powers, 789. 
 
 Montague, Lord, 184. 
 
 Montague, Mrs., 683. 
 
 Montgomery, Mr. Robsrt, his Omnipresence 
 of the Deity reviewed, 136-143. 
 
 Montreal, capture of, by the British, in 1760, 
 326. 
 
 Moore's Life of Lord Byron, review of, 151- 
 170 ; similes in his Lalla Rookh, 434. 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 574. 
 
 " Mountain of Light," 530. 
 
 Moylan, Mr., review of his Collection of the 
 Opinions of Lord Holland as recorded in 
 the Journals of the House of Lords, 621- 
 627. 
 
 Mussulmans, their resistance to the practices 
 of English law, 656. 
 
 N. 
 
 Nabobs, class of Englishmen to whom tlie 
 name was applied, 562. 
 
 Napoleon, his early proof of talents for war, 
 570; protest of Lord Holland* against his 
 detention, 621 ; his hold on the affections 
 of his subjects, 820. See also Buonaparte. 
 
 Nares, Rev. Dr., review of his "Burleigh 
 and his Times," 235-251. 
 
 National debt, Southey's notions of, 115; 
 England's capabilities in respect to it, i»8. 
 
 Navy, its mismanagement in the reign of 
 Charles IL,6o4. 1 
 
 Newcastle, Duke of, his appointment as ' 
 head of the administration, 318 ; his nego- 
 tiations with Fox, 318 ; attacked in Parlia- 
 ment by Chatham, 319 ; his intrigues, 321 ; 
 his resignation of olfice, 321 ; sent for bv 
 the king on Chatham's dismissal, 323 ; 
 leader of the Whig aristocracy, 324 : his 
 strong government with Chatham, ;25; 
 his contests with Henry Fox, 539 ; his un- 
 popularity after the resignation of Chat- 
 ham, 828 ; he quits oirice,828. 
 
 Niagara, conquest of, 326. 
 
 Nimegucn, congress at, 465 ; hollow and 
 unsatisfactory treaty of, 465. 
 
 Normans, their warfare against the Albi- 
 genses, 576. 
 
920 
 
 INDEX TO ESS A VS. 
 
 North, Lord, his change in the constitution 
 of the Indian government, 643 ; Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer, 856. 
 
 Novels, popular, character of those which 
 preceded Miss Burney's Evelina, 769, 
 
 Novum Organum, contrast between its doc- 
 trine and the ancient philosophy, 413, 425. 
 
 Noy, Attorney-General to Charles I., 217. 
 
 Nugent, Lord, review of his Memorials of 
 John Hampden and his party, 204-235. 
 
 Nuncomar, his part in the revolutions in 
 Bengal, 636; his committal for felony, trial 
 and sentence, 647 ; his death, 649. 
 
 Oates, Titus, remarks on his plot, 349. 
 
 Old Whig, Addison's, 8il. 
 
 Omichund, 544. 
 
 Omnipresence of the Deity, Robert Mont- 
 gomery's, reviewed, 127. 
 
 Opinion, public, its power, 136. 
 
 Opposition, parliamentary, when it began to 
 take a regular form, 206. 
 
 Orange, the Prince of, 458 ; his success 
 against the French, 461 ; his marriage with 
 the Lady Mary, 465. 
 
 Overbury, Sir Thomas, 407. 
 
 Oxford, Earl of. See Harley, Robert. 
 
 Oxford, 754. 
 
 Oxford, University of, its inferiority to Cam- 
 bridge in intellectual activity, 371 ; its dis- 
 affection to the House of Hanover, 805- 
 
 Papacy, its influence, 577. 
 
 Papists and Puritans, persecution of, 57. 
 
 Parker, Archbishop, 248. 
 
 Parliament of James L, 210; Charles L, 
 his first, 211 ; his second, 212; its dissolu- 
 tion, 212 ; his fifth, 219. 
 
 Parliament, effect of the publication of its 
 proceedings, 292, 297. 
 
 Parliamentary opposition, its origin, 206. 
 
 Parties, analogy in the state of, in 1704 and 
 1826, 783 ; state of, in the time of Milton, 
 26 ; in England in 1710, 275 ; mixture of, at 
 George IL's first levee after Walpole's 
 resignation, 816. 
 
 Party, power of, during tlic Reformation 
 and the French Revolution, 239. 
 
 Pascal, Blaise, 485, 486, 574. 
 
 ''Patriots," The, in opposition to Sir R. 
 Walpole, 295 ; their remedies for state 
 evils, 297. 
 
 Paulct, Sir Amias, 376. 
 
 Paulician theology, its doctrines and preva- 
 lence among the Albigenses, 575. 
 
 jPeers, new creations of, 79; impolicy of 
 limiting the number of, 811. 
 
 Pelhams, The, their ascendancy, 301 ; their 
 , accession to power, 315. $ee also New- 
 castle, Duke of. 
 
 Peninsular War, Southey's, 107, 
 
 People, The, comparison of their condition, 
 in the i6th and 19th centuries, 125 et seq. ; 
 their welfare not considertd in partition 
 treaties, 258. 
 
 Perier, M., translator of the' works of 
 Machiavelli, 30. 
 
 Persecution, religious, in the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, 58 ; its reactionary effects upon 
 churches and thrones, 65 ; in England 
 duringtheprogressof the Reformation, 241. 
 
 Peterborough, Earl of, his expedition to 
 Spain, 266 ; his recall to England, 272. 
 
 Petition of Right, 2I2, 
 
 Petrarch, 5. 
 
 Philip 11. of Spain, 252 et seq. 
 
 Philip III. of Spain, his accession, 261 ; is 
 obliged to fly from Madrid, 270 ; surrender 
 of hi* arsenal and ships at Carthagena, 
 871 ; defeated at Almenara, and again 
 driven from Madrid, 273 ; forms a close 
 alliance with his late competitor, 279; 
 quarrels with France, 279. 
 
 Philip le Bel, 576. 
 
 Philips, John, author of the Splendid Shil- 
 ling, 785 ; the poet of the English vintage, 
 835. 
 
 Philosophy, ancient, its characteristics, 412 ; 
 its stationary character, 415 j its alliance 
 ■with Christianity, 415; its fall, 416; its 
 merits compared with the Baconian, 423- 
 425- 
 
 Pitt, William (the Second), his admiration 
 for Hastings, 675, 680; his asperity 
 towards Francis, 676. 
 
 Plassey, battle of, 546; its effects in Eng- 
 land, 551. 
 
 Plays, English, of the age of Elizabeth," 158. 
 
 Poetry, definition of, 4 ; Robert Mont- 
 gomery's, 136 et seq. ; laws of, 158, 160 ;; 
 Dr. Johnson's standard of, 191. 
 
 Poland, contest between Protestantism and 
 Catholicism in, 582, 587. 
 
 Pole, Cardinal, 238. 
 
 Pondicherry, 534; its occupation by the 
 English, 654. 
 
 Poor, The, their condition in the i6th and 
 19th centuries, 125 et seq. 
 
 Pope, his independence of spirit, 132 ; 
 Byron's admiration of him, 163 ; the 
 originator of the heroic couplet, 774; his- 
 Rape of the Lock his best poem, 802 ; his 
 essay on Criticism warmly praised in the 
 Spectator, 802 ; his suspicious nature, 808. 
 
 Popes, review of Ranke's History of the, 
 571-593- 
 
 Popish Plot, circumstances which assisted 
 the belief in, 349. 
 
 Portico, the doctrines of the School s6 called, 
 
 414- 
 Port Nati, the great case in the Exchequer 
 
 Chamber, conducted by Bacon, 390. 
 Port Royal, 590. 
 Pratt, Charles, 819 ; Chief Justice, 850 ; 
 
 created Lord Camden, 852. 
 Predestination, doctrine of, 148. 
 Prerogative, royal, its advance, 78 ; in the 
 
 i6th century, 241, 244 ; its curtailment by 
 
 the Revolution, 291. See also Cto-wt\. 
 Press, Milton's defence of its freedom, 28 ; 
 
 its emancipation after the Revolution, 99; 
 
 censorship of in the reign of Elizabeth, 
 
 242 ; its influence on the public mind after 
 
 the Revolution, yyy. 
 Prince, The, of Machiavelli, 31. 
 Prfvate judgment, Mr. Gladstone's notions 
 
 of the rights and abuses of, 512. 
 
INDEX TO ESS A YS. 
 
 921. 
 
 PriV^y Council, 467^ J^, 
 
 Progress of mankind in the political and 
 physical sciences, 338-342; in intellectual 
 freedom, 379. 
 
 Protestant nonconformists in the reign of 
 Charles I., their intolerance, 224. 
 
 Protestantism, its early history, 240 ; its 
 doctrine touching the right of private 
 judgment, 512; "light which Ranke has 
 
 ' thrown upon its movements, 571 ; its 
 victory in the northern parts of Europe, 
 577 ; its failure in Italy, 578 ; effect of its 
 outbreak in any one part of Christendom, 
 579 ; its contest with Catholicism in 
 France, Poland and Germany, 583; its 
 stationary character, 592. 
 
 Prussia, king of, subsidised by the Pitt and 
 Newcastle ministry, 326, , 
 
 Prynne, 215-218. 
 
 Public spirit an antidote against bad govern- 
 ment, 243 ; a safeguard against oppression, 
 243. 
 
 Publicity, The, of Parliamentary proceed- 
 ings, influence of, 292; a remedy for cor- 
 ruption, 823. 
 
 Pulteney, William, his opposition to Wal- 
 pole, 306; accepts a peerage, 314. 
 
 Pundits of Bengal, their jealousy of foreign- 
 ers, 671. 
 
 Puritans, The, character and estimate of 
 
 ■ them, 24-26; their persecution by Charles 
 
 I., 215 ; settlement of, in America, 218 ; 
 
 '..their position at the close of the reign of 
 Elizabeth, 379 ; their faults in the day of 
 their power, and their consequences, 600. 
 
 Puritans and Papists, persecution of, by 
 Elizabeth, 57. 
 
 Pym, John, his influence, 222; his impeach- 
 ment, 226. 
 
 Q- 
 
 Quebec, conquest of, by Wolfe, 328. 
 Quince, Peter, sense in which he uses the 
 "'word "translated," 807. 
 
 R. 
 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 251 ; his varied acquire- 
 ments, 251; his position at court at the 
 close of the reign of Elizabeth, 380; his 
 execution, 396. 
 
 Ranke, Leopold, review of his History of the 
 Popes, 571-593 ; his qualifications as an 
 historian, 571. 
 
 Rebellion in Ireland in 1640, 224. 
 
 Reform in Parliament before the Revolution, 
 103 ; public desire for, 104 ; policy of it, 
 104, 822. 
 
 Reform Bill, 322 ; conduct of its opponents, 
 356. 
 
 Reformation, The, its history much misre- 
 presented, 58, 60 ; party divisions caused 
 by it, loi ; their consequences, loi ; its 
 immediate effect upon political liberty in 
 England, 207 ; its social and political con- 
 s^uences, 239, 241 ; its effect upon the 
 Church of Rome, 256; auspices under 
 which it commenced, 577 j its effect upon 
 the Roman court, 581. 
 
 Reformers, alsvays unpopular in their own 
 age, 339. 
 
 Regicides of CHkfiee L,' 21. 
 
 Regulating Act, its introduction by Lord 
 North, 643, 650, 655. 
 
 Religion, national establishment of, 118; the 
 religion of the English in the i6th century, 
 247 ; what system of, should be taught by 
 a government, 521. 
 
 Representative government, decline of, 76. 
 
 Restoration, The, degenerated character of 
 our statesmen and politicians in the times 
 succeeding it, 91 ; violence of party and 
 low state of national feeling after it, 97 ; 
 its effects upon the morals and manners of 
 the nation, 601. 
 
 Retrospective law warranted by a certain 
 amount of public danger, 223. 
 
 Revolution, The, its principles often grossly 
 misrepresented, 16; its effect on the 
 character of public men, 98; freedom of 
 the press after it, 99; review of Mackin- 
 tosh's History of, 329-367. 
 
 Revolution, the' French, its social and politi- 
 cal consequences, 239, 335 ; warnings 
 which preceded it, 590. 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 683. 
 
 Richardson, 742. 
 
 Richmond, Duke of, 859. 
 
 Riots, public, during Grenville's administra- 
 tion, 843. 
 
 Robespierre, 591. 
 
 Robinson, Sir Thomas, 319. 
 
 Rochester, Earl of, 355, 489, 774. 
 
 Rockingham, Marquess of, his characteris- 
 tics, 844; accepts the treasury, 845; pro- 
 jJosals of his administration on the 
 American Stamp Act, 846, 849 ; his dis- 
 missal, 851 ; advocated the independence 
 of the United States, 858. 
 
 Rockinghamsand Bedfords, parallel between 
 them, 845. 
 
 Roe, Sir Thomas, 559, 
 
 Rohillas, 640. 
 
 Romans and Greeks, difference between, 39. 
 
 Rome, Church of, effect of the Reformation 
 on it, 256. 
 
 Rooke, Sir George, his capture of Gibraltar, 
 266. 
 
 Roundheads, The, their literature, 16. 
 
 Rousseau, his sufferings, 169. 
 
 Royalists, The, of the time of Charles L, 26 ; 
 many of them true friends to the Constitu- 
 tion, "j-j ; some of the most eminent 
 formerly in opposition to the court, 223. 
 
 Rupert, Prince, 233. 
 
 Russell, Lord, 97; his conduct in the new 
 council, 481 ; his death, 482. 
 
 Rutland, liarl of, his character, 401. 
 
 Sacheverell, Dr., his impeachment and con- 
 viction, 275, 787. 
 
 St. John, Henry, his accession to power in 
 1712, 275,280. See also Bolinbroke, Lord. 
 
 St. Louis, his persecution of heretics, 4P5. 
 
 St. Patrick, 515. 'io,' .'!-/ .'. 
 
 Salvator Rosa, 780. '' ' 
 
 Sandwich, Lord, 839." 
 
 " Satan," Robert Montgomery's, 141. 
 
 Saxony, its elector the natural head of the 
 Protestant party in Germany, 581. 
 
922 
 
 INDEX TO ESS A YS. 
 
 Schwellenberg, Madame, her position and 
 
 character, 752, 757. 
 Science, political progress of, 337, 342, 366. 
 
 Scindia, origin of the House of, 653. 
 
 Scotland, establishment of the Kirk in, 361, 
 509 ; her progress in wealth and intelligence 
 owing to Protestantism, 589. 
 
 Scots, The, effects of their resistance to 
 Charles I., 219 et seq. ; ill feeling excited 
 against them by Bute's elevation to power, 
 830. ^ 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 56; his Duke of Bucking- 
 ham (in " Peveril,") 166; Scotticisms in 
 his works, 778. 
 
 Sedley, Sir Charles, 595. 
 
 Self-denying ordinance, The, 83. 
 
 Seneca, his work On Anger, 413; his 
 work on natural philosophy, 415. 
 
 Sevajee, founder of the Mahratta empire, 
 653. 
 
 Seward, Mr., 747. 
 
 Shaftesbury, Lord, allusion to, 3, 444 ; his 
 character, 474. 
 
 Shakspeare, allusion to, 3, 250; contrasted 
 with Byron, 166; Johnson's observations 
 on, 192. 
 
 Shelburne, Lord, Secretary of State in Chat- 
 ham's second Administration, 852; his 
 dismissal, 856. 
 
 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 199. 
 
 Sheridan, Richard Brinslcy, 611; his speech 
 against Hastings, 681. 
 
 Sheridan and Congreve, effect of their works 
 upon the Comedy of England, 43. 
 
 Ship-money, question of its legality, 217 
 et seq. 
 
 Shrewsbury, Duke of, 803. 
 
 Sidmouth, Lord, 690. 
 
 Sigismund of Sweden, 584. 
 
 Sismondi, M., 52. 
 
 Smith, Adam, 565. 
 
 Smollett, T., 301. 
 
 Socrates, the first martyr of Intellectual 
 liberty, 374 ; his reasoning exactly the 
 reasoning of Paley's Natural Theology, 
 
 o 573. 
 
 Somers, Lord Chancellor, his encouragement 
 of literature, yy6 ; made Lord President of 
 the Council, 787. 
 
 Somerset, the Protector, as a promoter of 
 the English Reformation, 63 ; his fall, 394. 
 
 Sophocles and the Greek drama, 7. 
 
 Southampton, Earl of, notice of, 389. 
 
 Southcote, Johanna, 587. 
 
 Southey, Robert, review of his Colloquies on 
 Society, 105 ; review of his edition of Bun- 
 yan's Pilgrim's Progress, 196. See also 
 Bunyan, 
 
 South Sea bubble, 306. 
 
 Spain, 231 ; review of Lord Mahon's War of 
 the Succession in, 25X ; her state under 
 Philip, 252 ; her literature during the i6th 
 century, 253 ; her state a century later, 
 254 ; effect produced on her by the Refor- 
 mation, 256 ; her disputed succession, 257 ; 
 the Partition treaty, 258; designation of 
 the War of the Spanish Succession, 259; 
 no conversions to Protestantism in, 592. 
 
 Spectator, The, notices of it, 798, 803. 
 
 Spenser, 197, 
 
 Stafford, Lord, incident at his execution, 351. 
 
 Stamp Act, disaffection of the American 
 colonies on account of it, 846 ; its repeal, 
 848. 
 
 Stanhope, Earl of, 306. 
 
 Stanhope, General, 269; commands in 
 Spain, 1707, 273. 
 
 Steele, 789; his character, 790; Addison's 
 treatment of him, 791 ; his origination of 
 the Tatler, 793 ; his subsequent career, 
 797, 800, 805. 
 
 Steevens, George, 746. 
 
 Strafford, Earl of, 66 ; his character as a 
 statesman, 67; bill of attainder against 
 him, 63 ; his character, 216 ; his impeach- 
 ment, attainder and execution, 222; 
 defence of the proceedings against him, 
 223. 
 
 Strawberry Hill, 282, 289. 
 
 Subsidies,' foreign, in the time of Charles IL, 
 96. 
 
 Succession in Spain, War of the, 251. 
 See also Spain. 
 
 Sujah Dowlah, Nabob Vizier of Oude, 639; 
 his flight, 642 ; his death, 665. 
 
 Sumner, Rev. C. R., 11. 
 
 Sunderland, Earl of, 306 ; Secretary of State, 
 787 ; appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
 land, 804; constructs the ministry in 1717, 
 810. 
 
 Surajah Dowlah, Viceroy of Bengal, his 
 character, 541 ; the monster of the " Black 
 Hole," 541 ; his flight and death, 547-549. 
 
 Sweden, her part in the Triple Alliance, 
 456. 
 
 Swift, Jonathan, his position at Sir William 
 Temple's, 483 ; instance of his imitation 
 of Addison, 773 ; joins the Tories, 804. 
 
 Sydney, Sir Philip, 250. 
 
 T. 
 
 Talleyrand, 92. 
 
 Tasso, 164 ; difference of the spirit of his 
 poem from that of Ariosto, 582. 
 
 Tatler, The, its origination, 793 ; its discon- 
 tinuance, 797. 
 
 Teign mouth, Lord, his high character and 
 regard for Hastings, 673. 
 
 Temple, Lord, First Lord of the Admiralty, 
 322 ; his parallel between Byng's behaviour 
 at Minorca and the king's behaviour at 
 Ondenarde, 323 ; his resignation of office, 
 826 ; dissuades Pitt from supplanting 
 Grenville, 842 ; prevents Pitt's acceptance 
 of George HL's offer of the administration, 
 844 ; his opposition to Rockingham's 
 ministry on the question of the Stamp 
 Act, 846; quarrel between him and Pitt, 
 851. 
 
 Temple, Sir William, review of Courtenay's 
 Memoirs of, 439-490; his character as a 
 statesman, 440 ; his family, 444, 445 ; his 
 early life, 445 ; his courtship of Dorothy 
 Osborne, 446, 447; historical interest of 
 his love letters, 447, 448 ; his marriage, 
 449 ; his residence in Ireland, 449; his feel- 
 ings towards Ireland, 450; attaches him- 
 self to Arlington, 451 ; his embassy to 
 Munster, 453 ; appointed resident at the 
 court of Brussels, 453 ; danger of his posi- 
 
INDEX TO ESS A YS, 
 
 923 
 
 tion, 453; his interview with De Witt, 
 454 ; his negotiation of the Triple Alliance, 
 4rr_457; his faHic at home and abroad, 
 
 458 ; his recall, and farewell of De Witt, 
 
 459 ; his cold reception and dismissal, 459; 
 style and character of his compositions, 
 461 ; charged to conclude a separate peace 
 with the Dutch, 463, 464 ; offered the Secre- 
 taryship of State, 465 ; his audiences of the 
 king, 464-466; his share in bringing about 
 the marriage of the Pricce of Orange with 
 the Lady Mary, 465 ; required to sign the 
 treaty of Nimeguen, 465 ; recalled to Eng- 
 land, 465 ; his plan of a new privy council, 
 467, 473 ; his alienation from his colleagues, 
 480 ; his conduct on the Exclusion Ques- 
 tion, 481 ; leaves public life, and retires to 
 the country, 482 ; his literary pursuits, 
 484 ; his amanuensis. Swift, 484 ; his 
 Essay on Ancient and Modern Learning, 
 485, 486 ; his Essay on the Letters of Phu- 
 leris, 486 ; his death and character, 489, 490. 
 
 Thackeray, Rev. Francis, review of his Life 
 of the Rt. Hon. William Pitt, Earl of 
 Chatham, &c.,303. 
 
 Thrale, Mrs., 178 ; her character, 18S. 
 
 Thurlow, Lord, 568, 675, 685. 
 
 Tickell, Thomas, Addison's chief favourite, 
 791 ; his translation of the first book of the 
 Iliad, 806; appointed by .\ddison Under- 
 secretary of State, 811 ; Addison entrusts 
 his works to him, 812. 
 
 Tindal, his character of the Earl of Chat- 
 ham's maiden speech, 310. 
 
 Toleration, religious, the safest policy for 
 governments, 64 ; conduct of James IL as 
 a professed supporter of it, 353. 
 
 Tories, their popularity and ascendancy in 
 1710, 275 ; description of them during the 
 sixty years following the Revolution, i8o; 
 of Walpole's time, 308; mistaken reliance 
 by James IL upon them, 359; their princi- 
 ples and conduct after the Revolution, 366 ; 
 contempt into which they had fallen (1754), 
 53§ ; Clive unseated by their vote, 539 ; 
 their joy on the accession of Anne, 783; 
 analogy between thpir divisions in 1704 
 and in 1826, 783 ; their attempt to rally in 
 1707, 787; called to office by Queen Anne 
 in 1710,796; their conduct on occasion of 
 the first representation of Addison's Cato, 
 800; their expulsion of Steele from the 
 House of Commons, 803 ; possessed none 
 of the public patronage in the reign of 
 George I., 815; their hatred of the House 
 of Hanover, 815, 820. 
 
 Torture, its use forbidden by Elizabeth, 393. 
 
 Tory, a modern, 276; his points of resem- 
 blance and of difference to a Whig of 
 Queen Anne's time, 277. 
 
 Townshend, Lord, his quarrel with Walpole 
 and retirement from public life, 307. 
 
 Townshend, Charles, 819 ; Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, 852 ; his death, 856. 
 
 Travel, its uses, 194. 
 
 Treason, high, law passed at the Revolution 
 
 respecting trials for, 364. 
 Trial of the legality of Charles L's writ for 
 ship-money, 216; of Strafford, 822; of 
 Warren Hastings, 683. 
 
 Triple Alliance, circumstances which led to 
 it, 453-455 ; its speedy conclusion and im- 
 portance, 456-458 ; its abandonment by 
 the English government, 460. 
 
 Tudors, The, their government popular 
 though despotic, 243 ; dependent on the 
 public favour, 244 ; corruption not neces- 
 sary to them, 292. 
 
 Turkey-carpet style of poetry, 136. 
 
 U. 
 
 Union of England with Scotland, its happy- 
 results, 510 ; of England with Ireland, its 
 unsatisfactory results, 509. 
 
 Universities, their principle of not withhold- 
 ing from the student works containing 
 impurity, 594. 
 
 Utrecht, the treaty of, exasperation of parties, 
 on account of it, 278. 
 
 V. 
 
 Vansittart, Mr., Governor of Bengal, his 
 position, 606, 607. 
 
 Verona, protest of Lord Holland against the 
 course pursued by Englandat the Congress 
 of, 621. 
 
 Voltaire the connecting link of the literary 
 schools of Louis XIV. and Louis XVL, 
 165 ; his partiality to England, 569 ; his 
 character and that of his compeers, 590. 
 
 Villiers, Sir Edward, 401. 
 
 Vision of Judgment, Southey's, in. 
 
 W. 
 
 Wages, effect of attempts by government to» 
 limit the amount of, 599. 
 
 Waldegrave, Lord, made First Lord of the 
 Treasury by George IL, 325. 
 
 Wales, Frederick Prince of, joined the oppo- 
 sition to Walpole, 309 ; his marriage, 310 ; 
 makes Pitt his groom of the bedchamber, 
 313 ; his death, 316. 
 
 Walpole, Lord, 184. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Horace, review of Lord Dover's 
 edition of his Letters to Sir Horace Mann, 
 281-303. 
 
 Walpole, Sir Robert, his retaliation on the 
 Tories for their treatment of him, 278 ; the 
 •' glory of the Whigs," 290; his character, 
 291 et seq, ; the charge against him of cor- 
 rupting the Parliament, 293 ; his conduct 
 in regard to the Spanish war, 294; his last 
 struggle, 296; outcry for his impeachment, 
 296 ; found it necessary to resign, 313 ; bilt 
 of indemnity for witnesses brought against 
 him, 314. 
 
 Walpolean battle, the great, 290. 
 
 Walsingham, the Earl of .(i6th century), 250, 
 
 Wanderer, Madame D'Arblay's, 765. 
 
 War, the Art of, by Machiavelli, 49. 
 
 War of the Succession in Spain, Lord 
 Mahon's review of, 251-280. See Spain. 
 
 War, civil. See Civil War. 
 
 Warburton, Bishop, his views on the ends of 
 government, 519 ; his social contract a fic- 
 tion, 519; his opinion as to the religion to 
 be taught by government, 521. 
 
 Warning, not the only end of punishment, 6g. 
 
924 
 
 INDEX TO ESSAYS. 
 
 Warwick, Countess Dowager of, 809. 
 Wealth, tangible and- intangible, 115 ; 
 national and private, 116, 127 ; its increase 
 among all classes in England, 128-129 ; its 
 accumulation and diffusion in England 
 and in Continental states, 128. 
 Wedderburne, Alexander, his able defence 
 
 of Lord CliN't, 568, 674. 
 Wellesley, Marquis, his eminence as a states- 
 man, 467 ; his opinion as to the expediency 
 of reducing the numbers of the Privy 
 Council, 467. 
 Wendover, its recovery of the elective fran- 
 chise, 211. 
 Wesley, John, Southey's Life of, 107; his 
 dislike to the doctrine of predestination, 
 517. 
 Westphalia, the treaty of, 577, 588. 
 Wharton, Earl of, lord lieutenant of Ireland, 
 
 791. 
 Wheler, Mr., his appointment as Governor- 
 General of India, 651; his conduct in the 
 council, 652, 660. 
 Whigs, The, their unpopularity and loss of 
 power in 1710, 275 ; their position in Wal- 
 pole's time, 308; doctrines and literature 
 they patronised during the seventy years 
 they were in power, 365 ; exclamations of 
 George II. against them, 325 ; their 
 violence in 1679, 349 ; the king's revenge 
 ■on them, 352; revival of their strength, 
 353 ; their conduct at the Revolution, 359 ; 
 after that event, 365 ; their fall on the 
 accession of Anne, 782 ; in the ascendant 
 in 1705, 787; Queen Anne's dislike of 
 them, 795; their dismissal by her, 796; 
 their success in the administration of the 
 government, 706 ; dissensions and recon- 
 struction of the Whig government in 1717, 
 810; enjoyed all the public patronage in 
 the reign of George I., 815; division of 
 them into two classes, old and young, 844 ; 
 'superior character of the young Whig 
 school, S44. See Tories. 
 Whig and Tory, inversion of the ineaning 
 
 of, 376. 
 Whigs and Tories after the Revolution, 99 ; 
 their relative condition in 1710, 275 ; their 
 essential characteristics, 815 ; their trans- 
 formation in the reign of George I., 815; 
 analogy presented by France, 815 ; their 
 relative progress, 276 ; subsidence of party 
 spirit between them, 815; revival under 
 Bute's administration of the animosity 
 between them, 830. 
 Whitgift, his character, 375 ; his Galvanistic 
 
 doctrines, 516. 
 Wickliffe, John, juncture at which he rose, 
 577 ; his influence in England, Germany 
 . and Bohemia, 577. 
 
 Wilberforce, William, 681. 
 
 Wilkes, John, 831 Vi ,ffj. 
 
 Wilkie, David, 627. 
 
 William III., 768; low state of national 
 prosperity and national character in his 
 reign, 99; unpopularity of his person ano 
 measures, 262 ; suffered under a complies! 
 tion of diseases, 263 ; his death, 263 ; lim^ 
 tation of his prerogatives, 292; compac 
 with the Convention, 360; his vices na 
 obtruded on the public eye, 612 ; his as 
 sassination planned, 613. 
 
 Williams, Dean of Westminster, 401-403. 
 
 Williams, John, 689, 746. 
 
 Windham, Mr., his opinion of Sheridan's 
 speech against Hastirtgs, 681. 
 
 Wine, excess in, not a sign of ill-breeding in 
 the reign of Queen Anne, 790. 
 
 Witt, John de, power with which he governed 
 Holland, 452 ; his interview with Temple, 
 454 ; his violent death, 461. 
 
 Wolcot, 746. 
 
 Wolfe, General, his conquest of Quebec, and 
 death, 326. . - -' 
 
 Woodfall, Mr., his dealings with Junius, 
 644. 
 
 Wordsworth, Byron's distaste for, 163 ; 
 characteristics of his poems, 165-168. 
 
 Works, public, employment of the public 
 wealth in, 116 ; public and private, com- 
 parative value of, 117. 
 
 Writing, grand canon of, 251. 
 
 Wycherley, William, his literary merits and 
 faults, 602 ; age at which he wrote his 
 plays, 602, 603 ; his favour with the 
 Duchess of Cleveland, 603 ; his marriage, 
 605 ; his embarrassments, 6o5; his charac- 
 ter as a writer, 608-610; his severe hand- 
 ling by Collier, 615 ; analogy between him 
 and Congreve, 620. 
 
 Xenophon, his report of the reasoning cf 
 Socrates in confutation of Aristodemus, 
 
 York, Duke of, 466 ; anxiety excited by his 
 
 sudden return from Holland, 480; detesta- 
 ; tion of him, 480, revival of the question of 
 
 his exclusion, 481. 
 York House, the London residence of Bacon 
 
 and of his father, 400, 410, 
 Yonge, Sir William, 308. 
 Young, Dr., his testimony to Addison's 
 
 colloquial powers, 789, 790, 
 
 Z. 
 
 Zohak, King, Persian fable of, 5 10. 
 
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